In this sermon, the speaker explores the book of Esther and its relevance to victorious living and spiritual experience. The speaker prays for those who do not know Jesus to be drawn to Him and for believers to have a burden for the lost. The sermon emphasizes the importance of fulfilling one's duty, using the example of Mordecai sitting at the king's gate. The speaker warns against being hypocrites who love the glory but not the duty, and encourages believers to prioritize prayer and not just give it lip service.

Listen to what one author said about the book of Esther. He said, I know of no other single book in the whole of the Old Testament which more lucidly illustrates the principles governing the Christian life, nor is there a book which demonstrates more clearly what spiritual new birth really involves and what conditions must be met to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to become effective for God. Within the pages of the book of Esther there is to be found a wealth of understanding concerning the implications of true discipleship and concerning that relentless war for final supremacy being waged within the soul of man between good and evil, between God and the devil. It is fascinating beyond description to find, with the unfolding of the story, so meticulous an explanation of so much that often baffles the honest but hard-pressed believer. If you are genuinely concerned to find the key to victorious living and to that dimension of spiritual experience that makes you more than conquerors, then read on and join me in this exploration. Heavenly Father, we ask that You would take Your Word as we study the book of Esther for the next few weeks in this little short study, that You would teach us of the life of Christ and that we would truly be born again if we have not been by Your Spirit. We pray for any that are listening that do not know for sure if they died today that they'd go to heaven, that there'd be a quickening in their spirit by the Spirit of Jesus, that they'd be drawn, that the Word of God would be able to impregnate their spirit and that life would come about. We pray for those of us that have known Jesus that there'd be a quickening in our spirit of reviving again by the Word of God. We ask that You'd bless this study in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, in the last few weeks I've been studying in the book of Esther and sharing in our church, and I thought that while these things were still fresh on my mind, I might just take some time and share a few of the thoughts that we have been going through in church and share these thoughts with you. I believe with the author that I just read from his little book on Esther that this book of Esther is a unique book on teaching the life of Christ. I'm convinced that many of the teachings of the Apostle Paul came from a deep understanding by the Spirit of God from such books as this. As a matter of fact, the book of Galatians and Romans is just the truths there in Galatians and Romans. You can throw them back, and even from Ephesians you can come back and find these principles taught in the book of Esther. Now let me give you a little bit of history. Not a lot, but just a few words about the history of this setting. The Jews were over in a land, and they had been taken captive, and they had been given the choice to go back. Why would God inspire this book about these people, His people, the Jews? About their struggles, their captivity, the 70-year captivity under Nebuchadnezzar when He took them back to Babylon, and then them being able to go back with Ezra and Nehemiah giving us many of the details. And then here's a little book of Esther tucked in there, like in between a chapter. Why would God inspire this book? Many have made comments on the fact that God's name is not mentioned in this book. But on the other hand, I think if you looked around, you might find more than God's name. I believe God's name is in there. As a matter of fact, I was just reading something today, how in the book of Esther, one writer said, whether there may be any divine purpose in the reputed fact that the name of Jehovah is found there in acrostics four times, I do not pretend to say. And the Hebrew for Jehovah would be these letters, I-H-V-H. He said, the passages in which they are said to occur, chapter 120, where all the wives shall give, and verse 4, let the king and Haman come this day, and verse 13, all this availeth me nothing, and in chapter 7, verse 7, that there was evil determined against him. Properly speaking, God is entirely unmentioned, but no believer in the plenary inspiration of scripture would conclude from this that his voice speaks not to us in this writing as in all the rest of the sacred oracles. And what he was saying in that is, in the acrostics, you could find Jehovah written in the acrostics. And of course, with the phenomenon of the Bible codes coming out now, there are just phenomenal messages being found in the word of God. My wife is reading a book in the evenings right now, before she goes to bed, The Signature of God, which is lunged to us by a friend. And she just, I hear these wows, and she'll share something with me that's in the scriptures they've found. Well, Esther is a book that contains treasure, treasure for those of us that love the word of God. And we're just going to peruse through the book of Esther for the next few weeks and do a little short