Placed by God

--- Welcome to our Women's Bible Study on Esther, When God Works in the Shadows. This is week two and we're going to cover Esther chapter two, but first we have to review some of the events of chapter one. What we learned last week is that this book was written to explain the experiences of the Israelites in Persia. Remember Daniel and Esther explain the exiles' experiences in their foreign lands, whereas Ezra and Nehemiah talk about the ones that went back to rebuild Jerusalem. We know that the kingdom of Persia was enormous. We also learned that the king's ego matched that. It was also enormous. It appears as though the original king and queen got along just fine until they didn't. And the catalyst for change in that was that banquet where the drinking got out of control. And isn't that the truth in life? Things can move along just fine until the drinking gets out of control. And so with a bruised ego because of the rejection of the queen, King Ahasuerus had listened to the counsel of his cabinet members and decided that not only would he cast his wife aside never to see her face again, but that he would use this as an opportunity to send a message to all the women in all the kingdom that they better not ever cross their husbands. And so no one ever did again and that fixed everything, every marital problem in the world. It was kind of like burning down the house because you saw a spider, right? But that's just the way it is. So chapter two begins by saying after these things. And so before we even start reading I want to say tell you what that means. It's a little ambiguous. It's quite an understatement because four years went by from that time. Ahasuerus had gone off to war with the Greeks. He had been defeated. He blamed it on the sea, which didn't cooperate with what he was trying to do. He actually took a chain and whipped the sea to teach it a lesson. So that, you know, explains a little bit something. So he returned then back to the palace defeated, less wealthy, and more lonely than he was before. So let's start reading verse one.

And I wonder if he remembered it with some level of regret that he had listened to the advice of his cabinet and said, you know, she will never see his face again. Did he regret that? But here's the deal. He's going to turn around and listen to them all over again. Verse two.

So there's a couple things to note here about what we just read. First of all, this is a pagan nation. No biblical worldview whatsoever. And when you don't have a biblical worldview, you also don't have much of a natural sanctity of life going on here. And so when the young men suggested this phrase that the king appoint officers to gather all the beautiful young virgins, that should be read less like so put out application forms in all of the provinces so that they can apply for this beauty pageant and it should be read more like human trafficking. Go out and take anyone that's beautiful. Take them. Gather them. There was really no choice. That's really what's going on here, okay? If an officer noted a beautiful young virgin, she was likely whisked away into the prep zone, all right? Now this procedure for selecting another queen was highly unusual. Honestly, it's highly unusual in any kingdom, in any point in time, in any place in geography. Because normally what is valued the most in finding a queen or a companion is going to be, you're going to search among the royal officials, okay? You're going to consider like an alliance with neighboring countries or something like that. Remember when we were in second kings, so many of these alliances were made. This union would be very important because likely it would produce the heir. Likely it would produce the next king. Super unusual that you focus on one thing. We want a pretty young girl. And you care not about her heritage. So this is unusual. But note the king's advisors were young men. And they were determined that Ahasuerus would be happy. He would be comforted. And what better way to make that happen than to just gather up all the young beautiful women and say, pick one, okay? Also, third thing is we should note this eunuch in charge of the harem. His name is Haggai. And he will be used by God in the shadows here. So verse five.

