“The Weaver Will Accomplish His Work in the World: An Introduction to Esther”

Why Have the Jews Persisted to Exist?

The existence of the Jews is an evidence for the existence of the God of the Bible.  What do I mean?  I mean that the fact that the Jews are still in existence today gives us good reason to believe that the Bible is true.  The Bible says that God created the Jews, blessed them, multiplied them, preserved them, and even has a plan in the future for them.  The Bible says that God’s work to remake the world will flow through the Jews, starting with Abraham and culminating with Jesus.  In order for that to happen, the Jews must exist!  For God to work through the Jews, there need to be Jews in the world.  And there have been for thousands of years.

Have you ever wondered why the Jewish people have persisted through history, when so many of their neighbors haven’t?  Where are the Canaanites, Jebusites, Amalekites, Edomites, and Moabites?  Through war and conquest and assimilation into other people groups, these peoples no longer exist as definite and unique groups.  The judgment of God came upon them because they cursed the people God had blessed.  They no longer exist, but the Jews do. 

Why is that?  Why has a relatively small group of people, from a very contentious and volatile part of the world, persisted for millennia when other groups haven’t?  Why have so many people hated and wanted to wipe out the Jews?  And yet why has no one actually been able to do it?  Could it be that what the Bible says about their relationship with God and about God’s plan for them is true?  Could their persistence in existence verify the truthfulness of the Bible?   

Esther Is About God Preserving the Jews

Some scholars have even said that history has a “pro-Jewish shape to it” and that the Jewish nation continues to survive because of the “overarching purpose of history.”  I believe them because I believe the Bible, and the Bible says that the continuance of the Jewish nation is guaranteed by divine promise.   

This is nowhere better illustrated than in the little Old Testament book of Esther.  We’re going to be studying this little book for the next ten weeks.  We’ll do an overview of its main point and purpose today, then do a chapter a week for the next nine weeks.

Esther is a Cinderella story about a beautiful Jewish orphan who becomes the queen of Persia.  It’s a story with intriguing characters and plot twists.  But it’s mostly a story about how God providentially preserves and protects his precious people Israel.  Esther is a story about God saving the Jews and defeating their enemies.  It’s a story about how the Jews persisted as a nation because they’re in the center of God’s plans for the world. 

On of the main characters of the story, Mordecai, Esther’s cousin who adopted her as his own daughter, believed this.  He said to Esther, “If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place” (4:14).  Even Haman’s wife believed this.  She said, “If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the Jewish people, you will not overcome him but will surely fall before him” (6:13). 

These are two of the clearest and most absolute statements in the Bible about the importance and centrality of the Jews in God’s plan.  History revolves around God’s dealings with the Jews.  His plans with and through them will not be overcome.  The Jews will persist to exist.  And they have persisted to exist, giving us great reason to trust that the God of the Bible is the one true and living God.    

What Is the Bible?

As we begin our study of Esther, I want to take some time talking about how we should study the Bible, especially books like this that are unfamiliar to us.  But first we need to understand the nature of the Bible. 

What is the Bible?  It is the inspired Word of God that reveals the glory of God in the Son of God through the power of the Spirit of God.  Paul says to Timothy, “From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:15-16).  And Peter says, “No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21).  Everything that’s in the Bible is in the Bible because God put it in the Bible.  The events in the books of the Bible are in the Bible because God wants them to be.  He wrote it by his Spirit, through men, and preserved it through time.

Why did he do this?  To teach us that hope is only found in him.  Paul says it like this, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4).  God produced and preserved the Scriptures for us in order to teach us and encourage us and give us hope.  This means that all the details of all the books of the Bible are important, that all of Scripture is meant to increase our hope in God. 

How Should We Read the Bible?

Since the Bible is written by God, all the details are important.  God doesn’t waste words.  How should we read and understand all the details?  We must start with the big picture.  We must step back and look at the whole canvas so that we can understand each stroke.  We must start with a Google earth view before we do a street view.  We need to understand the nature of the forest before we start studying all the different kinds of trees.

What Is God’s Plan?

The Bible tells us what the forest looks like.  It shows us the big picture, the plan that God is accomplishing, the will and purpose that he is working out in history.  Ephesians 1:3-10 is one of the best summaries of this in Scripture.  God has a plan and purpose centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ, a plan to “unite all things in him” (v. 10). 

Paul is saying that God’s overarching plan is to draw all things together “in Christ.”  God’s will is to make Jesus the center and focal point of the universe.  All the fragmented and alienated and estranged and divided parts of the universe will be brought together in Christ.

