Tony Evans - For Such A Time As This
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In Esther 3-4, Haman's promotion leads to his plot to exterminate the Jews after Mordecai's refusal to bow, but Mordecai challenges Esther—positioned as queen through providence—to risk her life for her people, asking if she has come to the kingdom "for such a time as this," illustrating how God places believers in strategic positions for kingdom purposes amid crises.
Haman's Rise and the Threat to the Jews
It is unfortunate that many people and Christians will have spent a large part of their lives climbing the ladder of success only to discover at the end that it was leaning against the wrong wall. In an effort to meet the standards of our world system and what it calls success, many will have missed the purposes of God.
Chapters 3 and 4 of the book of Esther, because it is in these chapters that the greatest statement and the most famous statement in the book is located, in chapter 4, verse 14, when Mordecai asked her the question, "Have you not attained royalty for such a time as this?" Or as the King James says, "Have you not been called to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
So I want to explain to you using the providential hand of God in the life of Esther how you know when it is your time. You hear people talk about, "It is my time, it is my season." And that is easy to say and quote, but how do you know when God has prepared you for the moment, that time that he has worked with you for through the good, the bad, and the ugly to bring you to a space of usefulness for his kingdom purposes?
Chapter 3 opens up with a problem, because we are told in chapter 3, verse 1, "After these events King Ahasuerus promotes Haman, the son of Hammedatha, Agagite, and advanced him and established his authority over the princes who were with him. And all the king's servants who were at the king's gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, but Mordecai neither bowed nor did he pay homage."
Houston, we have a problem. Ahasuerus, the king, has decided to elevate a man named Haman. Haman is made the second most powerful person in the Medo-Persian Empire, and the king has said, "I want there to be public recognition of the promotion that I have given to Haman, so I want everybody in the kingdom to bow."
And so, as everybody began to bow, then they came to one of the employees of the king named Mordecai, and they tell Mordecai, "It is time to bow. Mr. Haman is coming down. Mr. Haman is passing through." Mordecai says, "Excuse me, but I cannot do that. I cannot bow and pay homage. I cannot worship him," so Mordecai refuses.
Houston, we have a problem. They want to know, verse 3, "How are you transgressing the king's command?" Let me put it in everyday language, "How are you not doing what the government told you to do?" Because this is the king talking. This is governmental affairs, and they say, "Look, this is the government, and we expect you to obey the government." Obeying the government is one thing, worshipping and bowing to it, that is a whole another ball game, and Mordecai says, "I cannot do that."
They spoke to him daily, according to verse 4. They told Haman, "There is this dude named Mordecai, and he is not going to bow, but let me tell you why he is not going to bow. He is a Jew, and them people over there, they have been taught by, you know, their world view that you do not bow, that is, in worship, to men or to systems of men, governments, when they conflict with their belief system. And so, this Mordecai is not going to bow."
Haman, verse 5, was full of rage, ticked off. He said, "Well, not only am I going to kill," verse 6, "not only am I going to kill Mordecai, I am going to kill all of his people. I am going to do genocide against the Jews, because I know all them people think like he think. So we are not going to have that, not under my rule. King Ahasuerus has given me clout, and I am not going to—if anybody around here is not recognizing my authority, so he is gone, and everybody like him is gone. We are going to get rid of the Jews."
He brings the idea to the King Ahasuerus, and he tells Ahasuerus, "Mr. Ahasuerus, king, you got some people here who do not go with you. There is a certain people scattered, and they do not abide by your rules. They do not abide by your laws," verse 8. "So, king, we got to do something about these folk. So if it pleases the king," verse 9, "what I want to do is I want to get rid of them. I want to exterminate them, because they are going to be a headache for you. In fact, I want to get rid of these people so bad," verse 9, "that I will pay you to help get rid of them , talents of silver. I am going to give you a boat load of money just to get rid of these people, because these people are nothing but trouble, because they are not going to bow. They are not going to submit to the government, they are not going to submit to the authority."
So the King put his signet ring down, signed the law of Haman the Agagite. And so, now not only is Mordecai in trouble, the whole race of Jews is about to be exterminated, okay?
Recognizing Your Time
Here is lesson number one: you know it is your time, you know it is your time when God connects spiritual preparation with spiritual warfare. You see, Haman was an agent of the devil, whose goal it is to thwart the purposes of God. In the Old Testament, it had to do with destroying the Jews. In the New Testament, it has to do with muting the effectiveness of the church, the people, representative people of God.
And so, in order to pull that off, Satan uses people and uses systems in order to destroy the program and promises and purposes of God, and so now the Jews are about to be destroyed. The scribes in verse 12 send the word out, the edict goes out about the destruction of the Jews. Letters are sent in verse 13 by couriers to all the provinces to destroy, to kill and annihilate all the Jews, young, old, women, children, but we are told that this happened—was going to happen in a 12-month cycle.
The edict is given, and when the edict is given, chapter 4, verse 1, "When Mordecai learned that all—of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes," the garments of sorrow, "and went out into the midst of the city and wailed loudly—and wailed loudly and bitterly." You could hear that man crying all over the place, because when Satan is trying to do a number on you, he can bring you to tears.
Many of us know what it is to have a spiritual warfare against us, and we are weeping and wailing because the pain is so deep and so great. He was out there loudly declaring hopelessness because of how bad things looked. "He went as far as the king's gate," that is the entrance to the king's palace, "and no one was to enter the king's gate clothed in sackcloth." But there he was mourning, with great mourning, because we are told in verse 3 there was great confusion.
