If you have been following my columns about the book of Esther, you know that a great reversal occurred when the king signed the second edict, which gave the Jews permission to take up arms and defend themselves against their aggressors. Before this, the enemies of the Jews were licking their chops to go into every “weapon free zone” in the kingdom and kill the innocent and the unarmed.

I love the first verse of Esther 9, which says, “…on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.” You could make the case that this is a statement for all of Scripture, and for all times. When all looked hopeless for the people of God, over and over in the Scriptures, that was when the reverse occurred. On the day when the serpent thought he had gained mastery over Adam and Eve, and indeed all of mankind, the reverse occurred. God made a promScrise that the heel of Eve’s offspring would be bruised, but the head of the serpent would be crushed.

When it looked like curtains for Moses and all of the people of Israel, backed up against the Red Sea as the Egyptian chariots and soldiers were thundering down on them, the reverse occurred. The sea opened, the Jews walked through on dry ground, and when the Egyptian army was in the middle of the sea, God brought the waters back together. On the day when all looked hopeless for Daniel, and his enemies rubbed their hands together with glee that he would be destroyed, the reverse occurred. The mouths of the lions were shut until Daniel was pulled out of the pit and the enemies of Daniel and Daniel’s God were thrown in. Meat was back on the menu. Don’t forget Daniel’s three buddies, Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego, who were supposed to be turned to ashes within seconds in the fiery furnace. The reverse occurred, and the only thing burned on those boys was the rope that bound them.

Over and over we see the pattern in Scripture until the greatest reversal of all time, when the Son of Man hung on a bloody cross and cried out, “It is finished.” The enemy of our souls, that same old serpent from the garden, must have thought he had won the battle and gained mastery over Jesus and all who follow Him. But the reverse occurred as God, in the death of Jesus, canceled “the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Him.”

Don’t get me wrong. There have been millions of followers of God who have been murdered for their faith. There was no last second rescue for those who said, “I am a Christian,” in Roseburg, Ore. last week. There was no miraculous rescue for the thousands of Christians who have been beheaded or burned alive by ISIS. Or was there?

Yes, there was, for one thing we know for sure. God always rescues His people from, or through, death.

Because of the greatest reversal at Calvary, those who know Jesus understand that death is not the worst that can happen. It is merely a door into His presence.

You have to read Esther chapter 8 to understand the jubilation that took place in the Persian kingdom when a new decree went out that would give the Jews permission to defend themselves against their aggressors. The first decree had set a date for their annihilation, and only 8 months were left until they would all be destroyed. But all of that changed in one stroke of the king’s pen. That’s when the party broke out. If Kool and the Gang had been on the scene, everyone in the streets of Susa would have joined them in singing, “Celebrate good times, come on!”

What a day that was. They had gone from sadness and fear, from sackcloth and ashes just a few months earlier, to “light and gladness and joy and honor.” I couldn’t help but think it might have been similar to Nov. 9, 1989, in Berlin, when the wall came down and there was celebration all night and into the next day. This celebration in Susa was like — on a much larger scale, of course — the Fox’s house two Saturday nights ago, starting at 6:25 p.m., when Mr. and Mrs. Isaiah Maher walked down the aisle as husband and wife for the first time. Applause and laughter led to singing and celebration and dancing into the night.

That was one of the things that struck me that day, as 300 of us gathered to witness the joyous occasion and celebrate it together: God’s people know how to celebrate something good and godly better than anyone else on earth. And it’s because we have that which makes for celebration better than anything else on earth. Here’s what I mean.