Later in Ephesians 1, Paul says that Jesus’ resurrection and ascension is proof that he will reign over all things (vv. 15-23).  Jesus will be the head of all things.  He’ll reign as the Supreme Ruler of the new heavens and new earth.  Every creature, both angelic and human, will pay homage to him.  Every person will bend the knee and declare that Jesus is Lord.  Every realm of existence will be united under Christ and for Christ.  This is God’s Endgame.  This is his plan.  This is where all of history is moving towards.    

Through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, God has begun the process of making all things new, of bringing everything together in Christ.  God’s great goal, the mystery he kept secret for ages but has now made known, is that he’s in the process of reorganizing the entire universe around Jesus Christ.  Everything God created will take the place that God originally intended it to have. 

The plan and purpose of God centers on the person and work of Jesus.  How does this help us read the Bible?  This means that all the symbols and pictures and promises and stories in the Bible should be understood as pointing to the fulfillment of God’s plan in Christ.

A Fight Predicted from the Beginning

This includes Esther.  Let me give you an example of what I mean by zooming out and letting the bigger story of Scripture help us understand the details.  In Esther, a man named Haman gets mad at Mordecai and wants to kill him.  But he doesn’t stop there.  He wants to kill the people of Mordecai (3:6). 

Haman wanted to wipe out all the Jews.  But this shouldn’t surprise us because Scripture has already told us that the Devil will be at war with God’s plan and people.  This is Genesis 3:15.  To the serpent, the Lord said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

This verse is called the proto-evangellion, or “first gospel.”  It’s massively important for our understanding of the story of the Bible.  It helps us not lose our place in the story.  One of my favorite books to read to my sons is called The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher Brings Us Back to the Garden, by Kevin DeYoung.  I love it because it frames the whole story of the Bible around God’s plan to crush the Evil One through the offspring of the woman.   

Genesis 3:15 says that it won’t be a 50-50 fight.  The offspring of the woman is going to injure the serpents head but only be injured in his heel in return.  It says that the offspring of the woman will win the fight.  This verse points to all things being united again under the perfect rule of God.  A woman will give birth to someone who’ll crush the serpent and be injured in the process.  This someone is Jesus Christ, who dealt a deathblow to Satan through his death and resurrection and will one day complete the job of destroying him when he returns.    

Genesis 3:15 also tells us that, in the meantime, the Evil One will seek to disrupt God’s plan.  We see this throughout Scripture.  Haman is just one of many characters in the Bible doing the Devil’s work.  Remember Herod the Great who killed all the babies two and under in Bethlehem when Jesus was born (Matt. 2:16)?  The Evil One tried to disrupt God’s plan on many occasions, but was always unsuccessful.

What If Haman Had Been Successful?

But think about it.  What if Haman had been successful?  The Jews would’ve been destroyed, the saving work of God promised to come through the descendants of Abraham would have ended, there would be no fulfillment of these promises in Christ, no gospel, no church, no reason for me to be preaching right now and no reason for you to be listening. 

There are cosmic consequences in the story of Esther.  God’s ability to do what he said was on the line.  God’s promises were going to be proven true or false.  God’s special love for his special people was tested.  His power to accomplish his purpose of uniting all things in Christ was challenged.  It’s no overstatement to say that our eternal destiny hung in the balance as the story of Esther unfolded.  If Esther and Mordecai’s plan fails, the Jews are destroyed, God is shown to be a liar, all hope of a Savior is gone, and we have to live our whole lives wondering if there’s a God in heaven and whether we’ve done enough good to gain his acceptance. 

Salvation is from the Jews

But, spoiler alert, Haman was not successful.  God’s word was vindicated.  His people were saved.  And his enemies were destroyed.  The main point of the little book of Esther is that God preserves his people because from them his Messiah will come. 

Remember what Jesus told the woman at the well in John 4?  He said, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.  You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews” (vv. 21-22). 

God’s plan to save the world is centered on the Jews.  No Jews, no salvation from God.  No Jews, no Messiah from God.  No Jews, no gospel of God.  No Jews, no Jesus.  The story of Esther thus becomes one of the most important stories in the Bible.  If you remove the tree of Esther from the forest of the Bible, the whole forest burns down and kills everyone trying to find safety in it.

