By Rev. Napolean Narag, United Covenant Reformed Church, Calauan, Laguna, Philippines

“Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’ As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; You hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the Lord who gave me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16 ESV).

Personal and Family Update

Psalm 16 has been (and will always be) a great comfort for me when God seems so distant, and one is under trepidation, discouragement, and anguish because of the incidents happening in his life, which are beyond understanding and explanation. After the death of my mother, when I conducted several nightly services, sharing the Gospel with my friends and relatives back in our province, I became so sickly and so weak that I could hardly move to do church ministry, and even ordinary things, which my heart desires to do. I was so troubled because when I visited my doctor in Manila, I was told that my former illness (Polyarthritis Nodossa) was recurring. Added to the burden was the thought of the demand of finances for medications and laboratory examinations.

To God alone be the glory, for His words are a great source of comfort, assurance and bliss. By reading and meditating on Psalm 16, I rejoice to know that, notwithstanding my dismal situation, I can still experience joy and pleasure in God because He never fails to fulfill His promises. Verse 11 says, “In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” The scholarly German commentator, Franz Delitzsch, wrote of Psalm 16 (Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes [Eerdmans], by C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, p. 217), “There reigns in the whole psalm a settled calm, an inward joy, and a joyous confidence, which is certain that everything that it can desire for the present and for the future it possesses in its God.” The Lord in this psalm is telling us that when the Lord is our supreme treasure, we will be satisfied with pleasures now and forever in him.

My heart rejoices exceedingly because the Lord is indeed good to those who put their trust in Him. He not only provided for the medications needed, He brought healing to me. I am now back in the ministry and I am also involved in denomination-wide activities which my heart always desired to do. Thank you very much my dear brethren for all your prayers and help. There is indeed exceeding consolation in realizing that there are brethren like you, who not only affirm that they care, but also unconditionally help carry and lighten the burden. As David said, so I say also, “As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” God always invites us to enjoy Him no matter what our situation might be because in Him there is fullness of joy and pleasures forever! Psalm 34:8 says, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Charisse and Deane are doing well in school; Charisse is now in her third year in College while Deane is in third year in High School. Difficult as it was to keep them in school, we are so grateful to the Lord for His provisions and for sustaining both their need for tuition fees, projects, and daily expenses. It is all by God’s grace that we were able to let them go this far in their studies. Again glory and honor be to our God for His goodness and faithfulness.

Diven will be out of her job next year because their work area here in Laguna will be dissolved and will be transferred to Mindoro. We don’t know what tomorrow will be like and what it will bring us after Diven loses her job, but we have this assurance in our hearts: we know who holds our tomorrows. And we are confident that as He has been faithful to us the past years of our lives, there is no reason that He will not be faithful to us even in the coming days of our lives, because He is the God who is ever faithful to His promises. He is the origin, the sustainer and end of everything in our lives. As Romans 11:36 says; “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever” (Rom. 11:36 ESV).

Church Ministry Update

The UCRCP Laguna welcomed Hernando Bonaobra (Kuya Nanding) as a new member of the church last October 2011. Kuya Nanding is a graduate of the Christian Reformed Bible College here in Calauan, and a former elder of Los Baños Christian Reformed Church. He has been in the ministry serving different churches for quite some time already. But because of his Reformed conviction, he realizes that he has to go back and be in a Reformed church. We rejoice in the Lord for adding Kuya Nanding to us. Through the outworking of God’s providence, we believe that Kuya Nanding will be a big help in the life and ministry of the Church.

Another brother whom I believe can be of big help to us is Ernesto (Ej) Alcantara. He expresses his willingness to be involved in the ministry, but needs to prepare himself through seminary training. We don’t have a good Reformed seminary here, moreover, the capacity to send him away to study. We just settled ourselves for the meantime in personal one-on-one training. I am doing this with him and Kuya Nanding every Wednesday. May the Lord provide us a way to train and prepare our men for ministries in the UCRCP through a Reformed seminary. Please pray with us about this concern.

Praise the Lord, our church (UCRCP Laguna) is finally scheduled to be organized in January. But prior to this organization, our three brethren Cezar Fagtanac, Ronald Comandante, and Ernesto Alcantara need to prepare themselves for interview and examination by Classis on the third Saturday of November to become elders. Please pray with me as I prepare them for the said interview and examination, and as the brethren from Las Piñas and Pangasinan (Pastor Edwin Puzon, Brother Alfred Santiago, Atty. Raffy Martinez and Brother Boy Cabugao) travel here to Laguna.

