[0:00] In Esther chapter 6 we read at verse 1, On that night could not the king sleep? And he commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king.
[0:14] Although one may take this verse as a text for today, rightly enough, there's a sense in which, like some of the other small books in Scripture, like Ruth and others and so on, whatever you take in isolation really only makes proper sense in the context of the whole.
[0:34] And most of you, no doubt, will know or be familiar with the background or the plot of the book of Esther, and how she became the queen of Persia, the queen of King Ahasuerus, who ruled 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia, and how the plot of Haman to destroy all the Jewish people throughout the empire came to nothing.
[0:57] And how Esther had become queen without the king necessarily knowing that she was Jewish. And yet, if the plot had gone to destroy all the Jews throughout the empire, she too would have been slaughtered.
[1:11] All of this has happened in a sense without the king's knowledge, rather his indifference. Haman has made the plot. He has put to the king the fact of an anonymous people throughout his empire who he presented as a danger to the king, and how the king would be better off to get rid of them, and that Haman offered to do it for the king.
[1:34] And so the king just gave him his reign to seal all the documents, to send out the orders in his name, and he thought no more about it, not really realising all that would be involved in the threat to his own beloved queen as well.
[1:47] And in the preceding chapters, as most of you will perhaps know, Mordecai, Esther's cousin, has persuaded her to speak to the king. But this was dangerous, because in the Persian law, nobody was allowed into the inner presence of the king unless they were sent for.
[2:06] They had to stand in the outer court, and only if the king called for them and let them come in were they allowed to enter in. And this was a security measure to avoid anybody coming close to the king who might do him harm or attempt to assassinate him or anything like that.
[2:21] It was a protection. So nobody was allowed into the inner court without the express permission of the king, unless if they came in and the king extended to them the golden scepter.
[2:33] And if they touched the end of it, then they were safe enough and the king welcomed them in. Now Esther had done that. After the king had not wanted to see her for 30 days, he hadn't sent her, a whole month had gone by, and then she presented herself to the king, and he allowed her in, welcomed her in, and she invited him and Haman to a banquet of wine that she had prepared.
[2:58] After she had prepared herself by fasting three days, and no doubt praying as well that the king would receive her, she intended to plead for her life and for that of all her people.
[3:11] But whether it is by design, or whether she initially got cold feet in chapter 5, when the king says to Esther, verse 6, what is thy petition?
[3:23] And it shall be granted thee. And what is thy request? Even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed. And clearly it was not just meant to be a romantic little meal together for themselves, because she had invited Haman as well.
[3:37] Haman was the chief minister of the king. He was far higher than even a prime minister would be to us. He was the king's right-hand man, the highest prince in the kingdom, and she had invited him as well, which means it was almost like a state affair, almost a political affair.
[3:55] Clearly it wasn't just to be a romantic twosome. She wasn't attempting to sort of seduce the king back into her favour, or whatever the case may be. It was clearly meant to be with an audience.
[4:08] But when he asked her, then Anne Sebastian said, my petition and request is, if I have found favour in the sight of the king, and it please the king to grant my petition and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I shall prepare for them, and I will do tomorrow, as the king hath said.
[4:25] In other words, she put it off for a day. Now we don't know whether she just got scared, or worried, or frightened about actually making the request, but clearly, whatever her human thoughts or feelings, the Lord was overruling all these things in his providence, because it is on that night that the king could not sleep.
[4:48] Now, whatever his reasons, from a physical point of view, he is obviously back in, Esther is back in favour with him, if she was ever out. He's still very fond of her, in love with her, despite having so many other wives and concubines, as the pagan kings of the East tended to do.
[5:06] He's not distracted with those kind of carnal thoughts. She's not with him that night. He appears to be alone. He is simply tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
[5:17] Something is on his mind, and he doesn't know what. It is the Lord who has withheld sleep from the king, because he intends that as he is sleepless, he will send for the chronicles of his kingdom.
