Okay, well, we worship a living
God, a God who speaks. who guides, who rules. We don't
worship ancient scriptures and the ancient writings of men. No, we worship a living God. Our God is alive today. Our God
is on the throne of the universe. This is the one we worship. All
true worship is worship of the true and living God in the way
that he has prescribed. And being a people who look for
the return of Christ. We seek to do that as we were
looking at last week, as the wise virgins with the oil in
their lamps, the oil of Holy Spirit grace in their lamps,
their lamps to light the truth of God in this dark world, waiting
for the Bridegroom to come and to take us to be with Him. We
look for Christ's return as those wise virgins, as He enables us.
And we pray that He will continue to do that. Our God who lives,
who reigns, who is in control over all things. But the world
in which we live, especially in these days, and again the
announcements that are going on, it seems to spiral down into
ever-increasing hopelessness. You really do wonder, when is
it ever going to end? When is it ever going to change?
We're just carrying on. They say that we will have a
lockdown now and it will put things right. Well, of course,
there's absolutely zero guarantee it will make any difference whatsoever.
And when they release the restrictions, of course, if the virus is still
there and there are still people who haven't been infected with
it, more and more people will continue to catch it. And what
do we do then? It just goes on and on. A spiral of discouragement
in hopelessness. Where can we look for encouragement
and guidance regarding the triumph of God's kingdom and our part
as believers in it. That's what we need. We need
to look for encouragement and guidance because the kingdom
of our God will triumph, will be supreme over the kingdom of
this world, the kingdom of Antichrist, the kingdom of Satan. I tell
you where we look, we look to God's Word. The Word of God,
this greatest treasure that earth can afford. The Word of God,
we look to this. What wisdom is here, what wisdom. What strength, what purity, what
truth, what light in this dark world. It is indeed, as Psalm
119 verse 105 says, a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Do you want to stumble along
in this dark world, or do you want the light of God's Word
to direct you? Well, thinking about the situation
that we're in, and how things are developing, I was very much
led to the book of Esther. And so I looked to see, has anybody
preached anything on Esther? I've read the book, of course,
just in passing. I taught it as a Sunday school teacher many,
many years ago. It was just a story that, you
know, God saves the Jewish people in the face of their enemies.
Well, good for them, you know, so what? So what? But I was very
much moved to look at the book of Esther this week. Why this
book? Why this particular book? Well,
you know, as it is with all of the Scriptures of old, as the
New Testament tells us in Romans 15 and verse 4, whatsoever things
were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through
patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. That's one reason. Comfort of the Scriptures in
these days. Comfort of the Scriptures. Here's
another one. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and where is it? Verse 11. Now all these things
talking about the history of Israel, all these things happened
unto them for ensamples, examples, and they are written for our
admonition, for our instruction, for our learning, for our correction,
us upon whom the ends of the world are come. Is that not the
situation in which we are? This is why, because in God's
Word we see warning and encouragement and not least in this book of
Esther. God's kingdom will triumph no
matter how bad things appear now. To the flesh, and I've said
right at the start, to the flesh, to my flesh, the things that
are going on politically in this world appear absolutely lunacy
on a scale I've never seen before. And yet so many people just bow
down to it and we just have no choice but to obey it. we won't
be meeting together publicly next week because we're banned
by the law of the land we're banned we will still hold a broadcast
just the two of us will still hold a broadcast and you can
all join in with that but we're not allowed to meet as we are
doing this week in fact the truth is that we're not allowed to
meet like this at the moment but all things work together for
good as Stephen just read all things all things even the evil
things that misguided governments and their professing themselves
to be wise but became fools, advise them. The salvation of
the elect by accomplished redemption is certain. Christ has accomplished
it. The justice of God for his people,
for his kingdom, is satisfied. It isn't for the kingdom of this
world. Read that article by Henry Mahan I put in the bulletin.
The justice of God is a terrible problem for this world. It really
is. Read it. But in Christ, righteousness
is established. The righteousness that God requires
is established. His people, by redemption, by
redeeming grace, by his substitutionary sacrifice for his people, by
the shedding of his precious blood, the payment of the price
of redemption, the life is in the blood and he shed his precious
blood for his people, righteousness is established. God is appeased,
is propitiated. He has no anger left against
the people of God, for his anger is turned away, propitiation
in Christ by his shed blood. Satan and the false kingdom of
Antichrist is defeated. It's just a matter of time taking
its course until we all see it as it is. And so believers are
encouraged to be ready for the return of Christ. As I said many
times in recent weeks, we don't know when it will be. It might
be today, it might be next week, it might not be for another hundred
years. Who knows? We just do not know. It's all in the hands
of God who knows all things and rules all things. How can He
know all things? How can He know the end from
the beginning? Because He ordains, He orders
the end from the beginning. This is what we must trust in.