The joy that we shared at the wedding was not just for the couple, that God had brought a husband for Hannah, a man who chose Hannah to be his bride with the promise that they will walk together as husband and wife until death. On a much deeper level, we were celebrating the Gospel: God sent a Savior in the person of Jesus Christ for His people. He chose us to be His bride, with the promise that we will walk together with Him in this life, through trials and troubles and joys and celebrations. But that’s not all. The promise of God, almost too good to be true (but it’s not), is that we will also walk with Him through death into the next life, where there will be endless celebration. That’s why Jesus said to His followers, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

One more thought occurred to me at the wedding. His presence is magnified and on display when His people are together, as we were at the wedding and as we are every Sunday morning. We celebrated Hannah and Isaiah’s wedding with people we love but rarely see because they live in other states or they are involved with other churches. But that gathering in our backyard reminded me of the truth of Scripture, that all of us who belong to Jesus will one day sit down at the wedding feast of the Lamb. We will be reunited with our friends and brothers and sisters we knew in this life. But just as glorious, we will be sitting down together for the very first time with the brothers and sisters we never had the pleasure to meet on this side of heaven.

That’s a celebration that you don’t want to miss.

We have all been behind that person in the grocery store express lane whose cart is loaded to overflowing. You stand there with your one jar of peanut butter and debate with yourself whether to tap him on the shoulder and point at the sign. Or whether to say something subtle like, “Excuse me, but what part of ‘12 items only’ do you not understand?” Most of us who were raised in the South, however, will just grin and bear it. Do you remember the time you were standing in the aisle of the plane, waiting to find your seat while someone, as Brian Regan likes to say, is trying to shove a dead yak into the overhead compartment? If you have flown even once, you know what I am talking about.

How many times have you wished you could be a police officer for just 15 minutes so you could pull over the guy who just cut across six lanes of traffic on the interstate, nearly causing a ten-car pileup?

Or how about the time you were standing in line for hours to get into an event that is festival seating. Right before the doors opened, a hoard of people who just arrived on the scene broke in line ahead of you, and laughed about all the suckers behind them. Why did that grind your gears?

It’s because God is just, and we are made in His image. Every one of us is equipped by our creator with a well-developed sense of justice, which means the slightest injustice can cause us to ball up our fists and clench our teeth. Or at the very least, shake our heads and sigh.

If you have been following along as I write about the story of Esther, you know that Haman plotted to have every Jew in the Persian kingdom destroyed. The king signed off on it, and the days were ticking by until it would be done. But Haman could not wait that long to remove his nemesis, Mordecai the Jew. So Haman built a gallows, 75 feet high, with the intention of hanging Mordecai on it the next morning. When the king discovered that the decree to annihilate the Jews would include his own wife, Esther, and when it was revealed that Haman had also schemed to hang the man who had saved the king from an assassination plot, he exploded. The king ordered Haman to be hanged on the gallows he had prepared. You cannot read the story without despising Haman and wanting him to get what he deserved. And that’s because you cannot rid your soul of a desire to see justice done, and to live justly, without hardening your heart like Haman did. Want to be free of that nagging sense of right and wrong? Here’s what you should do. Live completely for yourself. Ignore any pleas for help. Learn to laugh at victims of injustice, especially those who cannot possibly defend themselves. Then, take the next step and begin to act on your convictions. Treat others with disdain. Plot to harm the weak and eliminate the burdensome. In no time at all, you will look and be just like Haman.

But be forewarned. The Bible says, “Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling.” You see, that sense of justice that you crushed through hatred and selfishness was given to you by a just and righteous God. He will always do what is right. Always.

Haman found that out the hard way.

If you don’t think God likes to laugh, you just need read the book of Esther. Pay special attention to the character named Haman in the story, because he’s the one that really cracks God up. Haman was promoted to No. 2 in the Persian Kingdom, and he definitely thought he was all that and a bag of doughnuts. It is clear all through the story, but you can see it best in Chapter 6. That’s when the king can’t sleep, so he calls for his servants to bring him the chronicles. This was the book in which everything that happened in the kingdom was recorded, and the king figured hearing that read to him would knock him out quickly.

Meanwhile, back at No. 2’s ranch, gallows are being built 75 feet high, upon which Haman plans to hang his arch-enemy Mordecai the next morning. See, Mordecai is the only man in the kingdom who will not bow and scrape whenever Haman passes by, so the big H is planning the little M’s demise. This is where God starts to chuckle, because there is one problem with Haman’s plan.

