Where was God?

Where was God during the Holocaust, the Killing Fields, the earthquakes, floods, and famines?

Now there was a Jew in Susa the citadel whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite…

-Esther 2:5 NASB

Mordecai brightened the eyes of Israel through his prayers. He was a son to whose prayers God listened. He knocked at the gates of mercy, and they were opened for him.

-Megillah 12b (The Talmud)

“Now there was a Jew in Susa the citadel whose name was Mordecai, the son of..."

“the son of:” derived from Jair, Shimei, Kish

Jair: to seek

Shimei: to ask

Kish: to knock

The three legged stool of prayer:

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

-Matthew 7:7

In the names of Mordecai’s ancestors we see that Mordecai:

1. Brightened the eyes of Israel—those who were seeking.

2. Sought God on behalf of his people: He knocked on the door.

3. He asked God and God heard his prayers and opened the gates of mercy for Him.

He Asks, Seeks, Knocks and Finds! Salvation for the Jews!

We are people of the cross.

What Satan means for evil, God uses for Good!

“…greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”

-1 John 4:4b

The Story of Esther reveals a very powerful truth: When God seems hidden is often when He is most present!

How could God be involved in the details of billions of lives?

He is:

Omniscient

Omnipresent

Omnipotent

Esther is part of the Megilloth: (scroll: “long or drawn out.”)

The Five Scrolls:

Ruth, Song of Solomon

Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther

The feast of Purim: The Scroll of Esther is read out loud for two primary reasons:

One: To remind the people of God that He keeps His promises even when it looks like defeat is imminent.

Two: To remind the people of God that He is always working!

Overview of Esther:

Chapter One: King Xerxes commands Queen Vashti to come and appear before his guests at a banquet. She courageously refuses.

Chapter Two:

The world’s most famous beauty contest is held to find Vashti’s replacement.

Mordecai—Esther’s older cousin who raised her-uncovers a plot to kill the king, informs the king, and saves his life.

Chapter Three: We are introduced to the villain, Haman, who wants to annihilate the Jews.

Chapter Four: The Jews learn of Haman’s evil decree.

Mordecai tells Esther to go to the King and plead for the Jews.

Chapter 5: Esther decides to go before the king and she is accepted, not killed.

Chapter 6: The King reads the record of Mordecai saving his life and Haman inadvertently plans Mordecai’s parade

Chapter 7: Esther invites the King and Haman to a second banquet where the whole plot to destroy the Jews is exposed! Xerxes hangs Haman on the gallows that had been prepared for Mordecai.

Chapter 8: The Jews are given permission to defend themselves.

Chapter 9: They are victorious. Not one Jewish life lost.

Chapter 10: They live happily ever after.

The climactic point in the narrative:

When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly. But he went only as far as the king’s gate, because no one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it. In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes. When Esther’s eunuchs and female attendants came and told her about Mordecai, she was in great distress. She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. Then Esther summoned Hathak, one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why. So Hathak went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate. Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to instruct her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people. Hathak went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, 'All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.' When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: 'Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?'

-Esther 4:1-14

What is Mordecai talking about? Destiny!

Bitachon (hebrew, bē-tā-ḥon): trust and confidence

The Hebrew concept “Bitachon” believes:

One: Everything good or bad comes from God.

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.

-Proverbs 16:33

Two: Nothing is random.

Three: Every day is a day of destiny.

Four: God is good even when bad things happen because He is able to bring good out of all things.

King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the empire, to its distant shores. And all his acts of power and might, together with a full account of the greatness of Mordecai, whom the king had promoted, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Media and Persia? Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews, and held in high esteem by his many fellow Jews, because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews.

-Esther 10:1-3

Satan has a plan to destroy you.

But before Satan ever attacks—God is answering your prayers and orchestrating the victory.

We are people of the cross.

What Satan means for evil, God uses for good!

“…greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”

-1 John 4:4b

Example: “Joseph wasn’t going down. He was going up!”

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Five: The final accounting and punishment are reserved for Judgment on the Day of Accountability.