This is faith, to believe God, to believe that He is, not just
that He exists. but that he is over all, to be
confident of God's rule. So let's think about the story
of Esther this morning. Obviously, we didn't have a reading
from the book of Esther. It's ten chapters, the last one
is very, very short, so really it's nine and a little bit chapters.
Read it for yourself, read it in the light of this, read the
article in the bulletin that I've written, read whatever else
you can find that's from a good source about it. But it's around
the time of the end of the 70 years of enforced Babylonian
exile for the people of Judah. Israel had already gone into
exile in Assyria, but Judah went into exile. And why did they
go? It was because of idolatry. It was because of turning away
from the true God. And that Babylonian exile, the
70 years, was prophesied by the prophet Jeremiah before it happened. And it happened in 606 BC, you
know BC works backwards, this is before Christ. 606 years before
Christ, Nebuchadnezzar's armies came and they captured Judah
and they took many of them away into captivity in Babylon, the
Chaldean Empire. And they were there for 70 years,
that was the days of Daniel and Daniel prayed, he got the book
of Jeremiah and he knew it must be now that God had said it would
come to an end and he prayed. It came to an end because God
had prophesied by Isaiah that he would raise up a king whose
name would be Cyrus, who would send the people back from their
captivity. 200 years before it happened,
he prophesied, and so it happened. Cyrus was raised up. The Babylonian
Empire was replaced by the Medo-Persian Empire in the days of Belshazzar. You know Belshazzar's feast,
the writing of the finger on the wall? And that was the Medo-Persians
coming in and taking over. And Belshazzar died in that night
when he was basically shaking his fist in the face of God.
He died that night. And on the command of Cyrus,
a heathen emperor of the Medo-Persian Empire, Zerubbabel and Joshua,
Zerubbabel the prince of the Israelites, the descendant of
David, the rightful one, went back to Jerusalem, and an altar
was established, and worship was restored, but in the face
of great opposition. And after another 75 years after
that, Ezra, and then a little later Nehemiah, went back to
Jerusalem to rebuild the temple itself, not just the altar and
the act of worship, but the temple itself, and the walls and the
gates of the city. The building of the temple was
Ezra, the building of the walls of the city was Nehemiah. You
can read the history of it. And in about the year 480, before
Christ came, The emperor, there was Cyrus,
then there was Darius, then there was this man, I think, Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus, or known in history
books as Xerxes. He came to the throne, and I
can't remember how many years he reigned, but there was another
one after him before the Greek empire came into the forefront. But during this time, although
some had gone back to Jerusalem, many Jews had settled comfortably
in this area of the Medo-Persian Empire, Shushan, where the palace
was. Many of them had become settled there. There were some
who were civil servants in the government of the Medo-Persian
Empire. They were quite settled there.
