She Acted Wisely, Bravely, and Selflessly

 ESTHER slowly approached the throne, her heart racing.  Imagine a hush falling over the great royal chamber in the Persian palace of Shushan, a silence so profound that Esther could hear her own soft footsteps and the rustling of her royal garments. She could not let her attention wander to the grandeur of the royal court, the graceful columns , the richly carved ceiling  of cedars imported from distant Lebanon. She trained all her attention on the man seated on the throne, the man who held her life in his hands.

 The king watched intently as Esther approached, extending his golden scepter toware dher.  It was a simple gesture, but it meant Esther's life, for by it the king excused her from the offense she had just committed-that of appearing before him with out a royal invitation.  As she to the throne, Esther reached out and gradually touched the top of the scepter. - ESTHER 5:1, 2.   

Everything about King Ahasuerus bespoke his immense wealth and power.  The royal garb of the Persian monarches of those times reputedly cost the equivalent  of hundreds of millions of dollars.  Yet, Esther could see some warmth in her husband's eyes; in his own way, he did love  her.  He said: "What do you have, O Esther the queen, and what is your request?   To the half of the kingship-let it be given to you!" - ESTHER 5:3. 

Esther had already shown remarkable faith and courage; she had come before the king to protect her people from a plotto wipe them all out. So far, she had met with success, but greater challenges lay ahead. She had to convince this proud monarch  that his most trusted adviser was a wicked man who had duyped him into condemning Esther's people to death.  How would she persuade him, and what can we learn from her faith? 

Next time: She Acted Wisely, Bravely and Selflessly - She Wisely Chose "a Time to Speak"

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She Stood Up for God's People

 A Faith Stronger Than the Fear of Death

For Esther, the the time of decision had arrived.  She asked Mordecai to get her countrymento join her in a three-day fast, concluding her message with a statement that resonates down to this day in its simple faith and courage: "In case I must perish, I must perish." (Esther 4:15-17)  She must have prayed  more fervently  those three days than she had ever had in her life. Finally, though, the moment came. She dressed in her very best royal finery, doing all she could to appeal to the king. Then she went. 

As describe at the outset of his chapter, Esther mader her way tot he king's court.  We can only imagine the anxious thoughts and fervent prayers filling her mind and heart.  She entered the courtyard, where she could see Ahasuerus on his throne. Perhaps she tried to read the expression on his face-the face that was framed by the carefully tended symmetrical curls of his hair and of his squared beard.  If she had to wait, it must have felt like an eternity. But the moment passed-her husband saw he. He was surely surprised, but his expression softened. He held out his golden scepter! - ESTHER 5:1, 2. 

Esther had gained an audience, a hearing ear. She had taken a stand for her God  and for her people, setting a beautiful example of faith for all her servants of god down through time.  True Christians today cherish such examples. Jesus said that his genuine followers would marked by self-sacrificing  love.  (Read John 13:34, 35.) Showing such love often requires courage like Esther's. But even after Esther stood up for God's people that day,  her work was only beginning. How would she convince the king that his favorite adviser, Haman was a  wicked schemer?  How could she help to save her people?  We will consider these questions in the following chapter. 

Next time: She Acted Wisely. Bravely, and Selflessly

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She Stood Up for God's People - Esther's Faith Under Test - Conclusion

 Mordecai knew that he had to act. But what could he do?  Esther heard of his distress and sent clothes to him, but Mordecai refused   to take comfort. Maybe he had long wondered why his God, Jehovah, had allowed dear Esther to be taken away from him and made the queen  of a pagan ruler?  Now the reason seemed to be emerging. Mordecai sent a message to the queen imploring her to intercede with the king, to stand up  "for her own people." - ESTHER 4:4-8. 

Esther's heart must have sunk when she heard that message. Here was her greates rest of faith.  She was afraid, as she freely revealed in her reply to Mordecai. She reminded him of the king's law. To appear before the king unsummoned meant a death sentence. Only if the king held out his golden scepter was the offender spared. And did Esther have any reason to expect such clemency, especially  in view of Vashti's fate when she had refused the king's command to appear? Esther told Mordecai that the kind had not invited her to see him in 30 days!  Sucn neglect left hr plenty of reason to wonder if she had fallen out of her favor with this capricous monarch. - ESTHER  4:9-11.

