Esther 7

She was built in Belfast, Ireland. She was one of three Olympic class ocean liners. And the ocean liners at the time were by far the largest ships at sea at the time. The RMS Titanic was designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury for the rich. For those who were in the cabins and who had taken tickets to board her, there were opulence unimagined. Gyms, swimming pools, smoking rooms, fine restaurants and cafes, and hundreds of hundreds of cabins were built for the ultra-rich wealthy at the time. Yet, on her maiden voyage to New York, she sank in the early hours of April 15th when striking an iceberg. The survivors of that night say that as they were fleeing and trying to get into lifeboats, they heard the song that we heard, drawn near to me, Oh God. And out of the 2,300 passengers who had boarded that ship, about 1,500 of them had died, making this one of the deadliest peacetime sinkings of a single ship. So, why start with the story of the Titanic this evening?

We’re in the sermon series in the book of Esther, and we’re studying and we’ve been studying the life of Esther and Mordecai, Haman, King Ahasuerus, and seeing how God has been ordaining all these things in history. And what we’re going to see and read tonight is a Titanic-level event in the life of Haman, a man who had all of the wealth, all of the influence in his life, all the connections. He was one who stands at the king’s side and was able to make political movement and law. And yet, we find at the end of this chapter, his demise. So, let’s read together from 7:1 onward. Sorry, before we do that though, where have we been? Chapter 5, we’ve been talking about the providence God when we met. In providence, we talked about that was the divine care of God, how he’s been working, even though this is one of those books where the name of God is never mentioned. Chapter 6 is the arrogance of man, and now in chapter 7, we’re seeing the fulfillment of that. So, now let’s read.

The king and Haman came to feast with Esther the queen. Once again, on the second day, while drinking wine, the king asked Esther, Queen Esther, whatever you ask will be given to you, whatever you seek, even to half the kingdom will be done. And queen Esther answered, if I found favor with you, your majesty, and if the king is pleased, spare my life, this is my request. And spare my people, this is my desire, for my people and I have been sold to destruction, death, and annihilation. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept silent. Indeed, the trouble wouldn’t be worth burdening the king. King Azersu spoke up and asked queen Esther, who is this, and where is the one who would devise such a scheme? Esther answered, the adversary and the enemy is the evil Haman. Haman stood terrified before the queen and king. The king arose in anger and went from there, where they were drinking wine, to the palace garden. Haman remained to beg queen Esther for his life because he realized the king was planning to do something terrible for him. And just as the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman was falling on the couch where queen, where Esther was reclining. The king exclaimed, would he actually violate the queen while I’m in the house? And as soon as the statement left the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face. Harbano, one of the king’s eunuchs, said, there’s a gallows 75 feet tall at Haman’s house that he made for Mordecai, who gave the report that saved the king. The king said, hang him on it, and they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. And then the king’s anger subsided.

So, we’ve seen in this passage, I was actually watching Alistair Beck’s sermon on this, and he said, as he’s teaching through the book of Esther, one of his congregants, when they finally got to this chapter, the morning of, one of his congregants finally came to him that morning, and he’s like, finally! We’ve been reading about all the evil that Haman had been doing this whole time, he finally gets his just desserts. He finally gets to be executed for all the evil that he’s been scheming and planning and committing the last few chapters. And so, yeah, we’re here. We’re at the part where Haman deserves the consequences of his actions. It’s finally all coming together. This is the interesting part of the story as we’re coming there.

But it’s so interesting as we’re starting, even here, that this is the second day of the banquet hall, and how 24 hours have radically changed the story that was going to be told, right? Esther had already done a feast for King and Haman the day before, like, literally the day before, right? And they had already come, they were already in good spirits. The king had asked Esther, you’re doing this for a reason, what is the reason for you to throw this feast for me? And she said, if it pleases you, would you wait? And we read and saw and heard last time that that evening, the king, who was in good spirits, would be unable to sleep, and he would go through the records of the kings and see that Mordecai had not been honored for saving his life, like, several years before, like, five to eight years before that. And now Haman, who had plotted to kill Mordecai and to end his life, is now responsible for taking Mordecai out and parading him through the city and saying, this is what happens to the man who the king honors, right? Within 24 hours, everything had flipped on its head.

