Today, we’re concluding my message series “Bright Living In A Dark World. We’ve been looking at the ancient book of Esther as a model for how we should live for God in the world that God has put us into. Our world in the 21st century AD is a dark world, but so was the world of the Persian empire that Esther found herself in the 5th century BC.
Let’s review the story of Esther so far that we’ve covered. If you haven’t yet read the book of Esther, I encourage you to read it this week, it’s only ten chapters long. The setting of the book of Esther is the capital city of the Persian empire ruled over by King Xerxes. The queen of the empire was deposed and a young Jewish girl, Esther was chosen to replace her. Esther was part of the exiled Jewish community in Persia. Esther’s uncle Mordecai counseled Esther to conceal her Jewish identity and remained in contact with her.
Mordecai saved King Xerxes life by uncovering a conspiracy against him. However, Mordecai was hated by the evil prince Haman for refusing to bow to him. Haman conspired to destroy both Mordecai and the entire Jewish community throughout the Persian empire and a date was set. Mordecai persuaded Queen Esther to risk her life and approach King Xerxes with the goal of thwarting Haman’s evil plot. Esther requested that a banquet be held with the King and Haman. At the first banquet, Esther did not reveal her concern, but requested a second banquet with King Xerxes and Haman. That’s where we left of last week with the question, how could Esther persuade the King to reverse the decree to destroy the Jews?
So today, my message title is “Believing In God’s Power.” We’re going to see how God’s power, not only raised Esther to be queen but used her to bring deliverance for the Jews. What does this story from thousands of years ago have to do with us? NIV Romans 15:4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. The stories in the Old Testament, such as the book of Esther was written to teach you about how God works in our world. Esther was written to encourage you and give you hope to live in the dark world of the 21st century.
Now, I’m going to give away the ending to the story, if you haven’t read Esther yet. It is a great ending, evil is defeated and Esther and Mordecai are honored. We’ll see how God’s power accomplished that today. A thinking person might ask me the question, Pastor Dan, what is God teaching us in Esther, that evil will always be defeated and the righteous always exalted? The answer to that question is Yes and No. The proper understanding of that answer is crucial to your understanding of God, the Bible and life.
Theologians call the concept the Already and the Not Yet. Here it is in a nutshell. One day, all evil will be defeated and every righteous person exalted. When will that be? It will be at the end of time when Christ returns. However, in our lives, we do not always see evil defeated and righteousness always exalted. We are living in the Not Yet. But oftentimes we do already see evil defeated and righteousness exalted. We are living in the Already. NIV 1 Corinthians 15:25 For he [Jesus] must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. So you and I are living in the period of time where Jesus is reigning and defeating enemies already. However not yet do we see all enemies defeated. Our destiny is to allow Christ to use us to bring the not yet into the already and we do that through faith.
To hear more about this topic, listen to my April 1, 2007 message entitled Believing In God’s Power