Faithfulness when God seems Silent - Esther 1

We're in the Book of Esther. I'm telling you that up front so you can. If you have a Bible, I'm giving you longer to find it. If you've got a phone, that's cheating. It's not often we have to go rummaging for those little books in the Old Testament, just a couple of pages long.

So you can turn there. We're going to be in Esther 1 today. A number of years ago, Cindy and I embarked on an extension of our house. And one of our favorite things to do was that after the builders had gone home each night, we would go out to the area where they were working, and we would just kind of imagine ourselves in that space. We'd go and stand on the slab and say, here's where the bath's going to be.

Here's where our bed's going to be. Here's where the lounge is going to go. We'd kind of work our way through it. And I remember one evening we went out there and it was after they just put all the insulation in. So they put all the insulation in the walls and in the ceiling, but they hadn't sheeted it up yet.

And so we went out there and we were standing in this big rumpus room area surrounded by this insulation. And it was incredible, the impact it had on the sound in the room. We were talking to one another, only standing like a couple of feet apart and talking at normal volume. And it felt like we were whispering. It was kind of unsettling, the quietness of that space.

I read about another room. I was going to say similar, but it's not quite. It's actually a laboratory in the US and this laboratory has been specially built. It's like a room inside a room inside a room. It's been designed to be the quietest place on Earth.

And so they've done all these things to make it really quiet. You can look it up online and you can actually pay to go and spend some time in the space. The people who go and experience this room report being able to hear the sound of their blood moving through their own veins. Now, I don't know if that's true, but that's what they say. Some people even say they can hear the sound of their own eyelids closing when they blink.

This is a very quiet room, I suspect, especially those of you with small children. This sounds like a dream. Like sounds like, can I get one of those in my house? But here's the thing. The team who built it say that without the ordinary sounds, that we use to orient ourselves within spaces that the people who go and stand in that room actually start to lose their balance.

So much so that within half an hour, people who are standing are so disoriented that they have to sit down. According to reports, the lack of sound is so disturbing that no one has lasted more than 45 minutes in the room. I'm not sure we necessarily want one of those in our house anymore. I suspect none of us have experienced that room. If you have come and tell me after, I want to hear about it.

But I know a lot of us know what it is feels like to experience life when the world is loud. But God seems silent. For some of us, perhaps it's been in the middle of a crisis. For others, maybe it's just the accumulation of ordinary days where it feels like maybe God's not hearing you. Perhaps in the middle of the night you've cried out to God and you've asked God, where are you in all of this?

If you've ever had that experience? Or maybe this series is setting you up for success later on. But these things are important as we come to the Book of Esther. Because in this book there are no prayers recorded, there's no miracles, there's no angels, there's no prophets speaking. God's name isn't even written in the text.

And yet, while God isn't mentioned, he's everywhere in it. He's arranging his positioning, he's protecting, he's providing behind the scenes. The famous Charles Spurgeon said this. Although the name of God does not occur in the Book of Esther, the Lord himself is there most conspicuously in every incident which it relates. I have seen portraits which require no name because they were such striking likeness that the moment you looked upon them, you knew them.

And so this series, that's what we're going to see. We're going to see that even in the silence that God is at work. And we're going to be reminded that just as he was then, he is at work in your life too. Today we're going to do a lot of kind of setting the scene, the context, and kind of laying the groundwork for the series. But there are two things I want to draw out of this first kind of chapter and a half that we're going to work through this morning.

And those things will come up on the screen now. They're two really important reminders and I hope they sit in your spirit this morning. Firstly, that God is at work even through human foolishness. And that God is at Work, even through unwanted circumstances. So let's turn to chapter one and verse one and read together.

These events happened in the days of King Xerxes, who reigned over 127 provinces stretching from India to Ethiopia. At that time, Xerxes ruled his empire from his royal throne at the fortress of Susa. In the third year of his reign, he gave a banquet for all his nobles and and officials. He invited all the military officers of Persia and Media, as well as the princes and nobles of the provinces. The celebration lasted 180 days.

A tremendous display of the opulent wealth of his empire and the pomp and splendor of his majesty. So we come to these opening verses. We have the author sets the scene for us. We're given the time and the place where these events are set. We're in Susa, it's the capital of the Persian Empire.

It's in modern day Iran, and it's during the reign of King Xerxes. To help us understand and kind of try and fit this within the Old Testament timeline of the Bible. Over 100 years before, roughly before Esther, Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians. The temple and the city had been destroyed. The Jews that were left alive had been carried off into exile and captivity in Babylon.

And then the Babylonians had fallen to the Persians. And under Cyrus, some of the Jews had been allowed to return to Jerusalem. So we have here in Esther the story happening in Susa. This is happening at the same time that the Book of Ezra tells us about that remnant of Jews who have returned to Jerusalem. Remember last year we looked at Nehemiah, which is like part two of Ezra about the more Jews returning.