And so, we start this passage and we can kind of question, why would Esther not say anything? If we didn’t read chapters 5 and 6 before, we didn’t have that context. If we were just at that first banquet, right, the question would have been asked, why, Esther, would you not have just told the king at that time? You already had his favor, you already had his fortune. Why would you not say and save your people at that time? And one of the first things that we see in this passage and the chapters before is that Esther’s delay, right, was just a part of God’s plan and providence for his people, right? So many things could have changed in 24 hours, right? Esther should—in our minds, we think, Esther should have asked, what if the king wasn’t in a good mood the second day of the feast? What if Haman discovered Esther’s plan and executed Mordecai that night, right? So many things that could have happened, might have happened. Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon, spoke this, Oh, daughter of Abraham, what an opportunity have you lost! Why did you not plead for your people? Their very existence hangs upon your entreaty. And the king had said, what will you? And yet you are slow to ask. Was it timidity? It is possible. Did she think that Haman stood too high in the king’s favor for her to prevail? It would have been hard to say. Doubtless she longed to bring out her secret, but the words came not. God was in it. It was not the right time to speak, and therefore she was led to put off her disclosure. I dare say she regretted it and wonders when she would be able to come to that point what the Lord knew best. And so we see the delay of Esther, though it may have been best in our eyes, it may have been with the things that we’ve done, it would have been in our plans. The delay of Esther, though risky, led to God’s plan and provision and providence in the life of Ahasuerus, right? Ahasuerus, who was in good spirits, who had no reason not to fall asleep peacefully that night, had a restless night, and that led to the public recognition and reward of Mordecai, and that led now into this chapter, the humiliation of Haman, right?

Within 24 hours, Ahasuerus not only, before he had already loved and valued the life of Esther, his queen, who is also a Jew, but now also Mordecai, who he feels that he has wronged by not honoring in five years for saving his own life. And so Mordecai, the Jew, not only had his life spared, but went to be publicly acknowledged by the kingdom as a man of value and of high worth, right? And we see also in this chapter, Esther’s plea is not only just to spare herself and her people, but she’s telling the king something very specific, right? She’s telling the king that just as Mordecai revealed a plot to take your life, O king, there is another plot at foot, and it’s to take away your kingdom, right? There’s an enemy that’s trying to kill your wife and trying to kill your loyal subjects, right? These men and women who have been faithful to your kingdom all this time, right? And that’s the thing that she’s emphasizing. And she does it so crafty of like, oh, if we were sold into slaves, I wouldn’t have said anything, right?

It’s the fact that we’re about to be annihilated, right? And then she’s like, I didn’t want to bother you with this, right? She’s so shrewd in the way that she’s conveying this message, but it’s to emphasize that point, O king, Ahasuerus, you have another enemy in your court, and I’m here to reveal that plot as well. Do you remember a few years ago when we went to sight and sound, not this most recent time, but the time we went to see Queen Esther the show? And there was one of these set pieces that they had shown in the middle of the play, and it’s this part where Mordecai discovers the plot, and he’s trying to reveal to Esther, and there’s like this big emphasis in that part of like Haman being an Agagite. Y’all remember that? For those of you who don’t remember, I’ll paint you a picture. What’s happening is Haman is like, or Mordecai to Esther is like, we’ve discovered the plot that the Jews are about to be killed, and it’s being led by this man who is a descendant of the Agagites, or who is an Agagite who is a descendant of the Amalekites. And what he’s conveying there, as he’s telling this to Esther, and he starts singing, I’m not going to sing for y’all, but what he’s conveying in that song is that, hey Esther, right now the enemy is Haman, but this is not a new enemy for us.

