A Better Mediator - Sermon Notes on Esther 4:1-5:3

Audio here.

Last week's story left us on a cliffhanger. Mordecai, due to disobedience of the king's command, has incited the vindictive and nasty Prime Minister Haman not only to seek his death, but the death of all the Jews with him. When Haman asks for the annihilation of a rebel group, the king assumes that he is referring to some small insurgent threat, unaware that the edict he has just sanctioned will mean the slaughter of his queen and a trusted advisor who saved his life.

And so we read on - Esther 4:1-5:3.

Mordecai wails bitterly and wanders through the city to the palace gate, but doesn't go in. The description of his mourning is all around symbols of death:

• Torn clothes = under judgement
• Sackcloth = no glory
• Ashes = returning to the ground from whence he came (ashes to ashes, dust to dust),
• Fasting = cut off from source of life.

Mordecai and the Jews with him are now on "Death Row" and in their state of mourning they are unfit and unworthy to enter the presence of the king.

At this point, Esther has not revealed her ethnic identity and is unaware of the pronouncement made over her and her people. She is distressed at Mordecai's grief, but assumes it must be a personal tragedy. When she learns of the predicament she is fearful. Yet Mordecai impresses upon her that she is their only hope.

Esther then proclaims a three day food and liquid fast amongst the Jews. A fast that will bring them close to death after which she will approach the king in hope of averting disaster, even if it costs her her life.

On the third day Esther robes up and goes to the king. As she stands at the entrance to the king's court, the king is pleased with her and he beckons her in. As she walks across what must have felt like an infinite distance between the door and the throne, she carries her people in her heart. The king holds out his sceptre and she lays hold of it. He will give her all her desire, and her desire is not self-centred like Haman's, it is other-centred, like God's. And there we leave it on another cliffhanger until next week!

This story is, the gospel in a nutshell. Consider the following:

• God tests the heart of Mordecai.
• God tested the heart of Adam, the first human with the tree of knowledge.
• Mordecai’s disobedience brings sentence of death on all Jews.
• Adam’s disobedience brought a sentence of death on all humans.
• The Jews are all cut off from access to King Xerxes – the law cannot be revoked.
• The human race are all cut off from God for their rebellion – the law cannot be revoked.
• They have no hope of escaping the coming judgment.
• We have no hope of escaping the coming judgment.
• Esther is appointed queen long before this tragedy happens.
• Jesus is appointed saviour by God the Father before the world was even created.
• Esther is both Persian royalty AND an ethnic Jew.
• Jesus is both fully God AND fully human – the perfect mediator.
• Esther, through fasting, enters the suffering of her people.
• Jesus, through crucifixion, enters and takes on himself, the suffering of the human race.
• After her death-like fast, Esther gets up and robes herself in splendour to appear before the king.
• After his crucifixon, Jesus is resurrected up to Heaven and robed the glory of his own righteousness appears before his Father.
• King Xerxes loves her, joyfully receives her and will give her anything she asks for.
• God the Father joyfully receives Christ and will give him anything he asks for.
• At that moment Esther's heart is that her people come into the favour of the king like she is.
• At that moment Christ's heart is to share the love he has from his Father with his people.

Our only hope of escaping the judgment of God and coming into his favour again is in receiving and being united to the God man Jesus - his one appointed mediator.

Now that Christ has won the favour of God for you. Will you come in and lay hold of that favour by uniting yourself with his son Jesus - the God-man?

If you are a Christian will you carry your people, (your family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, town, nation) in your heart in prayer to the throne of the king that, one day, they too might lay hold of Christ? If you don't, who will?

On Money and A Sense of Entitlement

Whilst the two are not inextricably linked, too often in our culture, money and a sense of entitlement go together, at least according to this study they do.

Problem is of course, most of us think this stuff only applies to the people who are richer than we are, forgetting that the most of us are rich by many, if not most world standards. We never search our own hearts to see if that ugly sense of entitlement dwells within.

No wonder Jesus said some pretty blunt things about money.

“Two things I ask of you, Lord;

do not refuse me before I die:

Keep falsehood and lies far from me;

give me neither poverty nor riches,

but give me only my daily bread.

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you

and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’

Or I may become poor and steal,

and so dishonor the name of my God." 

Proverbs 30:7-9

If "Cessationism" and "Charismata" Mean Nothing to You, Don't Read This

The Charismatic Movement within Evangelicalism is now a largely uncontested reality.  Turn the clock back twenty years and (in the UK at least) that would not have been the case.  Yet, as with every good thing we Christians are very capable of stuffing it all up from any and every angle.  Here are two articles I read recently.

The first a very gracious, but firm article from Andrew Wilson on why cessationism is not the best way to sum up the operation of the gifts of the Spirit for today.

The second, (pointed out by the same Andrew Wilson) I'll let you judge for yourself whether you think it's positive or negative.

Rebel Without a Cause

Anyone can break stuff. It takes brilliance/guts to make stuff and stick with it. Whether you're talking about gadgets, societies or philosopies, the principle basically is the same.  On philosophy, G. K. Chesterton observes:

“But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. . . . As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. . . . The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.”

It isn't just love that money can't buy...

No intro, just watch.



Another reason to be strong and courageous...

A Modern Creed?

Many thoughts brewing in my head, without time to write them out...

In the meantime, here is a video with a hero of mine from my student days, Dr. Ravi Zacharias, quoting Steve Turner's observational poem "Creed."

Someone has taken the audio and coupled it to a montage of images then tagged a couple of Gospel verses on the end.  You may find some of the images disturbing:

Dispelling the Darkness

The supermarkets are stocking up for Christmas and we haven't even had Halloween yet!!

Regarding Halloween, perhaps the problem is not that we don't believe in evil, rather that we have allowed ourselves to be deceived by the notion that in the face of true goodness it has more power than really does: