looking this evening at Esther
chapter 6. And I'm taking the title from
what is said in verse 6. So Esther 6, verse 6. So Haman came in, came in before
the king, and the king said to him, what shall be done unto
the man whom the king delights to honor? Now Haman thought in
his heart, to whom would the king delight to honor? more than
myself." So, the title is, The King Delight to Honor Mordecai. Now, last week we saw that the
king held out that golden scepter to Esther and she was able to
approach the king without being condemned to death. Esther obtained
mercy from the king and here we find the king delights to
honor Mordecai. Two believers. Esther is blessed
with mercy and Mordecai is honored by the king. This statement is made in this
chapter at least six times The king delights to honor. The king delights to honor. The man whom the king delights
to honor in our story is the despised Jew named Mordecai. This man Mordecai is a hated,
hated man by none less than Haman. Haman,
being full of pride, thought the king would like to honor
him. Who else would the king like to honor but me? I mean,
after all, he's made me the chief of the princes in the whole country. But it was the exact opposite.
The one that Haman hated and despised was Mordecai. He is
the very one whom the king delighted to honor, to whom the king delighted
to show mercy. And there again we see a picture
of sovereign mercy. The king delights to honor old
despised Mordecai. Who does God the Father delight
to honor in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? It is our
Savior, is it not? He indeed, the Lord Jesus Christ,
when He dwelt among men, was despised and rejected of men,
but He's highly honored of God the Father, is He not? We read
a moment ago in Philippians chapter 2, that God has highly exalted
him and given him a name above every name that at that name
every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Like in our story,
Mordecai was despised and rejected by Haman And the Lord Jesus Christ
in Isaiah 53 says of him, he's despised and rejected of men,
a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief. We hid as it were our
faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. But the Father delights to honor
him. Someone said, Nathaniel said, Can any good thing come out of
Nazareth? Remember what Philip said, come
and see? The Lord Jesus Christ was the
despised Nazarene whom the Father delights to honor. God the Father
delights to honor not only the Lord Jesus Christ, but think
about this. the Lord Jesus Christ being our covenant head, being
our federal head, and being in union and one with Him, whom
the Father delights to honor is the Son and all those in Him. What's true of the head is true
of the body. We are accepted in the Beloved. He said of all the Father of
all the Father had given me, I'll lose nothing but raise it
up again at the last day." Now, I want us to consider this story
and see again the mighty workings of the sovereign providence of
God, how He works all things exactly according to His will.
which will be done. None can stay his hand or send
him. Lord God Almighty, what doest
thou? He does according to his will in heaven and in earth,
and none can question his power, his wisdom, or his purpose. His purpose is always right.
Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Haman, as we
read in chapter 5, verse 14, Haman went to bed that night
happy as a lark. The thing pleased Haman when
his friends, his wife, his friends said let's just build a gallows
75 feet high and let's just hang that over just by a Jew. And
the thing pleased Haman and they caused the gallows to be made.
Haman went to bed happy as a lark. thinking of finally getting revenge
upon Mordecai who would not bow down before him. He was pleased
that the gallows were being made to hang his enemy. Little does
he know that he was preparing the very instrument of his own
death. If you look over at chapter 7,
verse 10, so they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared
for Mordecai Then was the king's wrath pacified. If you read on
over in chapter 8 or chapter 9 it is, I can't remember, but
not only did they hang Haman, but his ten sons, they hanged
all them too. Now, let's take a look at verse
1. And the king, Ahasuerus, on that
night, that night before that second banquet of wine that Esther
had prepared, on that night, king Ahasuerus could not sleep,
and he commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles,
this is the chronicles of the Persian kingdom, and they read
before the king And it was written, found written that Mordecai had
told of these two enemies of the king and the king's life
was spared. The king could not sleep even
after attending the banquet of wine. Sleep was taken from him. Even the mighty king who was
king over 127 provinces could not command one hour of sleep. Wouldn't it be nice if we lay
down at night and say, Go to sleep. Sometimes it's most difficult,
is it not? Here's this mighty king who commands
everything, could not command one hour of sleep. The Lord in
his good and sovereign providence took sleep away from him. In
his sleepless state, he could have asked for anything to be
brought to him. He could have asked for women
and wine, more wine. He could have asked for music.