And so this is where the Book of Esther fits. We're soon going to read in Esther, and I don't think this will spoil it for you because I suspect most of you know this, but we're going to read that there's a plot to destroy the Jews, to destroy God's covenant people, the line through which Jesus was promised. And this plot was designed to wipe them out completely. It was designed to wipe them out in Susa, in Jerusalem, all across the Persian Empire. This plot was to get rid of all of them.

Now, for us today, we might think that this story is set in an ancient time, in an ancient place, but it's actually the story of God keeping his covenant promise. Keeping his covenant promise to send a Messiah to the Jews and to you and me. And so that's why it's really important for us. And so in these opening verses, we see that The Persian ruler Xerxes, he's decided to have a banquet. He's probably having discussions about launching war against Greece.

And he gets together all his military officials, he gets together his nobles. He gets together all the important people in the empire. Now it's actually a series of banquets. It's not just one banquet. It's six months of banquets.

And after that, just for good measure, in verse five, he says, let's have another banquet. This one will invite all the people, all the residents of Susa. We're going to have another banquet. And then in verse 10, we read of Xerxes wife. It says, on the seventh day of the feast, when King Xerxes was in high spirits, the because of the wine, he told the seven eunuchs who attended him.

Mehuman, Biztha, Habonah, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, kakas. Don't go there for baby names, all right? If you're after names for your kids, don't go there. I won't be able to pronounce them at the dedication. So he asked them to bring Queen Vashti to him with the royal crown on her head.

He wanted the nobles and all the other men to gaze on her beauty, for she was a very beautiful woman. But when they conveyed the king's orders to Queen Vashti, she refused to come. This made the king furious and he burned with anger. We're supposed to see the irony in these events. The author has laid it on thick in those opening verses about the pomp and the splendor of Xerxes, about his power and his wealth.

But as soon as we have this image of this a king who it seems his power and his wealth is unrivaled, it all starts to crumble. And it crumbles because his wife says no to him. What he asks of her is deeply degrading. He says, come and parade yourself in front of hundreds and hundreds of drunk men. It's foolish.

And so Vashti says no. And Xerxes is furious. And underneath his fury, he's feeling humiliated. He's not used to people saying no to him. And so Xerxes gets his advisors around and says to them, what do I do?

What do I do? And his advisor, Memucan, it's not to be confused with Mehuman, who we had before different people, tells the king in verse 16, Queen Vashti has wronged not only the king, but also every noble and citizen throughout your empire. Women everywhere will begin to despise their husbands when they Learn that Queen Vashti has refused to appear before the king. Before this day is out, the wives of all the king's nobles throughout Persia and Medea will hear what the queen did and will start treating their husbands the same way. There'll be no end to their contempt and anger.

The foolishness of Xerxes is now compounded by more foolishness. The king's wife says no to him. So he gathers his advisors, and these are supposedly wise men that he's supposed to listen to. And their response to him is, the queen has said no to you. We now have a constitutional crisis.

We now have a nationwide problem. The empire is going to crumble. You must respond with a decree that goes to every province, in every language. That is a binding law that says, firstly, that Vashti will be banished from your presence, and second, that women everywhere must give their husbands proper respect and men must be masters in their own homes. Now, let me just break this down for you for a moment.

In the opening section of Esther, what we've had, we've had a king who parties and drinks to excess. We've then got a king who puts his wife, tries to put his wife in a compromising position, whose pride is very, very easily wounded, who then responds to his pride being wounded by sending a decree to tell the whole empire of his disgrace. It's foolishness. Isn't it? Foolish?

It is so foolish, he wants everyone to know, my wife has said no to me. But your wives are not allowed to do that.

But even in the midst of all of this foolishness, God is still at work. You see? Exactly what needed to happen is happening. Vashti is removed and the throne is vacant. And this is the door that we're going to see in the chapters that come through which God is going to rescue his people.

Now, let me be really clear for a minute here. I think this is an important caveat. God didn't cause Xerxes foolishness. This was not God's doing. But God is sovereign, and God is at work through it.

Now, I think for some of us this morning, this alone is perhaps an important reminder. I think some of you are possibly looking at your life at the moment, and it looks chaotic, it looks out of control. Maybe there's been things, unexpected things that have come. Perhaps foolishness, even foolishness of other people. Maybe it's impossible for you to see how God could possibly work through it.

But the opening chapter of Esther says to us that nothing can stop what God plans to do. Nothing can stop what God plans to do nothing can get in the way of God's promises. So we're going to turn to chapter two. Now we're going to turn to our second point, which is God is at work, even in unwanted circumstances. But after Xerxes anger had subsided, he began thinking about Vashti and, and what she had done and the decree he had made.

