10/12/2011 8:44:05 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: The queen’s request
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ester 7:1-4
Message of the verses: “1 ¶ Now the king and Haman came to drink wine with Esther the queen. 2 And the king said to Esther on the second day also as they drank their wine at the banquet, "What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be done." 3 Then Queen Esther replied, "If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me as my petition, and my people as my request; 4 for we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed and to be annihilated. Now if we had only been sold as slaves, men and women, I would have remained silent, for the trouble would not be commensurate with the annoyance to the king.’”
Today’s SD begins the seventh chapter in the book of Ester and also begins a new chapter in Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s commentary on the book of Ester. Dr. Wiersbe entitles this chapter “The Mask Comes Off.” There are three main points to this chapter with the first one the subject of today’s SD.
In his beginning commentary on this chapter Dr. Wiersbe writes about the longsuffering of God, for this was true in the life of Haman as God had warned Haman through circumstances, through his advisers, and through his wife, but to no avail. I would like to take up a bit on the longsuffering of God before I begin the commentary on this first main point. We live in a world where many people do not believe in God in the way that the Bible teaches that we must believe in God. We live in a world where bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people and people wonder where is God in all of this. I believe that if one understands the longsuffering of God they will be able to answer this question for the Scriptures says in a number of places that there are reasons for the longsuffering of God: “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (2Peter 3:9).” For many people the longsuffering of God causes them to believe that the Lord does not care and will not judge, that perhaps He is not watching what is going on in this world, but that is not the case, “While they are saying, "Peace and safety!" then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape (1Thes. 5:3).” One of the attributes of God is His justice and that means that God will judge sin, for God did judge sin at the cross as He took His wrath out on the sinless Son of God, but many people do not believe this and so God will take His wrath out on those who do not believe that Jesus paid it all. Haman missed the warnings that God had given him to repent and now the end is near for him.
One can only imagine how many times Ester went over her speech that she would give to the king the night before, trusting God to give her the strength to deliver it in a way that the heart of the king would understand it and that it would bring glory to God. Ester was taking her life and putting it in the hand of God and for this we must appreciate her courage in doing this. When we read this story so many times we sometimes miss how much courage that both Mordecai and Ester had to go up against the rulers of the Persian Empire, knowing that their lives could end at the whim of the king at any time.
The way that Ester gave her request to the king was brilliant, for she did not say that there was a man in the kingdom who wanted to kill all of the Jews, for the king knew all about that, but she told the king that she did not want to die and asked the king to do something about her grave situation. The king must have been asking the question who wanted to kill his beautiful queen.
Ester tells the king that if she and her people would to be sold as slaves that she would not bother the king about this matter, but since the edict was to annihilate her and also her people she had to speak to the king about this.
Ester had said her peace and now she had to wait on the king to make up his mind. “3 Commit your works to the LORD And your plans will be established. 4 The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked for the day of evil (Proverbs 16:3-4).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: One of the issues that I deal with is being in a hurry and the Lord has been working on this in my life. Today’s introduction to this chapter spoke of the longsuffering of God and this too has a lot to do with contentment and so I desire to trust the Lord even when I have to wait for a while to receive His answer.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. I remember a song that was popular back in the mid sixties that at times I sing to myself whenever I seem to be in a hurry. It was a song written for the culture back then and it was called “Slow Down Your Move Too Fast.” Perhaps that was not the name of it but that was the lyric that ran through that song and I sometimes sing it over in my mind when I am moving too fast and not waiting like I should be.
2. Continue to learn contentment.
10/12/2011 9:27:12 AM
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