A lot of times those kings would have a musician come in and play
music to soothe them. He could have asked for dancers
to be brought before him, but the Lord put it in his mind to
read the chronicles of his own kingdom. Verse two, and they
found written that Mordecai had told of these two men, Bikthah
and Teresh, two of the king's chamberlains, the keepers of
the door who sought to lay hands on Hagaras, to murder him. And his servants read the record
book of the kingdom of Persia and they found in the record
book the good deed done by Mordecai, how he uncovered the plot and
how the king's life was spared. These two men sought to murder
the king and somehow in the Lord's providence Mordecai found out
about it alerted Esther, for she had the king's ear, and the
king's life was spared. These scribes were not looking
to help Mordecai, were they? Some of the Jewish historians
even say that the son of Haman was one of these scribes, and
did not want to read about the good deed by Mordecai, but the
Lord forced him to do so. And here's what I found that
John Gill had this, and this is what the Jewish historian
said, and who, according to the former
Targum, was Haman's son, seeing what was recorded of Mordecai,
turned over the leaves of the book, unwilling to read it, but
the leaves rolled back again, and he was obliged and forced
to read it." Even there we see what those Jewish historians
say to be right, and I don't doubt that that they were right,
that Haman's own son did not want this good deed of Mordecai
to leak out, and here let the king hear it and refresh his
mind again, and he just wanted to cover it up, let's just cover
that, flip the page, don't want that page. Verse 3, and the king said, What
honor and dignity have been done to Mordecai for this, And the
king's servants that ministered unto him said, well, nothing.
There's nothing been done for him. I mean, it's just, nothing's
been done. None. Mordecai and all the Jews
were under the judgment of the impending edict, remember? and
the creed of total destruction and total elimination cooked
up by Haman, and all the while the Lord was working to their
total deliverance to receive His mercy and grace to help them
in their time of need. You can see the handiwork of
God. Even though the name of the Lord
is not even in the ten chapters, not in an obvious way, the name
of God, the God of Abraham, the God of Jacob is not written down
in black and white, but we see His fingerprints, we see His
footsteps, all the way leading and guiding, even working over
the hearts of these men. This should teach us to trust
the Lord at all times, to patiently wait upon Him for His deliverance
where He says, be of good courage and wait upon the Lord and then
trust Him at all times, you people. Pour out your heart before Him.
God is a refuge for us. Verse 4 and 5, here we see the
Lord's perfect and impeccable timing. Haman came to the king's
palace early in the morning to seek a death warrant to have
it signed by the king that Mordecai may be hanged. And the king said,
who's in the court? Now, Haman was coming to the
outer court of the king's house to speak unto the king to hang
Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him. And
the king's servants said unto him, old Haman standeth in the
court. And the king said, come on in. Come on in. Now evidently he held forth the
golden scepter and he was able to come in. He was immediately
before the king, but before Haman could get a word out, the king
speaks to him. Both had a purpose, one to honor
Mordecai, the other man had a purpose of destroying Mordecai. But we
know whose purpose is going to be accomplished, don't we? Mordecai is gonna be honored
and Haman's gonna be destroyed. You see, it's just the opposite
that we think that it would go. We know the Lord worketh all
things after the counsel of his own will. Look at verse six.
So Haman came in, Haman came in. He's thinking, I've got an
audience now. I'm going to let everything out
now. And the king said to him, before he could get a word out,
what shall be done to the man whom the king delighted to honor?
Now Haman thought in his heart, ah, the king wants to honor me.
To whom would the king delight to honor more than myself? The king asked a question about
honoring Mordecai, but Haman at this time has no idea, does
he? He has no idea that the king is talking about his enemy, Mordecai. Here again we see the sinful
pride of Haman's wicked heart, don't we? Haman, notice this
phrase, Haman thought in his heart. Haman thought in his heart. There is no one who deserves
to be honored but me. Surely the king talking about
me, he's going to honor me. Now this statement that Haman
makes reminded me of the words of a man who said, I thought. Remember? Remember the story? Turn back at 2 Kings chapter
5. You want to turn over there,
2 Kings chapter 5. Remember the story of Naaman? The leper who came to the door
of Elisha, Naaman the captain with his horse and chariot, 2
Kings 5 verse 9, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha,
and Elisha wouldn't even come out, he sent a messenger saying,
you go tell Naaman, go wash in Jordan seven times and thy flesh
shall come again to thee. and I shall be clean, but Naaman
was wroth and went away and said, behold, I thought, I thought,
big problem, I thought, I thought he will surely come out to me
and stand before me and call on the name of the Lord his God
and strike his hand over the place and I'll be healed. That wasn't God's purpose. But
a problem is like Haman where he said, I thought, I thought,
Haman thought in his heart. We read in Psalm 50 verse 21
where the Lord says, thou thoughtest I was altogether such a one as
thyself. By nature, we're all just like
wicked Haman and Naaman the leper. We're all,
by nature, all of our thoughts about God and spiritual things
are totally wrong. I remember Pastor Mahan telling
a story. Brother Walter Gruber's been
in Mexico 40 some years, but he's always had a preacher school
training the young native pastors there in the ministry. And occasionally
he would give them a test, one of those, what we used to call
in school a surprise test, a pop quiz. He passed out the papers
and said, now, here's the questions. And he said, we've not gone over
this material before, but just read it, and whatever you think,
the answer is, write the opposite. And you might be right. You might
pass the test. You see, all of our thoughts
about spiritual things in God are totally contrary to what
they really are. totally contrary. We have wrong
thoughts about everything, for we always think too highly of
ourselves and too low about the Lord our God." I'm talking about
our thoughts naturally. Our thoughts are always wrong
and too low about the Lord our God, who He truly is. High and lifted up, absolutely
sovereign and holy in all His doing. We have wrong thoughts
about God, too low thoughts about God, wrong thoughts about God.