Chapter two actually takes us forward in time. There's a four year space between the end of chapter one and the start of chapter two. And in between this space, Xerxes has actually gone and waged war, tried to invade Greece, and it's been a monumental failure. And so he's returned to Susa probably feeling humiliated on the battlefield, feeling humiliated in the palace. And he's realized that he misses Vashti.

He's considered that maybe this decree, which he can't even, he can't overturn, was made in haste. And so his attendants, they come up with a plan. Now I would be saying to them, you've done enough, just leave it. But they come up with a plan. And their plan is, we'll search the whole empire and we'll find the most beautiful young women and we'll get them ready over 12 months with good food and beauty, to treatments, and each one will be taken to the king.

And the one who impresses you, pleases you the most, they will become the queen. Now, it's awful. That is actually awful. These women were not asked, they're not invited. It's not a beauty pageant that they've applied for.

They're taken by force away from their families, from their communities and put into the palace in Susa. And it's really important. There are two things in scripture that we need to be careful to distinguish between. The first one is that some things in scripture are descriptive, that is that they are describing things that have happened. And these are often sinful things by sinful people in a sinful world.

And then scripture also has prescriptive things, prescription. Prescriptive things are the things that God is telling us to do. Now, hopefully you've realized that this is descriptive. It's not prescriptive. It's descriptive.

It is something that is not good. We're not supposed to look at this and say, great, fantastic, this is Esther's chance. We're supposed to look at this and say, this is part of a sinful world. It's a pagan empire in a sinful place. But we can read it and we can know that God is still at work in the midst of it.

And we see that Even more clearly as we come to verse five of chapter two. At that time, there was a Jewish man in the fortress of Susa whose name was Mordecai, son of Jair. He was from the tribe of Benjamin and was a descendant of Kish and Shimei. His family had been among those who, with King Jehoiachin of Judah, had been exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar. This man had a very beautiful and lovely young cousin, Hadassah, who was also called Esther.

When her father and mother died, Mordecai adopted her into his family and raised her as his own daughter. So here we read. First of Mordecai, we hear that he is from the tribe of Benjamin. His family had been carried into Babylon in exile. He'd remained there in Susa even after other Jews had returned to Judah.

It's clear by his presence within Susa as an exile in a foreign land that Mordecai has some level of political or judicial role. Then we meet Esther, and we read she's from Mordecai's family. She's also a Jew living in a pagan society, but she's even more vulnerable in that she is an orphan. We see that both of her parents have died, and Mordecai takes her in. Her cousin takes her in and raises her as his own daughter.

There's two things I just quickly want to highlight here before we move on. The first is, isn't it incredible who God uses? Isn't it incredible who God uses? We see this pattern all through scripture. God uses, more often than not, the most unlikely people to do the most incredible things.

There was nothing about Esther which would have said, she's the one who is going to save God's people from Xerxes. She's the one who is going to work behind the scenes and with the king to rescue God's people to ensure that God's covenant promise is kept. And yet God chooses her. God chooses her, and he's still choosing unlikely people to do his work. I feel encouraged by that.

I hope you do, too. Second, we're given two names here for Esther, and I just really quickly want to touch on these. The first one is her Hebrew name. It's Hadassah. And that word means myrtle.

And that's important because both Isaiah and Zechariah speak of myrtle trees. And as a symbol of God's restoration, we read in Isaiah 55 that where thorns once grew, God promises myrtle will come and grow in its place. That's her Hebrew name. But we also have her Persian name, Esther, and that comes from the Persian word star. But it also carries another meaning in the Hebrew because it's close.

It's not the same as, but it's close to the Hebrew word. Hebrew word satar, which means to hide. And that word points to something significant, because over in Deuteronomy 31, God is warning his people that there will be a season that comes where he hides his face from them. And the phrase given to that is Hester Panem, the hidden face of God. So isn't it interesting that Esther's name whispers what the whole book shouts?

God is hidden, but that doesn't mean he's absent. He's not absent. We'll just touch on verse eight, and then we're going to close. As a result of the king's decree, Esther, along with many other young women, were brought to the king's harem at the fortress of Susa and placed in Hegai's care. Hegai was very impressed with Esther and treated her kindly.

He quickly ordered a special menu for her and provided her with beauty treatments. He also assigned her seven maids specially chosen from the king's palace. And he moved her and her maids into the best place in the harem. It almost makes it sound nice, doesn't it? The king makes a decree.

Esther's brought in. But remember, these are circumstances that are not of her choosing. She's beautiful, and so she's taken. Remember, this is descriptive. It's the way the world worked.

