The Hidden Queen (Esther 2:1–20) — Esther: The Hidden Hand of Providence

You'll often hear it said that God has a sense of humor, that he's an expert in the ironic.

And I do think that that is true. The Bible and history, I think, make it clear that God takes pleasure in making fools look like fools and making the wisdom of this world look like the folly that it actually is.

And when it comes to the instruments that he uses, God doesn't run his operations according to our expectations.

He doesn't limit himself to the seminary trained, to the respectable, to the morally uncomplicated.

Sometimes he picks the unlikely. Sometimes he picks the disreputable. And sometimes, as we'll see this morning, he picks the women who lie to tyrants and he calls it faith.

We're at Esther chapter two this morning. We're gonna see God at work in three characteristic ways, three patterns that show up again and again in scripture, particularly in the

Old Testament. First, we'll see the sinful intentions of these Persian leaders getting flipped on their heads.

Second, we'll see a pattern of female deception that God not only permits, but actually honors.

And third, we'll see unlikely favor granted in seemingly impossible places. And these three means, enemy schemes backfiring, women deceiving for godly purposes, and unmerited favor with pagans.

These means are God's chosen instruments for positioning in the story of Esther, his hidden queen, and in preserving his people.

And so let's read the text from Esther chapter two, verses one through 20. Hear the word of the

Lord this morning. After these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus was appeased, he remembered

Vashti and what she had done and what was decreed against her. Then said the king's servants that ministered unto him, let there be fair young virgins sought for the king and let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom, that they may gather together all the fair young virgins unto

Shushan the palace, to the house of the women under the custody of Hegai, the king's chamberlain, keeper of the women, and let their things for purification be given them.

And let the maiden which pleaseth the king be queen instead of Vashti, and the thing pleased the king, and he did so.

Now in Shushan the palace, there was a certain Jew whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a

Benjamite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity which had been carried away with Jeconiah, king of Judah, whom

Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried away. And he brought up Hadassah, that is

Esther, his uncle's daughter, for she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful, whom

Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own daughter. So it came to pass when the king's commandment and his decree was heard, and when many maidens were gathered together unto

Shushan the palace to the custody of Haggai, that Esther was brought also unto the king's house to the custody of Haggai, the keeper of the women.

And the maiden pleased him, and she obtained kindness of him and he speedily gave her things for purification, with such things as belong to her and seven maidens, which were meat to be given her, out of the king's house.

And he preferred her and her maids unto the best place of the house of the women. Esther had not showed her people nor her kindred, for Mordecai had charged her that she should not show it.

And Mordecai walked every day before the court of the women's house to know how Esther did and what should become of her.

Now when every maid's turn was come to go into King Ahasuerus, after that she had been 12 months, according to the manner of the women, for so were the days of their purifications accomplished, to wit, six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with sweet odors, and with other things for the purifying of the women.

Then thus came every maiden unto the king. Whatsoever she decided was given her to go with her, out of the house of the women, unto the king's house.

In the evening she went, and on the morrow she returned into the second house of the women, to the custody of Shayashgaz, the king's chamberlain, which kept the concubines.

She came in unto the king no more, except the king delighted in her, and that she were called by name.

Now in the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abahel, the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her for his daughter, was come to go in unto the king.

She required nothing, but what Haggai, the king's chamberlain, the keeper of the women, appointed. And Esther obtained favor in the sight of all them that looked upon her.

So Esther was taken unto King Ahasuerus, into his house royal in the tenth month, which is the month of Tibeth, in the seventh year of his reign.

And the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and favor in his sight, more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown upon her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti.

Then the king made a great feast unto all his princes and his servants, even Esther's feast. And he made a release to the provinces, and gave gifts according to the state of the king.

And when the virgins were gathered together the second time, then Mordecai sat in the king's gate. Esther had not yet showed her kindred, nor her people as Mordecai had charged her, for Esther did the commandment of Mordecai, like as when she was brought up with him.

Thus ends the reading of God's holy word. May he write it on our hearts by faith. Let's pray.

Father, again, we do thank you for your word, and we ask now that you would bless it, or that you bless the preaching of it, and that your word would be paramount in it.

Help us, Lord, again, in our time, that we'd receive all that you'd have for us this morning, by faith. Thank you for your kindness to us, that we are able to do this, have this time together, to hear from your word and be ministered to by your spirit through word and sacrament.

