By Stephen Green
First published in Christian Voice June 2012
Esther 4:16 Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.
Some say that because God himself is not mentioned in the book of Esther it should not be in the canon of scripture. Well, no doubt the Jewish sages knew what they were doing when they included it in the Old Testament. They will have seen Esther’s request to the Jews to fast and pray, to God, obviously. They will have been aware that God’s chosen people were in danger of being wiped out by Haman the Agagite. They will have been aware that the birth of the Messiah in the purposes of God depended upon the survival of the Jews. Since Esther predates Ezra and Nehemiah, they will have recognised that the rebuilding of the temple would not have been able to happen if the Jews had been destroyed in Persia.
The Jewish sages will have seen, even though God is not mentioned by name, how the providence of the Almighty runs right through the book. They will have seen how Ahasuerus (or Xerxes) was constrained to operate under the control of God. Lastly, they will have seen how the book of Esther turns on a miracle sent from the Throne of Grace.
These days, when I am invited to preach, I normally end by calling attention to 2nd Chronicles 20. In that chapter, we see how the enemies of Judah are surrounding Jerusalem. We see how king Jehoshaphat calls the people together to seek the face of the Lord with prayer and fasting. We see him praying one of the most magnificent prayers in the Bible, a model prayer, even. The great humble king ends his prayer with a request for God to show him something to do. We see God answer the prayer with the instruction to go out of Jerusalem dressed for battle but to stand and see the salvation of the Lord. Salvation duly comes, with the opposing armies miraculously thrown into confusion, attacking each other. Victory is assured.
We draw many lessons from the story, but perhaps the most important is that our prayer is too often too perfunctory. God wants fervent prayer, says the Apostle James. He wants serious prayer. So how do we show God that our prayer is serious? Three good ways to do this are shown in the story. The first is by coming together in unity. We read that ‘all Judah’ assembled. The second is by adding fasting to our prayer. And the third is by seeking the Lord for something we can do ourselves in the situation in which we find ourselves.
The Lord receives many prayers for him to do something. We pray ‘Lord, do this!’ or ‘Lord, do that!’ He rarely receives prayers asking what we can do for him. So when Isaiah responds to the call from heaven by saying ‘Here am I, send me!’ (Isa 6:8) or when Jehoshaphat cries out, ‘We know not what to do!’ (2Chr 20:12) God takes notice.
If we sincerely and fervently seek the face of the Lord he will show us what to do. It is interesting to note that the Greek word translated ‘effectual, fervent’ in the KJV is ‘energeo’ which also means ‘active, efficient’. At the risk of being corrected by all the Classics scholars amongst our membership, I suggest our word ‘energetic’ comes from it.
Part of the purpose of Christian Voice is to pray for and witness to our leaders. But in our personal lives we face many challenges as well, and I believe the same principles apply. Whatever we are up against, when we seek the Lord for something to do in some situation having prayed in unity with others and with fasting we can expect two things.
The first is an answer of something we can do. The Lord will show us something, and if he does not immediately sow it into our consciousness, it might come at the mouth of two or three witnesses, or perhaps in a dream. The second is a miracle. There is a miracle in the story of the attack on Jerusalem. And there is a miracle in the story of Esther. The important thing to notice is that both of them are completely unexpected. When we pray and fast and seek the Lord we may have in mind something he could do. Sometimes the Lord does indeed do the obvious. But more often he surprises us.
I heard of some Christians praying during a local council meeting which would decide on an application for a sex-shop. The sex-shop owner was being represented by a solicitor. The Christians had raised petitions and written letters. Now all they could do was pray. Some prayed to find favour with the committee members, others prayed for God’s will to be done while some even prayed for confusion in the camp of those proposing the application. By confusion they had in mind some sort of mental confusion, in which the solicitor had some dates wrong, or there was a flaw in the process which would be revealed, or against hope that she would be tongue-tied as she stood up to speak.
Not one of them imagined what actually happened. She had not been given a desk, so she had put her papers on the floor beside her cup of coffee as she reminded herself of a legal authority in a book on her lap. As she stood up to speak, the solicitor’s foot knocked the coffee all over her papers. Her whole presentation was a disaster and the application was thrown out. God can and will do the unexpected.
There is nothing more exciting than serving the Lord in such a way, doing the simple things, praying, fasting, taking some action the Lord has directed, and then seeing the Lord send something completely unrelated. Who would have expected that, even with all the prayer over the previous governments’ Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, that the whips would send the Prime Minister home, and that the subsequent division would be lost by just one vote, by Tony Blair’s own vote on his own measure? We are entitled to turn our eyes to heaven and ask, ‘Lord, how do you do that?’
