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Our Troubles and Troublers
Esther said, "The adversary and enemy is this vile Haman." Est 7:6NIV
Recently I was a guest preacher to a church program and the theme was, “Haman Must Die!” The focus of the program was to do spiritual warfare against spiritual and natural forces that represented the enemy of their progress. From the first day I received the invitation, the Holy Spirit kept impressing in my spirit that Haman was not their problem. By this I do not mean that there was no Haman, but that the power Haman had over them was because they relinquished their God given position and so lacked the moral standing to exercise their Kingdom authority, therefore they became vulnerable and weak before the powers that resisted their wellbeing. This will form our next focus in this meditation
After a period of fasting and prayers to seek God’s intervention, Esther was able to secure access to meet her husband in the inner chamber of his personal retreat. After explaining herself, the king was shocked and wanted to know who could have devised such evil against his wife.
Esther said, "The adversary and enemy is this vile Haman." Est 7:6NIV
That is the way we present our troubles and troublers. We talk about them like they came from nowhere and we pray to God about them like, if God was serious enough with doing His job and protecting us, there would never have been troubles or troublers. The truth however remains that God sees our future troubles and troublers before they manifest and He takes steps to spare us the pain. But our tendency is to respond to the troubles when we can see them. At the time we are able to see them physically, they would have taken roots spiritually. At that point, like trees with ancient roots, we will then need great efforts to deal with them and in most cases, at a very high cost to us. That is the situation with the enemy that Esther now introduced to her husband as “this vile Haman”.
Who is Haman?
He was from Amalek. Far back when the Israelites were coming out of Egypt, without any provocation the Amalekites attacked them from the rear. They attacked the weak and despairing among the people of God. The Lord Himself told Moses and the people of Israel to brace up and fight back. Ex17:1-3
From this point God knew that Amalek would constitute a great threat to the establishment of the people of God. So,
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven." Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is my Banner. He said, "For hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord. The Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation." Ex 17:14-16NIV
So Haman was an offshoot from a generational enemy. Many years before Esther was born, God undertook to prevent this situation that caused her threat to life. One of the first assignments that God gave to King Saul was to deal with Amalek.
Samuel said to Saul, "I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'" 1 Sam 15:1-3NIV
If King Saul did what he was commanded to do, there would never have been a Haman. Unfortunately,
The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission, saying, 'Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.' Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?" "But I did obey the Lord," Saul said. "I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king 1 Sam 15:17-20NIV
Now, the vile Haman, according to Esther, was an Amalekite and from the royal root of King Agag. So great was Agag that even the Spirit of the Lord recognized him. King Saul killed the common people but preserved the members of the royal family. It was Samuel who killed Agag but some members of the royal family remained alive. We can now see that if the ancestors of Esther did what they were instructed to do, Esther will not have to fight with vile Haman today.
Secondly, I hope you remember that at the start of our meditation, we said that Esther, Mordecai and the rest of the Jews that are now facing the threat of the vile Haman were among the great number of the people of God who refused to heed the Lord’s call to return to their own country.
"This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: "'The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you — may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem Ezra 1:2-3NIV
So, if Mordecai and Esther had joined the rest of their people, Mordecai will not have a face to face confrontation with Haman that will lead to the issues we are talking about now.
After these events, King Xerxes honored Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, elevating him and giving him a seat of honor higher than that of all the other nobles … When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged. Yet having learned who Mordecai's people were, he scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Instead Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai's people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes. Est 3:1,5-6 NIV
On the one hand, this vile Haman came to be because of the failure of the ancestors of the present generation of the Jews. I make bold to say that a great number of the battles believers are confronted with today are the result of the sins of omission and commission of those who lived before them. The Lord Jesus Christ made the same statement to His audience.
What it means is that every drop of righteous blood ever spilled from the time earth began until now,. from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was struck down between altar and sanctuary, is on your heads. Yes, it's on the bill of this generation and this generation will pay. Luke 11:50-51(from THE MESSAGE BIBLE):
Whatever calamity that would come on this generation will be the result of the seed their ancestors sowed. the imminent death that forced them into fasting was because their ancestors failed to obey the instructions from God. The location they met the crisis was because they themselves failed to obey the Lord.
This calls for introspection from my reader. It also reminds you that whatever things you do today, are seed that you are sowing. If you do not reap them, your generations will. Those of us who are returning to idolatry and occult; those of us that are robbing temples; those of us that are oppressing people; those of us who are building beautiful houses by destroying the future of other people’s children and those who attacking and abusing servants of God should know that someone will reap what they are sowing. This holds for both the positive and negative side of life.
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Gal 6:7-8NIV
We like to point out here that Haman did not fall from the sky and it is not the result of failure on the side of God. Most of the complicated spiritual battles we are facing today are the result of negligence on the part of our fathers. The rest are there because we are failing in our responsibility. God is very ready to help us get through out of them but we need to face the truth.
I strongly believe that the three days and nights of fasting and prayers was not directed at asking God to kill Haman. I believe it was a period of national repentance and reconciliation with God. It was a time to call out their sins and the sins of their fathers.
In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes. Est 4:3NIV
Sackcloth and ashes represents repentance and humbling themselves to ask for God’s mercy. They were not out to bind and destroy Haman. They were aware that they would not be in such circumstances if they had obeyed the Lord.
Repentance clears the way for God to step in. Are there things you need to repent of? In the course of reading this, are you reminded of some generational iniquity that you need to repent of?
Once they began to offer the right kind of prayers, God began to move on their behalf. Their destiny helpers began to remember them. Their enemies began to fall down and serve them. Court cases they could not handle began to go in their favour.
That night the king could not sleep; so he ordered the book of the chronicles, the record of his reign, to be brought in and read to him. It was found recorded there that Mordecai had exposed Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's officers who guarded the doorway, who had conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. "What honor and recognition has Mordecai received for this?" the king asked. "Nothing has been done for him," his attendants answered. Est 6:1-3NIV
Even the so-called almighty Haman fell down before them to beg for his life.
Esther said, "The adversary and enemy is this vile Haman." Then Haman was terrified before the king and queen. The king got up in a rage, left his wine and went out into the palace garden. But Haman, realizing that the king had already decided his fate, stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life Est 7:6-7NIV
Hmmm!
Our troubles and our troublers are not nearly as powerful as we have made them to appear. We only need the right heart attitude and prayers.
Do you feel like praying now?
Please, go ahead. I will come back to you.
(To be continued).
Emma your brother pnurnigeria@gmail.com
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