Join us in thanking the Lord also regarding our ministry in Santa Cruz, Laguna. It is with great joy that we want to inform you that our outreach ministry there is doing well. We are so grateful to the Lord for leading Pastor Ver Sigue, a man of God who loves the truth, taught in the Reformed Church, to join our denomination. I am now conducting indoctrination for eight people every Saturday in Santa Cruz. We hope they become official members of our church in March 2012. They expressed their commitment to become part of our church by attending our worship service last October 23, 2011. Their presence was a great joy and encouragement to the brethren in Calauan to continually hope in the Lord for the growth of His church. The Lord indeed is the One who is adding to His church those who are ordained to eternal life. We appeal to you therefore, brethren, to please pray with us. There is great need to sustain the ministry, especially in helping Pastor Ver with his needs to be able to do ministry in that place regularly.

Our outreach in Santa Rosa, Laguna, however, was discontinued due to our incapacity to support the ministry there. In fact, the Lord has opened another opportunity for us also to have an outreach in Quezon Province, a four-hour drive from San Pablo, Laguna. There is a already a place of worship, and more-or-less 70 people ready for worship. But we are still a very young and small church. Our ability to take action on all of these opportunities that the Lord opens to us is still wanting. We cannot do otherwise but to pray and hope in the Lord, that He will use other ways to reach out to those whom He ordained to eternal life in those places. Our hearts are so heavy to see, and yet be unable to respond to, the spiritual needs of the people. We can only do as much as the ability which the Lord presently gives us. The words of the Scripture are indeed true; “The harvest truly is plentiful but the laborers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest” (Matt. 9:37–38). Our present situation offers lots of challenges regarding ministry opportunities and spreading the truth of the Gospel in many places. Please pray with us that the Lord indeed will send forth laborers to his harvest and use people who are willing to help and invest in this endeavor.

Not everything that takes place in our life and our church is favorable to us. There are victories and pleasant things as well as discouraging and depressing things that come our way. The Lord allows us to experience discouraging and depressing things so that we will not depend on ourselves and boast before Him. He also allows us to experience victories and pleasant things so that we might learn to be thankful to Him and acknowledge Him, that He is the source of everything. We need to be cautious in accepting people as members of our church. We learned our lesson via a hard and hurtful way.

Yes, we lost one family. But praise be to God for bringing another family, which we are now encouraging to consider church membership. He, his wife and three children, have been attending our church for about three months already. He has difficulties accepting the Regulative Principles of Worship (and some other Reformed doctrines). But as I patiently discuss and explain to him these doctrines, he now slowly is digesting it within himself. The last time we had a group study, he expressed his desire to want to learn more. He is also amazed how we give importance to every aspect of the liturgy of our worship. Please pray with us again for the brother and his family, that the Lord will enlighten their minds to come to the knowledge of the truth of the teachings of the Scripture.

Let me end this update by quoting again verse 1 of Psalm 16: “Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’” We have to truly affirm that in our hearts always, we have no good apart from the Lord. With every endeavor, every success, as well as every hurting and unpleasant thing that happens to us, the Lord is always there caring for us through His love and providence. In other words, everything the Lord is doing to us, in us, and through us, He is doing for our good and for His glory alone. May we all find complete pleasure and satisfaction in our God as we continue to live our life for Him and do the ministry He entrusted to us. Soli Dei Gloria.

When we think about Christmas as the celebration of Christ’s birth, we think of God’s promise that “there is born to you this day, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The coming of Christ as the Son of God who “takes upon Himself the very nature of man, of the flesh and blood of the Virgin Mary” (HC Q35), is indeed the central event of the history of the world. Without the coming of Christ, all of us would be doomed to spending eternity in hell for the punishment of our sins. Indeed, Joseph is commanded to “call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” God’s answer to the guilt and sinfulness of the human race is not to sweep those sins under the rug, but literally to punish His own Son in our place, so that “He (God) might be just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).