study on this book. In going on, maybe I should make a few more comments before we go on, is in answering this question, why would God want to write this book? There may be a couple comments that we might make about this. One, in this book, you have Israel in really what was called a self-chosen path, because they'd been given the opportunity to go back to the land, to return to the land of their fathers, and there they'd been given the opportunity to go back and rebuild their city. But these Jews, in this book of Esther, had chosen to stay behind. Why? We don't know. It may have been they've been there 70 years, and they've got their roots set, and houses established, businesses and whatever. And so they didn't all want to go back. And Mordecai is there. He's one of them. And so they preferred to stay there. They were in Persia and Babylon when they might have been in Palestine, gathered around God's center at Jerusalem. So they had chosen to stay there, just like many of us are in a spot, in a position that we have chosen to be spiritually, because we just refuse to step out into the adventure land of faith and move on with God. And why we stay behind, I don't know. Maybe it's fear. Many of us, it's tradition. Many of us, we don't want to risk the life of faith, to believe God to do something in our life. And so we go through the humdrum. I don't believe that we live in days of humdrum. What we are now, I believe, in a law. We're in a position of a law before the storm. And God's storms always produce tremendous results spiritually. God, you see, is in the business of saving souls. And if we're not in the business of saving souls, then we're not in God's business. We may be in the business of being a Christian and just getting by. We may be in the business of being a Christian and just going through the motions. But if we're in God's business, we have a burden for the lost. We have a compassion for lost people. We have a compassion for missions and a burden for missions, and we pray. And we just don't play. And it may not be that you think you see much going on, but if you're in the business that God's in, you're believing by faith for God to work. Now, there's another statement, and that's this, about the great book of Esther, is this. This book reveals the secret of God's providence in the life of Esther and Mordecai. See, I believe Mordecai is just as great an object in this book as Esther herself. And we're going to get into this as we look at the types of who does Esther represent, really typically, and who does Mordecai represent. So we'll get into these things. Maybe if you had a little bit of background, you remember back in, I think it was Ezra 3.22, where Ezra would not ask the king for any aid, and so he had to really pray. The reason he would not do that is because of the great, tremendous thing that had just happened in the book of Esther, where Haman had been turned out, or maybe we should say hung out on the gallows, and Mordecai had just come back in, and then the tremendous turning around from the Jews, and we'll get into the story as we get into Esther, the turning around for the salvation of the Jews. Because of this great testimony of the power of God, Ezra was ashamed to go and ask the king for some help. And moving on, the children of Israel, we're like them. Someone said that they had to learn in affliction what they would not learn in years of blessing and forbearance. And that's a pretty good statement. If we want to learn in the goodness of God, in the blessing of God, and by the mercy of God, and the grace of God, then we'll have to learn in the afflictions of God, in the chastisement of God. So it's better for us to learn by the grace of God than we have to learn our experiences in the hard trials of life. Now, I want to take you into the book of Esther right now, and it's going to be a different type of study. As we've been going through in our church service, it's been a different type of a study. We're not just going to sit down and go through word by word, verse by verse, chapter by chapter. We're going to bounce around, assuming that you have a little bit of knowledge about the book of Esther and about the Bible. We're assuming that you have some background in this. Now, in the book of Esther, the setting in the first chapter is that the king, Ahasuerus, he is in his reign. In verse 3 of chapter 1, it says, And he's having this great banquet there. And then also the queen, Vashti, she had a great banquet. And it said in verse 10, So this is the setting. And you know the story. The queen, Vashti, she refused to come at the king's commandment. She refused to come. And this was a big deal. And the story goes, well, they had to decide what to do with her. This women's lib movement here had jumped up. And so his counselor said that it probably best to give a commandment. And so the king did. In verse 19, Now that's the background. The setting. And of course this is how Esther gets to come in. To be the new queen when the old queen is put out. And so now we move in to the story. They had to find a new queen. And so they set out the search committee. And they gather up all the young pretty virgins around that they can find. And in chapter 2, it says, And let the king appoint others in all the provinces of his kingdom. That they may gather together all the fair young virgins. Unto Shushan the palace, unto the house of the woman. Unto