[5:35] Now, this was a standard practice with the ancient kings. They would write down, get scribes to write down any of the main events that occurred in their kingdom, anything that could be of interest or of help or of note for future occasions.
[5:50] And the king might read or cause to have read to him, not only from his own reign, but maybe from those of his predecessors, so that he could learn from their experience, so that he could be guided, whether, you know, in matters of policy or military affairs or battle.
[6:06] And we see the incident that is referred to at the end of chapter 2 in Esther, when two of the king's chamberlains were planning to assassinate him. And the thing was known, chapter 2, verses 21 to 23, the thing was known to Mordecai, who told it unto Esther the queen, and Esther certified the king thereof in Mordecai's name.
[6:26] And when inquisition was made of the matter, it was found out, therefore they were both hanged in a tree, and it was written in the book of the Chronicles before the king. So in that sense, Mordecai saved the king's life.
[6:39] And it is written that he had done so. And when it is read before the king, then the king said, what honour and dignity have been done to Mordecai for this?
[6:50] Then said the king's servants, that ministered unto him, there is nothing done for him. In other words, the king had forgotten about it. He hadn't done anything about it, and he had just let it go.
[7:01] And you might think, well, so what? No big deal. But if you think about it, as a matter of policy, you would not want somebody who had an act of such loyalty and faithfulness go unrewarded.
[7:15] Because if it goes unrewarded, other people will see. And they'll think, well, this guy, you know, saved the king's life and nothing good happened to him, you know. So what's the point in us being loyal?
[7:26] What's the point in us, you know, being faithful to the king or seeking to save his life or serving faithfully because we don't get any benefit out of it. Mordecai didn't get any benefit out of it. It was in the king's interests to reward faithfulness and loyalty and, of course, to punish treason.
[7:44] He had punished the treason, but he hadn't rewarded the loyalty. And this is obviously praying on his mind. And this is early. It's obviously, this had been read through.
[7:54] The chronicles had kept on being read through to the wee small hours. It is clearly the break of day when Haman comes to the king planning to ask for Mordecai to be hanged on a gallows that he, Haman, has prepared.
[8:11] Now remember that up to this moment, Haman's star is at its zenith. He is promoted in the kingdom. He has the king's authority to kill and to make alive, to do whatever he wants throughout the kingdom.
[8:25] And as he boasted in the previous chapter, you know, when he goes back to his house, he says, and all of this, yes, and the queen, when she had her banquet of wine, she had prepared to get none unto the banquet with the king but myself.
[8:39] And tomorrow I am invited unto her also with the king. Haman's star has never been higher. He has never been more powerful or more influential. Here he is at the break of day wanting to see the king first of all and to make this first, what seems like a trifling little request, that there is this person who he can portray as some kind of traitor or troublesome person that he, Haman, the most powerful prince in the empire, would like the king to have executed if that was all right.
[9:10] And the king has already given him authority to destroy thousands of people throughout his empire on an appointed day. He's not going to bother about one individual in his court.
[9:21] So this is what he has come to request. He wants to get it done and dusted out of the way at the beginning of the day, just at the break of day. And of course, we have echoes here of the chief priests and the scribes coming to Pilate at the very dawn of the day trying to get Jesus destroyed there.
[9:40] In this instance, of course, it works out rather differently because Haman would, as soon as he had the opportunity to speak, he would have asked for this. But before he gets the chance to speak, the king says, oh, who's in the outer court?
[9:55] They say, oh, it's Haman. His chief minister, his most loyal servant, couldn't be better. Bring him in. And he doesn't know anything about the hatred that Haman has for Mordecai. And so the king says, what shall be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honor?
[10:11] And the king speaks first because he is the king, obviously. And Haman has to let him speak. And so he thinks, oh, well, obviously, he wants to do me honor. I'm the brightest star in the empire and I'm the one who's most in favor.
[10:26] So he thinks of all these lavish, almost indecently proud and lavish honors that are to be done for the man whom the king delighteth to honor.
