HealingStrong's Around the Word

Episode 54 - The Esther Series: Divine Insomnia (Esther 6 NIV)

• HealingStrong • Episode 54

Share episode

God orchestrates a remarkable reversal of fortunes as King Xerxes' insomnia leads to Haman being forced to honor his enemy Mordecai through the streets of the city.

• The king's sleepless night leads him to read chronicles recording Mordecai's loyalty in exposing an assassination plot
• Haman arrives to request Mordecai's execution but instead must lead his honor parade
• God works behind the scenes, orchestrating events that no one could have planned
• Even Haman's advisors recognize the divine protection over the Jewish people
• Our ordinary, faithful actions can have significant impact beyond what we can see
• Living faithfully day by day allows God to use us in his sovereign plan
• Biblical story demonstrates acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God

Suggested Resources:

BIBLE PLAN - Trusting God's Plan When You Don't See Him: Lessons From the Book of Esther

PODCAST - Genesis to Revelation Bible Reading

TOOLS - Refresh Your Spirit through God's Word


Please visit our website at healingstrong.org to learn more about our mission and community groups.

HELP US GROW:

Your donation enables us to continue offering this podcast and other resources for free supporting those facing cancer and chronic illness, caregivers and others. Every donation makes a big difference. Please donate here.

Speaker 1:

Who would think that what you do in any given day could have eternal consequences? But it's possible. You know you could speak to somebody tomorrow. It changes the destiny of their lives.

Speaker 2:

Hey, there, I'm Cheryl and you're listening to Healing Strong's Around the Word. We're a group of friends sitting around a table that love God and we love digging deep into His Word. Each day you'll hear me reading into His Word. Each day you'll hear me reading a Bible passage and then you'll hear us chatting about what we're learning from it. So today I'll be reading Esther, chapter 6 from the NIV version of the Bible. So join us Around the Word, esther, chapter 6.

Speaker 2:

That night the king could not sleep, so he ordered the Book of the Chronicles, the record of his reign, to be brought in and read to him. It was found recorded there that Mordecai had exposed Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's officers who guarded the doorway, who had conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. What honor and recognition has Mordecai received for this? The king asked Nothing has been done for him. His attendants answered the king said who is in the court Now?

Speaker 2:

Haman had just entered the outer court of the palace to speak to the king about impaling Mordecai on the pole he had set up for him. His attendants answered Haman is standing in the court. Bring him in, the king ordered. When Haman entered, the king asked him what should be done for the man the king delights to honor. Now Haman thought to himself who is there that the king would rather honor than me? So he answered the king. For the man the king delights to honor. Have them bring a royal robe the king has worn and a horse the king has ridden, one with a royal crest placed on its head. Then let the robe and horse be entrusted to one of the king's most noble princes. Let them robe the man the king delights to honor and lead him on the horse through the city streets, proclaiming before him this is what is done for the man the king delights to honor. Go at once. The king commanded Haman. Get the robe and the horse and do just as you have suggested for Mordecai, the Jew who sits at the king's gate. Do not neglect anything you have recommended' so Haman got the robe and the horse. He robed Mordecai and led him on horseback through the city streets, proclaiming before him "'This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor'. Afterward, mordecai returned to the king's gate, but Haman rushed home with his head covered in grief and told Zeresh, his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him. His advisors and his wife Zeresh said to him Since Mordecai, before whom your downfall has started, is of Jewish origin, you cannot stand against him. You will surely come to ruin. While they were still talking with him, the king's eunuchs arrived and hurried Haman away to the banquet Esther had prepared.

Speaker 2:

That was our Bible reading for today. Now let's see what Susie, jeff, angie and myself were discussing around the word Insomnia. We start off this amazing chapter with insomnia, and boy, this is a whopper of a chapter. So much happens. This is the chapter where you can really see God's hand moving in this. It's interesting.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he probably couldn't sleep because it's the night of that banquet. You know it's the first banquet Esther held, so they ate like crazy.

Speaker 2:

Well, and he had been drinking the night before too. Yeah, yeah, so here we go.

Speaker 1:

He's trouble sleeping with all this food he ate. And what did he decide to?

Speaker 3:

do. I'm just wondering too, what in the world is going on. Why?

