January 13, 2024 Providence

Part 2 | Persevering in the Providence of God

From Esther 3-4

often from to .

📖 Esther 3:1-2 NLT Some time later King Xerxes promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite over all the other nobles

Three points about my “battle-ful” life:

1. My are the of a cosmic that long before me.

📖 Genesis 3:15 ESV 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.”

📖 Ephesians 6:12 ESV For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

2. My wants to me.

📖 Esther 3:5-6 NLT When Haman saw that Mordecai would not bow down or show him respect, he was filled with rage. 6 He had learned of Mordecai’s nationality, so he decided it was not enough to lay hands on Mordecai alone. Instead, he looked for a way to destroy all the Jews throughout the entire empire of Xerxes.

📖 Esther 3:9 NLT If it please the king, issue a decree that they be destroyed, and I will give 10,000 large sacks of silver to the government administrators to be deposited in the royal treasury.”

📖 Esther 3:13 ESV Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces with instruction to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods.

📖 John 10:10 ESV The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

3. My wants me in the .

📖 Esther 3:10 ESV So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews. 11 And the king said to Haman, “The money is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you.”

📖 Esther 4:1-2 NLT When Mordecai learned about all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on burlap and ashes, and went out into the city, crying with a loud and bitter wail. 2 He went as far as the gate of the palace, for no one was allowed to enter the palace gate while wearing clothes of mourning.

📖 Esther 4:3 NLT And as news of the king’s decree reached all the provinces, there was great mourning among the Jews. They fasted, wept, and wailed, and many people lay in burlap and ashes.

📖 Esther 4:5 NLT Then Esther sent for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs who had been appointed as her attendant. She ordered him to go to Mordecai and find out what was troubling him and why he was in mourning.

The of this can make me of the in the World.

📖 Esther 4:8 NLT Mordecai gave Hathach a copy of the decree issued in Susa that called for the death of all Jews. He asked Hathach to show it to Esther and explain the situation to her. He also asked Hathach to direct her to go to the king to beg for mercy and plead for her people.

📖 Esther 4:10-11 NLT Then Esther told Hathach to go back and relay this message to Mordecai: 11 “All the king’s officials and even the people in the provinces know that anyone who appears before the king in his inner court without being invited is doomed to die unless the king holds out his gold scepter. And the king has not called for me to come to him for thirty days.”

📖 Esther 4:13-14 ESV Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

Persevere in the Providence of God:

1. God’s will be .

“Relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews.”

2. I must .

📖 Esther 4:8 ESV go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people

3. My actions are of God’s .

“Who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

📖 Esther 4:15-16 ESV Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, 16 “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”