Or whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away. So we have this new character who's super important to us. His name is Mordecai. What do we learn about him? We learn that he was from the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Benjaminite. Particularly, he was from the line of Kish. And if that sounds familiar to you, King Saul was from the line of Kish, okay? And he was taken captive by the former world power, Babylon. So this is a while ago. And so when it says he was taken captive, again, that should be read probably a little bit more like in the loins of his forefathers he was taken captive. I don't think he could have even been alive. But sometimes the Bible does that. It reads that way. And so he was inherited then by the Persian kingdom. So we also find out in verse 7 that he was bringing up Hadassah. That is, Esther, the daughter of his uncle. So that makes them cousins, right? For she had neither father nor mother. The young woman had a beautiful figure, was lovely to look at, and when her father and mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter. So when the king's order and his edict were proclaimed, and when many young women were gathered in Susa, the citadel, in custody of Haggai, Esther also was taken into the king's palace and put in custody of Haggai, who had charge of the women. All right, let's slow down. We learn here that Esther had two names, right? She has her given Hebrew name, which is Hadassah, and then she has her Persian name, which is Esther. This might be simply informative for us, but I wonder if the author is causing us to want to think just a little bit and consider how she perceived her identity, okay? Who am I? Am I Hebrew? Am I Persian? I have two names. Which of these is going on? And I think that there probably was some of that rolling through her mind. We're not told her exact lineage, but if she's a cousin of Mordecai, she probably also was from the tribe of Benjamin. She was orphaned, but she was fortunate to have this older cousin who was going to watch out for her. Now, in fact, Esther's life was a matter at this point of good fortune, bad fortune. Her good fortune was her good looks. Her bad fortune was her good looks, because it caused her to be taken, okay? Because she was among those that the young men said, maybe she'll please the king. And so, I highly doubt she had any say in the matter, but God gave Esther favor, and Esther didn't squander that favor. In verse 9, the young woman pleased him, or the, excuse me, the young woman, speaking of Esther, pleased him, meaning Haggai, the eunuch, and won his favor. And he quickly provided her with her cosmetics and her portion of food, and with seven chosen young women from the king's palace, and he advanced her and her young women to the best place in the harem. Sounds to me like he wants her to win, for whatever reason, maybe because Esther herself found favor in his eyes, but maybe also because God is working in the shadows to cause him to be favorable toward Esther. But there was one thing that she concealed from everyone. We see that in verse 10.

Isn't that sweet? Every day he came and checked on her. My oldest daughter has a caboose baby, who is five now. But all the siblings just, they treat her that way. They'll come and check on her in class. They'll walk by the Sunday school class, wonder how she's doing. That's what it makes me think here. It's just very sweet of Mordecai. Verse 12,

So the experience of all of these young women was that there was only two possible outcomes after they had spent a night with the king. Either he would summon them by name again, meaning there was a high likelihood that they may be chosen to be that queen, or they were never summoned again and they were basically the losers at love. And they would spend their life in the harem and they would say goodbye to all the hopes they ever had of having a husband, of having children, of even seeing their birth family again. They were just in a new place in life. So this was a pretty treacherous thing, okay? Verse 15 says,

And we want to note here one more time that she gained favor. She was someone who listened and who took counsel. Those are the words out of this passage. And sometimes, you know, sometimes we women, we want to study books of Ruth and Esther and what we want to find in them is these positive character qualities. Oh, look at Ruth, she's so awesome. Look how she took care of her mother-in-law. That's not the point of the book of Ruth. When we look at Esther, we say, look, she listened, she obeyed. That's not the point of Esther. However, we can look at these character qualities and we can say, yes, this is good, this is commendable. So we can learn this. It's not the point, but we can learn this and it is a very good thing. She listened to the advice of Mordecai, who said, conceal your identity. You are Esther right now, you are not Hadassah. And she listened to the advice of Haggai, who said, this is what you should take in when you spend a night with the king, okay? And so I want to show you this verse that was in your study guide. I just want to highlight it, Proverbs 13, 10. Look at this. It says, wisdom is found in those who take advice. And that is just such a great reminder of being a woman who, you know, we don't want to be the girl that says, you go right, I'm going to go left, just because you said that. You know, we want to be, we do want to have character like Esther had here and take advice. So verse 16,