This is an old generational enemy that has been chasing and trying to kill us for years now, for decades now, right? And in the set piece, what’s happening, I absolutely love this, it was so good. As he’s singing and saying the story, there’s this projection of this red snake, and it starts on the corner, if y’all see, it starts on the corner, and during the song, what’s happening is the snake is crawling along the wall, and it’s slowly climbing along, it’s climbing up, and eventually you see the serpent’s head open, and it’s about to strike Esther who’s standing at the top of the pavilion of that set piece. And as that’s happening, he’s saying the story, he’s singing the story, this is an old enemy, this is an old enemy, this is an old enemy of the people of God. And so what we’re supposed to think, and as we’re hearing the song, he’s saying to Esther, this is not about Haman, this is about the Amalekites. But as we’re watching, we should be understanding this is not about the Amalekites, right? There’s an old enemy, there’s an old serpent that has always been trying to strike the people of God. In all of history, he’s always been poised to attack the people of God.

And so we’re seeing this in chapter 6 as well, right? Haman thought to himself, right? Who is the one that the king wants to honor more than me? Right? Haman told the king, for the man the king wants to honor, have them bring a royal garment that the king himself wore, right? And a horse that the king himself has ridden, which has a royal crown on his head, put the garment and the horse under the charge of one of the king’s most noble officials, have them clothe the man the king wants to honor, parade him on the horse through the city square, and call out before him. This is what is done for the man the king wants to honor, right? And so he’s saying the story, we’re reading the scriptures, we should be noticing, right? If you put on your Bible Scholar hat, right? You should be noticing, hey, this is a man who’s not the king, but wants to dress as the king, who wants to sit where the king is sitting, right? He is somehow, he’s saying in his heart that he can do all those things, and he deserves to sit in those places, right?

And so you’re wearing your Bible Scholar hat, you’re reading this passage, and it should be reminding you of this earlier passage, if you know Isaiah well, it should be reminding you of this earlier passage in Isaiah, where Isaiah’s condemning the king of Babylon, but he’s comparing the king of Babylon to another old enemy at the time, right? Shining morning star, how you have fallen from the heavens, you destroyer of nations, you have been cut down to the ground. You said to yourself, I will ascend to the heavens, I will, what? Set up my throne above the stars of God, I will sit on the mount of the God’s assembly in the remotest part of the north, I will ascend above the highest clouds, I will make myself like the most high, right? And so we should be reading this and thinking this through. Hey, this story started to talk to us about Esther, right? And the life of Esther and all that’s happening. This story is about Esther in a sense, but it’s really not about Esther, right? This story is about an old enemy that has always been there, and we’re reading this, and we should be thinking, right, Haman.

Haman’s being compared to the king of Babylon. Haman’s being compared to this character that the king of Babylon is being compared to. Haman in this story is the old enemy, right? Not an Agagite, not an Amalekite only, but he is the picture of Satan in this story, right? We should be reading that and understanding that the enemy is not flesh and blood, right? It’s this old, old foe that has always been chasing after God’s people. And so we look at this, right? Haman is this arrogant, prideful person who thinks he can sit at the king’s seat. He wants to wear the king’s royal garments. He wants to ride on the king’s horse. He wants to wear the king’s royal crown, right? And we put all that together, and we should understand that Haman is Satan, right? That’s clear, yeah? But then we should also be reading this. And a couple services ago, Andrew asked for his Paul Washer moment, so I’m going to ask you all if I can have my Matt Chandler moment tonight.

We should be reading that, and we should be reading this book, and we should understand that we are not Esther, yeah? We are not the ones who’s made to save the people. We’re not the ones who’s interceding on behalf of the people of God, right? Jesus is Esther in this story. Jesus is the one who’s fulfilling the promise, right? Esther is this figure that was obedient to her father figure, right? And she’s risking her life to try to protect the people of God. Christ is the one who is obedient to his father, even at the cost of his life. Esther is the one who’s interceding to the king on behalf of God’s people. Christ is the one who’s continually interceding on behalf of his bride, right? The book of Esther may be a story about Esther, but it’s not really about Esther. The book of Esther may be for us, but we—it is not about us, right? We should be thinking as we read the Scriptures.

