Divine Providence: Queen Esther
Evening August 20, 1893.
[The fourth chapter of Esther was read before the prayer.] I read now, once more, the last message sent by Mordecai to Esther:
"Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. 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 shalt be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
If the house of Jacob was about to perish with hunger when the providence of God in the career of Joseph, as we pointed out this morning, came to their relief, and by that singular and long chain of providence, God saved them from perishing, the descendants of the same family were in still more imminent peril at the time of which I have read. Ahasuerus, as he is called here, is the same king who is called Xerxes by the Greeks. His name, as spelled in the ancient Persian letters, is a long row of consonants—about eight or ten consonants strung together, utterly unpronouncable by an English tongue. The Greeks, in making a staggering effort to spell it in their language, got it Xerxes, and the Hebrew got it Ahasuerus; and one is about as near the real Persian name as the other. He is the king, you recollect, who led into Europe233 the largest army that ever marched to battle; and it is supposed that the events in the career of Esther transpired after his return from that great expedition. His kingdom extended over one hundred and twenty provinces, including the whole of Asia that was then known, reaching out to the vicinity of modern China; and within that dominion at that time lived all the Jews, every one of them. A man by the name of Haman, as you well remember, had become so great a favorite with the king that he not only made him his prime minister, elevating him above all his princes, but issued a decree that every subject of his realm should do obeisance by bending the knee when Haman should pass by. There was a venerable Jew, doubtless a man of wealth and power and distinction, by the name of Mordecai, who sat at the King's gate—this expression indicating that he was one of the attendants about the royal palace, something of a courtier. For some reason, unexplained, Mordecai refused to bow the knee, or to do any act of obeisance to Haman. I do not know why, unless it was that he knew the man, and being a proud, self-reliant man, he preferred to risk the king's displeasure, and any penalty that might be laid upon him, rather than bow the knee to a hypocrite and a scoundrel. I don't know whether he did right or not, but somehow or other I honor a man of such iron nerve as that. Haman had not noticed the fact, so full was his eye of all the crowd that were bowing around him as he passed along, until some one called his attention to it, and told him that Mordecai was a Jew. As soon as he learned the fact, and learned that Mordecai was a Jew, we are told that he dismissed the idea of taking vengeance on one man, and resolved that he would have every Jew on earth put to death for that insult. I have known men, when a negro would insult them, to wish every negro on earth234 in the grave; or, if enraged by an Irishman, they curse all the Irish in the world; or, if it was a Jew, they would wish like Haman that all the Jews were dead. I hardly think that any one of these men, if the power were put in their hands to carry out such a wish, would really execute it. Not so with Haman. His spirit of revenge, his pride, his arrogance, were so enormous that he actually determined that for the insult of this one Jew he would kill every Jew, man, woman, and child, that breathed the breath of life in the whole earth. If Mordecai knew beforehand that he was a man of that spirit, I think he did right not to bend the knee to him. So, going in to the King, he says: "O King, there is a people in thy realm, scattered throughout all of thy provinces, who despise thy laws, and it is not good for thy kingdom that they should live. Now, send forth a decree which, according to the laws of the Medes and Persians can not be reversed, that they shall all be put to death, and I will put ten thousand talents of silver into the King's treasury to execute this business." The King said, "Here is my ring; take it; issue the decree." Those Persian kings did not stop to consider human life. The only question was, What is the interest of my dominion; of my reign; of my authority over this portion of the earth which I control? The decree was issued. Scribes were called in; it was written out in all the different languages of the one hundred and twenty provinces. Posts were sent in great haste. Lots were cast to see what day the decree should be executed, and it fell on the 13th day of the twelfth month. Just eleven months now, and every Jew on earth will be slain. These letters commanded the kings and the rulers in every place where there were Jews to rise and murder them on that day—old men and young, little children and women, and not to spare one. What an awful thing that was!