[10:40] It's almost, almost indecently so close to taking the crown himself, but just stops short of it. He wants to ride on the king's horse.
[10:50] He wants to have the king's robe of royal value that he would have worn before. Now, to an extent, this was not uncommon. A robe or a piece of clothing that a royal personage had worn was taken to be invested forever after with a certain honor, with a certain, almost magical power.
[11:11] The horse the king rode on was thought to be sort of semi-sacred because the king had ridden on it. So when asking for all these things, it's not entirely a completely, you know, a culturally unknown thing.
[11:26] So, but it's still a big, big thing he's asking for. He thinks he's asking for it for himself. To put the crown royal on his head, to go through the streets, to get one of the king's most noble princesses, to cry before him, thus shall it be done for the man whom the king delighted to honor.
[11:43] And so the king says, right, okay, that's a great idea. Now you go and do it. You go and do it for Mordecai, the man who, if he had just been allowed to speak, he was going to ask for him to be hanged.
[11:54] And yet, now he can't do it. He has to go through the streets proclaiming, thus shall it be done for the man and the king delighted to honor for the man he wanted to hang. And Mordecai, who knows of Haman's hatred, but doesn't know anything about the fact that he was about to be hanged, and doesn't know anything about the king wanting to reward him, because no doubt a couple of years have gone past since the event itself when he delivered the king from death.
[12:23] So he suddenly, Haman comes upon him and drags him off to wherever, clothes him in his royal garments, takes him on the king's horse and goes through the streets. He must have wondered what on earth was going on.
[12:35] It must have been an extremely uncomfortable experience for both of them. Because remember the context. Remember that Mordecai, the Jew, knows that he is under threat of death like all the other Jews from the empire.
[12:51] Within a matter of months they are all due to be slaughtered, because that is the proclamation that has gone out from the king, supposedly from the king, in the king's name, but really under Haman's authority.
[13:04] And so he knows he's as good as a dead man in a few months anyway. So don't imagine he's really enjoying all his robes and crown and riding on the king's horse and think, well, what is that going to be worth to me?
[13:16] Okay, I've got glory for a day, but I'm going to be dead in a couple of months because I'm going to be destroyed. Haman is determined to destroy me. What use is all this? We don't imagine that Mordecai was thinking, hey, great, I'm the man of the king.
[13:29] I'm going to be delighted to want to wave to the crowds. Isn't it fantastic? There must have been a certain bitterness within as he had all these outward trappings which could do him no good at all because if nothing changed, then he was still as good as a dead man in a few months' time.
[13:50] So there would be no pleasure for Mordecai, maybe, in these outward trappings. But there was deep, deep shame for Haman in the fact that he had to glorify the man whom he wanted to destroy.
[14:05] And we see here that if he had just been a man of greater humility, it wouldn't have been a difficulty. But because of his great pride, he finds it's almost like a living death having to do it.
[14:19] If we see what the Proverbs says, chapter 29, verse 23, it says, you know, a man's pride shall bring him low, but honour shall hold the humble in spirit.
[14:32] What does Mordecai do when he's had his great day of triumph through the streets of the capital? It says, Mordecai came again to the king's gate. He went back to his work, back to his business. But Haman hasted to his house mourning and having his head covered.
[14:46] There's a contrast here with Mordecai who rises no higher than the king's gate. You know, with ambitious Haman, he's got the king's ear, he's got the king's heart, he's got all the privileges.
[14:57] But, you know, as Matthew Henry, the commentator, states, though the aspiring rise fast, the humble stand fast.
[15:08] Say that again. Though the aspiring rise fast, the humble stand fast. And Mordecai has stood fast, faithful to the king, despite the threat that he lives under.
[15:21] But that threat is about to be lifted. Because just as Haman is now covered with shame and confusion, he's just going back to mourn his family, but already the chamberlains have come to summon him to the banquet of wine that Esther has prepared.
[15:37] And this time, Esther is going to make her request to the king to save her life and that of her fellow Israelites throughout the empire. She's about to identify Haman as the conspirator of it all.