On the tour of the blasphemous Jerry Springer the Opera, our members prayed and fasted and gave out leaflets outside theatres. But it was the Lord who spoke to theatre-goers and told them to stay home. Every theatre lost money, and so did the producers. They said, ‘Christian Voice are winning the audience battle‘, but it was the Lord who did that, and it was completely unexpected, especially since all the wise heads had told us that our protests would only give it ‘the oxygen of publicity’ and make it more of a success. We did what had to be done, we prayed serious prayers, hoping for a ‘good conversation’ or two. We did indeed have that, but God had a better idea, to ruin the show which trampled on his honour. He always has a better idea.
In the story of Esther, her uncle Mordecai urges her to speak to the king on behalf of her people and gives her a chilling warning:
Est 4:14 For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
In this case, Esther does not have to seek the Lord at any great length for what she has to do. Mordecai has made it plain. She must go in and seek the king’s audience, which is not permitted without invitation upon pain of death. You do not just wander into the king’s presence and say, ‘Xerxes, may I have a quick word?’ The same is true of our own Queen, as it happens. You wait until you are invited. In ancient Persia, the penalty for accosting the king was death, unless he was gracious enough to lift the sceptre towards you, sparing your life. Esther needed favour, and so she sent back that famous message with which we opened:
Esther 4:16 Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.
So here again we see our three conditions met for showing God our prayer is serious. Despite all their petty squabbles and divisions, unity will be there (‘gather all the Jews’). Fasting will be there (‘fast ye for me’). Lastly, the willingness to act is there. Only Esther can do what needs to be done, but she is willing to do it. Now we can expect a miracle, and in the book of Esther, it is not long in coming.
Esther goes in to the king. In chapter 5 we read how she gets all dressed up and stands in the court before Xerxes. We read that all the prayers, all the unity, all the fasting, combined with her simple action, are honoured by God. And please note that this is all the prayer and fasting was for. It was just for favour so that Esther would not be put be death when she went into the King:
Est 5:2 And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that 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.
Esther, being the court-wise savvy individual that she obviously was, did not want to discuss her business before the whole court, so she invited the king and Haman to a two-day banquet.
The prayers of the Jews had been answered, but God was not finished yet. After the first night of the banquet, Haman went home to celebrate his new standing, and the king went to bed. And here is the miracle in the book of Esther:
Est 6:1 On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king. 2 And it was found written, that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s chamberlains, the keepers of the door, who sought to lay hand on the king Ahasuerus. 3 And the king said, What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this? Then said the king’s servants that ministered unto him, There is nothing done for him.
It does not seem very much, but the whole story turns on this miracle. God took away the king’s sleep and he sent for some light reading, the records of the chronicles, as you do, if you are king Xerxes. And if you are king Xerxes, you have someone who will get up and read them for you. And it just so happened that the point at which the record was opened allowed Mordecai to be re-discovered having saved the king’s life from an assassination attempt.
The comical misunderstanding of Haman proposing an honour for himself not knowing it would go to Mordecai follows on in chapter 6. You just know now, as his wife tells him in v13, that it has now begun to go very badly indeed for Haman. Events now inexorably inch towards salvation for the Jews and the destruction of Haman and his line.
It is sobering and humbling for me to recall that at the time of the Jerry Springer the Opera theatre tour in 2006, there would have been no protests and no action had I not called for them, organised them and led them. And there would have been no triumph to talk about afterwards.
Mordecai said to Esther, ‘who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?’ Esther was unique. There had never been anyone in the history of the earth like her and there never would be again. Each of us can say the same. Each of us is unique, and when we die, our especial God-given qualities will die with us. Time is short and we need to use every minute.
Esther was also uniquely placed. Only she could go in to the king and make the petition she did. Each of us can say the same. We are all uniquely placed, and the opportunities the Lord presents us with in life, whether we fulfill them or not, will die with us.
The Lord God has a plan and a purpose for each one of us. All we have to do is find it (or ask him for it) and surrender to it. As we go through life and fulfill the purpose and the ministry the Lord lays upon us, we shall come across desperate situations which need prayer, fasting, unity and seeking the Lord for action. And as we do all of that, we can faithfully believe for the unexpected to intrude as heaven makes an impact on earth. In short, we can expect a miracle.
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