Speaker 1:

won't Esther just tell me what she wants? I think he could. Yeah, esther, just tell me what she wants. I think he could. Yeah, he could have been wondering. So now he's going to go back to his whole life with Esther and go back in the Chronicles.

Speaker 3:

Oh, that's right, I never thought of it that way.

Speaker 2:

Why would he go for the Chronicles? I just thought he wanted to be bored, you know, so he would go to sleep. You know it's like boring historical documents. That'll put me to sleep, you know.

Speaker 1:

So he goes back and reads the records, and the records are what the things happened to the king, or for the king, or with the king. They're all about the king, yeah, so let's read some stuff about myself, right.

Speaker 2:

You're right, though I never thought of that, that he literally could have just been. Maybe something had happened. And there was a note in the chronicles, that about esther that I just didn't catch. I don't know, I just that's just. I mean, we can always play this game trying to figure it out, we don't know.

Speaker 4:

But and it's obvious that he did not sleep much at all because, I mean, we know that, coming on onto the scene as he finds out from the eunuchs what's been done for this Mordecai? Well, nothing has been done. So he says who's available? And Haman just arrived into the court. So we know it's early in the morning because Haman had already begun the construction of the gallows, because he's about to unveil his evil plan for Mordecai. But the king is already, because of God's sovereignty, jumped ahead and starts the conversation with Haman with a question.

Speaker 2:

And I can't forget this too. I mean, this is a king that could probably care less about a lot of things. So the fact that he even zeroes in on Mordecai and that this guy didn't get anything done for him is very striking to me too, Because he could have been like yeah, whatever you know. But the fact that he's like, well, what did we do for this guy? Like that, he has interest. There's something in the story that makes him interested to want to do something for Mordecai, aka show him favor, I find that interesting too.

Speaker 2:

Maybe, he couldn't sleep because he could hear the builders outside. True, you're right.

Speaker 4:

What's that noise? But I find there's a line of compassion that is within this king's history when you go back to Vashti. He could have had her killed, but he didn't. Esther could have been killed, but he didn't. And so there's something that resonates with maybe he's not such a bad king after all Not saying he's perfect and good but there's something about him that the Lord is using, that there's some qualities about him that are being used, and we see in these moments, these pivotal moments.

Speaker 2:

And notice, this time too, it just so happened that Haman, of all the nobles, decides to show up in the court, so it almost leads me to believe that Haman would later. Not, he would not have been tasked with carting around mordecai had he not shown up at that point. I think he was just looking for who was available to go cart around the person that, that is mordecai.

Speaker 4:

So I just pay them honor, because he didn't even know what should be done, that's what he asked, yeah, what should be done for this person?

Speaker 2:

and then, then, haman just happens to be there.

Speaker 4:

That's right. So it had some other nobles shown up, they would have been tasked with. How do we honor someone that the king wants to honor, but Haman, pride preceding the fall, shows up and thinks oh, it's all about me. What would I like? This is what I would like.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he literally paints the picture of what he would want to have done, which is funny to me. You look like you're about to say something.

Speaker 1:

I know I was just thinking I love how God orchestrates. I think there I kind of see all the characters right now as little puppets. They couldn't have known what was going on. But God is behind the scenes orchestrating this whole darn thing. I mean, if Haman had just been a little bit later and some other noble came in, or if this had happened or that had happened, you know this all orchestrated, so all these things are just so happening. You know it just so happened that Vashti denies coming before the king and it just so happens that there needs to be a new queen and it just so happens that this little orphan Jewish girl gets picked to come to the palace along with a lot of others. It just so happened that this night and that night and this person and reading these chronicles and happened to have Mordecai in it.

Speaker 2:

It's so providential, a lot of coincidences yeah, yeah, a lot of coincidences, yeah, a lot of coincidences.

Speaker 1:

Who would think that what you do in any given day could have eternal consequences? But it's possible. You know you could speak to somebody tomorrow. It changes the destiny of their lives.

Speaker 4:

And what I love about Esther and you know we talk about her history she remained faithful and I love when I think about how she behaved in all of her actions, all of the preparing of the food, the fasting, how she respected others and honored others. The thing I love is that when you go to Micah 6.8, he has shown you, o mortal mortal, what is good and what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. And when I see Esther, that's what I see. She is putting that teaching into practice. That's who she was.

