A Good Ruler, A Great Ruler

[00:00:00] Let s pray now for the illumination of God's word in our hearts. Let s pray together. [00:00:09] Thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you for revealing to us in Your Word how it is we ought to pray. [00:00:16] As we consider the various aspects of our life. Our minds go to you, you who are Lord of heaven and earth, of all time and all space, you who rule over all peoples in all places. We give thanks to you, Lord, and call upon Your name now, asking that you would bless us as we hear Your Word. We thank you over the last several weeks, several months, for our time in Esther. And we do ask in a comprehensive way, that the words that we have heard, the work that we have seen you do as we've meditated on this moment in history, that these things would that we would hold them closely in our hearts, and that we would live by them. Considering Your rule, your great kingship, Your power, your grace, Lord, we ask that you would take these things and help us to remember them, live by them and glorify you. [00:01:18] We pray this specifically for our passage tonight, and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:01:29] Let's remain standing, if you are able, and turn to Esther. Chapter ten. Esther ten grass withers flower fades, but the word of our God is forever. [00:02:09] Let's hear God's word in Esther. Chapter ten, king Ahasuerus imposed tax on the land and on the coastlands of the sea, and all the acts of his power and might, and the full account of the high honor of Mordecai, to which the King advanced him. Are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia? For Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Osawareis, and he was great among the Jews, and popular with the multitude of his brothers, for he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all his people. Amen. [00:02:48] You may be seated. [00:03:03] Well, in this short chapter at the end of Esther, we have, in a way, come full circle. The Book of Esther ends as it began, but things are different in some ways now because of Mordecai. Things have changed. Things are better, we can say, than where we started from. [00:03:27] The book starts by showing the greatness of King Ahasuerus, particularly in the amount of land he ruled, but in other things as well. In the first chapter, in the early verses, we read now in the days of Osuaris, the Osuaris who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces, esther. The Book of Esther ends in a similar way, with comments about King Ossawaris and his rule over the land. [00:04:00] Chapter ten, verse one says king Osuaris imposed tax or required tribute on the land and on the coastlands of the sea. [00:04:09] One commentator points out that this is similar in the way of its expansiveness and the range over the land. But there is kind of a twist when it says from the coastlands to the sea, in that there are a number of places in the Bible that use phrases like this to signify a rain over the whole earth, a kind of expansiveness from sea to shining sea, right? This kind of idea. Isaiah 42 four, not speaking of Ahasuerus, but, you know, who says, he will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in earth and the coastlands, wait for his law. Isaiah 42 Ten, also speaking of our Lord, says, sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants. [00:05:05] So this, in a sense, this way of describing Osawareis as imposing attacks on the land and on the coastlands of the sea, as a way of describing his reign in this very great way. [00:05:19] But the most obvious improvement is not the extent of his rule or the greatness of his rule, but the ruler himself, and it comes through the person that he is associated with, Mordecai. Yes, the focus is on Ahasuerus here. But as we remember throughout the book, Ahasuerus has been led by fools and by evil men so frequently. [00:05:44] But now his second in command is Mordecai. [00:05:48] Consider the contrast between Mordecai and his former second in command, Haman. [00:05:55] Before God's, people under Haman were ruled by a self serving tyrant, a man who only cared about the parties he went to and what people thought of him and how he was dressed and who bowed before him. [00:06:11] He was only concerned with his own power, his own wealth, his own self, Englandizement. [00:06:20] He was also a murderer. He sought to extinguish all of the Jews throughout this whole empire. That was Haman a trickster, a liar, a manipulator, and a murderer. But now the Jews have for themselves a mediator between them and the king, who, as we read at the end of this chapter, this short chapter, he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all his people. [00:06:54] Not war and annihilation and hatred, not the words of an enemy, but the power of a friend, one who was looking out for them, watching them, caring about their welfare, speaking and promising to them peace, the scriptures say, made Mordecai popular with his brothers, as you might imagine. A good thing in this case, not like Haman, who in the Esther is called the enemy of the Jews. [00:07:28] And what I'd like to focus on as we consider the end of this chapter, the ascension of Mordecai to this place of one who is a mediator in some ways between this king and the people of God, I want to focus one last time on this fact that great reversals are possible. [00:07:53] Great reversals are possible. [00:07:57] This is so important to remember because it's easy to think in this life that where we are right now, particularly in our troubles and trials, that this is where we'll always be. [00:08:10] We lose hope and we get discouraged. [00:08:14] I'd like you right now to consider some painful thing in your life, some way in which you're feeling stuck, some way in which the difficulty seems to have bound itself around you, something where you feel like things are never going to change. [00:08:36] And I want you to think about that thing and remember that things can change. And they do change. [00:08:44] Who would have thought that with Haman in control, organizing the extinction of the Jewish people, and Mordecai wailing at the gate, in some ways an embarrassment to Esther. Esther afraid to even talk to the king lest she die, that this chapter would be possible just a short time later. [00:09:13] How could that even happen? [00:09:16] Yep, we know how we saw how we saw how it unfolded, how event after event, crazy thing, unexpected thing after unexpected thing happened. [00:09:29] It's so easy for us to think that we can predict it all, that