But the Scripture had said, and God had promised, that the Messiah,
the one who would redeem His people from the curse of the
law, the seed of the woman promised in Genesis 3.15, the seed of
the woman who would crush Satan's head, in the process having his
heel bruised, the Messiah would come from the line of David,
from the line of Abraham and David, from the line of Israel
and Judah. This is where he would come from
or he would not come at all. If the elect of God, the multitude
that no man can number, are to be saved from their sins, if
the kingdom of heaven is to be populated with the people that
God loved with an everlasting love before the beginning of
time, Messiah must come, and He must come from the line of
Israel and Judah, the line of David. That must happen. Meanwhile,
all the time, down world history, Satan is seeking, is still seeking,
to establish worldwide godless unity. It started, well it started
right at the beginning, after the fall, but it started demonstrably
at the Tower of Babel after the flood. The Tower of Babel is
Satan trying to form a worldwide unity that can make its way to
heaven, whatever that is, can make its way to heaven without
the establishment without the honoring of the justice and righteousness
of God, and God confounded it. And God split up the languages
and made separate nation-states so that worldwide unity that
Satan desired and aimed for could not happen. And then the great
world empires came. Leave out the nations known in
Scripture as Gog and Magog, the Far East, I guess China and Southeast
Asia and Japan and all Think of the ones that are the kind
of the core of European-Asian history, Western Asian history,
and think about those empires where kingdoms came to the fore
and virtually ruled everything as a unity. Egypt was next, then
Assyria, then Babylonia, the Chaldeans, then this one, Medo-Persia,
followed by Greece, followed by Rome. You see, these are all
Satan's attempts to create a worldwide unity. You know, people talk
about conspiracy theories of globalization today. Now, quite
honestly, I'm highly skeptical, because I don't believe it's
in the power and wit of man by himself to contrive such complicated
things. But I do know this, I do believe
fundamentally, absolutely wholeheartedly, in this conspiracy theory, that
Satan's conspiracy is to create globalization, worldwide unity,
worldwide government, all attempts at it, worldwide government without
the justice of God. You read about it throughout
Revelation, as we saw when we did the series. Revelation 12
and verse 4. Revelation 12 has a picture of
a woman, it's the church. And she's going to bring forth
a child, the Messiah, the seed of the woman. And in verse 4,
there's this great dragon, this terrible fearsome dragon, who
is the devil. And it says, the dragon stood
before the woman, which was ready to be delivered, for to devour
her child as soon as it was born. That's Satan's intent. You know,
he went on to try to do that. Herod, and all of those things
that happened, the Roman Empire, all those things, Satan trying
to destroy him. He tried to destroy him from
coming, as he did in these days, these days that we're thinking
about, of Ahasuerus, of Xerxes, in between the first return to
Jerusalem and then Ezra and Nehemiah's. right throughout Old Testament
history, Satan has deceived the nations. He sought to destroy
the messianic line. Even after Zerubbabel, the prince,
the rightful prince, and Joshua had gone back to Jerusalem to
establish worship again there in Jerusalem, and the sacrifice,
and that which pointed to the coming of Christ, even after
that He comes with this demonic plan to destroy the line from
which they would come. So in about 480 BC, and give
or take the dates I've put in my bulletin article, you might
say plus or minus 20 years, I'm not 100% sure. But in about 480
BC, God ordered events to frustrate Satan and to preserve the line
from which Christ would come. How do we know this? Proverbs
21 and verse 1 says this, the king's heart, the heart of the
government, put it in language we understand today, the heart
of the government, those who rule over us, is in the hand
of the Lord as the rivers of water. He turneth it whithersoever
he will. I really ought to write that
out and have it plastered round the house whenever I hear the
government. The heart of the King is in the
hand of the Lord. For the eternal good of the multitude
He loved with everlasting good, He orders all things according
to the counsel of His own will. And all things, what do they
do? They work together for good to
those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. So
Ahasuerus, Xerxes, this despotic, tyrannical emperor, and when
I say that, it's hard to imagine, you need to read the history
to know that one look from that man meant your head being severed
from your body. is as despotic as that. He indulged
his sinful desires. Read the book of Esther. It talks
about a great big party that he had, a big show-off party.
Look what a wonderful king and emperor. Look how rich I am.
A great big party and he had a very beautiful wife, the queen,
Vashti. And he said, come, I want to
parade you in front of everybody and show what a beautiful queen
I've got. And she said, nothing doing, I'm not coming. No, don't
care who you are. You can be the most powerful
man ever. I'm not coming to your party. I've had enough of this.
Was this the first women's liberation? I don't know, but she absolutely
blunt refused. Why did she refuse? The heart
of the king is in the hands of God. It's all part of his purposes.
And so, on the advice of his advisors, he divorced her. And
then he became lonely and sad, and they said, well, look, look,
there's plenty of beautiful young women in this land. Let's have
a beauty contest. And let's pick another queen
in her place for you, Ahasuerus. And I'll cut a very long story
short, as I say, you read it, but this woman Esther was chosen
to be queen. This young woman who was beautiful
by a long way ahead of the rest. God put his queen next to the
heart of Xerxes. In a time of impending peril,
God put his queen next to the heart of Xerxes. Someone's described
it like this, the hand of God in the glove of history. I like
that. That states it just as it is,
doesn't it? The hand of God in the glove
of history. Esther was a Jewish orphan. She was raised by her cousin,
Mordecai. Mordecai's uncle was Esther's
father, and it seems clear that Mordecai was, I don't know, 15,
20 years older than Esther. Amongst our grandchildren, we've
got age gaps of getting on for 20 years, from oldest to youngest. Esther's father had died, she
was an orphan, and Mordecai, who was older than her, her older
cousin, he raised her as his own daughter. And it seems that
he was a civil servant in the court of the Medo-Persian Empire.