The king thought his power was absolute. He thought he was calling the shots. But our second point today is that God is at work, even through unwanted circumstances. I think some of us might find ourselves there this morning. Maybe it's happening in your life right now.

Maybe it's been a past season that there are things in your life that you never would have chosen for yourself. There are things that are unfair or they're unjust, things that you didn't ask for. And maybe you're asking, how can God possibly work in this? You know, Esther's story is a reminder for you today that God does work, even in unwanted circumstances. And one of the ways God works is there.

In verse nine, we see that Esther is noticed by Haggai. Haggai is a Persian official, and he shows favor towards Esther. We don't really know why. The verse doesn't really specifically say why. But there's a few places in Esther's story where she is shown this kind of favor.

We're going to see later in chapter two that There's a word used for the favor shown to her by the king and it's hinted at here as well. It's a Hebrew word, hesed, and that word is an Old Testament word that was used to describe God's loyal covenant, keeping faithful love to his people. And so even in the midst of unwanted circumstances, God is working here. Esther is experiencing the God ordained favor of the people around her. Not other people who are followers of God, but instead pagan people here in Susa are showing her a God ordained God provided favor.

And that favor is going to progress her through this story. We're going to see that in the coming weeks. As we close this morning, I just want to leave you with this thought. I think sometimes we can go to these stories, particularly history like this in God's Word, and we can read it and we can think, isn't it wonderful? Isn't it great?

I'm encouraged that God was at work back then. It's a wonderful thing that he's at work in Esther's life, in Mordecai's life, in the lives of those Jews trying to live faithfully in exile. But then we get to the end of the Bible and we think that God's not at work anymore. But I want to tell you that God is still writing his story. God is still at work.

He's still writing his story, and he's writing it through people like you and me. So if there's circumstances in your life right now that look foolish, or there are circumstances you didn't want, let me remind you that God is at work. You might not be able to see him, but he's there. He's working behind the scenes. He's at work.

And that's where for us, as the New Testament church, there's something very, very special, a promise that we have that they didn't have there in the Old Testament. See, Jesus said to his disciples, it's better that I go, because if I go, then the comforter will come. And that word, comforter means someone who comes and stands alongside.

So when you look at the circumstances of your life and it feels like God is silent. We have the promise of Scripture that the comforter is there, the comforter, the Spirit is there with you in the midst of confusion. You have the very presence of God with you.

Today is actually Pentecost Sunday. And Pentecost Sunday is the Sunday in the kind of annual calendar where we remember specifically Acts 2 and the Spirit coming at Pentecost, where the Spirit was poured out on the believers on the disciples there. And what I love about that moment is what had come before it. Because the disciples were there waiting. They'd seen Jesus die, He'd risen again, but then he'd left.

They're waiting, they're kind of confused. They're not sure exactly what's going to come. And in the midst of their confusion, what do they receive? They receive the very presence of God. They receive the Spirit in the midst of that time.

And here's the thing. The same Spirit that came at Pentecost is still at work in God's people today. He has not changed. He's still filling, he's still empowering, he's still gifting his people. And so whatever it is that you might be walking through, whatever silence you might feel you're in the midst of, you are not without help, you're not without comfort, you're not without power.

You have the same promise of the Holy Spirit, who is more than enough for whatever it is you're facing. And so over the next five weeks, as we work our way through this story together, my prayer is that each one of us would be reminded that God is a covenant keeping God. That he is a God who keeps his promises, that his promises are trustworthy, that he hasn't changed. And that even in the silence, even when you can't see him, even when you can't feel it, he's still at work. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word. Holy Spirit, we invite you to move amongst us now. You're welcome here. We thank you that your presence here is not something we have to hope for. It's something we can be confident in.

Come and bring comfort to those who are helping. Thank you that Jesus promised that you would be the comforter, you'd be the advocate. Would you bring your power to those who are feeling weary? Would you speak to those who feel that God is silent?

Would you remind us that you are the same? The same spirit that we see move in power through the early church is the same spirit who is here today. So we thank you for that. God, we want to thank you that you are a covenant keeping God. We want to thank you that when we come to the story of Esther, that you remind us that you keep your promises, that you promised a Messiah would come, and that you would not allow human foolishness or unwanted circumstances to get in the way of keeping your promise.

Lord, we thank you that you haven't changed, that you are a covenant promise keeping God even today. And we thank you that we can stand on the truth of your word, that we can stand on your promises, that we can know them to be true in Christ. And so we ask you, Lord, for those who are seeking you today, who feel like they're in a season of silence. God, would you speak to them? Would you show them a glimpse of your hand at work in their life, in their circumstances, whatever it is that they are needing.

God, we thank you that you are a loving father who provides, and would you provide for them this morning. Lord, we pray your blessing now upon each person. Holy Spirit, would you be at work empowering each one of us to live for you? We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.