Building your own gallows
Esther 7 10/25/06
This is our last study in the book of Esther for the time being. I hope you have gotten something out of the lessons that you can use down the road of life. If you haven’t gotten anything else, which I believe you have, I want you to remember this we find in this chapter and that is don’t fret because of evil doers because Psalm 37 verse 2 reads for they soon shall be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb. God says it is just a matter of time that they will be cut down. That would be a good verse to put to heart and read it or quote it often. It will help you along the journey. It may seem like that evil is doing well but it is just a matter of time, and that is God’s timing, that evil will be put down.
Now when you read this book, it just builds up to the chapter and the end we have tonight. I hope you read the book in its entirety and you will see the suspense just build from chapter to chapter.
Now when you read the first verse, you find the principles mentioned. We have the king, Haman and Esther. The king doesn’t know the truth of what is happening around. Haman has so much hatred for the Jews and has built the gallows for the Jew Mordecai to hang him on. But Haman doesn’t know that Esther is a Jew. Then Esther knows what she is going to do. The Jewish people led by Mordecai have had a prayer meeting and now Esther has the answer. So the king and Haman are in the presence of the queen who is having a banquet for them two.
That brings us to the point of the message and we will call it THE QUEEN’S EXPLAINATION. Now the queen is getting ready to present her case to her husband the king. Look at verses 2-4.
The king said to Esther on the second night of the banquet what her petition is. He had already said that he would give her anything she wanted even up to the half of his kingdom. So we have her answer in the 3rd verse. She tells the king just exactly what is going on. What she does is to reveal identity to the king and Haman. I wouldn’t be surprised if now Haman didn’t recall the words that his wife had told him before he left to come to the banquet. Esther pleads for her life and the life of her people. So, we have surprise number one for the king that his wife was Jewish.
That leads us to the second point. We see not only the queen’s explanation but also THE KING’S EXPLOSION. Look at verses 5-8.
Now we have two surprised men in front of the queen. The king did not know what was going on and Haman did not know that the queen was Jewish. Now both understand that the queen is a Jew. Also the king understands now that a decree has been sent out and stamped by his own ring that would kill his own wife.
Now look at verse 5. The king asked who is the man that has done all of this? In asking this question, the king made another startling discovery and that is the man that he had trust in was his enemy. Someone he had trusted wanted to destroy the queen he loved so much. He asked who is the man and discovered who it is as you read verse 6.
It is always a blow to you when someone you have trusted becomes the one who lets you down. Do you ever think about those who have served in the ministry of our Southern Baptist Convention have forsaken the faith? Folks, we probably will not know this side of heaven the damage that has been done to our wonderful Lord because of the ones who turned to the world. What happened? They let up on the praying. They let up on their attendance to the church. They took their eyes off the Lord. I want you to understand that this pastor is not beyond doing the same thing and that is why I need to stay close to the Lord. We all need to pray because all of us are tempted to turn our back on the Lord.
Look at verse 7 now. The king got up and went into his garden to gather his thoughts. The king was known for his quick temper. We all have a button you can only push so long till we could have a temper explosion. There is an anger that is not sinful. I get fighting mad today at some of the leadership we have in the nation. Still I know that the congress and even the White House do not have the answers for this nation but the answer is found in the Word of God. Isn’t it something that we have the answers to the nation’s problems in the Word of God yet they turn to all the worlds’ sources and blind to the fact it is near them?
Now Haman has only one thing that he can do and that is to plead with the queen to have his life spared. He realizes the king is mad and death for him is the only thing that will appease the king.
I suppose Haman never thought for one moment that he would ever be caught up with. That is the way the sinner is. He never thinks that he will ever be discovered. Let me tell you something about the devil that you can count on. You can count on the devil wanting to expose your sin. He doesn’t care that much that it may destroy you but the many that it could take down because of your fall.
Isn’t it something that Haman wanted to destroy the Jewish race and now we find him pleading with a Jew to save his life?
That brings us to the last point in our study tonight and that is THE ENEMIES EXECUTION. Look at verses 8-9.
There is a verse that comes to mind as we read this text. The verse is found in Galatians 6 verse 7. The Bible says be sure your sins will find you out. Verse 7 says whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap. Would you say that is illustrated here? The gallows that he had built for the Jew Mordecai now became the gallows that would be his own death.
Now what we have here is the law of the harvest. We have a perfect illustration of it here in our text. In His creation of this world there are some laws that are irreversible. There is the law of the harvest and that is a man shall reap what he sows. It is true in the farming realm. If you sow corn you are going to reap corn. If you sow wheat, you are going to reap wheat. If you sow love, you are going to reap love. If you sow friendship, you will reap friendship. You reap whatever you sow.
There is something else and that is you reap more than you sow, that is the law of the harvest. No one that I know will put one grain of corn in the ground if all you can possibly get back is one grain of corn. When you sow corn, you expect to get a whole crop of corn. The same is true about sin. You sow one sin and you reap a crop of sin.
Now we reap what we sow and we reap more than we sow. Still there is something and that is you always reap later than you sow. It may not happen right now nut it will happen later. Haman thought he had the whole thing under control. He thought he was moving up in the kingdom. He thought he could go on sowing hate and it not come back home but later, at the timing of God, the crop came in. The man said, king, there is a gallows over there. The king said hand him on it.
Folks, you can depend on the law of the harvest. We reap what we sow. we reap more than we sow and later than we sow but we will reap. You sow to the souls of the children the Word of God and one day we reap grown men and women who love the Lord.