[15:50] In other words, he's just a dead man walking out. And his doom is closing in. And what just a chapter earlier, the prospect of going to the banquet of wine on the second day with just the queen and the king and nobody else, how privileged was he?
[16:07] Suddenly now, it's like a bell of doom tolling for his imminent death. But back again to our verse in point.
[16:18] On that night could not the king sleep? And he commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king. You see how all of these little things, this failure of the king to sleep, we'd say this is the key thing, but it's only the key thing if the other things are already in place.
[16:41] It is only a key thing if Mordecai has already faithfully reported the plot on the king's life, which he did. It is only a key thing if those chamberlains had plotted to assassinate the king, which they did, and Mordecai reported it.
[16:58] If it had been written down, which it was. Why had they sought to do it? Who knows? It would only be of benefit if Esther was already queen and privileged, and that would only happen if Vashti, the king's first queen, had disobeyed his direct orders and not come into the king's presence when she was sent for all of these things.
[17:23] Any one of which being out of place would have brought a completely different outcome. All of them, nevertheless, we could say, hinge on this one thing, over which the king has no control whatsoever.
[17:40] It's said of the king who cannot sleep, you know, that God, whose gift sleep is, withheld that gift from the king.
[17:52] he that commanded 127 provinces could not command one hour's sleep.
[18:05] You cannot make yourself sleep. We've all been in situations, no doubt, where we're desperate to get to sleep, maybe we've got an important event the next day, maybe you have to get up early for the ferry the next day, so you try and go to bed early, so you've got plenty more sleep, because that's the night you can never sleep.
[18:21] You try to make yourself sleep, you try and shut your eyes tight, or blot out all the other noise, and you desperately try to go to sleep, but the harder you try to go to sleep, the worse it is.
[18:33] And sometimes it's only when you try to do something to keep yourself awake that you sort of drift off. But you can't make yourself sleep. He that commanded 127 provinces could not command one hour's sleep.
[18:46] But God, whose gift sleep is, withheld that gift from the king that night.
[18:57] On that night could not the king sleep. This implies that it is an unusual occurrence. We're not dealing with an insomniac king who can never sleep at night, and he's always up, pacing about, and so on.
[19:11] No, this is the gift of God. You know, Psalm 127 tells us, verse 2, In his vain view to rise up early to sit up late to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he giveth his beloved sleep.
[19:25] But if the king seeks his sleep, the hand, or rather the destiny of the Lord's people, the Jews, throughout his empire are, humanly speaking, under his hand, under his control, the king's control, but ultimately they are under the hand of a far greater sovereignty which does not sleep.
[19:51] Not, doesn't sleep because it's insomniac. We don't have an insomniac God that would love to be able to sleep, but oh no, he doesn't. But rather, Psalm 121 tells us, we read in verse 3, you know, he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
[20:05] Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper, the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
[20:16] You can sleep, you can have safety and peace because God doesn't sleep. it's like if you're on some kind of military campaign or whatever and you're camping out and somebody says, I'll take the first watch which means you can sleep.
[20:33] It means you and your colleagues can have a couple of hours sleep because somebody else is on watch and because you know that there are sentries keeping watch, because you know that somebody is being vigilant, you can afford to let go.
[20:49] You can afford to let yourself sleep. But if you don't know there aren't any sentries, there's nobody watching, okay, well, we're all going to be alert, we're all going to keep our eyes open, we're going to make sure that we don't doze off whatever we do and that will be the surest recipe to make sure that you do, of course.
[21:02] But if you know that somebody else is on watch, somebody else is there, then you can let yourself relax a bit.
[21:14] We can afford to let go of control of our own lives when we know that God is ultimately in control. This is an unsleeping grace.
[21:27] He that keepeth thee will not slumber. The king may or may not sleep, but God does not sleep. The king may hold the destiny of Israel in the palm of his hands, but God holds the destiny of the king in the palm of his hand.