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When Mordecai heard of the decree, he knew that Haman was determined on its execution. He knew very well, and every Jew throughout the realm knew, that by that strange article in the constitution of the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, a decree once sent forth by the king, with his seal appended, could not be reversed or repealed. I do not know why they adopted such a law, unless it was, that the men who devised it supposed that if they made that a law, the King would be extremely careful what kind of decrees he sent out; he would consider every one maturely; he would call in the wisest counsellors always before he issued a decree, and then, when it was sent out, he would feel absolutely certain that it was wise; there would be no vacillation—passing laws one day and repealing them the next. A good deal of good sense in it after all. All the nation of the Jews knew that they were in his power; they felt that their time had almost come—eleven months more and there would not be a child of Abraham left on this earth. Suppose that the decree had been executed, then all the promises that God had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would have been brought to nothing; all the prophecies thus far uttered in regard to the future history of that people, and of our Saviour, and of Christian religion, would have fallen to the ground. God's solemn assurance concerning Israel made to Jeremiah more than once, "though I make a full end of all nations, I will never make a full end of thee," would have been falsified. Never, in the whole history of the Jewish race, were they brought into so fearful a crisis as at this hour.
Now, I wish to trace—as I did this morning by the facts in the career of Joseph—I wish to trace the causes, one after another, linked in like the links of a chain, by which this awful calamity was averted. I have not the236 benefit of a statement made in connection with the history recited this morning, the statement of Joseph to his brethren, "It was not you that sent me to Egypt, but it was God," because the name of God is not found in the book of Esther (the only book in all the Bible which does not contain the name of God), so we shall be compelled to grope our way tonight through these facts, and see if we can find God in them, though he be not named, just as, in the facts of history transpiring today, and in the facts of our own individual lives, we are often compelled, if we would find God at all, to search for him without inspired guidance, and see where his hand has been stretched out. How, then, was this fearful, and to the mind of every Jew in that day (except, perhaps, that of Mordecai alone) this inevitable fate averted? He had faith, as his. message to Esther shows, that it might be. You have seen the first step that was taken. The queen, dearly beloved by the King, was a Jewess, and had been a little orphan girl—neither father nor mother—taken care of by an old man, who was her cousin. Mordecai sends word to her, "Go in unto the King, and plead with him for the life of thy people." But what could be her plea? Since the decree had been passed and sent out over the earth, and can not be reversed, what can be her plea? Mordecai did not know. I do not know that she could divine what she would say, if she went in; and then that strange law of the King that no person should be allowed to go into the inner court where he sat upon his throne, uncalled for, at the risk of being instantly killed by the guards that stood near, unless the King should see fit to hold out toward him the golden sceptre! "The King has not called me into his presence." I do not suppose that she had not seen the King, but she meant into his presence in the royal court. "He has not called me into his presence for thirty237 days, and how can I go?" "Who knows," says Mordecai, in his answer, "but what thou art raised up to the kingdom for such a time as this?" In looking around and searching, by the keenest judgment that he had as to the possibilities of a deliverance of the people, he could not see a gleam of hope except in that young girl. He could scarcely see it there. Who knows but what it may be so? And when he insisted, what a noble answer that was which she sent back to him: "Go and gather all the Jews in the city together, and tell them, every one of them, to fast day and night three days, and I and my maidens will fast at the same time, and then I will go in unto the King." She did not say what she would say to him. "I will go in unto the King, and if I perish, I perish." O brethren, that was a noble resolve for a young girl who had been an orphan child and raised up suddenly to the highest position that a woman could occupy, thus to throw her life, as it were, upon the possibility of doing something to rescue her people. She went. How could she expect, going in after three days' fast, although she put on her royal apparal, that even the beauty of her person would attract the King? Would she not be pale and thin and haggard? But I presume that the risk she was Tunning, the very risk she took when she went there, imparted a fresh glow to her cheeks, and that her solemn and almost divine self-sacrifice for the good of others, must have added a new luster to her eyes; and when she stood before the King in all that splendid beauty, and dressed in the most becoming style, at once the golden sceptre was held out. She steps up till she touches it with her hand. "What is thy request and petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted to the half of the kingdom." O how her heart fluttered at those words! And, what was her answer? Why did not she238 say at once, "O King, I want you to save my people?" I suppose she was afraid to say that, for fear he would say no. She says, "My request and my petition, O King, if I have found favor in thy sight, is that thou and Haman wilt come to the banquet which I have prepared for you this day." Now the King knew very well she was not going to risk her life to come in and ask for that. But he says, "I will come." He called Haman, and they went. They ate the rich viands she had prepared, and drank the wine, and when the banquet was about over, he says: "Queen Esther, what is thy petition and thy request? It shall be granted if it be half the kingdom;" and still she did not tell him what she wanted. She was afraid to speak it out. Did you never go with the intention of putting a very important question, and when the moment came, you got choked on it, and you concluded to put it off and try it again? And perhaps it was several times before you got it out. So she says: "My request, O King, if I have found favor in thy sight, is this, that thou and Haman wilt come again tomorrow for a banquet that I will prepare for thee." He says, "We will come." He knew perfectly well that she had not yet said what she wanted, and he could not divine what it was.
