Esther 4
McGeeCHAPTER 4THEME: For such a time as thisThe terrible decree is going out to every corner of the kingdom. Now notice Mordecai’s reaction:
Esther 4:1
When Mordecai heard about the decree to annihilate the Jews, he put on sackcloth and ashes. My, what a performance! He believed the decree; he knew it could not be changed. I would guess that there were roughly fifteen million Jews at that time in the kingdom. It would have been a terrible slaughter, so unnecessary and uncalled for. Because one petty official would not bow down to Haman, an entire race was to be exterminated. This was satanic, of course.
Esther 4:3
Do you notice that there is no call to prayer? You see, these people are out of the will of God. The decree of Cyrus, prophesied by Isaiah, had permitted them to return to Israel, but they did not return. They are out of God’s will, and consequently there is no call to prayer whatsoever. But they go through the remainder of the ritual: fasting, putting on of sackcloth and ashes and great mourning. They believed the decree that had gone out from Xerxes. it was the law of the Medes and the Persians, which was unalterable according to these historical books and also according to the Book of Daniel. And you remember that even Xerxes himself, when he had put aside his beautiful queen, could never take her again because the decree had been made that she was to come no more before the king. Even he could not change his own law after it had been made. And so when this decree of death came throughout the empire, the Jews believed it and mourned in sackcloth and ashes. Conspicuously absent today (the church, I think, is responsible for it) is conviction concerning sinnot only in the hearts and lives of the unsaved, but in the hearts and lives of believers. The average believer says, “Yes, I trust Christ.” But he has no real conviction of sin in his life at all. It is absent in contemporary church life. When is the last time that you heard a sinner, saved or lost, cry out to God for mercy? At the beginning of my ministry I saw a great many tears, I saw people cry out to God. I do not see that today.
Even in evangelistic crusades there is a lot of “coming forward,” but there is that lack of weeping over sin in the lives of folk. Why? They just don’t believe God means it, my friend. They do not believe that God intends to enforce judgment against sin and the sinner who will hold to it and not turn to Christ. Mordecai knew and believed the seriousness of the decree. He tore his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes. He went out into the center of the city and cried with a loud and bitter cry. Jews all over the kingdom mourned, fasted, wept, and wailed. They all believed the seriousness of the decree.
Esther 4:4
Queen Esther, feeling perfectly safe and secure as queen, was embarrassed by the conduct of Mordecai her adoptive father. Here he was, out in the city, walking up and down, moaning, wailing, and groaning. So what does she do? She sends him a sporty new suit of clothes. They were gay, gaudy, expensive, and fine. The colors were probably bright. But, you see, all the bright colors and new clothes will not change the king’s edict. Mordecai would not receive the clothes. They would not remove the stigma. There is an application here. The covering of religion will not remove the fact that man is a guilty sinner before God. Neither will religion alter the fact that the wages of sin is death. People deal with sin in many different ways. Some try the gaudy clothes method. They refuse to believe that man is a sinner. They reach out for any garment that might hide from them the reality of sin. Others put on the gaudy clothes of reformation. They say that sin is just a little mistake, and they try to cover it. They think sin can be reformed. Someone has said that the modern pulpit has become a place where a mild-mannered man gets up before a group of mild-mannered people and urges them to be more mild-mannered. Friends, I cannot think of anything more insipid than that. No wonder the world has passed by the church. We don’t need reforming; we need to be regenerated. We need to be born again. Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, was religious, but our Lord said to him, “…Ye must be born again” (Joh_3:7). We need a new nature because we have a sinful nature, and that sinful nature is not going to heaven, my friend. You have to come to the Lord Jesus Christ and trust Him. He died on the cross for you. He took your place and has already paid the penalty of your sin. All you have to do is accept what has been done for you. If you go to heaven, it will be because you trusted the One who died for you. There is another kind of gaudy clothes that people wear known as “education.” They say that sin is selfishness. All you have to do is educate and train folk and they won’t be selfish. I had a sister who was younger than I was. My Dad used to bring us a sack of gumdrops when he came home from work. He would tell me that I was to divide the candy with her. I always took the first piece, and she would protest because sometimes it worked out that I also took the last piece. Sometimes I took the first piece when it was really my sister’s turn. May I say that all of the instruction and education given to me never kept me from being selfish. And don’t try to kid me, it hasn’t helped you, either. Many years ago. Dr. Shaler Matthews from the University of Chicago’s School of Religion came up with this definition of sin: “Sin is the backward pull of an outward good.” Think that one over for awhile. If you take away all of the modifiers, you see that he is saying that sin is good! And that is what religion finally winds up telling you. May I say to you that you need a new garment. You need the righteousness of Christ. That is the only thing that will enable you to stand before God. Now Mordecai was not about to accept any gaudy clothes from his daughter, the queen. When the clothes came back to her, she knew that something serious was going on. Esther knew that it was not something minor that caused her father to return the clothes.