You see, the servant who opens the chronicles to read so the king can sleep just happens to turn to an event that happened five years prior. That was the time when two of the king’s servants plotted his assassination, but Mordecai overheard them. Little M reported the plot to the queen, and the king’s life was spared. Fast-forward five years to the king with insomnia. When the king heard this story of the assassination plot, he shot up in bed, his stocking cap all askew, and asked what had been done to reward this man Mordecai for saving his life. Nothing. Nothing? The king was incredulous that the man had not even received a thank-you note or a T-shirt that said “I saved the king.” He wanted to reward him that day, so he asked who was in the court that could help him with this.

By this time, God is bent double with laughter, because Haman himself had just arrived in the outer court, intent on asking the king if he could go ahead and hang Mordecai on the brand-new gallows. When he was asked to come in because the king wanted to see him, he thought to himself that this was going to be easier than he had imagined. The king asked Haman breathlessly, “What should be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?” Haman assumed the king was being coy and was asking how Haman could best be honored. It just gets better and better, doesn’t it?

Haman lays it on thick, suggesting the king’s horse for the honoree, and a royal robe and a royal crown. He said that a noble servant should walk ahead of the horse and cry out that this is the way the king honors those in whom he delights. He beamed as he said this to the king, and waited for his due reward.

By this time, God is on the floor trying to catch his breath. Because then the king says that Haman’s plan sounds perfect. Yes, my lord? And that Haman should hurry to take the robes and the horse. Yes, my lord? And do all that you have said to Mordecai the Jew.

I wish I could have seen Haman’s face at that time, and his expression as he went and told Mordecai what the king had said.

God laughs at the plans of the wicked, and he blesses the humble.

It’s hard to see a problem and not rush right in to try and fix it. Especially, when that problem packs a promise to take hundreds, even thousands of lives. Don’t get me wrong: sometimes waiting is the absolute worst thing you could do. Like last week when three young Americans thwarted a potential terrorist attack on a high-speed train in France.

There are other times when waiting for just the right time to act is clearly prudent. The Normandy Invasion on D-Day took months to plan, but the delay was worth it, as it hastened the end of the war and the Holocaust. When a plan is being put in place that will stop the wholesale slaughter of millions of innocent lives, patience is a virtue.

Queen Esther faced a future holocaust, as the King had decreed that in 11 months the Persians were to strap on swords and slaughter every Jew in the empire. Instead of rushing into the throne room and protesting or pleading for mercy for her people, Esther was patient.

We see patience in her decision to wait for three days before she went in to see the king. She fasted and prayed, as did all the Jews in Susa. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and Esther was no fool. I can relate to the fool, though, as do some of you. We get an idea and immediately act on it. Or we see a problem and rush to fix it, often making the problem worse because we go in half-cocked and unprepared in our minds or our spirits. There’s much in the Bible about waiting on the Lord and letting “patience have its perfect work.”

Notice, however, that Esther didn’t wait three months, as that would have illustrated procrastination. She knew she needed to act with deliberateness but not with haste or with sloth. She understood the importance of timing.

After three days of praying and fasting and planning, Esther went in to see the king. Again we see her patience, because she did not point her manicured finger at the king and tell him that his top advisor Haman was a snake and a liar and the king must be a fool not to see that. No, she simply invited the king and Haman to come to a feast that she had prepared. Get that? Esther did not come asking for something, but with something she wanted to give. This powerful play won the king’s heart and put Haman off his guard, setting him up for his big collapse.

We also see the patience of Esther in the second request she made of the king. Sometimes, half the battle is won by waiting for the right time. Wise wives learn that the moment a tired and hungry husband walks in the door after a long day is not the time to ask him to do something, or think about something or fix something or make an important decision. That’s just bad timing. Esther waited until the seven-course meal was done and the king’s belly was full, and he was enjoying a glass of wine. He asked her again what she wanted. Esther knew that the only thing a man liked more than a big feast was another one (that may not be completely true), and just to make sure she had the king’s full attention, she asked if he and Haman would be the guests of honor at another banquet the following evening.

