Deliverance By Design

That same day King Xerxes gave Queen Esther the estate of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. And Mordecai came into the presence of the king, for Esther had told how he was related to her. The king took off his signet ring, which he had reclaimed from Haman, and presented it to Mordecai. And Esther appointed him over Haman's estate. Esther again pleaded with the king, falling at his feet and weeping. She begged him to put an end to the evil plan of Haman the Agagite, which he had devised against the Jews. Then the king extended the gold scepter to Esther and she arose and stood before him. "If it pleases the king," she said, "and if he regards me with favor and thinks it the right thing to do, and if he is pleased with me, let an order be written overruling the dispatches that Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, devised and wrote to destroy the Jews in all the king's provinces. For how can I bear to see disaster fall on my people? How can I bear to see the destruction of my family?" King Xerxes replied to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, "Because Haman attacked the Jews, I have given his estate to Esther, and they have hanged him on the gallows. Now write another decree in the king's name in behalf of the Jews as seems best to you, and seal it with the king's signet ring--for no document written in the king's name and sealed with his ring can be revoked." At once the royal secretaries were summoned--on the twenty-third day of the third month, the month of Sivan. They wrote out all Mordecai's orders to the Jews, and to the satraps, governors and nobles of the 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush. These orders were written in the script of each province and the language of each people and also to the Jews in their own script and language. Mordecai wrote in the name of King Xerxes, sealed the dispatches with the king's signet ring, and sent them by mounted couriers, who rode fast horses especially bred for the king. The king's edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves; to destroy, kill and annihilate any armed force of any nationality or province that might attack them and their women and children; and to plunder the property of their enemies. (Esther 8:1-11 NIV)

The book of Esther tells the story of a young Jewish girl whom God used to thwart a plan by the enemy to annihilate the Jews. She rose from obscurity to become the wife of King Xerxes and, guided by her uncle Mordecai, laid her life on the line to expose the man and the plan intent upon bringing destruction upon her people. However, even after Haman, the man responsible for the original edict of death, was exposed and executed, his decree signed with the king’s signet ring could not be undone according to the law of the land. Now, God could have intervened in a variety of different ways at this point. He could have sent a plague, an Angel of the Lord to destroy the opposition, a natural disaster, or any number of other calamities to deliver the Jews from this seemingly certain fate. That, however, was not His choice for this occasion. Instead God’s deliverance of choice was enablement.

The Scripture says that King Xerxes commissioned Queen Esther and Mordecai to write another edict in the king’s name in whatever way they felt would be in their best interest. So Mordecai drew up a document designed to counter the one authored by Haman and stop the slaughter of the Jews. This order granted the Jews in every city the right to form an army and protect themselves. It gave them permission under protection of the law to pound to powder any adversary that threatened them or their families. So what did the Jews do with that opportunity given to them? They saw God’s hand of deliverance in it and they jumped on the bandwagon.

What happened next was nothing short of amazing. It goes like this. “On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, the edict commanded by the king was to be carried out. On this day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but now the tables were turned and the Jews got the upper hand over those who hated them. The Jews assembled in their cities in all the provinces of King Xerxes to attack those seeking their destruction. No one could stand against them, because the people of all the other nationalities were afraid of them.” (Esther 9:1-2 NIV)

God empowered the Jews through Mordecai’s mandate, making provision for the taking down of the terrorists who were out to trounce them. This provision was just as much the work of God’s hand as if He would have sent in hundreds of wild animals to devour the disputants or carried them off in a whirlwind to lands unknown. It was God’s deliverance by God’s design.

It is often our predisposition and our preference that God’s deliverance will come with a mighty rushing wind and some mind-boggling cataclysmic event that defies natural law. He certainly has done those things and still does them. However, with this limited mindset, we run a great risk of being robbed of our God-appointed rescue because we are seeking solely the spectacular. There are times in the Scriptures that God singlehandedly defeated the forces of the enemy. For example, in 2 Chronicles 20, the Moabites and Ammonites attacked Judah and the Lord brought the victory by causing the opposition to oppose themselves and delivered Judah without them ever swinging a sword. Many times, though, God’s solution involves His ability paired with man’s obedience, one of those times being in the Scriptural account in Esther. We must be willing to take the course of deliverance that God in His wisdom provides. God’s strategy may seem to us at times mundane and a far cry from sensational, but obedience is key and we must understand that He often uses the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary. He without a doubt can still rain fire down from heaven to deal with our difficulties if He chooses, but we must not make the mistake of putting Him in a box that demands such and thus limits His ability to work in our lives.

God is famous for using the foolish things of this world to confound the wise and leave them scratching their heads in amazement; and when it really comes down to it, whether God causes water to gush from a rock to satisfy your thirst or provides you the resources to drill a well and put in a pump, all of God’s intervention into the human life is nothing short of miraculous.


He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. (Psalms 91:15 NIV)


©LaDonna Neel - September 2010