Monday, April 8, 2019 -
Yesterday I read Esther for the second time since I’ve been in prison. And as usual, when I read the Bible, I see something different and new each time I read it.
Now Mordecai, even though he was Esther’s cousin, raised Esther as his own daughter, as her parents had both died. King Ahasuerus even referred to Mordecai as her father. It does not say, however, that it was Mordecai, or who it was that encouraged Esther, or took her to the king’s palace to compete for the position of the new queen because it was not relevant. It was God’s plan.
For soon after Esther becomes queen, Mordecai overhears a plot against the king and uses his relationship with Esther to warn the king. This was investigated, found to be true, and the perpetrators were hung. The incident was recorded in the “Book of Chronicles,” Scripture says.
However, the king promotes Haman, who was an evil man, over the whole Persian kingdom. And Mordecai was the only one who refused to bow homage to Haman, and Haman soon realized it was because Mordecai was, in fact, a Jew. Because of Mordecai’s stand in refusing to bow before any man, the entire Jewish population was ordered to be exterminated and plundered, as were the Jews in Nazi Germany in this last century.
Esther was seemingly the only hope for the Jews, and she risked her life knowingly to plead for the lives of her people. But before she even had an opportunity to do so, God kept King Ahasuerus awake at night, and so he ordered the “Book of the Chronicles” be read to him. On reading the account of Mordecai saving his life, he realized he’d done nothing to honor Mordecai in return. This, too, was God-ordained. And Haman was forced to bring Mordecai, whose gallows he’d just built, to be honored before the king.
Then when the time was appointed to Esther, she revealed before the king, Haman for the wicked man he was, and Mordecai and the Jewish people were instead honored, and those who sought to destroy them were in fact killed, and Mordecai was put in Haman’s position of authority.
This story is an encouragement to me. Mordecai and Esther both stood on godly principles. They refused to compromise by refusing to bow before men rather than God, and by coming to the rescue of those who were about to be slaughtered because they were God’s chosen people. This was regardless of the fact Esther herself might likely be removed as queen, and executed along with Mordecai and the rest of the Jews.
But in the end, God intervened miraculously.
To me, it was an encouragement that Esther has all the Jews and her entourage fast for her prior to approaching the king, and God intervened miraculously. I too have realized, as Jesus said, that some things do not come about but by prayer AND FASTING, and so, Kathie and I have begun to fast on a weekly basis for Kathie’s health, for my freedom, and a few other things. And I pray God will use dreams to appear to Muslims here in my unit I have shared the gospel with, and that God will even miraculously use a dream that will result in my vindication and release from prison. I’m not certain how God will bring it about, but I am praying and fasting for it regularly.