Esther 6:5

The king must have been indignant that such a matter had been overlooked, and he wants it put right at once. He asks, "Who is in the court?" Whoever was there would have to carry out the king's commission. He did not expect that Haman was waiting outside. Perhaps Haman too had a sleepless night. He was tense with excitement at the thought that Mordecai would soon hang from the gallows, and that he would enjoy Esther's banquet the same day. He was in a great hurry. He wanted the execution of the despised Jew to happen early in the morning.

Throughout this interesting section of inspiration the name of God is never heard. Yet you can see His finger on everything. The smallest detail displays His "wonderful counsel and excellent working." Natural sight cannot trace the wheels of the Lord's chariot. Faith not only traces them; it also knows which way they move. The enemy plots, but God is above him.

Why, on this very same night, should sleep escape the king? Why should the idea come to him of having the book of his annals read to soothe his insomnia? Why did the reader fall on the passage about Mordecai? Where did his question come from: "Who is in the court?" Why should Haman come, at this precise instant, to ask his master to execute Mordecai?

Far more was in the mind of Him who worked secretly. Most surprising of all, He worked through the bitterest enemy. That enemy had come at that very moment to seek Mordecai's ruin, yet he himself had to honour him in the highest degree. And God's aim went further: to deliver a whole people, His own people, whose existence was at stake. The banquet seemed to achieve nothing for them, and the delay must have tested Mordecai. Yet it was just the occasion needed to prepare the way for the enemy's overthrow.

So it is: the pride of the wicked blinds them to their own ruin, as much as it makes them hate the righteous they despise. He whose eyes are over all is slow to act, so that men may show what they are. In the end He accomplishes His purpose to His own glory... So Haman fell into the pit he had made himself. Notice, though, how everything seems to flourish for the enemy. God's own people seem to face danger with no escape — until the hour is about to strike.

Haman, too, became the unwilling instrument who spread the news of the king's delight in Mordecai. He had to set him on the king's horse, dressed in royal clothing. He had to hear the proclamation, "Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honour." And was it not the very plot of Satan to get rid of Christ that brought about his own defeat and became the means of exalting Christ on high? Haman put up the gallows, fifty cubits high, to destroy Mordecai. That very instrument of death destroyed Haman himself.

But were all these remarkable happenings just a series of coincidences? Not at all: they were the movings of the hand of God, though He Himself remained hidden. God was behind the scenes of man's busy little world. But then, as has been well observed, He moves all the scenes that He is behind. What is more, He moves them in favour of His people. That may not always mean their safety and advancement here. But it always means their spiritual good and the advancement of His own purposes.