When we look at the problem of sin from God’s point of view, we need to recognize that if God does not punish sinners, He becomes our partner in crime. In every state law code in the United States we have laws against participating in planning a crime, laws for example, that demand punishment not only for murderers, but also for “conspiracy to commit murder.” In the same way, we also have laws against being an “accessory after the fact,” which is to know that a crime has been committed and not bring that crime to the attention of the authorities. Thus if God knows that I have murdered you, and God of course knows everything, God becomes an accessory after the fact. He becomes my partner in crime if He fails to punish me. Now, most people, and even Christians, have never thought about or considered sin from God’s point of view, beyond knowing that He is against it, and they therefore easily miss the real nature of Christ’s work as our Savior. Thus, when you and I celebrate Christmas, we must never forget the fact that as He Himself said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matt. 9:13).

Christmas then is a celebration of God’s mercy upon a world of lost and dying sinners. Every sinner chosen by God to receive this Savior will infallibly be given the gift of faith by which we receive Christ and all His benefits. Nevertheless, there is another side to the coming of Christ into the world that is expressed by the heavenly host saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will to men.” As we seek to understand these words the problem of proper translation arises. Several modern translations follow the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate in using words such as, “Peace on earth to men of good will,” (these include the New International Version, the New American Standard Version, and the English Standard Version).

The older King James and New King James versions follow Luther’s German translation in saying, “Peace on earth, good will to men.” In my judgment this older translation, “Peace on earth, good will to men,” expresses the Greek expression best. The wording is a bit out of the ordinary, saying literally, “and on earth peace, in men good will.” Calvin notes that this is a somewhat obscure use of “en” (“in” in English) here, but concludes, “...the simpler way is to look upon “eudokia” (“good will”) as added, to inform us of the source from which our peace is derived.” It seems to this writer that Calvin is eminently right on this point, and we will take his meaning throughout this article, for it teaches a very important truth that flows from Christ’s birth.

Not only will the Savior “save His people from their sins,” as the angel told Joseph while commanding him to name this child “Jesus,” there will be peace from God and good will from Him to all men deriving from the special grace of salvation given to believers.

This teaching that God promises peace and good will to all men as a result of Christ’s birth is the normal Reformed doctrine of “common grace.” Reformed teaching distinguishes between God’s undeserved gift of eternal salvation to His chosen people as the “doctrine of grace,” but we also express this grace by several adjectives, such as, “saving grace,” “special grace,” or “redeeming grace.” As Paul says in Romans 11:5, “At this present time there is also a remnant according to the election of grace.”

But what about the rest of the world? Do the unbelievers who are in rebellion against God deserve to even live, much less, to enjoy the wonderful creation in which God has placed them alongside of those He has chosen unto eternal life? No way, not at all. And we have to recognize that Christians don’t deserve to live in this wonderful world either. Therefore, we have to conclude that the continuation of life and blessings upon the believer and unbeliever alike is an unmerited mercy, an act of grace. Since this grace is common to believer and unbeliever alike, it is called “common grace” by Reformed theologians.

Since other theologies do not recognize the depths of man’s depravity, they seldom think to answer questions of this nature and thus do not recognize the need for a biblical common grace, and often for a truly saving grace either. Arminian and related theologies claim that “common grace,” is a grace that enables every human to be saved by appropriating Christ’s saving work to himself. This teaching follows the reasoning that Christ died for everyone and thus leaves our salvation up to our own decision, which on the basis of biblical teaching is simply impossible. Faith unto salvation is a gift of God, not a product or our own will or ability (Eph. 2:8–9).

It seems to this writer that the same reasoning, or lack of reasoning about depravity, is the reason for translating our text, “peace to men of good will,” as though some men were good, or could “see the kingdom of God” without being “born from above” (which is impossible; see John 3:3). Much more important than reasoning, however, is that the Bible actually teaches that there is common grace that includes God’s goodness to the unbelievers while in this life. When Jesus wants to teach us our responsibility to “love our enemies,” He uses God Himself as our example, saying, “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven, for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:44–45). This teaching of Jesus is clear: God is good to His enemies while they are in this life.

Now we properly conclude that God is good to His enemies for sake of the elect, just as He blessed Egypt while Israel was there. Just as God enabled Egypt to survive the seven year famine, and continue for the four hundred years that Israel sojourned there, so God preserves and blesses the world while Christians live in it. Indeed, when Peter raises the question of why the world has not ended, he answers by saying that not all the elect have been saved yet (2 Pet. 3:9).

What our text, “Peace on earth, good will to men,” adds to this picture is that this common grace that sustains the world in livable condition is the result of the coming of Christ the Savior into the world. Thus while Christ did not die for the lost in order to save them, His work has, as one of its byproducts, a world in which the rain falls on the just and the unjust, and which is therefore a wonderful place for human beings to live, be they Christians or unbelievers. Indeed, when Paul preaches the gospel in Lystra (Acts 14), He tells these pagan folks that God “did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” Common grace makes the unbeliever without excuse for not acknowledging the one true God.

