In the book of Esther, even when Haman, the Persian leader and the enemy,

of the Jews was out of the picture, the edict he had put in place to destroy the entire Jewish population

remained irrevocable. The threat of annihilation was still in place. Today on Truth for Life, we'll find out how God made the impossible possible.

Alistair Begg is teaching from Esther, chapter 8.

Versus 3 to 6 describe the way in which Esther pleads. Esther pleads verses 3 to 6. And she pleads because the Jewish population were still under the domain of an edict that was fast moving towards its expression.

Now the floodgates of emotion have opened up. She fell at his feet and she wept and she pleaded with him to avert the evil plan of Haman the Agagai.

Now she recognizes that the king signed it into law but it's not in her best interest to say to avert the plan that you signed into law.

Let's just stick with Haman for the time being, the evil man who was an opponent of the Jews and she falls at his feet.

She's asking the king to do the impossible. She's asking him to revoke the irrevocable. And from verse 3 to verse 4 she collects herself and she plays upon her relationship with the king. That's really what she does.

She relies upon both his self-interest and the relationship she enjoys with him. And the rhetoric in her questions, her twofold question is absolutely crucial.

She says, listen, verse 6, how can I bear to see the calamity that is coming to my people or how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?

Verse 3 to 6, Esther pleads, verses 7 and 8, the king responds. He responds to Mordekind Esther as a single entity.

And essentially what he says is, look, I've done my part. That's verse 7. Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman and I had him hanged for you.

I got rid of your enemy and I gave you as a state and as far as I'm concerned, everything is pretty well sorted.

He says, but you know, if you want, you could do something. You could, I guess, write another edict. You could write it, verse 8, in the name of the king.

You could seal it with the king's ring because I've given it to you, Mordekind. And once you do it, it cannot be revoked.

You know, old habits die hard, don't they? This is quite a character. You would think that after the mayhem that ensued when he took the fifth, the first time, where Haman came and inviegled himself and said, you know, I could write an edict and he said, yeah, whatever.

Go on, write an edict and then he suddenly realized that he's trapped by the edict that he took his hands off the steering wheel and allowed the man to write. And yet here he is, he's going to do it again.

He apparently really doesn't care about his kingdom. I think that's the fact. He cares about himself, he cares about his power and prestige, his authority and his significance.

He knows that he's unable to revoke the previous edict. That goes back to verse 19 of chapter 1. But he is prepared to back the writing of a contradictory edict so that it's going to be edict versus edict.

And made the best edict win. That's exactly what happens.

So three to six, Esther pleads seven and eight, the king responds verses nine to fourteen, the decree is issued.

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