We also have wrong thoughts about ourselves. We think too highly
of ourselves. Even yet we do. We think too
highly of ourselves. Where the Lord said, there's
none righteous, no, not one. Does that include you? We have also, we have wrong thoughts
about the way of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
The wise man Solomon said there is a way which seems right unto
men, but the end of that way is death. Death and destruction. And we have wrong thoughts not
only about how God saves sinners, Wrong thoughts about the way
of salvation in Christ, nor the name under heaven, given among
men whereby we must be saved. We also have wrong thoughts about
how God saves sinners. I guess it's no big news, but
the well-known evangelist Billy Graham died today, 99 years old. And was he a preacher of the
gospel? Absolutely not. He was a false
preacher. He was a free will preacher.
And I went on several places and read about his obituary and
different things, and I found his website, his home website,
where he has that Billy Graham evangelistic ministry. And I
went on there and read his four steps to salvation. Four steps
to salvation. And down the end of it, it said,
pray this prayer if you have, hit this button, and you're saved. I thought, wow. You agree with this, you agree
with that, you agree with that, pray this prayer, hit that button,
yes, you're saved. You see, we have the wrong thoughts
how God saves sinners. It's God who saves sinners. Now
you can hold a big evangelistic campaign and you can fill a ball
stadium with, I remember years ago, I've heard about this. I didn't see this actually, but
I heard this from men who grew up in the South, like Brother
Mahan, and when Graham would come to town and they would have
that big evangelistic campaign to whoop up all the people and
to draw a crowd, you know what they'd do? They'd get big athletes. I mean, if you go to Alabama
and bring in Joe Namath, You're going to have a packed house."
And that's what they would do, they would stack the deck. People
would come to see Joe Namath and Billy Graham would stand
up and give his religious speech and then they'd play, just as
I am, 200 times until everybody started moving. And they would
plant different people out in the audience to try to get people
moving, come forward and make a decision. You know what's really
tragic about that whole situation? Not only did he lead thousands
and thousands of people into a false profession to make a
decision and call that salvation, but what's really tragic about
that is this man was taught correct theology on how God does save
sinners, and he tossed it out the window. He said, well, we
can't raise any money that way. And so they compromised. Compromised. What a sad, sad day. Sad, sad. Not a sad day that he died. I'm
glad he's gone. Unfortunately, his ministry is
going to live on. There is a way that seems right
unto men. The end of that way is death. The Lord said, no man
can come to me except the Father which sent me. Draw him. Now,
I'll probably get some pushback from the sermon audio people,
but that's okay. That's okay. That's okay. They're not going to come up
here and hunt me up. They might criticize me, but
that's all right too. I'm just telling you what's so.