It should be clear that as we celebrate the birth of Christ, we need to be aware that the wonderful quality of life in this sinful world is because the rain falls on the good and on the evil, and that this is because there really is peace from God and good will toward men. Certainly there are all kinds of problems, trials, and dangers for sinful human beings living in a world of sinful human beings; there is precious little peace and good will among men, and yet living in this world is a wonderful experience. Even for those who suffer various miseries, life is preferable to death. This is because God hinders sin and delays His final judgement, and indeed blesses this undeserving world until all His chosen ones are saved. The angel announced, “There is born to you in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord,” and the heavenly host sang, “and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Both are gifts from God necessary for our salvation! Without a Savior, no one would be saved. And, without peace and good will from God toward men, this world would be made sterile and chaotic by sin, not a place where life and salvation are possible.

Once again, we celebrate Christmas—God sending His only begotten Son into the world to save His people from their sins. The Christmas story we read in the gospels of Matthew and Luke is a fulfillment of God’s promise of the Savior.

The history of that promise goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. The seed of the woman promised to fallen-into-sin Adam and Eve.That history is punctuated also by God’s covenant promise to Abraham to be God to Him and His descendants after him. To fulfill that promise God Himself would come in the flesh. Christ Jesus is Immanuel, the name that means God with us.

The Jews of the book of Esther were descendants of their forefather Abraham. They were God’s covenant people. They knew of God’s promise in the Garden and to them. They knew the history of God’s faithfulness to His promises. They were, after all, the descendants of the people God had delivered out of bondage into the promised land. They knew of God’s providential care over them in the wilderness and in defeating their enemies. They knew that the focal point of God’s promise to be God to them was the mercy seat in the temple in Jerusalem on God’s holy hill of Zion.

Their Lord God was in their midst, since they were His holy people, in the holy promised land, Jerusalem, the temple, God’s holy hill, Zionthroughout their long history as God’s people. There is where God’s people lifted up their eyes since their God was in their midst. From there came their help ( Ps. 121).

So, when you read the Old Testament historical books, you’d expect to find that the Lord God’s name would be conspicuously mentioned, that you would find God’s holy law often referred to as the standard for living as God’s people. There you would find a longing for the promised land, a focus on the feast days by which to remember the Lord God’s great deeds of deliverance, like Passover.

And indeed, in those OT books of the Bible that recount the history of God’s covenant people from the time of Abraham, the Name of the Lord God is conspicuously prominent. From Exodus through to Joshua, Judges and then Samuel and Kings and Chronicles and through prophets, major and minor, the name of the Lord God appears many thousands of times. There are prominent references to the promised land, the temple, and to Zion to make it clear that it is the focal point of Old Testament history.

And the expected longing for the promised land? Consider Psalm 137, a lament arising from God’s people as they were away from the promised land in captivity: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion, we hung our harps in the willows. . . How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land. If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill, If I do not remember you, let my tongue cling to my mouth if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

Longing for the promised land—it’s there in the historical account of the Old Testament. And then as well, within those historical and prophetic books there are hundreds of prophecies of the coming of Christ as was the veiled promise in the Garden, including several that place His first coming to where?.... in the promised land. Leviticus 24:17 says: “I see Him, but not now; I behold Him, but not near; a star shall come out of Jacob; a scepter shall arise out of Israel.”

The focus was on the Lord God and on the promised land and looking ahead to the coming of Immanuel there where God had established His temple presence among His people. That focus is so evident by clear reference and types and shadows in the books of the Old Testament.

But then, there’s the Old Testament historical book of Esther. It recounts the history of God’s people between the promise of the seed of the woman and the coming of Immanuel. This book of Esther is indeed part of the God-breathed Old Testament scriptures, and yet, here’s the shocker, the “what. . . how could this be?” In this book, the Lord God is not mentioned even once. The Jerusalem temple, the promised land, Zion, the law, the Passover—none are mentioned at all in that book.

What’s going on here? In this account of God’s people, neither God nor the promised land are spoken of. Was it because God and the promised land are not in the thoughts of His people?

There is something very wrong with the people of God when they have apparently forgotten their God, lost their focus on the promised land, and give no evidence of being God’s own holy people. What does God intend to teach us in this book where He and the promised land are quite apparently missing from its pages?