[21:44] He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall not slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shape upon thy right hand.
[21:57] There are things which are more important than sleep. And sometimes it is when these things are upon our minds that sleep will not yet come to us.
[22:09] David knows something of this when we think of it, of Psalm 132, just turning a page there from one to one there where we read verse four, I will not give sleep to mine eyes or slumber to mine eyelids until I find out a place for the Lord and habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.
[22:31] Now, David is there in the Psalms talking about giving the Lord a permanent residence, a tabernacle within Jerusalem. Ultimately, David wanted to build him a temple but the Lord said no, Solomon built him the temple in the Psalms of time.
[22:46] But David wanted to have the Lord's permanent residence where he was in his city amongst his people. He wouldn't rest, he wouldn't sleep until he had found out a dwelling place for the Lord.
[22:59] Now, of course, the Lord ultimately dwells not in temples made with hands, not even in tabernacles made of tent curtains. The place the Lord desires and delights to dwell most is in the hearts of his people, of his children.
[23:14] He desires to dwell there because our relationship with the Lord ultimately is not about simply time we sit in church or time when we go to services.
[23:27] Our relationship with the Lord is based upon his dwelling in our heart and us dwelling in him. If we live our life in the Lord, then he dwells in us just as Jesus says in the New Testament there, you know, thou and them and me and them, thou and me and I in thee.
[23:47] And so the Lord is dwelling in the hearts of his people and the cry of the sounds is not simply, oh well, I've got to have a tabernacle for the Lord somewhere.
[23:59] It is rather the cry of the believer, I can't rest, my soul can have no peace until I have the Lord in a permanent dwelling place.
[24:10] And that permanent dwelling place, friend, ought to be in your heart. It ought to be within your very soul and until you have that the Lord dwelling in your heart, you will not have permanent peace.
[24:24] You may have fitful sleep or even physical sleep from night to night, but every night when you close your eyes in sleep, you do not know for sure if you will ever open them again the next morning.
[24:36] The safest and blessed occasion which to lie down to sleep is when you know you have the Lord to your protector, the Lord to your savior. That is the first and greatest priority for any soul.
[24:49] It is our chief end to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, to know his peace, to know his protection. I will not give sleep to my eyes nor slumber to my eyelids until I find out a place for the Lord and habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.
[25:13] That place is your heart, friend. That is where he desires to dwell and until there is that protection, that peace for your soul, your soul is unprotected.
[25:24] You may fall asleep on your military campsite and the enemy may not come that night or it may do. The point is you are completely unprotected. If the enemy doesn't come, well that was just your good providence.
[25:38] If he does come and finds you sleeping, you are lost. But the point is you are unprotected unless you have the protection of that unsleeping grace.
[25:49] the Lord who looks after his people sometimes withholds sleep from those whom he intends to be his instruments, the tools in his hand.
[26:03] Such is the king, Ahasuerus. On that night could not the king sleep and he commanded to bring the book of the records of the Chronicles.
[26:15] All the previous pieces are in place. Vashti, the previous queen, has evidenced her disobedience so she has been replaced as queen. Esther has become the queen.
[26:25] It took four or five years for Esther to become queen. This isn't all happening in the blink of an eye or in the, you know, the snap of fingers. This is taking use.
[26:36] This is the Lord placing his people. This is the Lord laying the groundwork for the ultimate deliverance of his people because the Lord sees and knows that the devil is at work seeking to destroy that which is the Lord's.
[26:50] Haman, as he rises to power, is incensed that there should be anyone who doesn't worship him. Mordecai, the Jew, will not worship him. No doubt because he only worships the true God.
[27:03] But because of this, Haman, and the devil through him, desires to destroy the Lord's people everywhere throughout the empire. The Lord, however, is already ahead of him because this is something we should recognize about the power of the evil one.
[27:18] The devil is powerful. Let's not pretend that he isn't. Let's not think, oh, I don't have to be scared of the devil. I can do it. I can scare him off. No, you can't.