When Haman left the palace, he hastened home. But as he hastened along, he saw Mordecai, and Mordecai did not bow to him. He called in his friends and his wife, and told them all about his riches, and his greatness, and the multitude of his children, and said: "Queen Esther made a banquet today, and she invited no man in all the kingdom except me to come in with the King to dine, but all of this is nothing to me so long as that man Mordecai sits by the King's gate and will not do me obesiance." What a poor miserable wretch, to allow a thing like that to make him miserable, when239 he had everything else on earth that he wanted. Well, there are some men just that way, precisely that way. There is just one speck in their horizon that does not look to suit them, and they make themselves miserable over that, and all they have else, though it fill their hearts' desires, can not make them contented. Well, says Zeresh, his wife, If that is all, command a gallows to be made here this night seventy-five feet high, and go in the morning early and get the King to let you hang Mordecai on it; that will be the end of him. She was a wise woman. Well, I will do that. Doubtless he had his carpenters working all night putting up the gallows. While this scene was taking place in the palace (for I have no doubt it was a splendid palace, that of the prime minister), a very different one was taking place in the palace of the King. He could not sleep that night; restless, tossing about; and he got up to read until he would get sleepy. He called for the chronicles of his kingdom, and had one of his clerks to bring the book in which the important records of his reign had been written down day after day, and to read in it. As he read, he came to an account of two of his chamberlains, who had laid a plot to assassinate him, when Mordecai had discovered it and revealed it to him. He said, "What honor has been bestowed upon Mordecai for that?" "No honor at all, O King." He felt ashamed of himself. It was daylight now; he heard a footstep in the court. "Who is in. the court?" "Haman." "Tell him to come in." Haman had come for permission to hang Mordecai. He comes in. "Haman, what shall be done to the man. whom the King delights to honor?" Haman instantly says to himself, "That means me; for who is it the King delights to honor unless it be I?" He did not think long until he said, "Let this be done. Let the royal apparel240 that the King is used to wear be brought out, and the King's horse, and the crown he wears on his head, and command one of thy noblest princes to put the royal apparel and the crown on him, and put him on the horse, and lead him through the streets of the city, and proclaim as he leads him along, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King delights to honor." Well, Haman, you get out the apparel and the crown and the horse, and take Mordecai the Jew, and put him on that horse, and lead him through the streets, and proclaim, "Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King delights to honor." There was no alternative. Haman had to do it. And when he got through leading the horse around, he went home with his head covered, bowed down, the most wretched man in the city. He called his friends and his wife together again, and told them all about it, and his wife showed her good sense again. She said, "Haman, if that is a Jew before whom you have begun to fall, you will go down." She knew the history of those Jews. She had heard, I suppose, about Daniel, whose enemies went into the lions' den. She had heard, perhaps, about the fiery furnace. "If that is a Jew before whom you have begun to fall, you will go down." There is no hope for you.