What we are to see, via this book of Esther, is that God continues faithfully to care for His people for the sake of His promise, even as they show no devotion to or dependence on Him.

Even before God’s people Israel crossed the Jordan River to possess the promised land, the Lord God, as recorded in Deuteronomy 28, warns them that if they turn away from Him, that will yield the covenant curses of captivity in a foreign nation.

And indeed, generations after Solomon builds the Jerusalem temple, God’s people, because they have turned away from the Lord, are taken captive first by the Assyrian empire, 722 BC and later, in 586 BC, by the notorious Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. The Babylonian empire was then conquered by the Persians, and the history of the book of Esther takes place during the reign of the Persian king Ahasuerus, during the late 400s BC.

So the events in the Book of Esther take place some 200 years following God’s people being taken away from the promised land by Nebuchadnezzar. During that time, many generations of Jews grew up in Persia never having lived in the promised land, never having seen the Jerusalem temple. But yet these Jews living now in Persia are of God’s people to whom God had promised this in Deuteronomy 30: “So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the Lord your God has banished you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.”

It is estimated that about 50,000 Jews who did return from captivity under Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem were but a fraction of those that remained behind in Persia. Think about thatGod’s own people, to whom God had promised their return to the promised land, chose to remain in Persia rather than returning there. There was no longing for it, no lifting up their eyes to Zion, and no God and His promises in the forefront of their minds. They had accommodated themselves and conformed themselves to living in the midst of a culture whose standard for life was not the law of God—seeking not to please and obey God.

They were still known as those foreigners, the Jews, but based on their portrayal in the book of Esther, these are Jews only by nationality. They still have a nationalistic bond with one another and want to survive as a Jewish people, but their lives show neither dependence upon nor devotion to their Lord God.

Hopefully you and I are not Christians in name only, but it’s evident from our nonconformity to the ungodly culture in which we live, that our Christianity is witnessed by our dependence upon and devotion to our Lord.

Even the central Jewish characters of this book, Mordecai and Esther, are apparently non-practicing Jews. They do not pray to their God, they do not seek God’s wisdom when dealing with the foreign king. The book of Esther serves to admonish us who read it today how easily God’s people can forget God and get caught up in their ungodly culture.This book also assures us that even when God is far from the minds and hearts and mouths of even His own people, yet God, in faithfulness to His covenant, is still providentially ruling behind the scenes to fulfill His promises.

God’s activity is often behind the scenes. Although God is not at all made evident in the words of the book, yet His invisible, almighty providential power to fulfill His covenant promise is the deafening silence for us who know God from the rest of the Scriptures.

God’s faithfulness to His unfaithful people in the time of King Ahasurerus assured the birth of Immanuel from the line of these unfaithful Jews. There would be no Christmas celebration except for God’s providential rule in the events described in Esther.

And God’s faithful providential rule in all the events in our day and the rest of history assures us, His church, of Christ’s return and our eternal triumph.

In this text we will see the stage being set for events by which God’s Persian-dwelling people are preserved from destruction and therefore God’s promise of the seed of woman from them does not become null and void.

It’s been a long but necessary introduction to finally get to our text, Esther 1 to 2:4.

King Ahasuerus ruled over a huge empire. There is no earthly ruler today whose dominion extends as far and wide as the Medo-Persian territories under his rule. If you look at a map of the world, King Ahasuerus ruled over an area that extended from present-day India on the east through Iran and Iraq and up to Turkey and Greece in the west, and southward through Israel and Egypt into Ethiopia. It was a huge empire consisting of over 127 different provinces, with their own princes or governors.

It was an empire rich in material goods, the wealth of the empire being lavishly displayed in the palace of the king in the city of Susa. It was in this city located near the western end of the Persian Gulf, about 200 miles east of the city of Babylon, within the walled palace, called Shushan, that King Ahasuerus hosted this splendid feast for all the officials of the empire, a grand party that lasted for 180 days, where royal wine served in golden cups was available in abundance, and where the guests sat on couches of silver and gold on floors made of colored tiles and white and black marble.

If King Ahasuerus were to give a press conference in the east room of the citadel, he might well say: “I’m the leader of the world’s number one superpower. My rule has gained us this great wealth and glory and power.” But we get only to the twelfth verse of the book of Esther to find out that the king’s rule is not sovereign.