We ask and give thanks for all these things in Jesus' name, and amen. Amen. Now, let's start again with verses one through four.

It's unclear exactly how much time has passed between the end of chapter one and the beginning of chapter two, although we do know that the eventual marriage to Esther comes in the seventh year of Ahasuerus' reign, and the opening feast of the book was in the third year.

So we know there's at least four years between that opening feast and the eventual marriage here in verses 18, 19, and 20 of Esther chapter two, and Esther spends a year in the house of the women.

So it's somewhere within three years that we get this scheme kind of cooked up by Ahasuerus' servants, his advisors.

At some point along the way, likely after returning from a military campaign, again, he wakes up in the aftermath of this divorce from Vashti and he remembers what he did.

Again, verse one, after these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus was appeased, right, he's no longer angry, which we looked at last week, he remembered

Vashti and what she had done and what was decreed against her. Now, I don't think it's too far to read into these words that there's a bit of buyer's remorse, right?

The text is actually quite restrained here, but I think that we can read between the lines to a degree. The king is brooding, right?

He misses Vashti. Maybe he's embarrassed. Maybe he realizes he overreacted, but it's too late, nevertheless.

He decreed her removal, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked, and he's trapped now by his own edict.

And so we enter again with the king's servants, or excuse me, entering again is the king's servants with a solution.

They say, let there be fair young virgins sought for the king and let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom, that they may gather together all the fair young virgins unto

Shushan the palace, to the house of the women, and unto the custody of Haggai, the king's chamberlain, keeper of the women, and let their things for purification be given them.

And let the maid in which pleased the king be queen instead of Vashti, and the thing pleased the king, and he did so.

Now it's important, again, that we always approach the Bible with an intellectual honesty, not allow our own perceptions to dictate what's happening in the reading, even when what's happening might be morally difficult.

As Doug Wilson says, we need to be a people with no problem passages. Right, and so we should be clear about what's happening here at the beginning of chapter two of Esther.

This is not a beauty pageant. Right, this is an imperial exploitation of young women.

The king's servants are proposing a kingdom -wide roundup of young virgins to fill the king's harem so that he can have his pick.

Right, it's a plan born entirely of lust and empire, morally bankrupt in many ways from top to bottom.

They're not doing this for the glory of God. Right, they're doing it because the king needs a queen by any means necessary.

But here's where Providence, I think, starts to grin, and that's Providence with a capital P, because this wicked scheme, this selfish, exploitative plan becomes the very means by which

God positions a Jewish woman on the throne of Persia. The servants mean it for the king's pleasure, but God meant it for Israel's preservation.

They thought they were solving a personnel problem in the royal bedroom, but God was setting up a rescue operation.

And this is a pattern. Right, we've seen this before. Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery out of envy and hatred, and God uses that very betrayal to save the family from famine.

Pharaoh decrees that all Hebrew boys be thrown into the Nile, and God uses that very decree to get

Moses raised in Pharaoh's household and positioned to lead the exodus. Haman, as we'll see in future chapters here in Esther, will build a gallows for Mordecai and end up hanging on it himself.

And the devil will scheme with the Jews to put Jesus to death, and God will put death itself to death in the process.

God is a master of irony. He doesn't just overcome the schemes of his enemies, he uses them.

He hijacks their plots and repurposes them for his own glory. And it's not just that God wins in spite of evil, he wins through their evil, making it serve him whether he wants to or not.

Again, this can be a difficult thing for us to think about, but no difficult passages for the people of God. It's hard for us to comprehend.

It's hard even to defend some of these things. It can seem like that when we're debating the merits of the faith with your unhinged family members, right?

But the truth is that this ought to be a comfort to us. We all live in a world where wicked men scheme, and our unhinged aunts do too, right?

We have hope in the midst of that scheming because we're powerful people make plans that disregard God and disregard justice and disregard us.

And sometimes it feels like they're winning, which it might even right now, right? We know that they're not. That these people, these evil people who scheme, they are useful idiots at the end of the day in a drama that they don't understand.

That God is writing the script and every villain who thinks that he's in charge is actually auditioning for a bit part in a story that ends with Christ on the throne in every knee bowing to him.

And so when you see the wicked scheming, don't panic, right, never panic.

The Christian does not panic. We watch and wait because God is surely about to flip the script.

How, in the way that we expect? Probably not, but he will. And that's precisely what

God is doing here in the book of Esther. Wicked schemes from lustful men, even these

God will use for his glory. And this isn't a problem passage for us that our

God would use these types of things for his purposes, but an encouragement to us that even these wicked schemes cannot prevent his powerful hand of providence from reaching down to intervene.

