PROVIDENTIAL WORK OF GOD FOR US!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

MONDAY DECEMBER 16, 2024.

SUBJECT: PROVIDENTIAL WORK OF GOD FOR US!

Memory verse: "For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place; but you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4 vs 14. )

READ: Esther 3 vs 8 - 14:

3:8: Then Haman said to king Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from all other people’s, and they do not keep the king's laws. Therefore it is not fitting for the king to let them remain.

3:9 If it please the king, let a decree be written that they be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who do the work to bring it into the king's treasuries.”

3:10 So the king took his signet ring from his hand, and gave it to Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews.

3:11 And the king said to Haman, “The money and the people are given to you, do with them as it seems good to you.

3:12 Then the king's scribes were called on the thirteenth day of the first month, and  a decree was written according to all that Haman had commanded— to the king's satraps, to the governors who were over every province, according tothe officials of every people, to every province according to its script, and to every people in their language. In the name of king Ahasuerus it was written, and sealed with the king's signet ring.

3:13 And the letters were sent by couriers into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to plunder their possessions..

INTIMATION:

Providence is foresight; care; especially, the foresight and care which God manifests for His creatures; hence, God Himself, regarded as exercising a constant wise prescience. It is a manifestation of the care and superintendence which God exercises over His creatures; an event ordained by divine direction. It is noteworthy that God is constantly behind the scenes working for the good of His people—His children who believe in Him.

Probably there is no book, in the entire Bible that portrays the providential work of God in the lives of His people more than the book of Esther. When considering the plan of God to bring the Mesiah into the world, the book of Esther gives a vital historical view of how God providentially preserved the returned exiles in order that they be the foundation upon which He fulfilled His promises to the seed of Abraham. The key figures—Mordecai and Esther—were of the God’s chosen race—the Jews. Ironically God or His name wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the book of Esther, 

Though there is no mention of God in the book, the lives of Mordecai and Esther exemplify the lives of people who are committed to God and His purposes. When the skeptic would consider coincidences in the lives of these two characters of the book, the believer stands in wonder at how God worked all things together for the good of His people. The book shows how God worked in the events surrounding His people in order that they survive to bring about His purpose for their existence. 

Mordecai’s family was deported to Babylonian empire. He was probably born in Shushan, a city that became one of Persia’s capitals after Cyrus conquered Babylon. Mordecai then inherited an official position among the Jewish captives that kept him around the palace even after the Babylonians were driven out. At one time, when Mordecai overheard plans to assassinate King Ahasuerus, he reported the plot and saved his life.

Mordecai was in conflict with the king’s second in command, Haman. Although willing to serve the king, Mordecai refused to worship the king’s representative. Haman was furious with Mordecai . So he planned to have Mordecai and all the Jews killed. His plan became a law of the Medes and Persians, and it looked as though the Jews were doomed. 

Esther was a Jewish orphan girl who eventually became the queen of Persia. She was brought up in Shushan by her uncle, Mordecai. Esther’s beauty and character won Ahasuerus’ heart, and he made her queen. At the instruction of her uncle, Mordecai, Esther didn’t disclose her whole identity even in the position of the queen of Medes and Persia. 

Mordecai, willing to be God’s servant wherever he was, responded by contacting Esther, and telling her that one reason God had allowed her to be queen might well be to save her people from this threat. But God had also placed him in the right place years earlier. In Mordecai’s life, God blended character and circumstances to accomplish great things. He has not changed the way He works. For believers, God can use the situations they face each day to weave a pattern of godliness into their character. 

God was working behind the scenes. God denied the king sleep, and consequently revealed to the king through his nighttime reading of historical documents that Mordecai had once saved his life, and the king realized he had never thanked him. Ahasuerus lost no time in honoring Mordecai for that act. The great honor then given to Mordecai ruined Haman’s plan to impale him to a pole. God had woven an effective counter-strategy against which Haman’s plan could not stand. There is grim justice in Haman’s death on the pole he had built for Mordecai, and it seems fitting that the day on which the Jews were to be slaughtered became the day their enemies died. 

God presumably made Haman to introduce the Jews to the king as ”a certain people.” The king was greatly infuriated when he learned that Haman’s  plan would have caused the death of the queen after Esther disclosed she was among the people he was to kill. All these things were working together for the good of God’s people, and for His purpose of preserving a remnant of the seed of Abraham through which the Messiah will come, so that His promise would be fulfilled.

As a child of God, always know that God is providentially working behind the scenes for your good, the circumstances you found yourself notwithstanding. Again, God has not placed you in your present position for your own benefit. He put you there to serve Him. As in Esther’s case, this may involve risking your security. Are you willing to let God be your ultimate security?

Prayer: Abba Father, You are my refuge and my fortress. Surely You will deliver me from hidden traps, and shield me from deadly hazards. I will not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flies by day, nor for the pestilence that walks in darkness; nor for the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand may fall at my side, and ten thousand at my right hand; but it will not come near me. Only with my eyes will I see the reward of the wicked, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!