Mordecai replied firmly to bolster Esther's faith.  He assured her that if she failed to act, salvation for the Jews would arise from some other source. But how could she expect  to be spared once the persecution gathered force?  Here Mordecai showed his profound faith in Jehovah, who would never let His people be exterminated and His promises go unforgilled.  (Joshua 23:14)  Then Mordecai asked Esther: "Who is there knowing whether it is for a time like this that you have attained that dignity?"  (Esther 4:12-14)  Is not Mordecai worthy of imitation?  He trusted completely in his God, Jehovah. Do we? - PROVERBS 3:5, 6. 

Next time:  She Stood Up for God's People - A Faith Stronger Than the Fear of Death

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She Stood Up for God's People -Esther's Faith Under Test

A man named Haman rose to prominence in the court of Ahasuerus.  The king appointed him prime minister, making Haman his principal advisor and the second in command in the empire..  The king even decreed that all who saw this official must bow down to him.  (Eshter 3:1-4)  For Mordecai, that law posed a problem. He believed in obeying the king but not at the cost of disrespecting God. You see, Haman was an Agagite.  That evidentl means  thathe was a descendant of Agag, the Amalekites that they made themselves enemies of Jehovah and Israell. As  a people. the Amalekits stood condemned by God.  (Deuteronomy 25:19) How could a faithful Jew bow down to an Amalekite?  Mordecai would not. He stood his ground.  To this day, men and women of faith have risked their lives to adhere to  this principle:  "We must obey God as ruler rather than men." - ACTS 5:29.

Haman was enraged. But it was not enough for him to find a way to kill off Mordecai.  He wanted to exterminat all of Mordecai's people!  Haman persuaged the king by painting a dark portrait of the Jews.  Without naming them, he implied that they were inconsequential, a people "scattered and separated among the peoples."  Even worse, he said that they did not obey the king's laws; hence they were dangerous rebels.  He proposed to donate to the king's treasury an immense amount of money to cover the expense of slaughtering all the Jews in the empire.  Ahasuerus gave Haman the king's own signet ring to seal any order that he had in mind. - ESTHER 3:4-10. 

Soon messengers were speeding on horsebakcto every corner of the vast empire, delivering what amounted to a death sentence on the Jewish people.  Imagine the impact of such a proclamation when it reached  far-off Jerusalem, where  remanant of Jews who had returned from exile in Babylon were struggling to rebuild a city that still had no wallto defend it. Perhaps Mordecai thought of  them, as well as of his own friends and relatives in Shushan, when the terrible news. Distraught, he ripped his clothes, wore sackcloth and placed askes on his head, and cried aloud in the middle of the city. Haman, however sat drinking with the king.unmoved by the grief je jad stirred up among the many Jews and their friends in Shushan.  - Read ESTHER 3:12-4:1.

 Next time: She Stood Up for God's People - Esther's Faith Under Test -Conclusion

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She Stood Up for God's People- She Won Favor "in the Eyes of Everyone Seeing Her" -Conlusion

 Young people today can likewise bring joy to the hearts of parents and guaradians.  When out of their parents sight -even if surrounded by people who are shallow, immoral, or vicious-they can resist bad inflluences and stick to the standards that they know are right.  When they did so, like Esther, they make the heart of their heavenly Father rejoice. - Read PROVERBS  27:11.

When the time came for Esther to be  presented to the king, she given the liberty to select any items she thought she might need, perhaps to beautify herself further.  Modestly, though, she asked for nothing beyond what Hegai mentioned to her.  (Esther 2:15) She probably realizef that beauty alone would not win the kings's heart, a modest and humble spirit would prove far rarer commodity in the court.  What she right?

The account answers: "The king came to love Esther more than all the other women, so that she gained more favor and loving-kindness before him than all the other virgins. And he proceeded to put he royal headdress upon  her head and make her queen instead of Vashti."  (Esther 2:17)  It must have been hard  for this humble Jewish girl to adjust to the change in her life-she was the new queen, wife to ther most powerful monarch on earth at that time!  Did her new position go to her head, filling her with pride?  Far from it! 