Now, returning to the text at verse five, it's at this point that for the first time in the story, we're gonna meet somebody who's not a part of the

Persian empire, the leadership of the Persian empire. And we meet the heroes of the story, the human heroes, at least, in Mordecai in Esther for the first time.

Again, chapter two at verse five. Now in Shushan the palace, there was a certain Jew whose name was

Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shammai, the son of Kish, a Benjamite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity which had been carried away with Jeconiah, king of Judah, whom

Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried away. So Mordecai is a descendant of Kish.

And if you're not familiar, that is King Saul's father. And that will have some real significance to the story in future weeks when we meet

Haman in the narrative. But I would ask you to kind of put a pin in that for that to come in future weeks.

We won't cover that today. But for now, we know that Mordecai has royal blood, right?

He's a Benjamite and he's in exile now here in Persia, bearing a

Babylonian name, son of Marduk, which is a pagan god, is his name,

Mordecai. And he's raising a young girl at verse seven. And he brought up Hadassah, that is

Esther, his uncle's daughter, for she had neither father nor mother and the maid was fair and beautiful, whom

Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own daughter. And briefly, I'll say

Esther's name in Persian has two meanings, one is star and the other is hidden.

Hidden is the meaning of this young woman's name. And so it's very ironic. Again, God loves these types of stories.

But Esther's an orphan, right? And the text emphasizes this. This is not a small point. It's actually mentioned twice just in these verses.

Esther's vulnerable, right? She's dependent at the mercy of a foreign empire. But God specializes,

I think this is important for us to know. Again, I think this is why it's highlighted twice, that God specializes in being a father to the fatherless.

And he took up young Esther when her parents were gone and he did so through Mordecai, acting as God's instrument, becoming her father.

Now, thus far in Esther, we've seen the drama happening again in the courts of Persia and we're just now getting the chance to meet

God's people in this vast kingdom. And if we're reading this for the first time, right?

If we were never exposed to the book of Esther before, the story of Esther, if we were reading this just for the first time here, going through it, have no idea where it's going, we might even wonder what this book was doing in the

Bible until we come to verse eight of chapter two. And we see these two worlds colliding, right?

This Persian empire and the people of God, though it's not explicitly stated, we see how

God is moving in it, right? Again, at verse eight. So it came to pass when the king's commandment in his decree was heard.

And when many maidens were gathered together unto Shushan the palace to the custody of Hegai, that Esther was brought also under the king's house to the custody of Hegai, keeper of the women.

Esther was brought, right? She was not, she didn't go willingly necessarily, doesn't say that here.

And in fact, the word is much more akin to that she was taken, right? She didn't go, she didn't volunteer, but she was conscripted.

She was rounded up with the others. To the extent, what extent is this to? We're unsure, right?

It's not clear in the text, but we can imagine that it was not necessarily a signup sheet here.

We get this detail in verse 10 about the way in which Esther is going into the king's house.

Esther has not showed her people nor her kindred for Mordecai had charged her that she should not show it.

What does this mean? Essentially Esther at Mordecai's direction is concealing her identity.

She's a Jew, but nobody knows it. And as in Mordecai warns her, do not tell anybody that you are a

Jew. And we may wonder again, as if we're reading this for the first time, you know, we're finally seeing

God's people coming into the story. Maybe now it's finally starting to make sense why this book is in the

Bible. And then we find out that she's not even supposed to talk about the fact that she's, that she believes in the

God of scripture, the God of Israel. You know, and we might ask in our modern sensibilities, you know, why isn't she letting her light shine more freely?

Well, because Mordecai again told her to keep quiet. And here's the question that we have to wrestle with,

I think, in our understanding of Esther and how it applies to our lives today. And that is, is this a form of deception?

And if it is a form of deception that Esther and Mordecai are participating in here, is it sinful?

Is it a sinful deception before God? Now, I think, again, that we should be blunt about this and have no problem passages and say that yes, this is deception and no, it's not sinful.

Because if it was sinful, we'd have a lot of issues with what is to come in this book.

But rather, this is not sinful, it's wise, it's strategic and it's faithful. And now before you, you know, you report me to somebody and you call

Doug Wilson to tell him that I said this, he agrees with me, first of all, I'll say that. But before you do that, we wanna talk about deception in the

Bible, right? Particularly deception by women. Because again, there's a pattern here in how we should be understanding this story.