We have wrong thoughts about how God saves sinners in Christ
alone by His sovereign grace. That's why we must be taught
of God. Now, the second thing we see here in verse 7, or the
third thing down through verse 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Haman's answer reveals and uncovers
his heart. He wants all the glory for himself. Haman answered the king for whom
the man delights to honor, Let royal apparel be brought, which
a king used to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon,
and the crowned royal what sits upon the king's head. I mean,
he wants to be crowned king, doesn't he? And let his apparel
and his horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's
most noble princes. that they may array the man with
all whom the king delights to honor, and bring him on a horse
back to the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be
done to the man whom the king delights. Then the king said
to Haman, Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse, as
thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew that sits
at the king's gate, and let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken. Let not one word fail. Haman's answer reveals and uncovers
what's in his heart, He wants all the glory for himself. He
wants to be treated in a way of royalty. He wants to be the
king for a day. He wants everything, but the
only thing he doesn't ask for is that royal scepter. And he
probably thought about that, but maybe that's going a little
bit too far. All of these things that are
given here could be rightly applied to the gospel of Christ and those
who are in him. We are given in Christ a royal
apparel. We're covered with the robe of
righteousness and the garments of salvation. We are crowned
with a royal crown in Christ our King. He has made us under
our God, kings and priests on the earth. God has honored Christ,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and God has honored all those in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 10, make haste, make haste,
he says, In verse 10, the king said to Haman, make haste and
take everything that you have mentioned and do to Mordecai
the Jew that sit to the gate and let not one word fail. Let nothing fail. We can also
apply this to the gospel of Christ. God who begins a good work will
not fail. Make haste. Let not one word
fail. God who begins a good work in
you, he will complete it. He will perform it. Isaiah 42,
4, we read of the Lord Jesus Christ. God said, He's my elect
and whom my soul delighteth. And He shall not fail. He shall
not fail. Make haste and come down. Make
haste. That's what the Lord said to
Zacchaeus. Make haste and come down. For today I must abide
at your house. Look at verse 11. then took Haman the apparel,
the horse, and arrayed Mordecai. He arrayed, dressed Mordecai
in the best of the king's robes, and brought him on horseback
to the street, just as the king commanded everything to be done,
it was done, through the street, and proclaimed before him, thus
shall it be done, to the man whom the king delights to honor
It was done by the king's command, and God has commanded the salvation
of his people, and it shall be done. In the gospel of Christ,
we know the Father delights to honor the Son. We read this in
John 5, 22, that all men should honor the Son even as they honor
the Father. He that honors not the Son honors
not the Father which hath sent him. And then we read in Matthew
3.17, the Lord said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased. Behold my servant, my elect,
in whom my soul delighteth. Let all the house of Israel know
with surely that God had made that same Jesus whom you crucified,
God had made him both Lord and Christ. God has highly exalted
Him, given Him a name which is above every name, that at His
name every knee should bow, and every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The Father
loves and delights to honor the Son, and because He honors the
Son, He honors all those who are in the Son. We're blessed
with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Verse 12, 13, and 14, Mordecai,
it says there, Mordecai came again to the king's gate. Verse
12, Haman hasted to his house, mourning having his head covered. Mordecai went back to the king's
gate as a servant of the king, still the faithful, humble servant
of the Lord. Evidently, he was not lifted
up with pride, Mordecai was still a humble man. He did not ask
the king to repeal the decree of death against the Jews. He
did not seek revenge against Haman. He went back to the king's
gate serving the king's purpose. He's still waiting and trusting
the Lord to deliver his people. The opposite was true with Haman.
Haman went home in haste, but he went home in shame." You see
that? Mourning, having his head covered. Now, when he gets back home,
look at verse 13 and 14, what does he find? Haman told Zerath,
his wife, and all of his friends, everything that had fallen him,
Then said his wise men, the same men who said, let's build the
gallows and hang Mordecai. Then said the wise man and his
wife as well, if Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before
whom thou hast begin to fall, thou shalt not prevail against
him, but you're going to fall. Surely, you will fall before
him. And while they were yet talking
with him came the king's chamberlain and hasted to bring Haman unto
the banquet. Oh, there's that banquet that
Esther had prepared. Now his family and friends who
told him before to build the gallows, to hang his enemy Mordecai,
hang him high they said. Now they're miserable comforters,
are they not? Mordecai, indeed, and I love
this statement here, Mordecai, if Mordecai be of the seed of
the Jews, and he was, he was a true spiritual son of Abraham,
he was a son of Jacob. Mordecai is a covenant son and
blessed of God with all spiritual blessing. And the people say
here, you will not prevail against him. And you know why? Because
God determined a blessing. God determined to bless Mordecai.
Therefore, the enemies of the Lord cannot prevail. You cannot
fight against the God of the Jews and win. You cannot. You remember we studied in Romans
8? If God be for us, who can be against us? Not only was Haman
hanged, but his ten sons were hanged as well. Now the king
sent to fetch Haman to the banquet of wine that Esther had prepared.
In verse 14, think about this. This is the beginning of the
end. He goes on to the banquet and
we find out what happens to him in chapter 8. He hasted to his
final ruin. He never returned home. He left his family. He left his
friend. He went to the banquet. And the
king discovered his motive. And the king said, the king said,
hanging in chapter 7. Verse 9, And Harbonah, one of
the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also the gadol's
fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had
spoken good for the king, standing in the house of Haman, Then the
king said, hang him thereon, so they hanged Haman on the gallows,
he prepared for Mordecai, and the wrath, the king's wrath was
pacified. He hasted, he hasted to his final
ruin and hasted to bring Haman to the banquet. It was a banquet
of wine, but it was the end of this man, it was his ruin. He'll
never return home again to his family. Now this story doesn't end here,
does it? We're going to see the end of
Haman in chapter 7. But the story is to be continued
next time. But we see again the marvelous
providence of the Lord. And think about this. The same
God who preserved Mordecai and who blessed Mordecai and Esther
is the same God who is still on the throne, who is still blessing
those covenant seed children in Christ, the true spiritual
sons of Abraham.