So we're going to label this feast number three. This is the third feast that we have in the first two chapters of Esther. He also granted a remission of taxes to the provinces and gave gifts with royal generosity. And there isn't much better in life than free food and no taxes. I mean, wouldn't you love a new queen if that's how she was presented to you? It's like, look at my new wife. Y'all get free food and you pay no taxes. Of course they loved her. No wonder she found favor with everyone. But God was clearly the one that was behind the positioning of Esther. He caused her to have favor with Haggai. He caused her to have favor with the king. He caused her to have favor with everyone who saw her in order to place her right where he wanted her to be, even before a whisper of a threat existed. And maybe this is a good time for us to reflect a little bit on our own life and to just ask some questions. Esther was positioned by God in the palace. How has God positioned you? Where has he positioned you? Do you think it was a surprise to her, this turn of events in her life? I think it was a surprise. One minute I'm an orphan, a year later, I'm the queen of Persia. How did I get here? And sometimes we enter into positions in life, if you will, and it is a surprise to us. We look around and we say, how did I get here? What, how did my life unfold in this way that I am right here? Now, maybe you can see God's purpose in the position that he's put you in, but maybe you can't. Maybe you don't see any reason for why you are where you are. In my blog this week, I called this a chapter two experience. Esther is in the middle of a chapter two experience. She has been thrown into a new experience in life, but she has no idea why. There's nothing in her life that tells her, oh, this is what God's doing, not yet anyway. And you and I go through chapter two experiences. All of a sudden you're in a new season of life, or you and I, and they're good and bad. Look, God can put us in favorable, happy, new situations, and God can put us in situations where we are either in pain or suffering or grief, but it's a new position. And when we're in our chapter two, we don't know. We're just there. It's like, I'm just here. Lord, I don't know how you're gonna use this. I trust you. I know that you'll use it at some point in my life, but I'm in chapter two, and I don't see what you're doing. And when we're in chapter two, the best thing we can do is trust God and be faithful in the position he's put us into. Just be faithful. Verse 19, now, when the virgins were gathered around a second time, and the meaning of this is unclear. We don't know what the second time means. This may have been that some of the harem was selected to be official concubines, and so they were kind of paraded through. These are the runners-up that are winning the title of concubine. We don't know. It's just unclear. But anyway, there was something going on the second time. The point is to look at Mordecai here. It says, when they were gathered the second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate. Esther had not made known her kindred or her people as Mordecai had commanded her, for Esther obeyed Mordecai just as when she was brought up by him. So we wanna make two important points about Mordecai and Esther here. And by the way, I think I've shared this before in a teaching long ago, but when we moved into our house in 06, almost 20 years ago, we let our kids get two kitties, and they were Esther and Mordecai. And we called them Morty and Essie. Morty was a pill. He was the boy. And to our shame, we never really got him fixed. And so he was a force. And we eventually invited him to go live on a farm. But Essie lived with us for a long, long time, probably longer than a cat should live. So we nursed her into her old age and all the problems that go with that. And it's probably, if you look at us sometime and go, I wonder why they're not pet people. It's like, no, we paid our dues. We did, and now it's just super enjoyable to leave the house. Just like we can leave for four days with no considerations. So anyway, they were sweet kitties, Essie and Morty. But Mordecai here seemed to be a government official because it says he's seated at the king's gate. You don't just a nobody go and sit yourself at the king's gate. That's like somebody walking in to the White House and saying, I'd just like to sit in the blue room for a while. It's like, no, you don't do that. You have to be somebody to be there. And so he must have had some sort of a government position. The city gate was where the court cases were decided and official business was conducted. Now, Mordecai had not returned with the exiles when permission was granted. Okay, and we wondered last week, well, why didn't everybody go? That's your home. Why didn't you all go back to Jerusalem? And one thing that I had said was, well, there were some comforts in Persia. And that could have been. the motivation for some people. But look, Mordecai also had a job to do. He was a government official, and this is an election year, and so this causes us to question this idea. Mordecai, throughout this story, seems to be a faithful Hebrew. Faithful, he has a godly worldview, okay? And so we wonder, how can someone, we'll just call him a Christian today, how can a Christian serve someone in office who is pagan, who does not have a biblical worldview? Like, Christianity and politics should be separate, and you should not be, like, what do you think about someone, a Christian, who works for the governor or the, you know, a senator or something like that? Well, I say they need you. I say they need Christians in a place like this, okay? And so I commend Mordecai for being an official in a pagan king's court. He is among a long line of biblical characters who did the same thing, starting with Joseph in Pharaoh's world, and then on to Daniel in Nebuchadnezzar's world, and then we have Nehemiah and Mordecai in the Persian world. And so I think it's a good fit. You can think whatever you think. The second important note is that Esther did not stop following Mordecai's instructions just because she was queen now. It says here that Esther obeyed Mordecai just as when she was brought up by him, and that is commendable, because she could have had the attitude of, you know, I'm in a different position in life, like, I'm the one that tells people what to do now. But no, she continued to listen, and if you have a godly counselor, they're worth continuing to listen to. And, you know, we can be tempted to feel like we have arrived in different places of life. It's like, well, I'm married now, so I don't need to listen to my mother, or I have kids now, or, you know, so I don't need, or, you know, well, I've been teaching Sunday school now for 12 years, and so I don't need advice from, you know, somebody else. If someone is worth listening to, they're worth listening to on and on and on. So I find that commendable as well. So our chapter ends with how God worked in the shadows to use Mordecai's official government position. Let's read verse 21.

