The extraordinary of the ordinary
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Now we come to the part of the narrative in Esther where the king cannot sleep, the night before the second banquet that Esther had proposed.
- Esther 6 turns on an ordinary sleepless night through which God's hidden providence reverses the apparent triumph of Haman.
- The king discovers that Mordecai once exposed an assassination plot but received no reward, and he seeks immediate counsel about honoring him.
- Proud Haman assumes the honor is for himself and designs a public display approximating royal status.
- The king commands Haman to bestow every proposed honor upon Mordecai, the very man Haman arrived intending to have executed.
- Haman's humiliation and Mordecai's exaltation begin the reversal that will preserve God's threatened covenant people.
- God ordinarily governs through unspectacular events, decisions, timing, relationships, and human actions rather than constant visible miracles.
- Providence does not promise the American dream or freedom from grief; God works even tribulation, loss, and persecution toward his people's true good and his glory.
- Believers can trust that nothing separates them from Christ's love and remain attentive to God's rule in every ordinary moment.
Esther 6 reveals the extraordinary reach of God's ordinary providence. The threatened Mordecai does not receive a spectacular vision or sudden miracle. Instead, the king cannot sleep, asks for the chronicles, hears the overlooked record of Mordecai's loyalty, and seeks advice precisely when Haman arrives to request Mordecai's death. Haman's pride supplies the form of honor that he himself must publicly confer on his enemy. The apparent ascent of evil begins to reverse. The chapter trains believers to see God's sovereignty in timing, memory, conversation, vocation, and common events. That confidence is not a promise that every earthly plan will prosper. God's true good may lead through sorrow, persecution, and loss, yet his people remain inseparable from Christ's love and are carried toward his glory.
Biblical Themes
- Hidden providence
- Divine sovereignty over ordinary events
- Pride humbled and humility exalted
- Reversal of evil plans
- Preservation of God's people
- Waiting for recognition and justice
- Suffering under providence
- Inseparability from Christ's love
- God's glory as humanity's chief end
Scripture Connections
- Esther 2:21-23 — Mordecai exposes the assassination plot, and his unrewarded service is recorded in the royal chronicles.
- Esther 5:9-14 — Haman's rage at Mordecai leads him to prepare a towering instrument of execution.
- Esther 6:1-14 — A sleepless night, a remembered record, and Haman's pride bring public honor to Mordecai and humiliation to Haman.
- Proverbs 16:9 — A person plans a course, but the LORD establishes the steps.
- Proverbs 16:18 — Pride precedes destruction, and a haughty spirit comes before a fall.
- Genesis 50:15-21 — Joseph recognizes that God intended for good what others intended for evil, preserving many lives.
- Romans 8:28-39 — God works all things for his called people's good, even as they face tribulation, persecution, and death, and nothing separates them from Christ's love.
- 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 — God chooses what appears weak and lowly to humble human boasting and magnify Christ.
- James 4:13-16 — Human plans must be held under the Lord's will rather than presumed upon.
Practical Applications
- Notice and thank God for ordinary means he has used in conversion, provision, protection, vocation, and spiritual growth.
- Hold personal plans humbly, recognizing that God's wise route may differ sharply from the outcome you expect.
- Continue faithful service when recognition is delayed, trusting God's timing rather than demanding immediate reward.
- Confess Haman-like pride that assumes honor, status, or attention naturally belongs to you.
- Do not interpret suffering as evidence of abandonment; rehearse the promise that nothing separates believers from Christ's love.
- Pray for daily bread and deliverance from evil, recognizing God's care in common as well as dramatic needs.
- Encourage suffering believers without promising easy outcomes that Scripture does not guarantee.
- Seek God's glory and lasting enjoyment of him as the true good toward which providence leads his people.