This is just—this is what has messed me up this week. It’s nothing new, but it’s just a reminder of, like, the Bible is not a rule book, yeah? It’s not a guidebook. It’s not a shortcut to be a good man, right? The Bible, at its core, is a story of a dad who loves his kids so much that he was willing to sacrifice everything for them, right? It’s a story of a king who has come down to die for his slaves, right? It’s a story of a man—of a God who has all of everything and all of divinity, willing to humble himself to the point of being a man who gave up his throne to seek you, to seek you, to know you personally, that wants to hear from you daily, right? Minute by minute, he longs—he longs to hear from you, right? And we have this picture of Jesus that’s like, oh, Jesus is this guy who’s coming to condemn us. Jesus is this guy who’s going to throw an open the door and expose our sin, and he’s going to do all these things against us, and I feel terrified to come before God, right? And yet when Jesus comes, he says what?

I am a good shepherd, right? I’ve come to look for my sheep. I’ve come to look for my foolish lamb who has walked past the pen door, and they’re getting stuck in a ditch over and over again. They’re getting caught in the thicket. They’re being lost in the mud. They don’t have food. They don’t have water, right? They eat filth and think it’s good, right? But yet I’m here. I’m here to bring my little sheep home, right? And to give them good things. The story of Esther is not a story where we look at the life of Haman, and we see all these things happening, and we question and we wonder of what our purpose is. How am I supposed to save my school? How am I supposed to save my workplace, right? We are not Esther in the story. We are not Esther in our moment. Now, do we believe that in God’s plan and timing and providence that he has made you for 2025? He has put you in your schools and workplaces and colleges for such a time as this? Yeah, right?

We do. That’s 100% biblical. Do we believe that God can change our luck and our fortune? And that the weapon that the enemy is forming against us won’t prosper, right? That we’ll escape the snares of the enemy and we’ll move past them and our enemies will be caught in their own traps? Yeah, 100%. Right? That’s not negating the things that are happening, right? If Esther is a Christ figure and we’re supposed to have our lives be modeled after Christ, right? Those two things aren’t negating each other. Just because we’re not Esther in the story doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to be like Esther or like Christ in our workplaces, right? But if we have the Savior complex, if we think that our actions, that if we think, if we work hard enough and we do the right things and we say the right things, right, then we deserve to be in the kingdom, we’ve completely lost the point, right?

The very moment we take the Bible and we use it as a guide and we forget that it’s bread, we’re gonna miss the mark, right? It is bread for the hungry and water for the thirsty, right? And we are in the desert of this world and we should be eating it as if we are starving men. So if we’re not Esther in the story, who should we identify with at the end of the day, right? Tonight, I really wanna remind us, I really, really, really, really, really wanna remind us that we’re a bunch of sinners in the hands of an angry God. I wanna remind you that you were once aliens and hostile in your minds and you expressed all those things in your evil actions. I wanna remind you that without Christ, you were excluded from the citizenship, right? That you were foreigners of the covenant, you were without hope and without a God, right? But now with Christ, we who were once far away have been brought near.

I wanna remind you this evening that God, you were an object of wrath, deserving of punishment, but God in His mercy was patient with you, right? With me, patient with me, and has waited to pour out His wrath. Esther 7:7, the king arose in anger and went from where they were drinking wine to the palace garden and Haman remained to beg Queen Esther for his life because he realized the king was planning something terrible for him. Just as the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was reclining. The king exclaimed, would he actually violate the queen while I’m in the house? And as soon as the king left the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face. Now, do y’all remember back in chapter 6 what happened at the very end of that chapter before Haman was rushed out of the banquet? Haman was so ashamed, right?