Just at this time the messenger comes to hurry him off to the banquet that Esther had prepared, and he went with the King. They sat down to eat and drink; got through. "Queen Esther," says the King, "what is thy petition and thy request?" The time had now come when she felt that she must tell it. Whether the answer be yes, or no, it must come. She says, "O King, if I have found favor in thy sight, my petition and my request is that my life shall be given to me, and the life of my people; for we are sold to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. If we had been sold, O King, to be bondmen and241 bondwomen, I would not have opened my mouth. But how can we perish, and who can recompense the King for the loss, when all of us shall be slain?" The King arose in a great passion, and demanded, "Who is he, and where is he that has done this thing?" "The man who has done it, O King, is that wicked Haman." A thunder storm is now brewing in the heart of the King. He does not want to do anything hasty or rash. He leaps up and walks out into the garden; walks around trying to cool his senses, so stunned was he with this revelation. He remembers that Haman had entrapped him into signing that decree, and Haman, he sees clearly, is the author of it. He comes back and sees Haman down on the rich rug on which the queen was seated, kneeling at her feet, and he made a remark that caused the guards to rush forward and seize him, and cover his head. Harbonah, one of those guards, who did not love Haman any too well, says: "O King, he has raised a gallows fifty cubits high in the court of his house to hang Mordecai." "Hang him on it." And it was done. What a fearful outcome to the arrogance and pride and ambition of an ungodly, cruel man. It sometimes happens in this world. A man had not better act thus, if there is a God reigning in heaven, and if there are any true men here on earth.
But Haman is out of the way now. What was the next step? Mordecai is sent for. The King's ring is put into his hand. He is elevated to the vacant office. But what can he do to save his people from the effects of a decree that can not be altered? The King himself has no power to reverse it. What can he do? Once more he appeals to Esther, Go in before the King once more and ask him that something may be done to avert this awful calamity. At the risk of her life, she went again. Again the golden sceptre is held out. She asks the King242 that some measure may be adopted to save her people. He pulls off his ring and hands it to Mordecai and says, "Do as you can," but he did not know what could be done. Mordecai was to act. So he drew up a decree, and signed it with the King's seal, and the name of the King's council, and sent it with all possible haste to every province, ordering that on the 13th day of the twelfth month the Jews shall all arm themselves and stand up and defend themselves against every man who shall attack them, and put to death every man who shall seek to slay them. The decree went out. Of course, when this new decree came, every man in office was immediately afraid of the Jews. The people became their friends, and when the day came, every man that attempted to kill a Jew was killed himself, and there was a great deliverance.
Now, what is there in all this to show the providence of God? Let us see if we can find it. The decree that Mordecai sent out was what averted the effects of the first decree, and saved the nation. How did he happen to send out that decree? Because the King extended the sceptre to Esther the second time. If he had not done that, the decree would not have been issued. And how did Mordecai happen to be the man who had the wisdom and the intelligence to devise the plan and execute it? Having saved the King's life and been highly honored by him, when Haman was slain Mordecai was put in his place. All thus far depended upon the circumstance of the King deciding to make Mordecai the successor of Haman. But on what did the fact that Mordecai was alive at that moment, so as to be made Prime Minister, depend? It depended upon the fact that Haman got into the court that morning when he went to have Mordecai hung, just after the clerk had been reading about Mordecai saving the King's life. If he had gotten in ten minutes sooner,243 the clerk would not have read that far, and the King would have said, Yes, go on and hang him; for, having decreed the death of all the Jews in the world, it would have only been hanging one of them a little in advance of the others. Haman got in just a little too late; and how did that happen? Can you tell? You call it an accident, perhaps; but how did it happen that the King that night heard the story read about Mordecai saving his life? Why, he could not sleep. Well why couldn't he sleep? I don't know. It may have been because he ate too much supper. It may have been because he had too much care on his mind about his government. May be he had the head-ache. There are forty things you can think of that might have kept him from sleeping. But was it accidental, when all those tremendous consequences were hanging upon it? How did it happen, in the next place, that the King had not recollected Mordecai when the good deed was done which saved his life? You might ask how it happened that the chief butler forgot about Joseph. We can not tell. Your wife says, "Husband, did you do so and so?" "No, I forget it." "What made you forget it?" "I don't know; I just forgot it." He can not tell why. Does God know? I suspect he does. I would not be surprised if he has some hand in it sometimes. Well then, let us trace the causes a little farther back. How did it happen that there was