The Calculated Risk of Faith Text: Esther 5:1-8
Introduction: Providence is Not for Pacifists
The book of Esther is a profound embarrassment to a certain kind of modern Christian. It is a book where God is not mentioned once, and yet His fingerprints are all over the crime scene. It is a story of raw political power, ethnic hatred, a pagan harem, and a plot for genocide. And in the middle of it, our heroes are a man with a pagan name who engages in high-level political maneuvering and a woman who wins a beauty contest and uses her position as a trophy wife to save her people. This is not a flannelgraph story. This is hardball. It is a story for grown-ups.
Our age prefers a tame God, a God who works through gentle nudges and quiet whispers, a God who would never get His hands dirty with the grubby business of politics. But the God of Scripture is the sovereign Lord of all history, and He is not allergic to power. He raises up kings and He throws them down. He weaves the pride of fools, the lust of tyrants, and the courage of saints into a tapestry of His perfect will. The book of Esther is a masterclass in divine providence, but we must be clear about what that means. Providence is not a soft pillow for the passive to rest their heads on. It is a battlefield for the faithful to fight on.
We come to this chapter at the moment of supreme crisis. Haman the Agagite, the ancient enemy of God's people, has manipulated the king into signing a decree for the utter annihilation of the Jews. Mordecai has mourned, and the people have fasted for three days. The time for sackcloth and ashes is over. Now is the time for action. Everything now rests on the courage of one woman. Esther must approach the king uninvited, an act punishable by immediate death. She said, "If I perish, I perish." This is not fatalism. This is the calculated risk of faith. She has done her part, fasting and praying. Now she must get up, put on her makeup and her royal robes, and walk into the lion's den. God's sovereignty does not negate our responsibility; it is the very thing that empowers it.
The Text
Now it happened on the third day, that Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king’s house in front of the king’s rooms, and the king was sitting on his royal throne in the throne room, opposite the entrance to his house.
Now it happened that when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she advanced in favor in his eyes; and the king extended to Esther the golden scepter which was in his hand. So Esther came near and reached out and touched the top of the scepter.
Then the king said to her, “What is troubling you, Queen Esther? And what is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be given to you.”
And Esther said, “If it seems good to the king, may the king and Haman come this day to the feast that I have prepared for him.”
Then the king said, “Bring Haman quickly that we may do the word of Esther.” So the king and Haman came to the feast which Esther had prepared.
Then, as they drank their wine at the feast, the king said to Esther, “What is your petition? For it shall be given to you. And what is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be done.”
So Esther answered and said, “My petition and my request is:
if I have found favor in the eyes of the king, and if it seems good to the king to give heed to my petition and to do my request, may the king and Haman come to the feast which I will prepare for them, and tomorrow I will do according to the word of the king.”
(Esther 5:1-8 LSB)
The Third Day (v. 1)
We begin with the timing and the preparation.
"Now it happened on the third day, that Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king’s house..." (Esther 5:1)
The fast is over. And the action begins "on the third day." For any Christian with ears to hear, that phrase ought to ring like a bell. After two days in the grave, a type of death, Christ rose on the third day. After three days of fasting, a type of civic death and helplessness for the Jews, Esther rises to act. The timing is a deliberate pointer to the rhythm of God's work: death and then resurrection. Despair and then deliverance. The cross and then the crown. This is not an accident; it is the signature of the Author.
And what does she do? She "put on her royal robes." This is not an act of vanity; it is an act of war. She is not approaching the king as a terrified subject, but as a queen. She is using the very office, the very station that God's strange providence has given her, as her primary weapon. A certain kind of pietism would say she should have come in her sackcloth to show her humility. But that is not how God's kingdom works in the world. God gives us stations, vocations, and offices, and He expects us to use them. For a magistrate, his sword is his tool of ministry. For a mother, her home is her dominion. For Esther, her royalty and her beauty are her battle armor. She is stepping into the role God assigned her, and she is about to leverage it for His purposes.
She then "stood in the inner court," a place where she was forbidden to be on pain of death. This is faith. Faith is not a feeling; it is an action. It is a verb. It is stepping out onto the water because the One who commands the waves has told you to come. It is walking into the inner court because the One who commands the hearts of kings has laid the burden of your people upon you.
The Sovereign Scepter (v. 2-3)
The moment of truth arrives, and the hidden hand of God becomes visible.