And there was all sorts of political wheeling and dealing that went
on, as there is in all political courts. It really is. Most of you will remember, living
in the UK, the comedy series in the 1990s, Yes Minister and
Yes Prime Minister. And people who know it and worked
in amongst it, and I did for a few years in Whitehall in government,
We just couldn't believe how accurate it was, portraying in
comedy exactly the wheeling and dealing that went on. It went
on in this court, the court of Xerxes, of Ahasuerus, and there
was a man called Haman. who was an evil man, a viciously
evil man. He was an Agagite. He was a descendant
of Agag, the king of the Amalekites, whom the Israelites had slaughtered,
as God had told them to, for their wickedness. And he was
a sworn enemy of the Jews. And he had advanced by political
wheeling and dealing in the court of Ahasuerus. And he demanded
respect of all those around. But Mordecai refused to bow to
him because Mordecai knew what he was. He was a sworn enemy
of the Jewish people. You can read about it in chapter
3 and verses 1 to 6. Just look at this. After these
things, King Ahasuerus did promote Haman, the son of Hamadathat
the Agagite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the
princes that were with him. You see, Ahasuerus had made Haman
Meanwhile, Esther's the queen, but he'd made this man boss over
all. And all the king's servants that were in the king's gate
bowed and reverenced Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning
him. But Mordecai bowed not, nor did
him reverence. He was absolutely furious about
this. He was absolutely livid about this. Where did I get down
to? He sought to destroy Mordecai,
and not only that, he sought to destroy all Jews everywhere,
in Xerxes, in Ahasuerus' empire, including Jerusalem. You know,
what does it say? The dragon stood before the woman
ready to be delivered for to devour her child as soon as it
was born. And in the rest of chapter 3
of Esther, Haman obtains authority from Ahasuerus Xerxes to kill
all Jews throughout his empire. To destroy them so that there
wasn't a solitary one left. Men, women and children, destroy
them. Why did he do that? Why did he have such an irrational
hatred of them? Because from them would come
the Messiah, and Satan was determined to destroy him. And in chapter
4, Mordecai, having heard of this, publicly protests. And
Esther hears about it. Remember that these are the days
when they weren't all texting one another on social media every
couple of minutes, you know, it was the time where if you
were out of touch with one another, like it used to be only about
25 years ago, if you were out of touch with each other, that
was it until you found a telephone box. That was the way it was. News didn't flow that well. But
anyway, Esther heard about it, and Mordecai, through a messenger,
asks Esther to ask Ahasuerus, her husband, to change the decree
and save her people. Now this was unbelievably difficult. This was something that, according
to the laws and the customs of the Medes and Persians, you could
be executed for even straying into the king's presence without
him summoning you first. Even if you were the queen, if
he hadn't called for you to come, and at this time he hadn't called
for her to come to him for 30 days, 30 days he hadn't called
for her to come to him. And if she just wandered in there,
she knew that the law and the custom of the land was, that
was it. You've come without being called. You will be executed
for that. What a life-threatening situation. And so in chapter
four, they pray. They pray about the situation.
And she ends up saying in chapter four and verse 16 about it. Where's it gone? Two pages stuck
together. Hold on a second. In verse 16, go and gather all
the Jews that are present in Shushan, that's where the palace
was, and fast ye for me, says Esther, and neither eat nor drink
three days, day or night. I also and my maidens will fast
likewise. And so, even if I'm not called,
I will go in unto the king, which is not according to the law.
And look what she says, if I perish, I perish. Whatever God determines,
that will be it. If I perish, I perish. Do you
see a picture of Christ here? You see how she's prepared for
her people to put herself in mortal danger. Christ was willing,
set his face as flint to go to the cross, to die in the place
of his people. Here's a picture of Christ. Here
it is. You know, there's not a mention made of God's name
in this book, but there is Christ there. And then in chapter five,
she devises a means of getting the king's ear. She calls for
a banquet, now I don't know how lavish these things were, but
anyway, she calls for a banquet and she invites not only the
king, but Haman, the one who's been exalted to the highest position
in the land. And Haman is absolutely delighted
because he doesn't realize that Esther is the stepdaughter, the
cousin, of Mordecai. And he's absolutely delighted.