[27:29] Oh, I'm more powerful than I just won't believe in him. Then I've got power when I can make him small. I can make him disappear if I just refuse to believe in him. That's an idiot's argument.
[27:39] That's like saying, oh, as long as I keep fiddling on the deck of the Titanic, it's not going to go down. Yes, it is. Satan is not flesh and blood.
[27:50] He is a spirit. He is a fallen, demonic angel. And he has far more power than you or I or any of humanity all put together.
[28:02] The only person that he fears is the living God. The only one of whom he has terrified is Jesus Christ who has taken on and absorbed the worst and the greatest power that the devil has which is the power of death.
[28:18] And he has passed through it and he has triumphed over it. So Christ has nothing to fear from the devil and those who are in Christ have nothing to fear from him either but only in so far as they are in him.
[28:32] They have no power in themselves. It's rather like saying if I were a great big ship in the middle of the ocean then oh I'm safe. But it's not safe because I'm me.
[28:43] I'm safe because I'm on that big ship. If I'm splashing about in the water desperately treading water then I'm not anymore safe. Just because I'm me. It's not me that sees myself.
[28:54] It's the safety of the ship that I'm on that keeps me from drowning and it's the safety of the protection that I have in Christ. the Lord whose unsleeping grace looks after his children.
[29:09] You see here we have a picture of Haman obviously as the instrument in the devil's hand who is powerful. He is the most powerful prince in this empire that stretches from India to Ethiopia.
[29:24] 127 provinces. The only person higher than him in the land is the king himself Ahasuerus. And he comes that very morning expecting to be able to just ask one little thing about the king.
[29:40] He's got the gallows prepared ready to hang morning except that God is ahead of the devil. And on that night could not the king sleep. So instead of coming to him all sort of groggy in the morning he said yeah yeah David just do whatever you want I don't care it's too early in the morning to worry.
[29:58] If you want to do that fine I'll give you authority to hang whoever you like what do I care. And if Haman had found the king half asleep that might have been how he would have reacted.
[30:09] But God is way ahead of him. The devil is powerful but God is more powerful. Haman is powerful but the king is more powerful. Haman wants to speak but the king speaks first.
[30:22] Haman has his designs but the king has his commands. And at the end of the day the devil is powerful. He's more powerful than you and me just as Haman is more powerful than Mordecai.
[30:35] But the king is more powerful than them all. And the king of kings is the one who was on our side. Not because there is virtue in us but because if we are trusting in his beloved son then we are saved and redeemed by that beloved son.
[30:55] And so he protects us. On that night could not the king sleep? And he commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles and they were read before the king.
[31:08] And it was found written that Mordecai had told the big fan and teresh to the king's chamber and the keeper of the door who sought to lay hands on the king as he was. And the king said what honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this.
[31:23] Then said the king says there is nothing done for him. And the king intends to put that right. In a sense it's agitating him. It's been agitating him through the night and until he is able to give the order and the command Mordecai must be honoured Mordecai must be honoured I must do something about this he's not going to get any peace he's not going to be able to sleep till he gets this off his chest till he rectifies this wrong.
[31:49] Who's in the outer court? Haman. Brilliant. Couldn't be better. Take him's top minister top servant get him to do it. He's the loyal faithful servant and so the king gives the order and it all follows on from there.