Speaker 2:

She's trusting God to take care of this too. She doesn't know this is all happening while she's preparing a banquet, so she's not even on the scene right now with this. This is this whole sleepless night. This. Now Mordecai is about to be honored. This is all happening without her doing, which is really cool that God is orchestrating that too. So she did her part. She came and sought God with her problem, and then God took care of it, like we know he will. So we may not know how he's going to do it, and I promise she could not have even seen this one coming.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, she didn't have a plan in mind. Okay, here's what's going to happen, King, here's what I want and here's what I want you to do. And you know, she really is walking this out, I think, with great faith. What I'm seeing is that she had this role, but God is using all of this other stuff going on Lots of people.

Speaker 3:

And even the fact that Haman goes in with the fact that he wants to hang somebody on the gallows and walks out, putting him on the very horse that he thought he was going to be riding with. Somebody proclaiming here is what we do when we're trying, you know. We want to honor what somebody has done for the king. So even in that it's just mind-blowing to me.

Speaker 1:

And so for application to our daily lives, we don't know what's going on in other people's lives. It may look like this, it may look like that. We don't need to be comparing to that. We don't know what's going on in ours, behind the scenes. We're just called to be faithful on a day-to-day basis, trotting along, plodding along, and God's sovereign and he's going to be there and it's going to work out. But we got to do our part in being faithful day by day, can you?

Speaker 2:

picture what Mordecai is probably sitting by the gate, by the way and then Haman walks up with this horse with the royal crest and says I'm going to put this robe on you you know, like meh, like I really don't want to do it, and then has to go around the whole town literally saying that line what he had hoped that would have been said about him.

Speaker 1:

Total humility. I mean, that's just so humbling. Humiliating to him, I'm sure. So the lesson in that is don't get on a high horse.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, don't get on a high horse, and I love whenever he goes home. He immediately runs home, like the last second when he probably got to the last inch of the path he had to take with Mordecai. He runs home. He runs home because he's so humiliated and he's in grief.

Speaker 4:

He literally covers his head in grief. It says and this has been an all-day affair In grief. It says and this has been an all-day affair because he came early in the morning and now he has completed his day, having honored the guy that he cannot stand. And so, you're right, he heads home right before dinner.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and he's wanting to talk to his support group, his wife and all his friends whom he was just bragging to the day before. But, interesting, look at their reaction and what they say this time. In fact, this is his advisors and his wife, zeresh, saying to him since Mordecai before whom, your downfall has started, so they already know, they've got. These are the people who say build a gallows. And now they're saying, oh whoa, complete shift, like a 180, my friends, your downfall has started. And since this Mordecai is of Jewish origin, you cannot stand against him. Does that not blow your mind? I mean, remember, these are Persians too. These are not Jews, but and they are now recognizing, they're probably seeing there's a divine thing going on behind the scenes, because how could this happen?

Speaker 3:

They probably heard what was going on all day long. I mean Mordecai's getting honored in the court, so I'm sure word traveled fast that day.

Speaker 2:

And they're like you will surely come to ruin, like they have now completely changed from we're going to hang this guy to this is not good to oh, this is not good.

Speaker 1:

Never mind that everybody's seeing a 75-foot apparatus being built for killing somebody Gallows they call it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And all the while, that's unnerving, don't you think? Oh yeah, a gallows, because obviously the town's going to talk about that. They know what that is for. So, and all the while, we have the eunuchs coming and arriving and hurrying Haman away now to go to the banquet. What a change of events.

Speaker 2:

And it all started with a sleepless night of the king, and can you imagine that Mordecai would have had no idea that he was about to be honored that day? I love how we see how God is working behind the scenes. Esther couldn't have known it, Mordecai couldn't have known it, Haman couldn't have known it. It is just crazy. I love the story. I hope you do too, and thank you so much for joining us for Healing Strongs Around the Word. I hope you're encouraged to get into God's word and dig deeper and find out all these amazing stories that are there. And also, if you have some time, check out healingstrongorg. That is our website and you can find out more about our mission and our wonderful community groups. And if you're liking this podcast of ours, take some time like us, click subscribe so you'll get the latest episode whenever we post it. And tell your friends about us. We'd love more people listening in and getting excited about God's Word. So until next time, remember faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.