a young Jewess at that time queen of all the realm, who, by her influence with the King, and the charms of her beauty, and the ingenuity with which she managed the case, brought down the wrath of the King upon Haman? How did that happen? You all remember that part of the story. The King made a great feast, and while he was full of wine, sent word to Vashti, his wife, to come out and show what a beauty she was. She said, "No." It244 was immodest for a woman of high rank to be seen unveiled in the presence of strange men. It was considered immodest and unladylike. I will not do it. Seven counsellors were called on to know what should be done with her, and they decided to banish her from the throne and the palace. How I honor that woman, heathen woman though she was. Rather be banished from the position of queen and driven out in disgrace, than sacrifice her ladylike modesty, even at the command of her drunken husband. O what a contrast to many ladies of high position in Christian lands, who sacrifice their modesty every day at the demand of fashion. She would not do it. After a while the King began to get sorry. He loved that beautiful woman. There never was a man who acted the fool and got separated from his wife that did not regret it afterward. But those wise counsellors were afraid of the effect of restoring the queen, so they advised him to send out a decree that the whole nation should be searched over for the most beautiful women to be found, and they should be brought to the King for him to take his choice, thinking he would find one more beautiful than Vashti. Old Mordecai knew he could not live many years more, and then what would become of Esther, a lone child? He knew she was beautiful. No doubt, in Mordecai's eyes, she was the most charming child that ever walked the earth. I will try to get her the place. So he sent her in, and she pleased the King above all others, and he loved her from the moment he saw her; and in this way that little orphan girl had become the queen of all the realm. If Vashti had not been as true to herself as she was, and had maintained her place, there would have been no chance for Mordecai to send Esther to the King. If the charms of this girl had not won the heart of the King when she was brought before him, she would245 never have been queen; so that all the facts that serve as links in this chain, delivering the Jews from the terrible decree sent out by Haman, depended, at last, upon the fidelity of Vashti to her sense of womanly modesty. And then it depended upon the beauty and attractiveness of the young Jewess, and upon her being willing to risk her life. And all those other circumstances, good and bad, interlocking, made a chain by which the final result was brought about, and the nation saved. Did God have Anything to do with it? What do you say?
A few days ago I stood in the great fair at Chicago, before a weaving machine—a wonder. There were coming out beneath the shuttles bands of silk about as wide as my hand, and perhaps a foot long, four or five coming out at one time at different parts of the loom, woven with the most beautiful figures in divers colors. One of them was "Home, Sweet Home," the words woven by that machine, and above the words was the music. There was woven at the top a beautiful cottage, trees in the yard, bee-gums, and children at play, and down below the words and music, a lone man sat, with his face resting on his hand, thinking about that distant home. All coming out of that machine. The shuttles were flying, threads were twisting and dodging about, the machine was rattling, and no human hand on it, yet there the song, the pictures, the music, were coming out. Did they come out by accident? By an accidental combination of circumstances? I could not, to save my life, tell how it was done, but I saw a pattern hanging up at one side with many holes through it, and I was told that that pattern was ruling the work of that intricate machinery, and leading to that result. I was bound to believe it. Now you could make me believe that this beautiful piece of work came out of the loom by accident, and without any man246 directing and planning it, just as easily as you can make me believe that this chain of circumstances, of facts, bringing about, in accordance with God's faithful promises, the deliverance of his people, was accomplished without him. God was there, my brethren. And just as little can I believe that all those intricate circumstances in my life and yours, which shape and mould and direct and guide us, which take us when we are crude and wicked men, and mould and shape us and grow us up until we are ripe and ready to be gathered into the eternal harvest—that all this is human, or all blind force, or accident, and that there is no hand of God in it.
In the story of Joseph, God's hand is pointed out, so that we can see how his providence wrought out his purpose. The story of Esther follows without even the name of God, and we are left, with the training imparted by the former story, to find God for ourselves in this. When we have found Him, we are prepared to find Him in our own lives.
My friends, God is dealing with you today, tonight. You can not see his hand; you may not, as in this story, hear his name; but he is here. Will you believe it? Will you act in harmony with it? Will you give yourself up to His divine guidance? Will you follow Him? If it is in your heart to do so, begin tonight. Do not delay. O, to have the hand of God to lead you! What hand can lead so safely? What eye can choose and direct your future path so well? May God help you to come and walk in the path which leadeth to everlasting life and peace.