invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Esther, Chapter 6. We're going to continue our study of this amazing book, which is not about Esther. It's actually a story about God and His providence, His sovereign governing of all things, for His glory and for the good of His people. And we have seen how God has providentially raised Esther up, placed her in the position of Queen. We've seen how there's this edict for the annihilation of the Jews. We've seen that this character, Heyman, is behind all these things. And last week we saw in John Down's excellent sermon that Heyman has built this gallows on which he plans to hang Mordecai, humiliating him and killing him. And now we're going to see that that same night that Heyman was up building the gallows. Somebody else was awake. And we're going to read about that now. So here now, God's holy, true, and life-giving word, Esther, Chapter 6. On that night, the King could not sleep, and he gave orders to bring the book of memorable deeds, the Chronicles, and they were read before the King. And it was found, written, how Mordecai had told about Bigthana and Thresh, two of the King's clinics, who guarded the Threshhold and who had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. And the King said, what honor or distinction has been bestowed on Mordecai for this? The King's young men, who attended him, said nothing has been done for him. And the King said, who is in the court? Now Heyman had just entered the outer court of the King's palace to speak to the King about having Mordecai hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for him. And the King's young men told him, Heyman is there standing in the court, and the King said, let him come in. So Heyman came in and the King said to him, what should be done to the man whom the King delights to honor? And Heyman said to himself, whom would the King delight to honor more than me? And Heyman said to the King, for the man whom the King delights to honor left the royal robes to be brought, which the King has worn, and the horse that the King has ridden. And on whose head a royal crown is set, and let the robes and the horse be handed over to one of the King's most noble officials, let them dress the man whom the King delights to honor, and let them lead him on the horse through the square of the city, proclaiming before him, thus shall it be done to the man whom the King delights to honor. Then the King said to Heyman, hurry, take the robes and the horse, as you have said, and do so to Mordecai, the Jew, who sits at the King's gate. Leave out nothing that you have mentioned. So Heyman took the robes and the horse, and he dressed Mordecai and led him through the square of the city, proclaiming before him, thus shall it be done to the man whom the King delights to honor. Then Mordecai returned to the King's gate, but Heyman hurried to his house, mourning and with his head covered. And Heyman told his wife, Zerash, and all his friends, everything that had happened to him. Then his wise men and his wife, Zerash, said to him, if Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the Jewish people, you will not overcome him, but they, but will surely fall before him. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together, Father. Thank you for your word. Thank you that you speak to us, even today, through your word and spirit, and as we, think about what you revealed to us in this passage, would you be at work in us through your Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, would you help get our eyes on Christ? The one through whom our God has revealed himself most fully. And would you bless us to have ears to hear, and would you use this time now to help us trust you more, love you more, serve you more faithfully as we continue to our mission to make disciples. And we pray in Jesus' name. One of the things I love about our church is the way that we don't feel like we have to hide things. I know maybe sometimes we feel like that, but we try to be a church where we don't have to hide things. Even when we feel things, maybe we shouldn't feel or think things, we shouldn't think there's an honesty. A member of our church I was talking to just the other day shared with me, this person said, I'm going to be honest, I know I'm not supposed to say this, but I'm just really struggling to trust God. And he said when he looks at the world and the way things seem to be just spiraling out of control, that it makes it hard to trust God and he wonders if God knows what he's doing. Maybe you feel like that sometimes. I know that I do. I know it's hard to admit that because as Christians we're supposed to say that we just trust God totally and we're always happy, but that's actually not reality, is it? We struggle to trust God. And a lot of us are probably looking at what's going on around us in the country and in our world and wondering if God knows what he's doing. We have good news this morning. I think God wants to speak into our hearts and to help us. Trust him more and be freed from that worry of does God know what he's doing. This book, Esther, is so amazing because it's very much a story of the providence of God. God's sovereign governing of all things for his glory and for the good of his people, his control of things, his orchestrating things according to a plan. And it's one thing for us to believe that God is powerful and he's powerful enough to do anything. The other thing, though, that's so important is us believing that he's wise enough to do everything in the way