Waiting on Him who knows us and our need, Most need have we to dare not, nor desire. But as He giveth, softly to suspire Against His gift, with no inglorious greed, For this is joy, tho' still our joys recede ; And, as in octaves of a noble lyre, To move our minds with His, and clearer, higher, Sound forth our fate; for this is strength indeed.
Thanks to His love let earth and man dispense In smoke of worship when the heart is stillest, A praying more than prayer : " Great good have I, Till it be greater good to lay it by; Nor can I lose peace, power, permanence, For these smile on me from the thing Thou wiliest ! " ^ ^ Marcus Dods. ' Frank Dempster Sherman.
Opportunity.
DEUT.-KSTH. — 34
Literature.
Gumming (J. E.), The Book of Esther, 110, 139.
Farningliam (M.), Women and their Work, 111.
Gore (C), in The Pulpit Encyclopoedia, i. 234.
Hamer (D. J.)i ^<^^i «"<^ Liyht, 279.
McFadyen (J. E.), The City with Foundations, 53.
McGarvey (J. W.), Sermons, 232.
Maclaren (A), Expositions : Esther, etc., 14,
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxx. (1884), No. 1777.
Stalker (J.), The Four Men, 128.
Talmage (T. de W.), Sermons, vi. 167.
Welldon (J. E. C), Youth and Duty, 233.
Wilson (S. L.), Helpful Words for Daily Life, 289.
Young (D. T.), Unfamiliar Texts, 218.
Christian Age, xxviii. 4, xl. 116 (Talmage).
Christian World Pulpit, xxxi. 386 (Townsend) ; Iv. 321 (Meyer) ; Ixiv,
280 (Gore) ; Ixxvi. 222 (Jeffs). Church of England Pulpit, lii. 62 (Lang). Church Pulpit Year Booh, vi. (1909), 160. Churchman's Pulpit : Mission Work, i. 27 (Lang).
530
Opportunity.
If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall relief and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but thou and thy father's house shall perish : and who knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this ? — Esth. iv. 14.
1. The story is too familiar to need much retailing. Haman, the favourite minister of Ahasuerus, entertained a malignant hatred against the Jews, because one of their number, Mordecai, refused to do him reverence as he passed him daily at the gate of the palace. He promised that if the Jews were handed over to him for destruction, ten talents should be paid into the treasury. The king agreed to his favourite's demand, and orders were sent out to the governors who were over provinces, and to the princes of every people, " to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women."
•[j It is always interesting, when possible, to set sacred history by the side of profane, and identify, if we can, the great actors in both. Considerable discussion has taken place with regard to the king who is here called Ahasuerus, as the chief point in enabling us to fix the probable date of the marvellous events which are narrated. There was a succession of powerful monarchs in Persia at the time about which these events occurred ; and of these, two are mentioned by critical scholars as being, the one or the other of them, undoubtedly the ruler mentioned here. Ezra speaks of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, and some incline to the opinion that it is the same man who appears in the Book of Esther under the name Ahasuerus. Seeing, however, that this king must have been unnaturally inconsistent when the edict against the Jews was sent out, since he had just before granted them large favours, and remembering that several historians speak of him as having had a Jewish mother, it seems far more probable to identify Ahasuerus with the preceding king, Xerxes, the great invader of Greece, the son of Darius, whom the Athenians so nobly met and conquered at Marathon.
532 OPPORTUNITY
2. Esther was queen. Vashti, who would not degrade herself by obeying the king's drunken commands, had been deposed. Esther was queen, and Esther was a Jewess. Her life, therefore,
I was likely to be sacrificed with the rest. Her kinsman, Mordecai, : who seems to have preserved his faith in God through all the 1 enervating influences of this Persian court, saw that the only Vhope of escape was in Esther.
3. So complete was the retirement of the women in the recesses of the harem, that the queen knew nothing of the calamity which was impending over her people. Mordecai for nine years had abstained from all communication with her lest her position might be compromised, and she should be identified, to her detriment, with her despised people. Now, however, it was peremptory that he should break through the reserve, and he therefore sent a message to the queen informing her of the plot that was on foot, and asking her to go in to the king to make supplication and request before him for her people.
4. Our text contains the argument which Mordecai used to induce Esther to undertake the hazardous duty. It is an argu- ment which has a very wide application. Let us consider it under four statements —
M I. We may fail in our duty by simply being silent.
II. If we fail, God gets His work done in some other way. III. But we suffer for it. '' IV. Every opportunity is a call.