And I think we need to see it to properly understand the book of Esther and how it is that God is working through them and how it is even that God would mean to work through us today.

Again, a pattern of deception, particularly by women in the scriptures. First example that probably comes to mind for many is the

Hebrew midwives, right? In Exodus chapter one, Pharaoh commands Shippurah and Puah to kill

Hebrew boys at birth, and they don't do it. And when Pharaoh asked them why, they lie to his face, right?

They say that the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.

That's a lie, it's a bold faced lie to a tyrant. And what does God do, right?

How does God deal with these midwives? Is it ignored altogether in the text? No, it's not.

Rather, God rewards them. Even notice in the book of Exodus that Pharaoh is only ever referred to by his title.

And these two Hebrew midwives are given names in the text.

That is a significant detail that we do well not to miss. But again, God rewards them. Exodus chapter one, verse 20 and 21, we see, therefore

God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and waxed very mighty.

And it came to pass because the midwives feared God that he made them houses.

God blessed them for their deception. Not in spite of it, their lie protected innocent life and thwarted a genocidal decree.

They lied in the fear of God. Another example, Rahab in Joshua chapter two.

The spies come to Jericho, Rahab hides them, and when the king's men come looking, Rahab lies. She says, there came men unto me, but I was not whence they were.

I don't know where they went. And it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate when it was dark that the men went out.

Whether the men went, I don't know. Pursue after them quickly, for ye shall overtake them.

I don't know where they are, but if you go looking for them, you'll find them. If you remember, she hid them on the roof of her home.

She sends the pursuers on a wild goose chase. And how does the scripture deal with Rahab?

How does the New Testament even describe Rahab's actions? Hebrews chapter 11, verse 31.

By faith, the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.

And then in James chapter two, verse 25, again, Rahab dealt with twice in the New Testament and commended for her faith.

Likewise, also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another way.

By faith, she lied. By faith, she deceived. And her deception is held up as a righteous act.

Another example, Rebecca and Jacob in Genesis chapter 27. Jacob, at his mother's direction, deceives

Isaac to secure the blessing meant for Esau. And now this one is a little bit more complicated, but truly, really not all that much.

There's some moral ambiguity here and consequences follow from it. But we notice that God doesn't revoke the blessing to Jacob because he received it in deceitful ways.

Jacob's deception doesn't thwart God's purpose, it's actually woven into it. The blessing stands, and God uses even the morally messy scheming of Rebecca to accomplish what he'd already ordained, that the older would serve the younger.

And all of this is happening, again, in defiance of tyrants, because Isaac was tyrannically rebelling against the decree of God to give the blessing to the younger son.

He wasn't aloof to that promise. He was rebelling against it and wanting to give it to Esau.

And so we see God work his purpose through the deception of women. And a fourth example, this will be the last one, but there are others.

Abram and Sarai in Genesis chapter 12. When famine drives Abram into Egypt, he fears that Pharaoh will kill him to take his wife,

Sarai. This is before they become Abraham and Sarah. So he tells her to stay, or to say that she's his sister. And this is actually a half -truth in the text.

They're half, they're related. They're half -brother and sister. Don't recommend that, but it just, let's be honest.

Descriptive, not prescriptive here in Genesis chapter 12. But Sarai goes along with it, right?

Pharaoh takes her into his household, and God responds by striking Pharaoh's house with plagues until he figures out what's going on and sends them away.

Now, here's what's remarkable and requires finagling, I think, for the purists out there who think that Abram sinned by not telling the truth to Pharaoh.

Abram and Sarai leave Egypt blessed. Genesis 12, 16 says that for her sake,

Pharaoh dealt well with Abram and gave him sheep, oxen, donkeys, servants, and camels. And when

Pharaoh sends them away in chapter 13 in verse two, we see that Abram's not leaving Egypt under the judgment of God for how he went about things.

Rather, he's leaving under the great blessings of God. Again, chapter 13 in verse two, and Abram was very rich in cattle and silver and in gold as he's leaving

Egypt. They entered Egypt in famine and they left in abundance. God doesn't rebuke

Abram for the deception in this moment. Instead, he protects Sarai, he punishes

Pharaoh for taking her, and he enriches Abram upon their departure. The father of the faith, right?

Deceived a tyrant to protect his wife and himself, and God turned it into blessing. Was it perfect, right?