the custody of Higi, the king's chamberlain, keeper of the woman. And let their things for purification be given to them. So this is the setting. Now, in verse 5 of chapter 2, It says that Mordecai was there. Now in Shushan the palace, there was a certain Jew. Whose name was Mordecai. There he is. He's there. Now the title that I've titled this series is, Esther, the providence of God. Now I believe that Mordecai is there by the providence of God. And may I just stop and ask you a question. Do you believe that you are where you are at by the providence of God? Well, if you answer no, you're sort of in a sticky spot, aren't you? Then it means that you're not there by the providence of God. And maybe you believe that you're out of the will of God. Whatever. But if you answer yes, that you're there by the providence of God. Let me ask another question. Another sort of tough question. If you believe that you're where you're at by the providence of God. And maybe you're not happy there. Whatever. But are you content in the providence of God? Many times we are uncomfortable. And maybe discontent. Because we're not settled by faith that we are in the providence of God. We're in the will of God. Or in other words, we're not absolutely sure God is really in control. Maybe you think something went wrong along the line somewhere. And God just forgot about you. And let you slip off down the wrong road. And into the circumstances you're in. And you're uncomfortable. And the Spirit of God in this book wants to bring us back to a comfort zone. And we're going to get into later on. In the area of the conscience. About being convenient. Having convenient lifestyles. And living lifestyles under convenience. Instead of under the conviction of the Spirit of God by the Word of God. Now, here's Mordecai. Let's say something about him. He is sitting at the king's gate. And this is what we want to talk about. Mordecai. He's the one that was known as sitting at the king's gate. Several times through the scriptures you find reference to him sitting at the king's gate. In chapter 2 and verse 19. And when the virgins were gathered together the second time. Then Mordecai sat in the king's gate. When Esther was chosen to be the queen. He moved. I believe that's when he moved. Maybe he was invited. I don't know. Whatever. But he moved to sit at the king's gate. And there's a lesson there. There's some important lessons about this. And we don't want to miss these lessons. There's lots of lessons in the book of Esther. But we don't want to miss this one. About sitting at the king's gate. See, I believe this is a reference and a lesson on praying. In Matthew 6, Jesus said, Pray to thy father which is in secret. So I believe this would be a reference to a type of sitting before the father. Praying before thy father which is in secret. I believe Mordecai was not there just to be sitting and gathering information. But he had a secret mission in his heart. The psalmist said, Psalms 91.1 And he that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. He that dwelleth in the secret place. Let's take that for a moment. I believe Mordecai dwelled there at that gate. As much time as he could, he was there at the gate. And there were some lessons there. That sitting at the gate was a position, I believe, of duty. Because it says in verse 19, And when the virgins were gathered together, the second time that Mordecai sat in the king's gate. It was a position of duty, sitting in the king's gate. Matthew 6.6 When thou prayest. That's a position of duty. In verse 5, Jesus had said, Thou shalt not be as the hypocrite. You know what a description of the hypocrite would be? He loves the glory, but not the duty. He loves the glory, but not the duty. Do we say prayer is important, but fail to pray? And there's a lesson here. A key lesson, and that's this. Mordecai saw his position of duty, of sitting at the king's gate, as a necessary duty. Do you see? Prayer as a necessary duty. Someone that likes to pray in public, but does not pray in private, is probably a hypocrite. And that may be a little strong. But if we won't pray in private, but we'll pray in public, that just doesn't smell right. It was a secret duty. Mordecai had a secret duty, to sit in that gate. And it was a duty of conscience. It was a duty of conscience. And that's why if you would preach, or teach, or share something on the importance of prayer, and whatever, and your conscience would prick you, that, well, you're not doing that, are you? Well, let's go on. Sitting at the king's gate was not only a position of duty, it was also a position of opportunity. Because as he sat in that gate, one day, Mordecai saw something happen. It says in Esther chapter 2, in verse 21, In those days, while Mordecai sat in the king's gate, two of the king's chamberlains, Bigthan and Tirish, of those which kept the door, were wrought and sought to lay hand on the king Ahasuerus. And the thing was known to Mordecai, who told it unto Esther the queen. And Esther certified the king thereof in Mordecai's name. And when inquisition was made of the matter, it was found out. Therefore they were both hanged on a tree. And it was written in the book of the chronicles before the king. Now, this is stuff for a later on story. But let's say something about this. Sitting in the gate, again, he got his position of opportunity, and this will be the thing. His thing of sitting in the