Historical Context
Esther 6 follows Haman's construction of an execution structure for Mordecai and precedes the second banquet with Esther. Mordecai's earlier service had been written in the Persian court record but left unrewarded. The chapter's compressed timing—the king's insomnia, the selected record, and Haman's arrival—forms the hinge by which the book's direction begins to reverse.
Westminster Standards
Westminster Confession of Faith 5.1
God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and governe all creatures, actions and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy Providence, according to his infallible fore-knowledge, and the free, and immutable counsell of his own Will, to the praise of the glory of his wisedome, power, justice, goodnesse, and mercy.
Connection to the sermon: The sermon's central claim is that God rules both great crises and small events. A sleepless night, a book selection, remembered service, and Haman's timing all fall within wise and holy providence.
Westminster Larger Catechism 18
Gods works of Providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerfull preserving and governing all his creatures, ordering them and all their actions to his own glory.
Connection to the sermon: Esther 6 never names a miracle, yet the actions of king, servants, Haman, and Mordecai are ordered toward the preservation of God's people and the humbling of pride for divine glory.
Westminster Shorter Catechism 11
Gods Works of Providence are his most holy, wise, and powerfull preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.
Connection to the sermon: This concise definition captures the sermon's reassurance that no ordinary moment, human choice, delay, or reversal lies outside God's preserving government.
- Why is the king's sleepless night the decisive turning point in Esther 6?
- What earlier act of Mordecai is rediscovered in the royal chronicles?
- What does Haman's proposed reward reveal about his ambitions and view of himself?
- How does the king's command reverse Haman's plans for Mordecai?
- Why is God's ordinary providence no less powerful than a visible miracle?
- Which ordinary people, decisions, delays, and circumstances has God used in your own conversion or growth?
- Why must Romans 8:28 not be reduced to a promise that personal plans will succeed?
- How can tribulation coexist with the assurance that nothing separates believers from Christ's love?
- Providence
- God's holy, wise, and powerful preservation and government of every creature, action, and circumstance.
- Ordinary means
- Common events and actions through which God quietly accomplishes extraordinary purposes without visible miracle.
- Reversal
- The turning of expected outcomes so that pride is humbled, humility is honored, and evil plans serve God's opposite purpose.
- Irony
- The narrative contrast between what Haman intends for himself and Mordecai and what actually occurs under providence.
- Pride
- Haman's self-exalting assumption that no one is more worthy of royal honor than himself.
- True good
- The believer's conformity to Christ and final enjoyment of God, not a guarantee of ease or material success.
Scripture Reading
Will you turn in your Bibles with me now to the book of Esther? Esther chapter 6 is where we'll be at this morning. Esther chapter 6, if you're using a pew Bible, you can find that on page 446. Esther chapter six, and as we look through Esther chapter six this morning, like normal, as we go through a narrative portion, a story portion of the scriptures, we're gonna go chunk by chunk, but I want to first begin by asking you, when you were a child and somebody asked you, what do you wanna be when you grow up?
Did you ever expect your life would end up the way it is now? Did you expect every little twist and turn in the story that God has crafted in your life? I don't know about you, but for me, I've heard many people tell me, I didn't plan to ever stay in Iowa. And I got to tell you, I never planned to love Iowa.
But here we are. The Lord works in our lives in some interesting ways. And here we find that God has a sense of irony in how he works. He likes to make the small things great and the great things small. He likes to humble the proud and exalt the humble. And here, this is what we find God doing in his mysterious way in Esther chapter six. We left off Esther chapter five where Mordecai was in peril at Haman's He wanted to murder Haman.
He's been up all night. He's made a 75 foot gallows, a 50 cubit high thing to hang Mordecai on because he wouldn't bow to him. And just so happens that night that the king can't sleep. And so what do you do when you can't sleep? Well, you go read a book or have someone else read a book to you. And that's what happens in verses 1 through 3. Look with me at verses 1 through 3. That night the king could not sleep.