He was so mortified that, he was so embarrassed at the fact that he had to lead Mordecai around the city and to give him honor that he covered his face in shame, right? And now in chapter 7, not even 12 hours later, his face is covered again for him, but not in shame this time, but in preparation for his death, right? And then to make matters worse, one of the eunuchs, Harbanah, who just happens to be there, is like, oh king, if you’re ready to kill him, there’s a gallows 75 feet tall in Haman’s house and Haman made that for Mordecai. Mordecai, the guy that you just praised this morning for saving your life, right? Haman is prepared to kill him. There’s a gallows. We all knew about it, but it’s ready to be used today. And the king said, hang him on it, and they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared, and the king’s anger subsided. Man, this is the reminder for us tonight. It should have been us, right?

Haman got what he deserved in that moment. Haman got exactly what he asked for too, right? Just the irony of it, of Haman who wanted to genocide a whole people group is begging for his one singular life in that moment, and then the irony of Haman who wants to be lifted up and exalted, he is lifted up. Haman who wanted his name remembered for all of history, we remember him. But it’s not for the right reasons, and it’s not for the intentions that he wanted, right? That he thought he would be remembered for, that he would be exalted for and lifted up for, right? Haman’s story is a warning and a reminder for us. It should have been us who hang, right? Tonight, as we talk about God’s mercy, we have to remember his wrath. His wrath has been prepared and poured out, right? His wrath is ready, was always ready from the beginning of time to be poured out on sin, and yet in his mercy and his love for us, he said that he would hang, right?

If we are Haman and we deserved to be strung up and hung from the tree, Jesus is the one who took the penalty, who took on the curse and was hung for us. Man, if that doesn’t, if that isn’t just a stark, stark reminder in our day-to-day life, right? If things had just gone a little bit differently, if I was raised in a different household, if the preacher that I preached to when I was saved didn’t say the words that he used, right? Or the song didn’t hit me the way that it did, if God’s spirit was a little less merciful for me in that moment, what if things could have been just so different in the trajectory of our lives? Have y’all seen or have y’all heard of Marvel’s, like, what if show? It’s like a really, like, basic concept, right? It’s like, if you just change one thing, if this villain was actually a good guy or if this good guy was actually a villain, like, what would the universe look like if that played out, right?

For us tonight, I don’t want us to just think about, like, the what if for our own lives, but I think this story, this chapter is just a reminder for us as well of, like, what if we played the what if game in Haman’s life, right? Haman passed by Mordecai every single day as he’s going through the gate, right? What if Haman had just stopped one day and had just asked Mordecai, Mordecai, the king put out a decree that everyone should bow down when I pass by. Why aren’t you doing that, right? Mordecai, you say you can’t bow down to me because of this God that you worship, but this God that lets you be a slave in another kingdom. Why do you worship him still, right? What if Haman had just humbled himself just a little bit more, right, to stoop down and to ask the questions and just be a little bit more curious about his life, right? What if Mordecai was proactive in the moment and said, Haman, I’m not going to bow down to you.

I need to tell you that face to face. I’m not going to let another servant give a report, right? Even the morning of his execution, what if as he’s leading Mordecai around the city, he had just asked, Mordecai, you saved the king’s life five years ago and you didn’t want anything for it? Why? At every—as we’re reading back at this, there are so many opportunities that if Haman had just changed his behavior, if Haman had just acted a little bit more humble, right, if he didn’t let his ego and arrogance and self-exaltation, his desire to be recognized, to be a people pleaser to the king, right, if that didn’t get in the way, what if the story was of Mordecai coming to the banquet and saying, oh king, I did wrong to you, and we would remember Haman differently tonight? What if you humbled yourself a little bit more in this moment, in this evening, before you get home?

What if you just admitted some hidden sin that’s been in your life that you had thought you can try to get away from on your own, that you’re trying to struggle through, that you’re trying to white-knuckle? What if you told your community about someone in your life that shouldn’t be in your life right now? What if you just humbled yourself and you were a little bit more curious? Hey, I think I’m doing things okay, and I think I’m doing things the right way, but I need Godly counsel to speak into my life today, just in case. I’m not 100% sure, but just in case, right? What if, what if today is the day, right? In C.S. Lewis’s book, Prince Caspian, there’s a moment where Lucy and Aslan, and Aslan’s like the Jesus figure in the story. Lucy is like one of the main characters from Earth that ends up in Narnia. There’s a moment where she’s panicking, and she’s like, I thought I had to do all this stuff. I thought I had to.