Was there fear mixed with faith? Sure, but God worked through it and he protected his people and he sent them out laden with the wealth of Egypt, a preview of the exodus to come.

Now, why am I going into all this? Again, I want to establish that there is a pattern in the scripture like this and help us to apply it even to ourselves.

We step back and we notice something about each of these examples. Again, whether it's the midwives,

Rahab, Rebekah, Abram and Sarai, now Esther, in every case we see women or women acting in concert with men, using deception as an act of faith to resist tyranny and protect life.

This is not accidental, right? This is a pattern that's woven in the scripture and it reveals something profound about God's methods in a fallen world.

We consider the irony of this, that in Genesis chapter three, Satan, the father of lies, deceives the woman and through that deception, death enters the world.

The serpent twisted God's word, questioned his goodness and the woman believed the lie.

And that primal deception brought curse, exile and death to the world. But throughout redemptive history,

God is turning the tables. He takes deception, the very weapon that Satan used against the woman and he puts it in the hands of faithful women to resist

Satan's tyrannical servants and to preserve life. The midwives deceive

Pharaoh and babies live. Rahab deceives the King of Jericho and the spies and eventually all

Israel are preserved. Rebekah deceives Isaac and the line of promise continues through Jacob.

Esther conceals her identity and an entire nation is saved from genocide. It's a massive reversal and a pattern that we do well to notice.

Satan's deception of the woman brought death, God's use of deception through women brings life.

The enemy's weapon is captured and repurposed for the kingdom. And I think this is what this tells us that God is not squeamish about using the tactics of war in a world at war.

He doesn't fight fair by the devil's standards because the devil has no standards, right?

God is utterly sovereign, utterly righteous and utterly committed to the preservation of his people and the advance of his kingdom.

And if that means using the courage and cunning of faithful women to deceive tyrants and mock the powers and save lives, then so be it.

And again, this ought to give us great confidence. The same God who turned Satan's primal deception into a means of life -giving reversal through faithful women is the

God who's working in our lives today and in the world that we live in today and all its issues.

He specializes in taking the enemy's schemes and flipping them. He delights in making tyrants look foolish and using the weak to shame the strong.

And so when we see evil advancing, when you see the proud and powerful scheming, don't despair.

You watch and you wait because our God is the master of the counter plot, right?

And he's been doing this since Eden. And so again, what's the principle here? It's not that lying is generally good or that the ninth commandment doesn't apply to women.

It does, to be very clear. But the principle is this, that we don't owe the truth to everyone in every situation, particularly to those who would use the truth to destroy the innocent.

When a tyrant demands information to perpetrate injustice, you are not obligated to comply with that.

When an oppressive regime asks you to reveal the location of those that they intend to murder or arrest for unrighteous reasons, you are not bound by some wooden literalism to tell them.

Truth -telling is indeed a duty, but it's a duty owed to those who have a right to the truth. Pharaoh had no right to know the midwives' actions.

The King of Jericho had no right to know where the spies were. And Mordecai very wisely deduced that for the time being,

Ahasuerus had no need nor the right to know Esther's ethnicity because what would be done with that information could not be trusted yet.

And while their stations, mind you, these are all kings that we're talking about, these examples, would have allowed for the truth to be owed to them by right, how they would have used the information forfeited their claims to it.

Esther's concealment was not cowardice, it was wisdom, right, it was obedience to Mordecai, and it was preparation for the day when, and mark this, that she would stop concealing, when she would step forward at risk of her own life and say,

I am a Jew, and my people are about to be slaughtered, and that day it comes, just a few chapters from now, but it's not here yet.

Right now, wisdom says, be silent, conceal, and wait. There's a day to speak, a time to speak, and a time to be silent, and God honors that, right?

The hidden queen is hidden for a reason. God is positioning her, and he's using her discretion, her godly strategic deception even, to do it.

And again, we wanna understand how to apply these things to us today, particularly at a time that we live in, but when godless authorities demand compliance with evil, you don't owe them honesty.

You owe them courage, and you owe them defiance, but defiance doesn't always look like a frontal assault.

Right, sometimes defiance looks like Shiphrah and Puak cheerfully lying to Pharaoh.

Sometimes it looks like Rahab misdirecting the king's men, and sometimes it looks like Esther biding her time.

It's not situational ethics, as much as this is biblical wisdom applied. The wicked do not have claim on truth that would enable their wickedness, and when that's the case, wisdom knows when to speak, and when to be silent, when to reveal, and when to conceal.