gate helps him later on. Now, actually it saves his life. There's a lesson here on praying and keeping on praying. Mordecai's opportunity came by being at the gate. Now get this, being at the gate frequently. Spasmodic prayers will have spasmodic answers. Inconsistent prayers will have inconsistent answers. Frequent praying will have frequent answers. Frequent praying reveals frequent intimacy with the Lord. Now, he had a position of duty. He had a position of opportunity. But there's also a third thing. And that was, he had a position that was opposed. Because going on into Esther chapter 3, and verses 1 down through verse 6, the king appointed Haman to be at his side. He promoted Haman, the son of Hamadathah, the Agiite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the princes that were with him. We would say he was number two man. He was number two man there. Now, here he is. He's there number two. And every time he'd go in, all the fellows sitting around the king's gate would bow down. And the scripture says in verse 2, Esther chapter 3, And all the king's servants that were in the king's gate bowed and reverenced Haman. For the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence. Then the king's servants, which were in the king's gate, said unto Mordecai, Why transgressest thou the king's commandment? Now it came to pass, when they spake daily unto him, and he hearkened not unto them, that they told Haman to see whether Mordecai's matters would stand. For he had told them that he was a Jew. And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath. And he thought scorned to lay hands on Mordecai alone. Now, let's pick up some things here. There is Mordecai standing alone. There is Haman thinking just alone to get him. But then something is said that changes his mind on that. When he finds out that he's a Jew, then Haman says, For they had showed him the people of Mordecai. Wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even the people of Mordecai. Here's Mordecai standing alone against Haman, who represents evil. Moses stood for Israel alone. Abraham stood for Lot to get him out of Sodom. And Daniel, there he is, standing for the children of Israel, saying, We have sinned. There's Jesus standing alone, crucified to a cross for us. Paul stood alone. At one time he said, At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. At one point he said, For a great door and a fetcher was opened unto me, and there are many adversaries. But yet he stood alone. Praying alone many times, watching alone. This standing alone actually reveals the strength that you have, the strength of your faith, your ability to stand alone. This is why praying alone really shows the true character of your spirit. Now Mordecai has a fourth position here, and that's the position of intercession. And I don't know how far, maybe we might go into this a little bit, but maybe we'll just cover most of it here. But let's say this about this. In chapter 4, Mordecai is seen at the gate again with his clothes all torn, and he has sackcloth on with ashes, and he's howling and mourning and weeping. And we're going to get into that later on too. But there he is in his position of intercessor. You know, when Ananias was told to go get Saul, you know the story about that and Saul's conversion. When the Lord told him to go get him, and these things happened in Acts 9, verse 11. Listen to this. And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas, for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he prayeth. Have you ever noticed that? The Lord tells him to go fetch this guy who's their known enemy. And he says, Behold, he prayeth. That's the first thing that's said about Saul, whose name was changed to Paul after he was converted. Behold, he prayeth. And there's a lesson there. I want to say this. When a man meets Jesus, he has a purpose in prayer. And the reason many do not pray is because they do not have any purpose in prayer. And those that know Jesus, that are tied in with the Lord, and have a bond through the Spirit, there is purpose in prayer. In everything, by prayer and supplication, would thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. The question was, I ask this, was that Saul spoken of in Matthew 6, 5 and 6, when Jesus was talking about the hypocrites? Was he talking about Saul of Tarsus? Was he talking about them? When thou prayest, thou shall not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. It was him that was holding the garments of those fellows that stoned Stephen. But I believe now, behold, he prayeth. He has a purpose. Do you have a purpose? Whatever you do, you must pray. Whether you preach, you must pray. Whether you witness, you must pray. Whether you cook and clean diapers and whatever, you must pray. That's our purpose, is to pray daily. Pray about everything, and pray about anything. Pray for everyone you meet. Pray for those maybe you haven't met, but you hear about. Mordecai gives us the position of an intercessor. Well, we're going to stop there for today, and then next week we'll pick up on this. Next time we'll continue right here at this point. Until the next time, I'm asking the Lord to continue to bless you, and that He'll keep you, and that He will make His face shine upon you, and that the Lord will be gracious to you, and that He'll lift up His countenance upon you, and that He'll give you peace. In Jesus' name, amen.