[32:05] Haman does not get a chance to speak. The devil is powerful but he is on a leash and the person who holds the leash is the king of kings and he can give protection and he can give safety and he can give sleep and he can give the gift of faith and the gift of salvation and he can withhold he can withhold even the gift of sleep itself on that night could not the king sleep because the king of kings withheld that gift and he commanded to bring the book of the records you see Haman of course as the enemy of the lord's people had risen very high and the devil is powerful and his instruments rise high in this world and we don't need to deny that but it's psalm 37 you can read the whole psalm we'll just read a few verses at the beginning that really sets the context of this threaten not thyself because of evildoers neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity for they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herd trust in the lord and do good so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed delight thyself also in the lord and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart commit thy way unto the lord trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass and he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noon day rest in the lord and wait patiently for him fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass cease from anger and forsake wrath fret not thyself in any wise to do evil for evildoers shall be cut off but those that wait upon the lord they shall inherit the earth for yet a little while and the wicked shall not be yea thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be but the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace the whole sense then throughout the rest of the psalm is that although yes the wicked are fierce and the threats against the lord's people are real and he suffers the devil to be allowed to win for quite a long time it seems to us yet his triumphing is shot and the message of that psalm is that the lord's people should just let go and let god take charge because he controls all the devices and intentions and schemes and plans of men and although the king intended to sleep that night the lord would not let him and although he would intend to ask for mordecai to be executed the king who was wide awake was there first intending to honour him and to bless him now to mordecai as we say at this stage all this honour would have just been nothing it would have been empty what use all these gorgeous robes what use the crown of the king's head what use the king's horse and all this crying through the streets that shall it be done to the man whom the king delighted to honour if I'm due to be slaughtered in a few months time what good is that and in this also we may see a picture of how those who have their hearts rightly with the lord should view the trappings of this world they should not have our heads turned by outward glory and gorgeous robes or fancy clothes or riding on the king's
[36:05] horse the equivalent of fancy cars or great wealth or glory going through the streets because through the streets came on the king's highest prince cried thus shall it be done and a man whom the king delighted to honour us like all the Egyptians bowing down before Joseph and his new chariot the one who's going to deliver them great and then everybody gets up and turns back and goes back to their work glory is only for a moment all the celebrities you see on the red carpets and Hollywood and so on they're famous for a day maybe for a year and then before you know it for yesterday's news and yet this is what everybody thinks they want they want fame and fortune they want to be rich and famous but riches make themselves wings famous only momentary here's hailing through the streets that shall it be done for the man and the king delighted to honour and the next day it's forgotten or it would be if that was all there was to it the fame the glory the riches of this one they do not last and yet that is what the wicked focus upon and the psalm that we read psalm 37 don't worry about that focus on the
[37:15] Lord trust in the Lord commit your ways to him do good and thou shalt dwell in the land and be fed delight thyself also in the Lord he shall give thee the desires of thine heart now the desires of our heart may be at times oh but I want what they've got I don't like that the wicked get all the good things in this world I don't like that they get all the wealth and the fame and the form why can't I have a wee bit of that why can't I have some of that too and sometimes that is what our earth bad heart wants but the minute of course it's gone like snow off a dike you probably think oh well maybe it wasn't so great to have had it after all and the Lord in his providence often withholds these temporary things from us that he might give us the lasting treasure and the blessings that we so often take for granted sometimes the Lord withholds sometimes he withholds his gifts but he always does so for a reason he may not make that reason clear to us we may not see it that day or it may not be open to us in that hour but it will become clear hereafter because here on this chapter 6 verse 1 the whole of the book of Esther in a sense hinges the whole of the destiny of the Jewish people throughout this vast Persian empire at that point in history and you could say humanly speaking the safeguarding of that human vessel that race that nation of people from whom the Messiah came forth all of this hinged on the ability of this king to be able to sleep or not on that night could not the king sleep and he commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles and they were ready before him if the Lord would bold sleep from you on some night there may be a reason for it it's not the chronicles of a kingdom we should read in but turn then to read his word there may be something that he wants you to discover there may be something he wants to bring to your mind something which in the busyness of your day you would not stop for something which perhaps if you had measured time you would not turn to many a soul has been touched and blessed because in a sleepless night they turned at last to the bible beside their bed on that night could not the king sleep if we can afford to entrust our souls and our life and our future and our salvation into the hands of a true king who does not sleep he that keeps his sleep shall not slumber he shall not have slumber no sleep entrust your soul to the lord and you can afford to let go you can afford to sleep because not only as you but our great god and savior will not sleep either so and so