And his contempt for Mordecai grows and grows, and his family
encourage him in his contempt for Mordecai to build a huge
gallows from which to hang Mordecai. as will be destroyed all the
rest of the Jews throughout the kingdom. But you know the king's
heart is in the hands of God and he controls all things. And
in chapter 6 we see this working out in the early verses. On a
night that the king could not sleep he commanded to bring the
book of the records of the chronicles of his kingdom and they read
before the king and it was found written that Mordecai had told
of Bithana and Teresh, two of the king's chamberlains, the
keepers of the door, who sought to lay hand on King Ahasuerus. And the king said, what honour
and dignity has been done to Mordecai for this? Then said
the king's servants that ministered unto him, nothing's been done
for him. God put it in the king's heart, or in his circumstances,
to have a disturbed night. And he said, go and get the books
of the records of what's happened. And there was this plot to murder
Ahasuerus by two of his chamberlains, two of his courtiers, and Mordecai
a civil servant it would seem. had found out about it and had
forewarned the king. And they had been executed and
the king had been saved. What honor was done to him? Nothing.
How did we forget that? He says. This is dreadful. And
so anyway, going on. Haman comes to the king and the
king says, what should we do for the man that the king desires
to honour more than anybody else? And Haman thinks, oh, who else
can he be thinking of but me? And so Haman specifies all sorts
of great honours that should be done, a great parade and a
chariot and all the rest of it. And the king says, right, do
it for Mordecai, because he saved my life. Can you imagine Haman's
thoughts then, just thinking when he's just about to triumph,
just as Satan, when Christ was on the cross, I've got rid of
him, he's dead, he's dead, he's dead. And it was in that very
moment that Christ triumphed over Satan and over Satan's kingdom. and Mordecai, much to the shame
of Haman, is exalted and paraded through the streets as Haman
had specified to the king. And anyway, to go on, the banquet
takes place and Haman's there and Esther is pleading for her
people and Haman gets himself into a very serious situation,
in that he's implicated, he's found lying on Esther's bed,
pleading that things be turned round, and it ends up being Haman
that gets hanged on those gallows that he had made. Haman. You see how God turned it all
round for his purposes. Surely, says Psalm 76 and verse
10, surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, the remainder of
wrath shalt thou restrain. And in chapter 8, letters with
royal approval, with the royal seal are given, and sent throughout
the land, giving authority to the Jewish people to defend themselves,
because, you know, as I said, communication wasn't that good,
and there were many who thought that they had the king's authority
to kill the Jews without defense, but now he gives them this authority
to defend themselves, and they did. And I'm going to cut the
story very, very short now, so that we can get to some lessons.
This is the story cut very short. The destruction of the Jews in
those days was completely thwarted. The temple in Jerusalem was finished. Jerusalem and its walls were
rebuilt. 400 years later, Christ did indeed
come, and Christ there, outside the city wall, accomplished redemption
for his people. As God had decreed from the beginning,
how could it be otherwise? If God has said it, how can it
be otherwise? What does it say to us in these
latter days, this story from 2,460 years, 80 years ago, something
like that, nearly 2,500 years ago. What does it say to us today?
Here's a lesson number one to take away from this. God always puts the right person
in the right place at the right time to fulfill his purposes. He does, always. He put Esther
in the palace of the king who had authority over all things
at the time. This world's rulers and governments
are as poor at wise and just judgment, as was Ahasuerus. He seems to be a man who was
so fickle in his despotic power. Whatever he tossed a coin to
do, that was the next thing he did. Remind you of anything?
But God will ensure that his people are preserved and saved
with the right person at the right time. We don't need to
fear. God is in control of all things. He put Esther in the palace of
the king, his person, for his purposes. And so it is. God orders the affairs of this
world. There's an American presidential election coming up on Tuesday.
And there's great turmoil both ways. And I know what many of
our friends want to be the outcome. Not a particularly kind of, you
know, the politicians of this world are all as they are, politicians
of this world. But nevertheless, there are certain
orders of things that we would prefer to see than others. But
you know what will be, will be. And God will order all things
for the good of His elect. We need not fear. Whoever is
in power, we need not fear. God will order all things for
the good of His people, that multitude that no man can number.