that things need to be done. In fact, as someone has said, here's a powerful statement of faith. Someone has said, if I had the power of God, there are many things that I would change, but if I had the wisdom of God, I would not change a thing. That's an incredibly powerful statement of faith. If I had God's power, I'd change a lot, but if I had his wisdom, I wouldn't change a thing. How do we get there? How do we get there? And that's what we're going to talk about this morning that because God's divine providence is according to his infinite wisdom, we can trust him even when life doesn't make any sense at all. That's what I'm hoping we can see from where we're at in the story of Esther so far because God's divine providence, his control of all things, is in line with his infinite wisdom. We can trust him even when life doesn't make any sense. And so three things I want to talk about, where do we see that in the story of Esther so far here, then what difference does it make if we embrace that God's not only in control, but his control is according to his infinite wisdom, what difference does it make? And third, how can we believe it? How can we believe this? It's a pretty hard thing to believe sometimes. Okay, so let's talk about these things. First, where do we see the wisdom in God's providence here in this passage? There's a number of ways that God reveals his wisdom to us in the scriptures, one of which I believe he does in this passage, and it is this. God reveals his wisdom by providentially fulfilling his purposes through both the actions of his people and the actions of his enemies. And we begin to see an embrace that God fulfills his purposes for the world, both through the faithful actions of his people and through the wicked actions of his enemies. His wisdom explodes in our minds as being absolutely beyond our ability to understand. Think about this. Look at verses one through four. Thinking about how is God's wisdom demonstrated here? And verses one through four, we have a whole lot of things that just happen to be happening. Number one, on the very same night that Haman is out building this gallows on which he wants to humiliate and hang Mordecai, the king, King of Hatchewares, just so happens, he cannot sleep. And not only does it just so happen that he can't sleep, but he decides that he's going to try to get back to sleep, so to speak, by listening to his chronicles read. Now this is a king who could have done any number of things to entertain himself during this night, but he chooses to have his chronicles read to him that night. That's actually kind of funny if you think about it. It's kind of like a preacher who can't sleep, and he's like, well, I'll just listen to a couple of my old sermons, okay? Now, and I'm not saying whether I've done that or not, but it just so happens that he is asking these chronicles to be read, and it just so happens that the young man who is reading the chronicles, opens them up to a portion of things that happened about four and a half five years ago, which we saw back in chapter two, and it just so happens that he reads about the way Mordecai saved the king's life by foiling an assassination attempt, and it just so happens that the king asked the question then what was done for Mordecai, because Persian kings were really big on rewarding people who did them a favor. And so it just so happens that he asks this question and he finds out nothing has been done for Mordecai. Now if we go back in time about four and a half years as far as the story is concerned, in chapter two we saw how Mordecai saves the king, but nothing was done. And at that time Mordecai might have been saying, you and I might have been saying if we were original hearers of the story, wait, why didn't Mordecai get rewarded? Why did God let that happen? Why did God do it this way? Why didn't Mordecai get his reward? And now here we are four and a half years later, and we see the wisdom in God's providence. He sovereignly orchestrated the fact that Mordecai would not be rewarded then so that he would be rewarded now at this perfect time, and it causes things to begin to turn in terms of the fate of these Jews who have an annihilation edict out upon them. So this is an example, this is showing the wisdom of God and how he's orchestrating things, but that's not all. I said the main thing I want to see is that we want to see his wisdom in the way he's able to providentially fulfill his purposes both through the actions of his people and through the actions of his enemy, enemies. And if you look in verses 5 through 10, what we see there is, now I have to where us wants to know how is he going to honor Mordecai for what he's done, and he wants to ask somebody about that, and who just happens to be outside in the court? But it's Heyman. And he's there to tell the king that he wants to humiliate and hang Mordecai, and the king welcomes him in and says, how should I honor the person in whom I delight? And Mordecai, I mean, and Heyman at this point automatically assumes the king must be thinking about him. And you see this tremendous pride which I see in myself, maybe you see it in yourself as well, he thinks, of course, who does the king want to honor more than me? That's what Heyman thinks. And it's actually pretty powerful, we can talk a lot about the danger of pride that God shows us in this passage as well. But I want you to notice that what he does is he starts talking out of his pride, out of his sinful desire to be honored, and he basically thinking the king is asking