So one was commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king. And it was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthina and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs, the doorkeepers who had sought to lay hands on King Asuarius. Then the king said, what honor or dignity has been bestowed on Mordecai for this? And the servants who attended him said, nothing has been done for him. Now imagine if you're Mordecai for a moment. Mordecai is at the king's gate.
He hears the eunuchs who are making this plan, two guys who are wanting to assassinate King Ashuarius. He hears about this plan. He goes and he tells Esther. Esther goes and she tells the king, a thorough investigation of this is found and the assassination plot is real. And we ended that story with a very anticlimactic end. That was it, nothing happened. Now this wasn't a normal way in which the Persian kings dealt with things.
The Greek historian Herodotus wrote of a few different times when the king would reward people for things that they did for them. There were two captains at sea who they had won a battle. And so what did King Xerxes do? Well, he gave one of them huge tracts of land and the other one he made a governor of Sicilia. And then the king as well, when his brother was, well, his brother wasn't exactly being the most reputable person and wasn't being too nice to one of his generals and his general turned around and tried to kill him and somebody saved his brother. Well, the king rewarded that man and made him a governor of an entire province.
And here Mordecai has discovered a plot to assassinate the king and nothing's been done for him. Now this is really important for the king, right? The king wants to reward people for their loyalty. The king wants to encourage people to do these things and nothing's happened for Mordecai. Imagine how he might have felt. This is five years later. Chapter three tells us that it's now five years after all these things happened. Does Mordecai hurt?
He's still at the king's gate, he's still there serving, but no honor, no praise, no recognition. And here the king, well the king can't sleep. For some reason the king, the Hebrew says that the sleep fled from him. And so as sleep is fleeing from him, he says to one of the guys, hey, open up that boring book. Let's read that one. And as he's going over the official records, whoa, hold on.
We didn't do anything for that dude? That guy saved my life. Nothing happened for him? We've got to fix this. And the king is, Mordecai, our actuary says, we've got to do something for Mordecai fast. We've got to figure this out. And so what happens?
The king in verse four says, who's in the court? Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the king's palace to suggest that the king could hang Mordecai on the gallows he had prepared for him. Isn't this interesting, the king is having a sleepless night and whose name comes up? Mordecai's. And there is Haman, the second in command in the empire, comes in and he's ready, he's just waiting to ask this king for this personal favor that he might just kill this one Jewish guy.
And the king says, who's out in the courtyard? I gotta do something for this guy. And the only person there is Haman. So that's what the king's servants tell him. Verse 5, the king's servants said to him, Haman is there standing in the court. And the king said, let him come in. So Haman came in and the king asked, what shall be done for the man whom the king delights to honor?
Now if you're Haman, you're thinking, man, this is a sweet deal, he's talking about me. I'm here after hours, everybody else has gone home, I am here and I am ready to work, I'm ready to serve, I'm ready second in command, and he wants to do something for me. So he starts thinking in his heart, okay, hold on, what's gonna happen? And it's interesting what happens here is we actually get an insight into Haman's own thoughts and Haman's own mind. Look with me at what it says. Verse six, the second part. Now Haman thought in his heart, whom would the king delight to honor more than me? Man, that's kind of a prideful thing to be thinking, right? His mind automatically is straight to himself. He's not thinking of some general out fighting a war. He's not thinking of any of the other sat-traps. He's not thinking of any of the other five guys who were able to enter into Ashwarius' presence.
No, he's like, oh, I know he's talking about me. Ah, okay, this dude's talking about me. Something's gonna happen. And so he comes up with this extravagant plan. I mean, there's not much more he can ask for. He's already the king's right-hand man. He's already the second in command. And he's already been invited to the banquet that Esther had for him. I mean, this guy is at the top of the ladder. He's the upper echelon.
Where else can he go? He can't ask for a province. That would actually diminish his station. He wouldn't be with the king anymore. He can't ask for more money. He's already got a ton of money. He just gave the king 300 talents of silver. So what else is left for him? He wants to make himself identified with as close to the king as possible. Let it be shown that I'm almost like the king. The king loves me and honors me so much. And how can I do that? Well, look at what the plan is for that.