Now, as we continue, having seen that God delights to repurpose the sinful intent of men into his means for redemption, and we've considered deception as a weapon in spiritual war, again, particularly for women, let's pick up the thread of favor.

This word of favor shows up three times in this passage, again, these 20 verses, and it's not an accident.

I would say even that when we notice the favor of God upon someone or something, that is the fingerprint of providence.

First, in verse nine, and the maiden pleased him, this is speaking of Hegai when he meets

Esther, and she obtained kindness of him, and he speedily gave her her things for purification with such things as belong to her, and seven maidens, which were meat to be given her, out of the king's house, and he preferred her and her maids unto the best place of the house of the women.

Hegai, the eunuch in charge of the women, takes a liking to Esther. And why? The text doesn't really say that, definitely doesn't say that she manipulated him, doesn't say that she schemed for his favor, she just found it.

Esther is fair and beautiful, right? So maybe Hegai had a crush, but then he remembered that he's a eunuch, so that doesn't seem very likely either.

This is God tilting the heart of a pagan official. In Proverbs 21 and verse one, we see how this could be in the way that God does these things.

The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water, he turneth it whithersoever he will.

If God can turn the king's heart, he can certainly turn a eunuch's. And this isn't the first time that we've seen this.

Again, the pattern is throughout the scriptures of the Old Testament, and that's why God works in these patterns, it's encouragement to us.

As these things are happening, remember, do not forget what God has done. But Joseph found favor with Potiphar, and then later with the prison warden.

Moses found favor with Pharaoh's daughter, the daughter of the man who wanted him dead. Daniel found favor with Ashpenaz, the chief of Nebuchadnezzar's eunuchs.

In every case, God's people are in hostile territory, and God inclines the hearts of pagans towards them.

Again, it's a pattern, and patterns we need to pay attention to, because these are the types of dog whistles that remind us that God is moving, and encourage us in the midst of hard seasons.

These are the patterns that we should pay attention to in our day. Is God putting his people in high places?

Right, are they finding favor there? We should always be paying attention to the patterns of God's redemption.

We see a second instance at verse 15, Esther finding favor again. Now in the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abahel, the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her for his daughter, was come to go in unto the king.

She required nothing but what Hegai, the king's chamberlain, the keeper of the women, appointed. And Esther obtained favor in the sight of all them that looked upon her.

So now it's not just Hegai, it's everyone. Right, and why, or how? How is Esther finding so much favor?

Or how do I find that kind of favor? Obviously, right, we have to know that this is the work of God. And yet I think the text wants us to see something a little bit different about this instance here of the way that God is using a means to accomplish this favor for Esther and through her even.

I think it's important that we note her humility, right? Esther is a humble woman.

Look at what the text says, that when the turn came for Esther to go into the king, she required nothing but what

Hegai, the king's chamberlain, the keeper of the women, the women appointed. Right, Esther's not grasping, she's not scheming.

She trusts the counsel of those placed over her. And that humility, right, that kind of unforced and genuine humility, it wins favor with people.

People can smell manipulation a mile away, but they're drawn to humility like moths to a flame.

And particularly, I think, in women. You know, think about women of our day and how easy it is to despise the modern woman.

And there are social media influencers, who have built their platforms on this idea of hating women, right?

Making millions off of the disdain that has grown within people, particularly young men, right?

They've abused this cultural disdain that has grown for the modern, feministic woman.

And people have made, again, huge platforms and millions of dollars off of it. Because the modern woman tends to be so prideful, opinionated, entitled.

And obviously, this manosphere stuff, it goes way too far in its hatred of women, but it's a reaction and an overreaction more than anything.

I would argue that the degradation of femininity through feminism, right, it's caused women to lose favor in our society, at least again, with young men in particular.

And we contrast this, I think, with how pleasant it is to meet a woman like the women that we have here, right?

Kind, hospitable, humble, godly women. It's not hard to see how

God might use Esther's and your godliness as a means to bring you favor with others.

It is such an easy thing to be favorable towards somebody who's pleasant and kind and patient, right?

And yet, most women today struggle with understanding that. And again, now we have overreactions on the other side.

But I think that's what we see at work here in a way. God is certainly doing the work of bringing favor to Esther, but he's using means to do it, even her disposition towards those in authority around her as a means to make it so that people like her, they want good for her because she's a sweet woman.