God restrains evil and governs the enemies of His people. It's
true, He does. Oh, they're going to crush us.
There's nothing we can do about it. God restrains evil. and governs the enemies of his
people. Satan is God's devil. Satan, do you know, is on a chain
whose length is determined by God and God alone. He cannot
go beyond the limits God sets for him. I believe he's been
released for a short season, a little season, to deceive the
nations once more because I've never seen deception like it.
I don't think there's ever been deception. Such godless confidence
is what I mean in the world in which we live. It's true today. There is great tribulation and
it will get worse if we read the Scriptures correctly. But
do you know what he says? The days will be shortened for
the sake of his elect. We need to remain patient, trusting,
looking, watching and waiting. And God orders small details
to accomplish his designs. Oh, you think he's only interested
in the big picture? No, no, no. God orders small
details. In Esther chapter 5, verses 1
and 2, Now it came to pass on the third day that Esther put
on her royal apparel and stood in the inner court of the king's
house. They'd just been praying. How am I going to get to the
king? If I perish, I perish. This is perilous times. Esther
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. Remember what I said, pain of death if you
were seen without being summoned. And it was so, when the king
saw Esther the queen standing in the court, this is the hand
of God, she obtained favour in his sight. And the king held
out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther
drew near and touched the top of the sceptre. And the king
said to her, what wilt thou, Queen Esther? That was the hand
of God, in the small details. You can translate that into any
situation today, any situation. Esther chapter 6, verses 1 to
3. God gave Ahasuerus a disturbed
night when he couldn't sleep and he wanted the books read
that showed him that Mordecai, the one who was about to be hanged
by the wicked Haman, was the one who ought to be honoured
for his loyalty. God caused him to read that.
Him reading the Chronicles, How would that have happened?
You know, how could that have happened? Because in the scriptures
we read, Jesus taught his disciples, even the hairs of your head are
numbered. Think of that. Even the hairs
of your head. Do we trust him? In these days
of scams and fraud, we're all taught to be highly cautious
of believing anybody and anything, and quite rightly. But do you
know the one exception to that? He's our God. Trust in our God. Proverbs 3 verse 5, trust in
the Lord. This is good counsel. This is
good advice. You young ones, you listen to
this. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not unto
your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge
Him and He shall direct your paths. Who do you want directing
your life ahead of you for eternal good? the God of heaven, trust
Him, trust Him. Fourthly, God moves His people
to seek Him by prayer, when He determines to do something for
them. This is in, we read the verse,
verse 16 of chapter 4, they were all praying. You know in Ezekiel
36 and 37, thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired
of by the house of Israel to do it for them. These are days
when we should be praying. I will yet be inquired of for
the house of Israel to do it for them. God works, God has
a plan, but He will have His people pray to Him for His plan
to be implemented, for His glory and their eternal good. And fifthly,
God accomplishes His purposes for the glory of His name and
the salvation of His people. That should comfort us in these
days of such turmoil and confusion. As I've already said, the book
of Esther doesn't mention the name of God, but His truth of
sovereign grace and particular redemption is on every page. That's the truth of God. Even
this political story, two and a half thousand years old, whatever
it is, it pictures Christ standing in peril for his people. exercising
divine power for his people, making unchangeable decrees.
My covenant I will not break, says God. His covenant he will
not break, he will accomplish it. His redeemed people triumphing
over their enemies, as we will in the end, for God's kingdom
shall triumph. That is the message of the whole
of the book of God and the book of Revelation nonetheless. And the book of Esther, even
though it doesn't mention God's name, he will triumph over his
enemies. Christ is typified here by Mordecai
ruling his people for their good, for Mordecai was made second
only to the king in place of Haman and ordered all things
for the good of his people. This is God working All things
work together for good to those who love God, who are called
according to His purpose. His eternal purpose of salvation
is fixed and sure, and nothing can thwart it. We need to be
comforted with this. What did we read in Romans 8?
Verses 37 and 38, Nay, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let me ask you,
closing, have you heard his call? Have you felt His irresistible
grace drawing you under the sound of the preaching of His Word?
Have you trusted your immortal soul into His well-keeping? I
know whom I've believed and am persuaded that He is able to
keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day. If
you haven't, why not? Amen.