You are a Jewish father sitting there with your family, and you hear coming across the evening news, "All Jews are to be exterminated." There is panic in the city of Susa, and now everybody is wailing because it looks like a hopeless situation. Let me tell you something. Never count God out no matter how bad things look.
Well, Esther finds out that her cousin is out there in sackcloth and ashes. She does not really know what is going on, and so she sends him clothes out there to get him dressed. He rejects the clothes, and so it now gets real interesting. She sends her servant Hathach out (in verse 5) to Mordecai, and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, the exact amount of money that Haman had promised to pay to the king's treasury for the destruction of the Jews.
He sends word back to Esther, gave a copy of the edict, and this is what he says to her in verse 8, "That he might show Esther and inform her, and to order her to go to the king and implore his favor and to plead with him for her people." Mordecai says to Esther's servant, "Take the edict to Esther and tell Esther now to go to the king and tell him who you are. Remember, I told you do not tell him when you first—when he first brought you in. Do not tell him because there is an anti-Semitic atmosphere in this city, so you do not tell him, but girlfriend, honeybun, cuz, it is now time to come out the closet. It is now time to go public. It is now time to let it be known who you are and who your people happen to be. It is time."
You know it is time for God to move you to your ultimate purpose when he has given you a position that leverages influence for the advancement of his kingdom. He says, "Girl, you are not just here because you are pretty. You are pretty, but that is not why you are here. You are here because when you were pretty and did not know what was going on, God knew this day was going to come."
He does not use the name "God," but it will be clear in a moment that is his frame of reference. God knew that this day was going to come. It is time. You have been set up for a situation when God has positioned you to leverage influence for his kingdom purposes. To put it another way, when your position in life allows you to leverage influence for the advancement of God's program and God's people.
To put it another way, when he has blessed you to be a blessing, so he tells her, "It is time, it is time for you to use your position, your influence, your resources, and you are now to leverage that in light of the spiritual issue." The problem is if you do not see the spiritual, you do not see the opportunity. See, if all you are looking at is the physical, then you do not see what is happening behind the scenes in the spiritual, so you are all shook up about what is happening in the physical, because you do not know that there is a spiritual activity occurring behind the scenes.
So she hears that she is supposed to go before the king, so she sends word back to Mord, "Mord," verse 11, "all the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that for any man or woman who comes to the king to the inner court who is not summoned, he has but one law, that he be put to death, unless the king holds out to him the golden scepter so that he may live. And I have not been summoned to come to the king for these thirty days."
Mord, let me explain something. I need you to understand, cuz. It is sort of like this. Me and the king have not been talking for 30 days. Thirty days, we are not—you know, we are on the outs with each other. He does not want me in his bedchamber, he is not talking to me, because between chapter 2 and chapter 3 is 5 years, because you know after 5 years the marriage can go south. So it is a 5-year marriage, and he not all that impressed with her beauty anymore.
Maybe she had picked up a few wrinkles in 5 years, I do not know, but whatever it was for 30 days he is not talking to his wife, he not talking to her, and he says, "There is a rule in this house. If you go in the king uninvited, and he does not hold out that royal scepter, it is over. It is over. You are put to death." "And if I go into my husband's room, and he has not invited me, and he does not hold out the scepter, uh, I am not willing to do that for you all, because I used to be a Jew. Now I am Jew plus."
What she did is what we do. We misdiagnose kingdom opportunity, because we will see it. All we see is, "This could have a negative effect on me." See, she forgot something. If it was not for the goodness of God, she would not be there. She missed that. Along the way she misunderstood if it was not for the goodness of God.
Girl, you did not get here on your own. You got here the same way a turtle gets to the top of a fence: somebody put it there. So she forgot all that, and having forgotten all that she said, "Look, this is about me now, not about you all. It is about me. You all get it like I got it, because right now it is about me, and I cannot put myself in that position."
She forgot, and it is easy to forget how you got where you are. It is easy to forget. Once you start living in a certain neighborhood and driving a certain vehicle and wearing certain clothes and getting a B.A. and an M.B.A. and a doctorate, it is easy to forget that if it were not for the grace of God, you would not be in the position you are now in.
It is easy to forget that, and when you forget that, you are not so concerned about how other folk going to make it. You wind up saying like her, in essence, "I made it. Why you all not making it?" You become (we become) self-absorbed.
See, I clearly understand I am not supposed to be here. I am not supposed to be on the street, in this pulpit doing this. When I was raised and my father was not a believer in those early years and the home was in total disarray, I am not supposed to be here.
But because God invaded my home and led my father to Christ, changing his life, bringing God into our family, taking me to a Bible-teaching church, allowing me to have unique opportunity. See, I clearly understand the only reason I am standing here today is the goodness and grace of God. So the moment I lose sight of that, the moment I lose sight, that what Paul said, "I am what I am only by the grace of God." That is the only reason that I am.
The moment I lose sight of that, my role has now been illegitimized, because God did not allow me the experiences and opportunities that he has allowed me to make it all and only about me. And anybody who does that must be held to account that it is not just about me or you or even us, it is about the kingdom of God, and when we lose sight of that, then we have missed God's plan and program in history.
You see, your destiny will always involve a test: whether you want to be a blessing or whether you only want to be blessed. Because once you hit that test, God now examines your heart. Are you here for him, are you here for how he can use you for others, or is this just about you, me? Is this just about selfishness?