And that's it. The chapter ends with this brief and rather abrupt foiled assassination plot. And the brevity almost begs us to ask more questions. It almost makes us want to say, well, did the king ever acknowledge that Mordecai's intel had saved his life? Did Mordecai ever get an attaboy from the king? Did he get any thank you or any kind of a reward? What's up with this recording it? Who recorded it? What's the purpose of that? It makes us ask more questions, which we will find out the answers to in the coming chapters. But in our study guide, I asked a few questions about those times when you and I are overlooked, when we're not thanked, when we're not promoted, when we're not rewarded, just like Mordecai's experience. And it's something to think about. How do I handle that situation? It's clearly an injustice here in chapter two. It's an injustice. And then I had us reflect on King David and that situation with Shimei. And when he was cursing David and David's response was, let it be, perhaps it is of the Lord. That is a phrase that will take us a long way in life. When we face an injustice, when we face not being thanked, when we face a curse or an offense of some kind, to have that attitude, that phrase of David, perhaps it is of the Lord. You know, God will work it out. He'll work it out his way in his time. I love that. And that's something we should hold on to. But kind of in summary, we tend to think that God's plan in our life should always move toward our benefit, our happiness, even in Mordecai's case, our recognition. But sometimes God allows things in our life that really do make us feel happy. They make us feel valued. And then sometimes God allows things in our life that cause us great disappointment and cause us pain, even suffering in the moment. But we know that God's sovereign hand is fitting into the glove of history and working things out together for good. In fact, let me put this verse on that we probably half of us have memorized from Romans 8, 28.

That is a great assurance for us. So in this chapter, Mordecai was overlooked for God's purpose, but he didn't realize it yet. Esther was placed into the palace as queen for God's purpose, but she didn't realize it yet. And so we can wrap this up by saying, I am certain that every one of you has been positioned by the Lord in a particular place in life for God's purpose. We may not realize it yet. Maybe we do, but we probably don't realize why God has put us right where he has. But we know this. We know this confidence that God works all things together for good. So Father, we thank you so much for this chapter and Lord, all the things that we learn about what's going on in the life of Esther and Mordecai, but the things that we learn about what's going on in our lives and what you are doing in our lives. And I pray, Lord God, that your Holy Spirit would just speak to our hearts about those things, that it would cause us to be more patient. It would cause us to be more at peace knowing that you are working in the shadows, not only in our lives, but in our family's lives and in our friends' lives as well, Lord God. So help us to be at peace. Help us, Lord God, to trust you and to be faithful. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. ---