The king, the undisputed ruler over this huge dominating empire, rules over vast territories and peoples, yet this king’s rule over his own wife, is not only challenged, it’s downright frustrated. His queen, Vashti, does not comply with His command to come and let Him show off her beauty. This command is not only the command of the husband, but it’s the command of the King of the Persian empire.

It’s a command that is issued while the king’s heart is merry with wine. Remember what’s been going on. He had feasted with the officials of the empire for 180 days, and now it was the seventh day of the second feast that he gave for the common people.

God is telling us that this Persian culture is into feasting, lavish displays of wealth, self-indulgence, lusts of the flesh, and worldly treasures. Compare this to Daniel, when he was captive in Babylon, who when offered the king’s delicacies and wine, refused to partake as an open witness that he belonged to and depended on the Lord God of Israel.

Here we find the head of this idolatrous, vain, pleasure-seeking culture, King Ahasuerus, while quite merry with wine, desiring to show off his queen’s beauty. But his queen refused to come at the king’s command.

Commentators read a lot into this refusal, speculating why she did not come, but the text does not give us her reason. All we know is she refused to come.

The king was furious. His anger burned within him. He was the most powerful king on earth at this time and his own wife will not submit to his demands! The queen’s refusal sets in motion the sequence of events that leads to Esther, the Jewess, becoming the new queen. This is a circumstance vital to the survival of God’s people to the birth of Immanuel. God is working behind the scenes to frustrate the king in order to serve God’s providential rule for the sake of fulfilling His promise.

Esther is not like Daniel, as we’ll see. She conceals her identity as Jew and participates in the beauty queen contest.

Look at how God, working invisibly, but sovereignly behind the scenes, works King Ahasuerus’ frustration with His queen. The king meets with his cabinet (his counselors), and they recommend to him that a law be passed and written in the records, that Queen Vashti would be deposed and her position given to another who is better than her. And furthermore, the decree would command all women throughout the provinces to give honor to their husbands and comply with all their demands.

Now these counselors to the king (wise men who knew the ways of their culture and made this recommendation), were not dealing with this situation biblically. This is not surprising since they did not have a biblical worldview—neither being of God’s people nor believing in His Word.

Their society, not grounded in God’s Word, saw women as being there to please men, (kind of like the Rolling Stones’ song “Under My Thumb”) and this decree would enforce that status quo. This proposed decree pleased the king and the decree was sent out to all the provinces.

That decree which deposed Queen Vashti, officially kept her from the King’s presence in the court and set every husband up as the undisputed master of his house. This was not only made effective, but it became irrevocable.

Any executive order issued by the king which was recorded as a law of the Persian and Mede empire, could not be altered. That meant that even if King Ahasuerus were to change his mind about Queen Vashti and desire to have her come back as his Queen, he could not because the law of the Medes and the Persian was absolute even over the king’s affairs.

Ahasuerus then went and fought the Greeks and came back defeated. His anger against Vashti had subsided, and he most likely thought about her and the emptiness of the queen’s royal chair. Several years have passed, because the matter with queen Vashti took place in the third year of his reign, and Esther is not brought before the king until the seventh year of his reign (2:16). But because of the irrevocable decree issued by the king, if he is to have a queen, it cannot be Vashti. A new queen must be found.

We note that at this time the Persian empire also controlled Judah where Nehemiah had rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem. All the Jews, the covenant people of God, lived somewhere within the Persian empire, both those that had returned to the promised land under Ezra and Nehemiah, and those who chose to stay behind in Persia proper.

God’s covenant promise, the seed of the woman, seems inconsequential. After all, the controlling Persians now determined the destiny of God’s covenant people. But it is through the irrevocable law that deposes Vashti that Esther, the Jewess, became the queen through whom God preserved His people from whom He will bring forth Immanuel.

The book of Esther is an affirmation that history does not just happen. The laws passed by unrighteous men which may promote injustice and oppression nevertheless serve God’s providential care over His people for the sake of fulfilling His promise.

You and I live in the time of many sinful circumstances—men abusing power, acting with superiority toward women. Injustice and unrighteousness often seem to prevail. The way God’s people live is often, to our shame, not really distinct from the worldly culture. The question might run through our minds as we look around, what church will Christ find when He returns?

But, even as circumstances seem at times to point to a negative answer, yet the God who promised the seed of the woman and fulfilled it in spite of the Persian circumstances, promised a triumphant church at Christ’s return. God’s faithful providential rule behind the scenes assures us He will fulfill His promise no matter how unlikely that might appear to us.