him how he wants to be honored. He's saying, I want to be honored like the king, I want to wear the king's robes, I want to ride the king's horse, I want to go through the king's town. And in his pride, in his sinfulness, he's spewing out his desire for this honor, and it's all coming out of his sinful pride, yet God is using it to move forward his plan to deliver his people. And we have to stop and ask ourselves, wait, God is working through the sinful, evil motives of Heyman to move forward his plan for the deliverance of his people. And the answer is yes, listen to this, Indigwid says about this passage, he says, God will accomplish his purposes, often slowly and imperceptibly, but nonetheless certainly, sometimes he will do it through human agents who willingly submit to him, sometimes he will do it by directing those whose hearts are at enmity to him, so that their sinful motives accomplish his perfect purposes. That's kind of mind blowing, if you think about it. But this is not the only place where we see something like this, there's a number of places where we see this. An example that most of you might be familiar with would be in Genesis 50, verse 20. This is where Joseph, after having been treated very wickedly by his brothers, later in the story, is able to confront his brothers, and here's what he says in Genesis 50, verse 20, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. And so there again, as another example of God, not only working through the faithful actions of his people, but even the evil motives and actions of people who are turned against him. And here's what you've got to do then, you've got to stop and just think for a second, now wait a second. If the scriptures do reveal that God's working both through the actions of his people and through the wicked actions of those who are against him, how smart, how brilliant, how wise must he actually be to be able to orchestrate these plans that involve the free decisions of people, how is he able to do this? How could he possibly be able to orchestrate all these things and make all these things happen even working through the free decisions of people like you and me, and it only shows, goes to show that he can only do it if he's infinitely wise, if he has this infinite wisdom through which he can design these plans as well as the power to carry them out. And when we believe that, when we believe that God is so wise, he's actually able to work through people's good actions as well as through the bad actions of people that helps us believe that he really is in control when we see bad things happening around us. So, like, think about a watch, if you have a watch, and I'm talking about like an analog watch with gears, not a digital watch, with not gears, if you think about a watch, if you were to open it up inside the watch, you have gears that are turning in the opposite directions of one another. Inside the watch, the gears are turning in the opposite direction of one another. But outside, all the hands are moving forward in the same direction. And we see the wisdom of God when we see his ability to be working through both the faithful actions of his people and the wicked actions of his enemies. It's like, but we see it from the inside of the watch. We see these two things seemingly working against each other, but he sees it from the outside. He sees it's all moving things forward for the accomplishment of his purposes. Now, if you believe that, that he's working through both the faithful actions of his people and the evil actions of his enemies, then two things. One, we get really excited when we see the church advancing, when we see the church advancing the gospel. But we also can be relieved of deep worry when it looks like the world is winning because we can rest assured that God's working through both the faithful actions of his people and, mysteriously, the evil actions of his enemies. So what difference does this make? That's one way we see his wisdom is ability to work through both of those things, but what difference does it make? And here's what I would submit to you. Believing God's divine providence is according to his infinite wisdom pulls our hearts away from worry and pushes them gently towards worship. Let me explain what I mean by that. The more we try to imagine just how wise God would have to be, to be able to orchestrate all these things, to make even the bad things happening in the world move forward his plans for the redemption of his people, for the renewal of all things, the more that we believe that, the more in awe of his wisdom we will end up being because we can't figure it out. And if you think about it, this is why God is praised for his wisdom in both the old and the New Testaments. He's one of the best of Psalm 104, verse 24, O Lord, how manifold are your works in wisdom you have made them all, or in Romans 11, verse 33, Paul is one of places where he just explodes in doxology because he's so amazed at the wisdom of God. He says, Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. I mean, this is what happens when we try to imagine just how infinitely wise God must be if he really is working all things for the good of his people and for his glory. 