"Now it happened that when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she advanced in favor in his eyes; and the king extended to Esther the golden scepter which was in his hand..." (Esther 5:2)
Why did she find favor? Was it her beauty? Was it her poise? Was it the king's good mood? Yes, in a secondary sense. But in the ultimate sense, it was because the living God reached down into the chest of a pagan despot and turned his heart like a water faucet. "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will" (Proverbs 21:1). This verse is the theological key to the entire book of Esther. God did not send an angel. He did not write a message in the sky. He simply moved the king's heart. God's control is so absolute that He can use the fickle affections of a tyrant as the hinge upon which the history of redemption turns.
The golden scepter, the symbol of the king's absolute and deadly power, is extended. The instrument of potential death becomes the instrument of life and invitation. This is what God does. He takes the weapons of His enemies and uses them to build His kingdom. He uses the Roman cross, an instrument of torture and shame, and makes it the symbol of salvation and glory. Esther touches the scepter, accepting the king's grace. It is a picture of the sinner touching the cross by faith, accepting the grace of the King of Heaven.
The king's response is immediate and extravagant: "What is troubling you, Queen Esther? And what is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be given to you." This is hyperbole, of course, but it reveals the totality of the favor she has received. The king's heart is wide open. This is a picture of God's disposition toward His children when they approach Him through the appointed mediator. He does not say, "What do you want, and I'll see if I can fit it in." He says, "Ask, and it will be given to you... all things are yours."
Feminine Wisdom and the Feast (v. 4-8)
Here we see Esther's shrewdness and wisdom in action. She has an open door, a blank check from the most powerful man in the world. And what does she ask for? Dinner.
"And Esther said, 'If it seems good to the king, may the king and Haman come this day to the feast that I have prepared for him.'" (Esther 5:4)
This is not a failure of nerve. This is brilliant, calculated, feminine strategy. A man in this situation might have just blurted out the whole story. But Esther is wiser than that. First, her request honors the king. She is not making demands; she is offering him hospitality. She is centering him, making him feel magnanimous and in control. Second, she is disarming her enemy. She invites Haman. This will inflate his already monstrous pride to bursting point. He will think he is the special guest of honor, the king's most trusted advisor. Pride goes before destruction, and Esther is patiently setting the table for Haman's fall.
Third, and most importantly, she is creating time. She is creating a space for providence to do its work. And as we know from the next chapter, God will use that very night to give the king insomnia and arrange for the reading of the court records, reminding him of his debt to Mordecai. Esther's delay is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of her profound, Spirit-led wisdom. She senses that the time is not yet ripe.
The king agrees, and the first feast takes place. Again, he offers her half the kingdom. And again, she delays, inviting him and Haman to a second feast the next day. "Tomorrow I will do according to the word of the king." She has him completely hooked. The suspense is killing him. She has turned the tables. She, the one who was at his mercy, is now controlling the entire situation. She is reeling in both the king and his wicked advisor, and she is doing it with the distinctly feminine weapons of hospitality, patience, and shrewd deference. This is not the strident, demanding power of modern feminism. This is the quiet, devastating power of a godly woman.
The Unseen King and His Kingdom
This entire scene is a drama of the gospel being played out in a pagan court. We, like the Jews, were under a sentence of death. We were helpless, destined for destruction by the Accuser, our ancient enemy. We had no right to approach the throne of the King of the universe.
But our royal representative, one who is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ, put on His royal robes of righteousness and entered the inner court of heaven on our behalf. He did not go hoping to find favor; He went possessing all favor. He did not risk His life; He laid it down and took it up again. And because of His finished work, the golden scepter of God's grace has been extended to us. We are invited to come near and touch it by faith.
And what is the King's response to us? "What is your request? Even to half the kingdom it shall be given to you." In fact, He gives us the whole kingdom. He makes us co-heirs with Christ. And what is our request? It is that the King would come and feast with us, and that He would deal with our enemy, Satan. And this is precisely what He has done.
At the cross, Christ prepared a feast. He invited the enemy, and in the very act of that feast, He exposed him, judged him, and destroyed his power. He made a public spectacle of him, triumphing over him by it (Colossians 2:15). And now He prepares another feast for us, the Lord's Supper, where we celebrate that victory. And He promises a final feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb, where Haman and all his seed will be a distant memory, and we will feast with our King forever.
Therefore, we are to be like Esther. We are to be people of courage, people who take calculated risks for the kingdom. We are to put on the robes of our office, whatever it may be, and use our station for the good of God's people. We are to be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves, using wisdom to navigate a hostile world. And we do it all with utter confidence, not in our own strength or cleverness, but in the unseen King who holds the hearts of all other kings in His hand.