Esther 4:5
Esther wants some answers. She wants to know what has caused Mordecai to put on sackcloth and ashes.
Esther 4:6
Of course as queen she could not have gone to him herself. So she sends a messenger.
Esther 4:7
Mordecai sent a message back to Queen Esther which said in effect, “The reason that I am in sackcloth and ashes is that our people, you and I, have come under an awful decree of death.” Then he gave the messenger a copy of the decree so that Esther could read it for herself. I wish that folk who say that the Bible does not teach that man is a sinner would read what God’s Word says. It is all there in black and white. If they will read it, they will see that God declares we are sinners and are under His sentence of death. So the messenger returned to Esther with Mordecai’s message and a copy of the king’s decree.
Esther 4:10
After Esther heard Mordecai’s message and read the decree, she sent him another message.
Esther 4:11
In other words, “That’s too bad. I am sorry to hear it. I didn’t know about it before.” And she adds, “But I have not been called into the king’s presence now for thirty days. I do not know his attitude toward meand you know what the law is.” As was the case in every kingdom of that day, anyone who dared go into the presence of the king without being summoned would be summarily, automatically, put to deathunless the king extended his sceptre to him. Xerxes was noted for his fits of temper; he could have put his queen to death if she had gone in without being called. So she sent back word to Mordecai, “If I go in, it may mean death to me.”
Esther 4:12
Then Mordecai returned to her this memorable message:
Esther 4:13
We must remember that there had been another queen and a decree which had set her aside. Esther was probably taking warning from that, but, if she thinks the decree will protect her, she is wrong. The decree is that all of the Jews are to be slain, and she is Jewish. Mordecai puts it on the line: “Just because you happen to be the queen does not exempt you from the execution because it will reach every Jew in the kingdom, and it will also reach the queen.” We will find out later that Xerxes did not know that she was a Jewess. Mordecai went on to say that if Esther held her peace then deliverance would come from another source. Some day when I see Mordecai (and I do expect to see him), I would like to ask him what he had in mind when he said that deliverance would arise from another place. I have thought this over, and I ask you the question: “What other place was there to which they could turn?” Where could deliverance come to them except form God? He was their only hope at this time, and I am confident that Mordecai had that in mind. God would move in another direction. He must have known that deliverance would come because he was acquainted with the promises that God had made to Abraham. So Mordecai challenges Esther. Xerxes was a world ruler. Would deliverance come from the north, east, south, or west? There was not a person on the topside of the earth who could have delivered her. So he said to Esther, “Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” I think Mordecai now detects that the hand of God has been moving and that Esther is on the throne for a purpose. We begin to see God by His providence moving now in the affairs of the nation. It is obvious that Esther did not accidentally win a beauty contest. She was not accidentally the one who became queen. She is there for a very definite purpose, and God has been arranging this all the time. He is prepared for this event. God knows what is coming. That is why, friends, we can trust Him. When we put our hand in His hand, He has the power to hold us. He knows what is going to happen tomorrow and next month and next year. He will care for us. All we have to do is trust Him. Mordecai is becoming a noble man now in my estimation. He is revealing that he is taking a stand for God. He is willing to die for God. Watch Esther now. She is a queen, every inch a queen.
Esther 4:15
These are the words of a noble woman. She tells Mordecai to gather all of the Jews in the city together to fast. She and her maidens would do the same. She would go to the king for help, and she was willing to perish if need be. Once again you will notice that nothing is said about prayer. Why doesn’t she pray? Because she is out of the will of God. Why don’t the Jews pray? They, too, are out of God’s will. When Jonah was on the boat running away from God, nothing is said about prayer. He was out of the will of God. He shouldn’t have been on that boat. It is hard to pray when you are out of God’s will. It is possible that some of the Jews prayed, but it certainly is not mentioned. Esther’s decision to go before the king is a very brave act. But, beloved, there is One more noble. He vaulted the battlements of heaven, came down to earth, and took upon Himself our human flesh. He did not say, “If I perish, I perish.” He said “…the Son of man came …to give his life a ransom for many” (Mat_20:28).