Faith and Trust

Faith that God is able

Faith that God will bring total restoration and redemption to you

That He will work everything together for good for you

And that His will will be done on earth as it is in Heaven

‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will now restore the fortunes of Jacob and will have compassion on all the people of Israel, and I will be zealous for my holy name. They will forget their shame and all the unfaithfulness they showed toward me when they lived in safety in their land with no one to make them afraid. When I have brought them back from the nations and have gathered them from the countries of their enemies, I will be proved holy through them in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God, for though I sent them into exile among the nations, I will gather them to their own land, not leaving any behind. I will no longer hide my face from them, for I will pour out my Spirit on the people of Israel, declares the Sovereign Lord.’

-Ezekiel 39:25-29

In the twelfth year of King Xerxes, in the first month, the month of Nisan, the pur (that is, the lot) was cast in the presence of Haman to select a day and month. And the lot fell on the twelfth month, the month of Adar.

-Esther 3:7

Then on the thirteenth day of the first month the royal secretaries were summoned. They wrote out in the script of each province and in the language of each people all Haman’s orders to the king’s satraps, the governors of the various provinces and the nobles of the various peoples. These were written in the name of King Xerxes himself and sealed with his own ring.

-Esther 3:12

The 13th Day of Nissan is the day before Passover begins in which plans are made to slay the Passover Lamb.

Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: ’Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.’

-Esther 4:15-16

Esther is making an unusual request - for people to forgo the feast in order to fast.

On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king’s hall.

-Esther 5:1A

On the Third Day

Jews: God never lets his people remain in dire distress for more than three days.

Abraham and the Promised Land:

On the 3rd Day, Abraham looked up and saw the place afar off.

(Genesis 22:4)

Joseph and Story of Deliverance:

Joseph gathered them up and put them in the prison for three days. (Genesis 42:17)

Jonah:

Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days. (Jonah 1:17)

Only the Messianic Jews see this connection:

Jesus, Yeshua, Our Messiah and King, rose from the dead on the 3rd Day.

So the king and Haman went to the banquet Esther had prepared. As they were drinking wine, the king again asked Esther, 'Now what is your petition? It will be given you. And what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.'

-Esther 5:5B-6

Esther replied, 'My petition and my request is this: If the king regards me with favor and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king’s question.'

-Esther 5:7-8

Why a second meal?

"Double Diaspora" refers to a group of people who have gone through two successive diasporas. That’s Esther.

1. Babylon

2. Babylonians defeated by the Persians.

Esther is "doubling up" on Passover

Haman went out that day happy and in high spirits. But when he saw Mordecai at the king’s gate and observed that he neither rose nor showed fear in his presence, he was filled with rage against Mordecai. Nevertheless, Haman restrained himself and went home. Calling together his friends and Zeresh, his wife, Haman boasted to them about his vast wealth, his many sons, and all the ways the king had honored him and how he had elevated him above the other nobles and officials. 'And that’s not all,' Haman added. 'I’m the only person Queen Esther invited to accompany the king to the banquet she gave. And she has invited me along with the king tomorrow. But all this gives me no satisfaction as long as I see that Jew Mordecai sitting at the king’s gate.'

-Esther 5:9-13

His wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, 'Have a pole set up, reaching to a height of fifty cubits, and ask the king in the morning to have Mordecai impaled on it. Then go with the king to the banquet and enjoy yourself.' This suggestion delighted Haman, and he had the pole set up.

-Esther 5:14

Nissan, Passover, and Esther

Nissan 13th: The day before Passover

Nissan 13th: The day the story of Esther began

Nissan 13th: Esther’s fast begins

Nissan 15th: Esther hosts a banquet & Haman builds his tree

Nissan 16th: Mordecai is honored and exalted—and his people are saved from the gallows

Nissan 16th: Esther hosts a second banquet and Haman is hanged on the tree

Connection:

The month of Nissan in the season of redemption.

Nissan 13th: Jesus told his disciples to go and prepare the Passover Meal

Nissan 14th: Jesus was arrested in the garden, tried, hung on a tree and entombed

Nissan 15th: Jesus remained in the tomb, but that night the king could not sleep

Nissan 16th: Jesus rose from the Dead

Nissan 16th: is the Day of First Fruit

Nissan 16th: 50 days before Pentecost

Look at the effects of the redemption:

King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the empire, to its distant shores. And all his acts of power and might, together with a full account of the greatness of Mordecai, whom the king had promoted, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Media and Persia? Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews, and held in high esteem by his many fellow Jews, because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews.

-Esther 10

Esther is a picture of the Redemption that will ultimately come through Yeshua, Jesus, our Messiah who is of the seed of David, Mordecai, and Esther.

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