And Haman, verse 7, And Haman answered the king, for the man whom the king delights to honor, let a royal robe be brought, which the king has worn, and a horse on which the king has ridden, which has a royal crest placed upon its head. Then let this robe and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that he may array the man with whom the king delights to honor. Then parade him on horseback through the city square and proclaim before him, thus is done, thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.
He wants a parade. He wants to put on the king's robes. He wants to sit on the king's horse. He wants to go through the town and he wants somebody to herald, not just like a lowly person, one of the other princes. And to go along, one of the nobles going along and saying, this is what the king does to someone who he wants to honor.
And you can imagine the grandiose ideas that are going on in Haman's mind, right? The fanfare, oh yeah, this is great. Yeah, I wanna be like that guy. And then the irony. Then the king said to Haman, verse 10, hurry. You're like, oh man, if you're Haman, you're like, oh, this is gonna happen tonight, this is great.
Hurry, take the robe and the horse as you have suggested, and do so for Mordecai, the Jew, who sits within the king's gate. Leave nothing undone of all that you have spoken. You can imagine Haman's face drained of color as he's realized the tables have been turned As he's realized there's a hinge that has swung on its doors, that he thought things were going to go one way, that he was going to be exalted. In reality, someone else is going to be exalted instead.
So Haman, he has to obey. The king's given him this command, verse 11. So Haman took the robe and the horse, arrayed Mordecai, and led him on horseback through the city square. And Haman himself, and proclaim before him, thus shall it be done to whom the king delights to honor.
Out of his own mouth he has to speak about Mordecai, the guy he had just come into the court to try to kill. And he knows this isn't a good deal. Afterward, Mordecai went back to the king's gate, but Haman hurried to his house, mourning and with his head covered. When Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him, His wise men and his wife said to him, if Mordecai before whom you have begun to fall is of Jewish descent, you will not prevail against him, but he, but will surely fall before him.
What are they saying? Dude, you are in trouble. If the king has decided to do this to Mordecai, and Mordecai is a Jew, and you were planning on killing Mordecai, and you've had this genocidal plot to kill all the Jews and eradicate them through all the kingdom, king's got a new right-hand man, the king's got a new vice president, and you're in trouble.
And as they were still talking, as everything's still going on, oh, hold on, watch out. While they were still talking with him, the king's eunuchs came and hastened to bring Haman to the banquet which Esther had prepared." Everything's turned on its head. Everything is turned on its head.
But this is the way God works. This is the way, theologians have a fancy word for this Two fancy words I'll give you, both start with P, providence and peripety. Providence, God is working all things out together for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purposes, that God has been working since day one until the very last day to bring about his plan. God's providence happens in our daily lives without us even realizing it. Peripete, the Lord loves to flip the world on its head.
We might say that as irony. We think things are going one way and the Lord is, whoop, going a different way. But this is incredibly hopeful to us. Because I have this personal vendetta. I have a personal vendetta against corny Christian movies. where everything works out well, and somebody prays, and they automatically hear an audible voice from God, or the clouds depart, and a beaming light comes down, and God works in amazing ways. It's like everything is by a miracle.
Well, brothers and sisters, our God is far more powerful than just doing a token miracle from time to time. Actually, if you read the scriptures, it's the rare times that miracles happen. The majority of times in which the Lord is working through history is sometimes in those miracles, but the majority of time, it's by his providence, ordaining all things to come to pass.
He's the one who gave you your parents. He's the one who made you be born where you're born. He's the one who gave you the skills to be able to do your job. I want you to think about your own salvation. Think about all the things the Lord coordinated in your life to bring you to himself. Think about the pastors he gave you. Think about the friend who invited you to that Bible study. Think about the grandparents who prayed for you. The Lord works in ordinary ways for extraordinary ends. The Lord works in ordinary ways for extraordinary ends. God is working in amazing ways that flip this world on its head and they don't understand.