1800's Baptist minister John L. Degg said it this way and I think he gets it exactly right, listen to this, long quote, listen though. Here's a difference it makes, he says, it should fill us with joy that infinite wisdom guides the affairs of the world. Many of its events are shrouded in darkness and mystery and inextricable confusion sometimes seems to reign. Often wickedness prevails and God seems to have forgotten the creatures that he has made. Our own path through life is dark and devious and beset with difficulties and dangers. How full of consolation is the doctrine that infinite wisdom directs every event, brings order out of confusion and light out of darkness and to those who love God causes all things, whatever be their present aspect and apparent tendency to work together for good. The more that we believe that everything that's happening is happening according to God's infinite wisdom. Every event that takes place happens in accordance with God's infinite wisdom. The more we really can have joy, the more we really can't trust God even when things are going in ways that we don't understand. But here's the thing though, you've got to humble yourself, you've got to humble myself and not touch myself while I'm preaching. I have to humble myself, you have to humble yourself, here's what I mean by that. Think about one of the things that this passage shows is the way pride does not lead to good things for us. Amen's pride leads to his downfall, same for you and me. And it is our pride that gets in the way of our trusting of God. Especially when it comes to looking around and not being able to understand why God is allowing things to happen the way he's allowing them to happen. Because it's our pride that tells us since I can't figure out a reason things would happen this way, there must not be one. That's your pride talking. Think about it like this, if you were to, if I was going to try to put all of the wisdom that I have in a container, maybe we could go with a water glass, some of you probably need a picture, I could probably actually get away with a shot glass, either way, if we're going to put all of my wisdom, if we're going to put our wisdom in something, let's say we can fill a water glass with our wisdom, you and I can fill a water glass with the amount of wisdom we have. God cannot fill all the world's oceans with the wisdom that he has. And pride says, because I can't see why these things would happen in here, they must not, there must not be a reason for them happening out there. Faith, faith says, I'm going to choose to believe that even though I can't figure this out in my water glass, God has it all figured out in his oceans of wisdom. And when we choose to believe that, where does your heart go? It goes to worship. How infinitely wise must you actually be if these things all really make sense somehow? And the other way that that delivers us from worrying and helps us to worship him and trust him is, it allows us to stop trying to figure these things out. A lot of times we're saying, why is God letting this happen? Why is he letting so much political division happen? Why is he allowing this racial injustice to happen? Why, if we get more personal, why are these things happening in my life? Why is my, why, you know, why did the marriage fall apart or why is the child walk away from the faith or why has God not provided a spouse, though I want one? All these things where we're saying why, why, why, which is normal, okay, we're, it's normal to ask God why, but when we get stuck on why, why, why, then we're just going to be worrying and worrying and worrying. If we look to Christ, look to God and see His wisdom, His infinite wisdom, that helps pull our hearts over to worship Him. As we try to just imagine how infinitely wise He must truly be if all these things make sense, if all these things work out. So what would it be for you? What is something that you continue to say, why, why, why, and what if there was some, even some repentance, repentance of perhaps even some pride and turn from saying, because I don't see a reason there can't be one and turn two saying, in God's infinite wisdom, this makes sense. And I'm going to trust Him. It makes a huge difference. Third, how can we believe it? How do we believe it? This is really hard thing for us to believe. And the only way that we're going to believe it is if we look at the infinitely wise providence of God at the cross. We need to look to the infinitely wise providence of God demonstrated at the cross. Think about this. In this passage, Haman wants two things, right? Haman wants humiliation for his enemy, Mordecai, and he wants honor for himself. That's what he wants. Not just honor, but the King's honor. He wants humiliation for his enemy and he wants honor for himself. So he builds the gallows in chapter 5, verse 14, and then now he's there to tell the King about it, but the King is asking about how to honor somebody. He thinks it's about himself, so he's saying he wants to be honored like a King. He wants humiliation for his enemy. He wants honor for himself. And then what happens? One of the beautiful, ironic reversals of this book and of the Bible. Look at verse 11. So the King tells him to do this to Mordecai, to the Haman's great shock. And verse 11 says, so Haman took the robes and the horse and he dressed Mordecai and led him through the square of the city, proclaiming before him, and you can just imagine it. Can't you? Thus shall be done to the man whom the King delights to honor. You know, you can just feel it. And then it says that Mordecai returned to the King's gate, but Haman hurried to his house mourning and with his head covered. He's absolutely humiliated, so it flips. Haman wanted to humiliate his enemy and have honor for himself. It turns on its head. He is humiliated and the honor goes to his enemy. It's one of the most ironic