I was the only one responsible for saving these men at the time, and Aslan had come to her. After not being in the story for a long time, they keep talking about him, and he only shows up at the end, but that’s just how God works. We see him much more clearly at the end of the story, but Aslan shows up, and Lucy’s like, I thought it was my responsibility. I was the one that had to save these men, right? And Aslan actually doesn’t say anything in that moment, just looks at her, and Lucy has like a moment of clarity, and she’s like, are you saying it would have been good, right? Are you saying if I didn’t do anything, right? You mean Lucy said faintly that it would have turned out all right somehow, right? Please, Aslan, tell me. Am I not to know, right? What should I have done? What should I have done to change the way my life had gone? What should I have done to do the right thing in saving these people?

And Aslan says in that moment, to know what would have happened, child, nobody is ever told that. Nobody is ever told what would have happened, but anyone can find out what will happen if you go back to the others and wake them up and tell them that you have seen me again. This is the Jesus figure of the story. If you go back to the others and tell them that you have seen me again, and you all have to get up at once and what? Follow, right? What will happen? What if? There’s only one way of finding out. You got to do it, right? We can’t change all the stuff that’s happened. If your addiction has 20 years old, right, it’s your 20-year addiction, but it doesn’t have to go past a single day after today, right? Repent and turn to the Lord and be saved, right? For us, the reminder, I feel like every single time I’m up here, I read the second Peter passage, but I need to read it again because it has to be a reminder for us.

It has to be ingrained in our hearts. Don’t overlook the one fact that to the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like one day. The Lord does not delay his promise, right? Now, in context, think through Bible scholars. In context, what’s the promise that Peter is talking about? Coming judgment, right? God promises judgment upon evil. He is not going to delay that promise. His word is true. It does not return empty and void, right? But understand that the delay is his providence. The delay is his patience toward you because he does not want you to perish. He does not want you to be annihilated. In the coming judgment, his patience is toward repentance. Little lamb, we got to return to the sheep pen because destruction is coming.

And if that’s true for us, it’s true for our communities, it’s true for our friends and family, it’s true for our workplaces, destruction is coming. And so we’re called, we’re called even tonight. We may be safe, we may be in the fold, but there are more sheep that God is calling us to bring, right? Let the story of Haman’s destruction be a reminder. That could have been them, that will be them if their life doesn’t change. We have, we have, we are called to something more than just coming into this building on a Sunday morning and pretending everything is good to make small talk with each other and then to go home and to live our lives and to forget those in our community, right? If God’s will for us was only our singular salvation, why would he not just rapture us when we believed in him? Obviously it means that there’s more for us to do here, right?

As polarizing as a man he might have been, God’s plan and will for Charlie Kirk was fulfilled on Wednesday, right? Everything that the Lord called him to do in his life, he finished that day. If it wasn’t, he would have been saved. So if we’re here, man, we’re working in the field. We got to get out there, right? Until the next time we close our eyes and we open them and we see them face to face, we’re here to work. We’re here to be lights and to be esthers, right? To emulate Christ in those moments, right? To remind ourselves and to remind our communities and to remind others of the mercy of God, right? He’s being patient. He’s being patient with you. One day the rug is going to be pulled and everything’s going to be revealed in that moment.

But we might be, with others, in the sheet pen safe, right? This evening when we started, we talked about this ship, the Titanic, right? And how the demise of the Titanic could have been a picture of Haman. How he was the very image and he was all the opulence of the ultra-wealthy at the time. He had everything going for him. But I don’t know if you all know this, but there were several other ships sailing that night, right? And so 12 o’clock, 1220, when this ship sent out its distressed signal that we had struck an iceberg and we’re sinking, we need assistance. Within range was another ship called the California that didn’t pick up the signal. It should have, right? For all intents and purposes, it was within range to pick up the signal to see the flares and to go and assist the Titanic, and yet it didn’t.