That is a good thing. And we should, our women at least, should strive to be like that. And praise the

Lord, you all do a wonderful job. Now, finally, the third instance, right, that we see in this passage of Esther finding favor in verse 17, this time with the king.

Verse 17, and the king loved Esther above all the women. And she obtained grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins so that he set the royal crown upon her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.

The king loved her, right? Out of all the beautiful young women in the empire, carefully selected and primped and prepped for 12 months, the king picks the

Jewish orphan who didn't even try to manipulate the situation and he makes her queen. Again, because of the pattern that's here, the repetition of this favor in this passage and throughout the

Old Testament, we know that this isn't luck, right? It's not chance. This is not even her beauty, though she was beautiful.

This is divine favor. God granting Esther grace in the eyes of a pagan king for purposes far beyond a royal marriage, far beyond giving this poor orphan a chance at a better life, right?

God is positioning her. He's putting her exactly where she needs to be for the moment when Haman's plot will be revealed and someone needs to stand in the gap.

So I think it's important here, a point on, that we need to understand about favor, that favor is not the same as ease, right?

If we were to pray for favor in anybody's presence, you know, whether it's with our government or even with first Baptist here, right, of wanting them to have favor towards us, it's not ease, but it is a divine favor.

When God grants favor, he's not rewarding us with comfort, right? He's not making your life easier for your sake.

He's positioning you for responsibility, right? Joseph's favor led to false accusation in prison.

Daniel's favor led to the lion's den. Esther's favor led to a confrontation with genocidal evil, where she had to risk her own life.

Favor means God is putting you somewhere for a reason, right? It means that he's opening a door because he intends for you to walk through it and do something hard on the other side.

And so when you experience unlikely favor, when doors open that shouldn't, when people give you opportunities that you didn't necessarily earn, it's not an invitation to just sit back and enjoy it, but we need to start asking, what does

God want me to do here? What is he positioning me for? Because whether God is giving you influence at work or in your community, you know, a fruitful home or a fruitful business, that favor is not for your enjoyment only.

It's blessing that must flow through you into the ends of the earth. That's its purpose, right?

It starts with you, and so you need to embrace it, be thankful for it and steward it well, but for the purpose of seeing the river flow further and further, be blessing everyone along the way.

Favor isn't about you. It's about God's purposes and his people. And so even as we pray for favor, wherever it may be, may we do so not selfishly to our own ends, but to God's ends and to his purposes.

Now, as we come to an end of this passage, we note that it ends with Esther crowned, right?

The king throws a banquet, Esther's Feast, as it's called in verse 18, and gives a remission of taxes even, and distributes gifts with royal generosity.

It's a celebration within Persia, but we notice in verses 19 and 20, something interesting.

When the virgins were gathered together, then Mordecai sat in the king's gate. Esther had not yet showed her kindred nor her people as Mordecai had charged her, for Esther did the commandment of Mordecai, like as when she was brought up with him.

Two things here. First, Mordecai is now at the king's gate, right? So not only has Esther been elevated, but Mordecai has also.

Serving at the king's gate is a position of authority and influence in the community. And we don't know how he got there, what caused his elevation there, but we do know that it did, right?

As the text tells us. So the orphan is now a queen, and her adoptive father is a court official, and both are exactly where they need to be for what's coming.

God has raised up two Jews to be there for his people when they need them most.

Second, Esther is queen, right? She's now been elevated to queen, and yet she still obeys

Mordecai. Now this does not mean, ladies, that you should listen to your father, not your husband.

Though it could mean that, but it does not in this case necessarily mean that. Again, we use wisdom and understanding.

Esther though, has not let her new position go to her head. That's the point that we should be deriving here from these verses.

She still honors her father. She still listens to his counsel. She still keeps her identity hidden as he instructed.

Success or elevation hasn't made her proud, right? The advancement hasn't made her independent. She remembers where she came from and who raised her, and she honors him accordingly, especially in light of the fact that she has a pagan husband.

And that's a rare thing, but it's a beautiful thing. And it's a faithful thing that women do well to emulate, to continue to honor your father in the ways in which it's appropriate in men to help their wives to do that well.

Again, the principle, promotion does not exempt you from the basic callings of faithfulness.

You don't graduate from honoring your parents because you grew up and got successful. You don't outgrow the need for godly counsel because you got a big job.

You don't stop being accountable to your church because you make a lot of money. You got some windfall or something like that.