The patience of Esther’s plan required one more day. Read the book to find out why.

It was not a joke. Even though she was his wife, Esther knew there was a chance she would lose her head if she went to see the king without his personal invitation. The Persian monarch had men around him who carried axes for that very reason. He was protected at all times, and no one could just saunter into his presence. Not even the queen. So when she was told by Mordecai that she needed to intervene on behalf of all the Jews in Persia, Esther balked. Didn’t her cousin know the deadly risk he was asking her to take? He did, but he also knew that God would deliver His people. He told Esther that if she refused, relief and deliverance would arise from another place. Then he said the words that would change the heart of a young woman and the destiny of a people: “And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

It is vital for Christians to see the difference between what Mordecai did and didn’t know. He did know that God would deliver His people. That was true then, and it is true now. He did not know how God would do it. He did not know whether God would use Esther to change the heart of her husband, the king. Therefore, he did not tell her that if she had “enough faith,” God would act. Neither did he say that if she told God whatever she wanted, God would have to give it to her. Mordecai did not believe in the so-called ‘prosperity gospel’ any more than you or I should. That false gospel puts people in bondage and pushes them away from the church and from God when He doesn’t perform the way He is expected to. One friend of mine lost a sister-in-law a few years ago to cancer, but up until the last day she and her husband were being told by their church in California that if they had enough faith, God would heal her. Even after she died, the elders of the church told her husband that if he had enough faith, they could pray and God would raise her from the dead right then. When his older children heard about this, they walked away from the church and even from faith in God.

Esther had a choice to make, and let’s be clear about what she did and did not know. She did not know whether the king would let her live. He hadn’t even wanted to see her for thirty days. For all Esther knew, she had fallen completely out of favor, and walking into the inner court without an invitation would be just the excuse the king needed to get rid of her and find himself another beauty queen. She also clearly did not know that she could command God with her words, and that the force of her will combined with the confidence of her faith was powerful enough to move the hand of providence and control the Creator. She did not know that God is mankind’s heavenly bellhop…because he isn’t.

Esther knew that whether she lived or not, she had to obey God, and nothing in life matters more. That very moment of decision, I would argue, is when she truly began to live.

In these challenging days for followers of Jesus, who knows, reader, but that you also have been called to His kingdom for such a time as this?

That would be like having your foot smashed by an overfilled grocery cart pushed by a little old lady at Aldi’s, and because she doesn’t even turn around or say she’s sorry, you make it your goal to eliminate every little old lady in the state. A counselor might call that an “inappropriate response.”

What was Haman’s problem? Let’s cut to the chase, here. He was a racist. He had been raised a racist. He came from a long line of people who were racists. He was taught as a child to hate Jews, perhaps hearing his father say often, “Jews are different, Jews are not the same as the rest of us, Jews are not good people.” In fact, maybe he was taught that Jews were not really people at all. Listen, racial prejudice is as old as mankind, an ugly sin with incredible power to destroy.

What seared the conscience of a 21-year-old man to the point that he could sit for an hour and have prayer with the nine people he was about to murder in cold blood, simply because they were black? How could Dylann Roof get to the point, even while so young, to write this in his journal: “I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is the most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.”

How could Dylann do this? The same way Haman could. They gave themselves over to the power of darkness. You want to know the scariest thing of all? It could happen to anyone not walking in the power of God’s grace. The Bible says about each of us who are now believers, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”

Haman was a son of disobedience, seeking to do the bidding of his father, Satan, and to destroy the seed of the coming Messiah. He was not satisfied in just a personal vendetta. He wanted to institutionalize his racism. He sought to use the political machine at his disposal in Persia to make genocide a matter of public policy. He even said to the king, “it is not to the king’s profit to tolerate them (the Jews).”