This other ship that you all see on the screen is the one that heard it, and she was four and a half hours away. The RMS Carpathia receives the distress signals at 1220, April 15th, 1912. She was four and a half hours away, a distance that could, I’m so sorry. She was 58 miles away, a distance that could not be crossed in less than four and a half hours, right? But as soon as she heard the distress signal coming from the Titanic that night, Captain Rostrin, who is the captain of this ship, immediately rolls out of bed, wakes up because a radio operator woke him up, orders the ship to turn towards the Titanic. He gets fully dressed. He pulls out all of his cabin mates, and they get ready to respond to the emergency, right? The article that I was reading said the man had never responded in his life to an emergency call, and the goal for him that night was for no one to know that this was his first, right?

All the Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out, ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side in case the sea turned choppy, so that she would calm the waters near the ship and make it safer for lifeboats to draw up close to her. The captain ordered the lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and nets and ladders rigged along her side to be ready to be dropped when they arrived, so as many survivors can climb up as quickly as possible all at once. The Carpathia had three dining rooms compared to the opulence of the Titanic, but all three of them were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to be handed out. By the time all these preparations were made, many of the passengers were awakened by the sound, right?

It’s not a quiet thing to prepare a ship to receive an emergency ship, right, from disaster. And all of them that had awoken stepped in to help. Many donated their own clothes and blankets. And the thing about this ship is it’s a steamship. And if y’all don’t know, steamships run on steam, right? Surprising. She did not have enough power. She shouldn’t have had enough power to make it there. Even as the captain turned off all the hot water and central heating, he bled every valuable resource toward the steam engine everywhere except for the dining rooms, which had to set up for first aid, right? He woke up every engineer, every stoker, every fireman, diverted them all into the engine room to work. He asked for his ship to go as fast as possible. Four and a half hours away. Four and a half hours away. She shouldn’t have made it.

And yet, in this instance, the Carpathia’s absolute do or die, the engines can’t take this forever kind of speed. As she dodged other icebergs in the dark and cold surrounded by mist, she got there within two. And so as the ship approached the ship, the crew was ready to receive the people that were there, right? Within half an hour, they would find the first lifeboats. It would take until this ship got there at 440. It would take until 830 for every survivor to be brought onto this boat, onto the Carpathia, right? So four, almost four and a half hours of working to bring all these men and women and children in, right? We said at the beginning 1,500 of the 2,300 passengers of the Titanic had survived. The Carpathia saved 705, right? No other ship that made it to the Titanic sinking found a single survivor. All of them, all of them were saved by this ship.

And this article writes, there was a miracle on the Atlantic that morning, in the North Atlantic that morning. A miracle in the North Atlantic that morning because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small, unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided, I cannot live with myself if I do anything else. In view of God’s mercy, in view of God’s grace in our lives, can we say to ourselves, I cannot live with myself if I do anything less. If Christ has laid down his life for us, why would I not lay down my life for him? Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we thank you. We thank you just for the mercy of the cross of God. We thank you that in the midst of judgment, that we should have received, that we deserved. Lord, you came down. Jesus, you came down to seek your lost sheep.

And we thank you for that mercy. We thank you that you did not leave us in our own ways to live our own lives, to get caught up in the traps of the enemy, to think that we deserve it all, oh God. And we thank you for your mercy that not only saves us, but that prepares us for good work, oh God. Lord, will you remind our spirits this evening for the one who has given all for us, the one who has bled for us, the one who left his throne for us. My God, will you remind our hearts and our minds and our spirits and our souls tonight. Will you encourage us, will you give us courage in our workplaces not to be shy, not to turn away from awkward conversations, not to fear judgment or to fear man or to seek their approval, my God. Lord, we pray and we ask, oh God, will you remind us of the mercy that you had, that we should have been hanging on that tree, but you pay the penalty for us, my God.

Lord, we thank you. We pray this on their son, King Jesus. Amen.