Esther remained obedient to her adoptive father, Mordecai. She kept her connection to the Jewish people a secret.  Further, when Mordecai uncovered a plot to assassinate Ahasuerus, Esther obediently passed his warning along to the king, and the plotters were foiled.  (Esther 2:20-23)   She still expressed faith in her God by showing a humble, obedient spirit. How we need Esther's example todayt, when obedience is rarely valued as a virtue and when  disobedience and rebellion are the norm! But people of genuine faith treasure obedience, as Esther did.

Next time: She Stood Up for God's People - Esther's Faith Under Test

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She Stood Up for God's People

She Won Favor "in the Eyes of Everyone Seeing Her"

Esther found  herself ushered into a world that was entirely new and strange to her.  She was among "many young women" who had gathered from fare and wide in the Persian Empire. Their customes, languages, and attitudes msut have varied greatly. Placed under the charge  of an official named Hegai, the young women were to undergo an extensive  beautry treatment, a yearlong program that included massages with fragrant oils.  (Esther 2:8, 12) Such a lifestyle and environment might easily have bred an obsessions with personal appearance among those young women, along with vanity and competiveness. How was Esther affected?

No one on earth could have been more concerned about Esther than Mordecai was.  We read that day by day, he made his wayt as near as he could to the house of the women and endeavored to learn about Esther's welfare.  (Esther 2:11)  As bits of information  trickled out to him, perhaps through cooperative servants in the household, he must have beamed  with fatherly pride.  Why?

Esther so impressed Hegai that he treated her with great loving-kindness, giving her seven servant girls and the best place in the house of the women.  The account even says:  "All the while Esther was continually gaining favor in the eyes of everyone seeing her." (Esther 2:9, 15)  Would beauty alone have impressed everyone so profoundly?  No, there was much more  to Esther than that.

For instance, we read:  "Esther had not told about her people, her relativers, for Mordecai himself had laid the command upon her that she should not tell." (Esther 2:10) Mordecai had instructed the girl to be discreet about her Jewish heritage; he no doubt saw that among Persian royalty, there was much prejudice  against his people. What a pleasure it was for him to learn that now, even though Esther  was out of his sight, she still showed the same wise and obedient spirit! 

Next time: She Stood Up for God's People -  She Won Favor "in the Eyes of Everyone Seeing Her" - Conclusion 

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She Stood Up for God's People

 "Beautiful in Appearance"

One day, Shushan was buzzing with gossip about turmoil in the household of the king.  At a grand feast. where Ahasuerus was entertaining his noblemen with sumptuous food and wine, the king decided to summon his beautiful queen Vashti, who was feasting separately with the women. But Vashti refused to come.  Humiliated and enraged, the king asked his advisors how Vashti should be punished. The result? She was deposed as queen.  The king's servants began searching througout the land for beautiful young virgins; from amont them the king would select a new queen.  - ESTHER 1:1-2:4.

We may imagine Mordecai gazing fondly at Esther from time to time and noting with a mixture of pride and concern taht his little cousin was grown up-and had turned out to be a remarkable beauty  "The young woman was pretty in form and beautiful in appearance," we read. (Esther 2:7)  The Bible presents a balanced view of physical beauty-it is delightful, but it needs to be coupled with wisdom and humility. Otherwise, it may breed vanity, pride, and other ugly traits of the  heart.  (Read Proverbs 11:22) Have you ever seen that to be true?  In Esther's case, what would beauty turn out to be-and asset or a liability?  Time would tell.

The king's servants noticed Esther.  They gathered her up in their search, taking her away from Mordecai and off to the grand palace across the river.  (Esther 2:8) It must have been difficult parting, for the two were like father and daughter.  Mordecai would not have wanted his adopted daughter to marry any unbeliever, even a king, but events were out of his control.  How eagerly Ester must have listened to Mordecai's words  of advice before she was taken away!  As she was led to Shushan the castle, he mind was filled with questions. What kind of life lay ahead of her?

Next time: She Stood Up for God's People - She Won Favor "in the eyes of Everyone Seeing Her" 

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She Stood Up for God's People

 Esther's Background

Esther was an orphan, we know very little of the parents who named her Hadassaah, a Hebrew word for "myrtle," a lovely white-blossomed shrub.  When Esther's parents died, one of her relatives. a kindly man named Mordecai, took pity on the child. He was her cousin, but Mordecai was much older. He brought Esther into his home and treated her like his own daughter. - ESTHER 2:5-7, 15.