This is why Romans chapter eight is so incredible. Did you catch the peripety there? Did you catch the irony? I'm just gonna read some of this to you, right? We really love Romans chapter 8, 28, right? And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God to those who are called according to his purpose. But notice what it says in verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril assured? For it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Man, doesn't that sound fun? And yet that's exactly what God says. You have to lose everything to gain everything. You have to forsake this world. You have to forsake the things of this world. You have to even be willing to leave mother and father, brother or sister, and come and follow me.
And oh yeah, by the way, no servant is greater than his master. If they hated me, they'll hate you also. But, in my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would tell you, and I am going ahead of you to prepare a place for you." Brothers and sisters, this is how God works. This is why Peter didn't understand it when Jesus said to him, I'm going to die. I'm going to be buried. I'm going to rise again on the third day. And Peter says, no, no, no, no, no. It can't happen like that. Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. Hold on, you might not understand what's going on, but this is the way God is going to work.
So what in your life is going on in the way in which you're like, man, I just really want it to go this way. I have all my plans straight. I know all my ducks are in order. If I do A, B, C, and D, I know this, I'm gonna be happy, and everything's gonna be wonderful.
And then you get to point A, and it's like, what just happened to my plan? You have it planned that your family is going to be happy and wonderful, and then a child dies of miscarriage. What happens when you're going through life and you think everything is going to be going fine, but then everything doesn't go fine? What happens when peril and famine and nakedness and hunger and persecution and tribulation happen. This is why I have a vendetta against corny Christian movies, because that's life. The scriptures don't give us some rosy colored glasses to look at everything.
It deals with the reality that Haman wanted to murder Mordecai. Haman wanted to hang him up, string him up on a tree until he suffocated to death. And yet, and yet somehow, a king can't sleep at night. And that ordinary event. Hey, go pick up that dusty book off the end table.
Turn on the lamp and read that to me for a little bit so I can fall asleep. The Lord uses that little event to turn history on its head. This is how God works. This is why Jesus tells us in the Lord's Prayer to pray for even little things. Give us this day our daily bread. And we also pray, Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. We need daily bread. We need to cry out to God because He's the one who's going to provide that bread.
He's the one who's going to shroud us about in safety and keep us. But as we look to a God who is sovereign, who is in total control, our hearts are able to be comforted. Because we know that neither height nor depth, neither famine nor persecution nor tribulation, nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. And God is working all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. But our good doesn't look like the American dream. Our good looks like the first question in the Shorter Catechism. What is the chief end of man, or Brian's translation of that? What's your purpose in life? To glorify God. and to enjoy Him forever. If you think that Romans chapter 8, 28, or you go to Esther and you wanna pick up a book and think that everything's gonna work out exactly the way you want it to work out, well, that's just not the way it happens.
We're not looking for joy and peace on this world. Indeed, God might make us walk through the swamps of sorrow and the deserts of despair before we're finally able to see the celestial city. The Lord might make us walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but he's with us as our shepherd, as we do. And our green pastures are not of this world, but our hope is in heaven.
And he who did not spare his own son but freely offered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? God saved the Jewish nation through an orphan girl in murky and mucky and ugly situations. God turned the world on its head and saved his people from a genocidal maniac because of a king's sleepless night.
Every moment of your life, be conscious that God is working. You might not see it. The clouds might not part. A voice might not tell you this is exactly what I'm doing. But take comfort that your sovereign God cares for you every day. and will care for you for all eternity.
Closing Prayer
Let's pray. Oh, Father, we thank you that you are a sovereign God, the ruler of the universe, the creator and master of all things. Holy Spirit, apply these truths to our hearts. Comfort us with your sovereignty. Let us trust in your goodness and your love toward us. Let us have peace that comes from rejoicing in you.
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