The King Executes Haman
1So the king and Haman went to Queen Esther’s banquet. 2On this second occasion, while they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, “Tell me what you want, Queen Esther. What is your request? I will give it to you, even if it is half the kingdom!”
3Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor with the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my request, I ask that my life and the lives of my people will be spared. 4For my people and I have been sold to those who would kill, slaughter, and annihilate us. If we had merely been sold as slaves, I could remain quiet, for that would be too trivial a matter to warrant disturbing the king.”
5“Who would do such a thing?” King Xerxes demanded. “Who would be so presumptuous as to touch you?”
6Esther replied, “This wicked Haman is our adversary and our enemy.” Haman grew pale with fright before the king and queen. 7Then the king jumped to his feet in a rage and went out into the palace garden.
Haman, however, stayed behind to plead for his life with Queen Esther, for he knew that the king intended to kill him. 8In despair he fell on the couch where Queen Esther was reclining, just as the king was returning from the palace garden.
The king exclaimed, “Will he even assault the queen right here in the palace, before my very eyes?” And as soon as the king spoke, his attendants covered Haman’s face, signaling his doom.
9Then Harbona, one of the king’s eunuchs, said, “Haman has set up a sharpened pole that stands seventy-five feet* tall in his own courtyard. He intended to use it to impale Mordecai, the man who saved the king from assassination.”
“Then impale Haman on it!” the king ordered. 10So they impaled Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai, and the king’s anger subsided.
May 14 Reflection & Worship
Going and Coming with God
WE MUST ASK OURSELVES, “HOW MUCH OF ETERNITY IS IN WHAT WE ARE DOING?”
LOOK BACK “Go home!” (That’s what Artaxerxes told Nehemiah to do.)
“Stay put!” (That, in essence, is what Mordecai told Esther to do.)
Sounds a bit confusing until you realize that both commands were God’s will for his choice servants. When Nehemiah saw there was a rebuilding job to do hundreds of miles away in his beloved Jerusalem, he prayerfully began to form a plan to tackle the job. When the king inquired, Nehemiah was ready.
By contrast, Esther saw a need right where she lived in Persia. Her Jewish countrymen were threatened with annihilation at the hands of wicked Haman. With the help of her cousin, Mordecai, Esther fasted, prayed, and formed a plan. And when the king inquired, Esther was ready.
Each faced withering opposition and seemingly insurmountable odds. They both had plenty of reason never to attempt what they did. And each saw God work a miracle through his available servant. What exciting walks of faith to study and model your life after as you seek to obey God in the daily decisions of life.
LOOK UP Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither are most other things that have the potential to touch many lives or accomplish great good. Careful planning, combined with fervent prayer and plenty of hard work, can accomplish things for God that would never be possible on the spur of the moment.
Here is a partial list of long-range projects you might want to consider. If one person can’t accomplish them alone, why not share your vision and burden with a circle of close praying friends, and see if God might want you to tackle something together:
• Completely eliminate credit card debt.
• Start a backyard Bible class or weekly evangelistic Bible study in your neighborhood.
• Begin a recreation program with inner-city youth.
• Write a book.
• Take a short-term mission trip to another country.
• Call your former classmates from high school or college, and tell them the difference Jesus has made in your life.
• Build a low-cost house for a family who is dependent on government aid.
• Run for public office.
• Go back to school and finish that bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree.
LOOK AHEAD No one believed Nehemiah could rebuild the walls of Jerusalem that lay in rubble and ruin. Fortified by long hours of prayer and tears, and joined by fifty thousand of his motivated countrymen, they completed the task miraculously in fifty-two days despite intense opposition.
No one believed Esther could stay the death sentence hanging over her countrymen. But with her heart prepared through prayer and fasting, and counseled by her godly cousin, Mordecai, Esther ventured into the very presence of the king to make her bold request. As a result, thousands of Jews were spared.
No one may believe that you can accomplish what God has laid upon your heart either . . . until you attempt it in the strength of the Lord.