Mordecai and Esther lived as Jewish exiles  in that Persian capital, where they probably had to deal with a measure of  disdain because of  their religion and the Law they tried to follow.  But Esther surely drew closer to her cousin as he  taught her about Jehovah,   the merciful God who rescue His people from trouble many times in the past-and would do so again.  (Leviticus 26:44-45) Clearly, a loving and loyal bond grew between Esther and Mordecai. 

Mordecai evidently worked as some kind of official a the castle Shushan, regularly stitting within its gate, along with other servants of the king. (Esther 21:19, 21; 3:3)  How the young Esther passed her time as she grew up, we can only guess, although it seems safe to say that she took good care of her older cousin and his home, which was likely situated in the humble quarters across the river from the royal castle. Perhaps she enjoyed going to the market in Shushan , where goldsmiths, silversmiths. and other merchants displayed their wares. Esther coulld n ot have imagined that such luxuries would later become commonplace to her;  she had not idea of the future in store for her. 

Next time: She Stood Up for God's People - "Beautiful in Appearance" 

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She Stood Up for God's People

 ESTHER tried to calm her heart as she approached the courtyard in the palace at Shushan.  It was not easy.  Everything about the castle was designed to inspire awe-oits  multicolored relief sculptures of winged bulls, archers, and lions of glazed brickwork, it fluted stone columns  and imposing statutes, even its position atop huge platforms near the snowcapped Zagros Mountains and overlooking the pure waters of the river Choaspes.  All of it was intended to remind each visitor of the immense power of the man whom Esther was going to see, the one who called himself "the great king." He was also her husband.

Husband!  How different Ahasuerus waas from the kind of husband any faithful Jewish girl might have exprected!  He did not look to such examples as Abraham, a man who humbly accepted God's direction to listen to Sarah, his wife.  (Genesis 21:12)  The king knew little or nothing of Esther's God, Jehovah, of of His Law.  AHasuerus knew Persian law, though, including a law forbidding the very thing that Esther  was about to do.  What was that?  Well, the law said that anyone who appeared before the Persian monarch without first  being summoned by the king was liable to death.  Esther had not been summoned, but she would be going to the king anyway.  As she drew near to the inner courtyard, where she would be visible from the king's throne. she may have felt she was walking to her death. - Read ESTHER 4:11; 5:1.

Why did she take such a risk?  And what can we lear from the faith of this remarkable woman? First, let us see how Esther got into the unusual position of being a queen  in Persia.  

Next time: She Stood Up for God's People - Esther's Background

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IMITATE THEIR FAITH/JOB

 "Very Tender in Affection"

Jehovah was very tender in affection and merciful" with Job. (James 5:11)  How so?  Imagine how Job felt when he realized his flesh had, indeed become "fresher than in youth."  as Elihu had foretold!  His family and friends rallied around him at last, extending sympathy and gifts.  Jehovah restored Job's wealth, giving him twice the possessions he before. And what of the deepest if wounds-the loss of his children?  Job and his wife found a measure of comfort in becoming parents to ten more children!  And Jehovah miraculously extended Job's life.  Job lived for 140 more years, long enough to see four generatons of his descendants thriving.  "Finally, we read, "Job died, after a long satisfying life."  (Job 42:10-17)  And in Paradise, Job and his dear wife will be reunited with their family, including the ten children Satan took from them. -  JOHN 5:28, 29.

Why did Jehovah reward Job so richly?  The Bible answers:  "You have heard of the endurance of Job." (James 5:11) Job endured more hardships than most of us can even imagine.  This word "endurance" tell us that Job did more than survive those trials.  He endured with his faith and his love for Jehovah intact. Rather than turning hard and bitter, he remained willing to forgive even those who had deliberately hurt him.  And he never let go of his precious hope or his own  prized possession, his integrity.

Each of us needs to edure. We can be sure that Satan will try to discourage us as he did Job.  But if we endure in faith, remaining humble, willing to forgive others, and determined to  protect our integrity, we too may hold on to our precious hope.  (Hebrews 10:36) Nothing would frustrate Satan more or delight the loving heart of Jehovah more than if we were to imitate the faith of Job. 

Next time: She Stood Up for God's People

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