Chilling words. I wonder which groups in our world have become “unprofitable?” Which religions, or races, or ethnic groups, or even age groups, from the womb to the walker, are in the crosshairs of those who seek to institutionalize their removal?

Sorry, Bob Dylan. The times, they’re not a’changing.

It was a 5th century beauty pageant, plain and simple. As far as we know, there was no talent involved in the competition. There was also no interview portion, sadly, because that would have given the young women an opportunity to talk about world peace or maybe world domination, since that was the order of the day for King Xerxes. No. The officials of the king were sent into every province to find women who met just three requirements. They had to be young, beautiful and virgins. They were then brought to the capital city where they were turned over to the king’s eunuch, Hegai, who had authority over the harem. Apparently Hegai was the world’s most renowned beauty consultant and would spend a year helping the women get ready to be on the cover of Persian Vogue. They would be given six months with oil treatments and then six months with spices, and I have no idea what that means. The modern explanation (I’m guessing here) might be that these women who were already beautiful would have a total makeover. They would go from good to great or from great to heart-stopping. At the end, however, only one would be chosen by the king to become queen of the vast empire. I agree with you, dear reader: it was a sordid affair, but one into which God placed Esther for a much higher purpose than just to be a queen. She would be the instrument God used to save the Jews from annihilation.

The only way the plan would work would be for Esther to be beautiful. God took care of that and made her exactly the way he chose to, just as he did you and me. Don’t rush past that thought without letting it sink in. Because until we come to terms with how God made us, we will struggle mightily. God made you and me exactly the way he chose to. He chose how tall we would be, and what color our skin and eyes and hair would be. He chose what gender we would be. And he looked on his creation, every one of us, and said, “It is very good.” Until we embrace that, we will struggle with comparisons and discontentment. We will wish we were taller or fairer or darker. We will wish we had curly hair or straight hair or any hair. We will buy into the lie that says our worth is determined by our looks, which leads to bitterness, even bitterness against God. I mean, whom can we blame for our height and hair color and complexion and gender? Just God. We must come to terms with the fact that God made each one of us exactly the way he wanted to, and that God doesn’t make junk. Have you been envious of another person’s position, or appearance, or personality? We all have at one time or another. But if that is something you struggle with on a regular basis, I urge you to tell God about it and ask him to forgive you for your discontentment with the way he made you. Thank him for it, and get on with the more important question of why he made you.

Esther was a woman of great beauty, which opened the door for her to be in the Miss Persia pageant. But it was her inner beauty that God used to open every door after that. To borrow from a familiar quote, “Physical design is God’s gift to you. Character is your gift to God.”

Make it count.

Picture this. The king invites all the men of the capital city into his palace for a feast. He opens his wine cellar and serves them the very best. The men are told they can drink as much as they want. For seven days.

Got the picture? Hundreds, maybe thousands of men. Unlimited wine. Nobody’s working; everyone’s on paid holiday. No wives: they’re all with the queen in another part of the city. And, look! There’s the king, right in the center of the drunken bash, bragging about his riches and his possessions and his building projects and his army and his palace. He keeps bragging and drinking, and the wine slowly takes over the weak will of the egotistical monarch.

I couldn’t help but think of Brad Paisley when I read this story in the first chapter of Esther. I know that some of you have never thought of Brad Paisley, but here are a few lines from his song titled Alcohol: “I can make anybody pretty, I can make you believe any lie; I can make you pick a fight with somebody twice your size. I been known to cause a few breakups, I been known to cause a few births; I can make you new friends or get you fired from work. …I’ve influenced kings and world leaders, I helped Hemingway write like he did; And I’ll bet you a drink or two that I can make you put that lampshade on your head.”