Esther is queen of the most powerful empire on earth, and she still submits to Mordecai because he is her father, because he's wise.

She trusts him, and she knows that she didn't get to where she is by her own cunning, right? God put her there, and she's smart enough to stay humble and keep listening to God's people around her.

And that humility, that faithfulness is exactly what God is going to use when the crisis comes, right?

When Haman plots the destruction of the Jews, it'll be Mordecai who calls Esther to act. It'll be Esther's obedience, risky, costly, and faith -filled obedience that saves the day.

But we're not there quite yet, so I don't wanna speak too much into it. But for now, we know that the narrative has established for us that we have a hidden queen on a pagan throne positioned by God's strange providence.

Faithful in obscurity and faithful in exaltation is this queen, and we can trust, even as the narrative develops, that the

Lord is intending to use them for great and mighty works. And so, again, as we close today, we step back and kind of take a sense of what we've seen.

We've seen God using three characteristic means to accomplish his purposes here, right? The sinful schemes of the goblets backfire, or at least they have a true intent that's different than what these men intended.

Female deception, serving righteousness, an unlikely favor granted to his servants in foreign courts.

These aren't the means that we might have chosen, right? We might prefer to see something cleaner, more straightforward, less morally complicated, maybe.

We'd like God to just maybe send an angel, or part the Red Sea, or rain fire from heaven, or just strike the wicked dead.

But God delights in using the foolish things to shame the wise, and the weak things to shame the strong.

He takes delight in making his enemies look like fools, and using instruments that we would disqualify to do it.

He does all of this, every strange turn of the plot, to accomplish his purpose, to preserve his people, and to advance his kingdom.

And here's the point, that if God can use a pagan king's lust, right, to position a Jewish orphan as queen, he can use anything.

If he can honor the deceptive courage of Hebrew midwives, and Rahab, and Esther, he's not limited by our narrow definition of respectability.

If he can grant favor in Pharaoh's household, in Babylon's court, in Persia's palace, then he can grant favor anywhere.

Which means that you have no excuse for despair, and no grounds for fear, right?

Our country is in an increasingly tenuous battle for its future right now. Stark political divisions on who we are, what we should be, and how we should get there.

And it would be easy to look at the situation over the past 10 to 15 years, maybe, and think our side has no shot in it.

You know, the godless are ruthless, they're evil, they're untethered from reality and morality.

I saw yesterday that an ICE agent had his finger bit off by one of these rioters, right?

And these leftists, really, they seem to have infiltrated the high places in our society to such an extent that there's really no way to stop them.

But God is sovereign, right? God is wise, and we take heart in believing that God has his people hidden where he wants them for his purposes.

And even we take heart in believing that God is currently positioning you, right now in your circumstances, however messy, or complicated, or morally ambiguous they might feel, he is positioning you for his purposes, right?

We won't all be kings or advisors to the king. We won't all be queens. And yet we don't know the things which

God is raising us for. Mordecai couldn't have expected that he was raising the queen of Persia when he took in his cousin, right?

And so you have to live like you believe that God is raising us up for something important. You have to live like God is powerful enough to use even you or your children, maybe, for something great.

And you have to prepare yourself by faith. And even in that, you may never be elevated beyond your own home, but what a glory that home would be as you labor in faith for holiness.

And so we trust in our God. We walk forward in the wisdom that he gives, right?

Don't be afraid to be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves, as the Lord tells us. Don't imagine that faithfulness always looks like Sunday school simplicity.

And don't despise the day of small things or the place of hidden preparation because God is writing a story and he's been writing it since before the foundation of the world and you are all in it, right?

Not as bit players only, but as one of God's chosen instruments positioned by his providence for such a time as this.

And all of this, Esther, Mordecai, the rise and fall of empires, all of it points to the greater story, to the greater king who entered an enemy territory, who took on flesh and dwelt among us, who used the sinful scheming of Herod and Pilate and the

Jewish establishment to accomplish the world's redemption on a Roman cross. They meant it for evil.

God meant it for the salvation of the many. And God is still doing it, right?

He's using now even broken people like us and broken systems to accomplish his unbreakable purposes, still positioning his people, still granting favor, still flipping the script in a way on his enemies.

And so take heart, trust him, right? You may be prone to despair because it's hard and it's hard to see how we're gonna win this.

Again, particularly with all the discord in our nation today, but take heart, right?

Walk forward in obedience and in faith, knowing that the invisible hand of providence is guiding every step along the way.