reversals in the book and in the Bible, and it really points us to the ultimate ironic reversal. And that's the one that takes place at the cross. Christ, if you will, is the anti-Haman. He's the opposite of Haman. Haman wanted to humiliate his enemy and get honor for himself. Christ is the King. Christ is the one true person who deserves full honor and not only just honor, but the King's honor. Yet, we who are his enemies are the ones who get the honor and he gets the humiliation. You know, we were enemies of God. This is something that the world doesn't seem to understand. It's not like people are neutral. People are either God's friends through faith in Christ or his enemies. This is why Paul says in Romans 5 or 10, for if we, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life. While we were enemies, and if you really want to understand the gospel, you have to understand that we were enemies of God in our sin, in our rebellion, in our pride, we were enemies of God. And it would make total sense in the wisdom of the world for God through Christ to have Christ come and humiliate us and honor himself. That would make sense in our wisdom, but only in the infinite wisdom of God. Does it make sense for Christ to come? And instead of humiliating his enemies and honoring himself, he takes the humiliation of his enemies upon himself and takes his honor and places it on his enemy as he's dying on the cross paying for the sins of his people. So that through faith alone in him, we could be fully reconciled to him. He was taking our humiliation as well, our shame for all these things that we've done. And what is he putting in its place, honor, in the opposite of him and what he wanted, what Christ wanted for his enemy was that you and I would wear his robes, ride his horse, so you and I would know that God looks at us and delights to honor us because of the cross. That's the only way. And if your faith is in Christ, you have received that honor, the King's honor. He's robed you in that righteousness. He's forgiven you of your sins, taken away your shame. And when we see that as a demonstration of his infinite wisdom in his providence, it adds a third piece and that's his love because love is the only thing that makes sense of that, right? How would Christ do that? Why wouldn't Christ just humiliate his enemies and honor himself because of love? Sally Lloyd-Jones says it wonderfully in the Bible, the children's Bible she wrote, the Jesus story of the Bible. It wasn't nails that held Christ to the cross, it was love. Now when you believe that God's in control and that his control, his providence is all according to his infinite wisdom and that the cross reveals that he loves us as well, that's the trifecta and that's how we are able to believe that God's providence is according to his infinite wisdom and that we can trust him even when we don't understand why things are happening. And here's how I think a cat might be able to help us with this, okay? Let me tell you about a cat. So there's an author who is writing about how he had two cats and one of those cats had an unfortunate life-ending meeting with a coyote, okay, we'll leave it there. And so now he had one cat. And the one cat, he noticed something about his one cat and when his cat was outside, the way that cat would walk around was very different than what he would do when he was inside. When the cat was outside, he would move very slowly and his eyes would be peeled and he'd be looking around and every little noise he would jump and he would look and he was just terrified when he was outside. But he noticed that whenever the cat came inside, it was like it was a completely different cat. Now the cat is sauntering around without a care in the world, stretching, making it onto one of the billions of cat videos on Facebook. It's just laying there purring, it's completely comfortable, just totally at peace. And he says that he realizes that's the difference between living, trusting yourself and living, trusting in God. The cat was so comfortable and at peace inside because it trusted his owners. It trusted the owners, loved them, it trusted the owner, would look out for them, it trusted the owner, would take care of them. So how about you? Are you living like the cat outside or the cat inside? Our God wants you to come inside. Your God, our God wants us to believe that everything's happening in His providence, His sovereign governing of all things, and those things are happening in accordance with His infinite wisdom, even when we can't see it. And the cross being the ultimate demonstration of that also helps us realize that love is the key ingredient. So come inside, take a rest, your owner loves you. In Jesus, in Jesus we pray, we ask you to fill our hearts with trust in you. We, Lord, we ask you to help us come inside. We ask that you would, as we look at the world, and we have no idea how any of this stuff makes sense. Would you allow us to even have joy as we choose to believe by the power of your Holy Spirit? That everything's happening according to your infinite wisdom. And as we believe that, help us trust you more. Help us trust that if you took away our sins, you will take care of all of our needs. Help us remember that if we were your enemies, yet Christ came so that He would take our humiliation, we would get His honor, help us believe we really can trust you, and let us be at peace as we see what's happening in the world. And let us testify to your glory and grace in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.