Why We Must Understand the Big Picture

This is why I say we must understand the big picture of the Bible before we drop into Esther and start looking at its details.  If we don’t understand the big picture, we’ll drop into Esther and do all kinds of things with the story that God never intended.  We’ll say things like Esther was a courageous woman, so we need more courageous women.  Or Haman was a bad guy, don’t be a bad guy.  Or the king had an ego so we shouldn’t have an ego.  People who study the Bible like this study it for decades but don’t know the Bible any better than the day they started.  All because they never stood far enough back to see the whole canvas. 

The big picture of the Bible is that God is doing something much greater than the Persian empire or the American empire, even something greater than the Jewish nation.  Through Jesus Christ, God is creating a people from all the peoples of the world in order to show off the glory of his grace.  Those who’ve trusted in Christ are caught up in a story of cosmic proportions.  Salvation isn’t a little personal thing that we carry around like a pet to comfort us.  No, lift up your eyes and see the greatness of the plan that God has called you into through Jesus. 

God’s Providence in Esther

The main point of Esther is that God preserves his people because from them his Messiah will come.  As we’ll see, God did this through extraordinary circumstances.  There are dozens of things that had to happen in just the right way for the Jews to be saved.  And they all happened. 

Theologians call this providence.  God’s providence is his work to make sure that everything that needs to be done to bring about his purposes is done.  God providence means that God sees to it that everything happens that needs to happen in order to accomplish his goals in the world. 

This truth is all over Esther.  And all over the Bible.  Isaiah 46:10, “(I declare) the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’”  As we learned from Ephesians 1, God’s purpose is to unite all things in Christ.  So he must do everything necessary to make sure that happens.  Esther is full of examples of how God ordered everything just the way it had to be to ensure the salvation of the Jews. 

Your Life Is a Book About Providence

Esther is a book about providence.  Your life is also a book about providence.  Your life is a sacred story written by God, a story full of thousands of examples of how things went a certain way to get you where you are.  A story full of good things and bad things.  The Puritans talked about God’s sweet and bitter providences.  Sometimes God orders things so that hard things happen in order to accomplish his good purposes. 

Isn’t this exactly what Romans 8:28 says?  “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”  God weaves everything in our lives together in order to create a masterful work of art.  Even the worst things that happen to us turn out for our good, as they’re part of the canvas that God is painting. 

For example, God is still using the divorce of my parents over thirty years ago to do good things in my life.  This was by far the most painful event of my life, an event that left scars still being revealed and healed.  In his infinite wisdom, God decided to weave my parent’s divorce into the tapestry of my life’s canvas in order to accomplish his good purposes for me.

The Real Test of Our Doctrine of Providence

For all those who love God, God’s good purposes will be accomplished in your life.  This means that God intends to turn your bad things for your good.  Do you believe that?

The real test of our doctrine of providence is not on the good days, but on the bad days.  It’s not hard to trust in God’s plan “when peace like a river attendeth our way.”  But what about “when sorrows like the sea billows roll”?  Do we say “It is well with my soul” in the storm and the drought and the sorrow and the fear and the loneliness and the grief and the pain? 

On the good days, we’re quick to say, “God is good.”  But if Romans 8:28 is true, then on the hardest days we should also say, “God is good.”  The great hymn says, “Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.” 

God Sees the Whole Chain

It’s been said that Esther is an extended meditation on Romans 8:28 because the book is full of examples of how God worked even bad things together for the good of his people in order to accomplish his purposes. 

If he did it in Esther’s day, won’t he do it for us today?  Do you trust God in the details of your life?  The ups and downs, twists and turns, pains and joys, successes and failures?  Do you trust him in sickness and in health?  In riches and poverty?  In singleness and marriage?  In pregnancy and infertility?  In employment and unemployment? 

We only see the links of the chain of our lives.  God sees the whole chain, from beginning to end.  He knows what he’s doing.  He is wise and he is good and he is God.  If you belong to him through faith in Christ, you can rest assured that the links of your life’s chain are being linked together to create something strong and beautiful and useful and good and glorious. 

The providence of God is all over the story of Esther, and all over the story of your life.  God will accomplish his purposes to preserve his people for his glory and our good.

“The Weaver”

Let me close with a poem I heard this week for the first time.  It’s called “The Weaver,” written by Benjamin Malachi Franklin.  It goes like this:

My life is but a weaving
between my Lord and me;
I cannot choose the colors
He worketh steadily.

Oft times He weaveth sorrow
And I, in foolish pride,
Forget He sees the upper,
And I the underside.

Not til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly,
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver’s skillful hand,
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.    

The Weaver will accomplish his work in the world, and in your life.  Look to him.  Wait for him.  Trust his word.  Rest in his love.  Cast your cares on him, because he cares for you (1 Pet. 5:7).