God’s Word assures us that the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, will rule in heaven, at the right hand of God until every enemy has been made His footstool (Matt. 22:44, 1 Cor 15:25) until the ends of the earth are His possession, which He is building, and preserving in preparation for His return. No matter what the circumstance of God’s people is, it is not determinative of its future. God’s faithful providential rule determines our future—a glorious church dwelling before His throne in the heavenly Jerusalem.

Do not allow the sinful actions of authorities today to cause you fear and anxiety. Seek to have righteous laws passed, yes, but don’t allow the passage of bad laws to make you despondent. Trust in the providential rule of God. The seed of the woman—“God with us” celebrated at Christmas—became the reality upon which all history focused.

The focus of history now, by God’s purpose and providence, is the church triumphant at Christ’s second coming. That too, beloved will be a reality for us whose trust is in the crucified, risen, ascended, and returning Christ Jesus our Savior and Lord.

Let our lives as God’s people reflect our longing for our assured heavenly home.

“Ho, Ho, Ho” are words that are usually associated with the laughter of the world’s jolly red Christmas icon. These words really have a much more important and joyous meaning for us as Christians. “Ho” is a Greek word (translated “the”) found three times in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” There is no question that the “Word” (Logos) spoken of here three times is a reference to Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the second person of the Trinity who came in the flesh of man (cf. also 1 Jn. 1:1–2).

The incarnation of Christ which we celebrate at Christmas is more than just that Jesus came from heaven to earth as a man. That in itself is a miracle. In the very first verse of John’s Gospel he puts his finger on the most significant thing that we can know about the person of Christ—He was God! It was the Son of God who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (v. 14).

Just one more Greek reference: the Word “was” also appears here three times. “Was” is not used here in the past tense (i.e., that He previously had been . . .) The sense is that the Word “had been and continues to be” God. He did not lay aside his divinity at birth, but He laid aside the glory (Phil. 2:8). In one person—one Word—are the full, true natures of God and man. God, the sovereign and eternal Creator, walked on this earth that He had created by the power of His Word. That Word still abides and has infinite power.

What we know, sing about, and celebrate at Christmas is more than mere minds can fully comprehend. For example, we cannot explain how Jesus could physically be conceived in the virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. How could the eternal Creator (v. 3) take on the nature of the creature and yet remain fully divine? How could the sinless Son of God “dwell among us” who are miserable sinners? These are mysteries that can only be known by believing the record of Scripture.

While we cannot comprehend the immensity of what happened at the birth of Christ, we do know and believe it. The very foundation of our faith rests on the fact that Jesus was God from all eternity. It was the coming of the Mediator—fully God and fully man—who is able to fulfill the promise of the Covenant. He must be man to bear our sin as a substitute, and also true God to be victorious over death. This is why John uses “Word” to describe Jesus. “Word” comes from the word “logos” which means to “speak intelligently.” Jesus came to fully proclaim to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption. The incarnation reveals to us the love, power, and purpose of God.

Many more things could be said about the text of John 1, but perhaps the most incomprehensible thing about the birth of Christ is the love of God that is displayed here. I believe John was overwhelmed by this very concept of God’s love. He speaks of it so often. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son . . .” (Jn. 2:16) Again in 1 John 4:9–10, “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

“The Word” came and tabernacled among us for one purpose—to bear our sins and lay His life down for those sins, that we might have complete salvation, righteousness, and life.

Christmas is often contemplated as a distant past event that took place over 2000 years ago—something pageants are made of. “The Word” continues to speak to us through the preaching of the Gospel. “The Word” also gives all believers “the right to become the sons of God ... not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:12–13). Because of the Word, we are the sons of God and heirs of heaven. Contemplate that! And “the Word,” now exalted in the flesh at the right hand of God, is also in us by the sending of His Holy Spirit who dwells in us.

While the coming of “the Word” into the world was a long time ago, He remains with us every day to fill our lives with joy and comfort. And remember, “the Word” is coming again. John again refers to Jesus coming in great victory over every enemy, “He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God” (Rev. 19:13).

The world may say their “Ho, Ho, Ho’s,” but believers who are in Christ have a different reason for joy and peace—one which does not change with the season, but endures forever. It is the “Ho Logos”—The Word made flesh—that has come to us and for us. May that joyous blessing be yours as you celebrate the incarnation.