The king does much worse than a lampshade, as the consequences of his drunkenness lead to a broken marriage and a deposed queen. Fueled by alcohol and his own foolish pride, he decides to show something to the men that they have never seen before. At least, not up close. The king may have thought in his inebriated state, “I’ve shown off my power, my pomp, my provision. Why not show them my prize?” They’d seen his golden wine goblets and gold and silver couches and the palace in its splendor. But they had never seen his queen, not like they were about to see her, if the king had his way.

There has been much speculation as to what is meant in chapter one when the king instructs his servants to go and fetch the queen “with her royal crown, in order to show the people and the princes her beauty, for she was lovely to look at.” If it meant that she was to come unveiled, that in itself would have been undignified, a violation of the Persian custom that a woman’s beauty was for the admiration and the enjoyment of her husband alone. Others have suggested that the king meant for his wife to come to his feast wearing only her crown. Either way, Vashti refused to come and be ogled by hundreds of drunken men. Who can blame her?

It is clear to me that the king may have been a provider for his wife, but he was certainly not a protector. A husband that is a protector will put himself in harm’s way before he will allow his wife to suffer humiliation or shame. He would never make her an object for other men’s lusts. He would never ask his wife to do something that would violate her conscience or cause her to sin. In short, he would put her needs above his own.

The sad truth is that this story is repeated in too many households every day. A huge ego, a weak will, and a belly full of alcohol will always be a dangerous combination.

Courage. Faith. Politics. Betrayal. Genocidal plots. A beauty pageant. Gallows. Irony. Even humor. The story of Esther has it all. It’s more important than Jurassic World because it’s true. It’s relevant to us today because not much has changed. The world is still a dangerous place for Jews, and becoming increasingly so for followers of Christ.

The story takes place in Susa, when the Persians had their 200-year shot at ruling the world. Archaeological findings confirm what the book of Esther teaches.

There are four main characters in the story, and many who played smaller roles. There is King Ahasuerus. He is the central figure in the kingdom, but is not the central figure in the story. In fact, though he reigns over the known world, he is the weakest of the four main characters. I can’t help but cast Nicholas Cage in the part of the king. We are introduced to Mordecai in chapter 2: “Now there was a Jew in Susa the citadel named Mordecai.” I love this guy, as he plays the part of the voice of truth and the man of God in the story. I’m going to pick Dustin Hoffman for this pivotal role. Mordecai has been forced from his home in Jerusalem and is living in this foreign land, and has raised his much younger cousin there. That’s Esther. She is the heroine of the story, and some who heard me preach an introduction to this story last week suggested I cast Jennifer Lawrence in the role, though I like Keisha Castle-Hughes better. There’s no evidence that Esther was any good with the bow and arrow, but she was definitely clever, courageous and humble. I think of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, when Malvolio said, “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” The irony in this story is the one who most aspired to greatness, Haman, is the one from whom greatness is snatched away. The least likely woman in the whole empire to have greatness thrust upon her was Esther, a Jewess living in exile. That brings us to the last character, the evil Haman. Some suggest Tom Hardy for this role, although I like David Strathairn as the presumptuous antagonist. Haman is promoted above all the other officials and essentially becomes the King’s right hand man. He hates Mordecai because Mordecai will not bow and scrape before Haman like the rest of Susa does. Haman finds out that Mordecai is a Jew and hatches his plot to have Mordecai and every Jew in the kingdom slaughtered on a given day. The King signs the genocidal decree into law, and the law of the Persians cannot be revoked. What Haman doesn’t know, and what the king doesn’t know, is that Esther is a Jew, so the king has signed his wife’s death warrant. What will happen? Will Mordecai be able to escape the gallows Haman has built for him? Will Esther keep silent about her heritage and faith, even while her cousin and all the rest of the Jews perish? Or will she come up with a plan to not only save herself but save her people as well? Read the story in the Bible and see for yourself.

By the way, this book almost did not make it into the 66 books of the canon because there is no mention of God anywhere in it. His fingerprints are all over it, however, and we learn that even when we think God is absent, He is not.

This story has it all.