we know exactly how things are going to go, and we know how stuck we are in our bad situations. [00:09:44] Maybe for you it's some external thing, like a class or a boss. Maybe it's a spouse or a child or a friend. [00:09:54] Or maybe it's an internal struggle, like a sin that just won't go away despite your fighting against it, you feel tired and like giving up. [00:10:06] Mordecai provides for us another option, an option of faith. He shows us another pattern lament and faith. [00:10:19] When we are in dark situations and dark times, we have someone we can lament to, someone who understands our situations, who sympathizes us in our weaknesses because He Himself has experienced them. He's experienced our Lord, has experienced betrayal and lack of all kinds. He's experienced suffering and painfulness. He's experienced great temptation. [00:10:53] Mordecai provides a pattern for us of lament and faith. We can look to Jesus as the one who can protect us and keep us and bring us out of these things into something new. [00:11:06] God does not guarantee when and where he will rescue us. He doesn't write it down and say, here, on this date, at this time, this crazy thing is going to happen and you are finally going to learn your lesson, or this crazy thing is going to happen and all of a sudden this person will repent and turn. Or this crazy thing will happen and all of a sudden the persecution you're under is going to lift. He doesn't tell us. [00:11:35] He doesn't call us to depend on our knowledge of the future. He calls us to depend on our knowledge of Him, which includes promises for the future, which includes a resurrection from the dead, includes the end of all suffering, includes the hope of heaven. [00:11:57] We look forward to those things. We hope in those things, knowing who takes care of us here and now God doesn't guarantee when and where he'll rescue us. And sometimes the walk through the valley of the shadow of death is a very long walk. [00:12:14] But when we're walking in that place, let us remember Mordecai and Esther and the Jews. And remember not to lose heart, not to give up, not to stop looking to the Lord. Here in the story of Esther, we have a call not to have more faith in our circumstances, but more faith in God, in his goodness and in his preserving power. [00:12:44] The greatest reversal of all. As dramatic and entertaining and wonderful as this one is, there is one that is even greater. And that is, of course, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. [00:13:00] Jesus rising from the dead. Jesus bringing care and healing where there has been harm. Jesus bringing fairness and justice where there has been deception and lies and trickery. Jesus being loyal where there has been betrayal. Jesus bringing leadership where there has been authority and anarchy, or subversion rather, and anarchy. Jesus bringing holiness and glory where there was shame. Jesus bringing liberty, freedom and life where there was formerly oppression and slavery. [00:13:40] Those are great reversals, aren't they? And those are the ones that the Lord Himself enacts and promises. He Himself has experienced them in his human body. [00:13:53] Freedom from death, freedom from suffering. No more pain and trials. And one day we too will share as we partake of his grace. [00:14:08] Those verses I read earlier are indeed from those verses from Isaiah, are indeed about Him. One who rules from the coastlands to the sea, one who calls for all praise and glory and honor for Him. [00:14:24] Mordecai is a good leader, perhaps one of the best who has ever lived. And Jesus is ten times, a hundred times infinite times greater. [00:14:37] We can look to him. We can trust him. We can depend on him. [00:14:44] Satan, the liar, wants you to think otherwise. He wants you to underestimate your Messiah. Pray less to Him, follow Him less, hope in Him less. But instead of being stuck as Christians, we are the most free people in all the Earth. [00:15:02] Where Mordecai sought freedom and welfare and spoke peace to his people, jesus does all the more. [00:15:10] Jesus secures peace and prosperity, not just for one Persian administration, but for the whole world, for all time, for every single person who trusts in Him. [00:15:25] And so beloved as God's free people with no fear of his judgment and the promise of his protection. We can stand firm in every situation as we await the certain hope of the coming of the glory of Jesus Christ and our own resurrection from the dead. [00:15:48] And at that time, all remaining Hamans and the evil One Himself will be removed completely from power with no threat ever again to bother God's people. [00:16:02] It may feel very hard sometimes to wait for that. [00:16:09] But ask someone who's lived a few years, they'll tell you how fast things go, how fleeting life is, how momentary this all is. [00:16:21] And if you talk to someone who's a believer, they'll tell you that their hope is in the eternity that is to come, the peace, the safety, the blessedness of our God. [00:16:35] Let's look to Him more than we look to the circumstances of this world and know that great reversals are possible and are promised in Christ. [00:16:47] Let's pray. [00:16:51] Almighty Father, you who rules from sea to sea all the land and every bit of air and space on the earth and under the earth, you who rule the mighty angels in the heavenly places, you who rule over every country and king, you who rule in our hearts, we give you praise and honor and glory. [00:17:22] We ask, Lord, that you would continue Your protection of us and that you would help us, as citizens of Your kingdom to look to you for everything we need, from our daily bread to the forgiveness of sins to the full coming of Your kingdom. [00:17:41] Lord, we look to Christ and his mediation for us. [00:17:47] No one has sought our welfare and life more than he has. Our great and precious Savior, who is our very life. We worship him and him alone. We depend on him and him alone. We look past the circumstances of our immediate lives, and we look to Him in his power, in his death, in his resurrection and in his coming glory. [00:18:15] O Lord, we ask that you would steady our hearts during times of difficulty, during times of peace. We ask that you would strengthen them and prepare us for when things get rocky. In all times, in strength and in suffering. We ask that you would help us to rejoice, knowing that all things to us are granted to us because of Your goodness and Your grace. [00:18:40] Steady our hearts, Lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.