(Esther 6:1.)

'The Book of Esther stands out by itself in the Word of God; its one special design is to mark God's care for His people. All the wheels within wheels subserve one glorious purpose. Man's free agency is combined with God's manifest appointment – a marvelous display of working without a miracle. All seems so natural in the common course, and yet were the merest incident removed, the whole plan would be disarranged. It is a grand display of the power and faithfulness of God, delivering His people by the means appointed for their destruction.

How apparently trifling the fact, "on that night could not the King sleep." The despot we gave law to one hundred and twenty-seven provinces is a poor worm who could not command an hour's sleep. The fact that he should lose a night's rest seems in itself not worth mentioning. But trifling as it is, it gives an insight into the ways of God, incomprehensibly great in the most trivial matters. Man's means ordinarily bear some proportion to the magnitude of his objects. God often works by means which have no intelligible connection with the object, and as we would think, utterly powerless. Here the plot of the assassin, the impulse of revenge, is a link in the chain of God's purpose, leading to the issue, as in a drama, and the smallest links are as important as any. Why were those officers provoked just at that time, and their plot not better conducted? Why was Mordecai the one to discover it? Take away this link and all is broken to pieces, for it introduced Mordecai to the King-and at such a moment! The gallows ready! The offended court favorite had but to ask for his victim. It seemed as if only a miracle could save him. But sleep fled away from the King. The records of the Kingdom were read before him. The story of Mordecai's fidelity touched his grateful heart. There is no reason to think that a sleepless night was unusual for the King. Yet if he had slept that night, Mordecai would have been on the gallows, and all lost. Nor was there anything of chance even in this restless night. Why did the King ask for the records? With Darius, music was the soothing regimen. And even when the book was brought, how unlikely that page would turn up! In so extensive a range as the annals of 127 provinces, it seemed unlikely that this brief record would be singled out to read. What finger guided it? Most likely the King would care to hear of a former reign. But so it was! By this small circumstance deliverance came to Mordecai, and through him to the nation whose necks were on the block. And this involved the fulfilment of the prophecies as to our Lord coming of that nation. Yet all hung upon the alternative of the King's sleeping or waking that night.

Such a tissue of events, all moving one way, helping on one great result, what a picture it presents of Him who "worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. 1:22). His eye was waking when the King could not sleep; He was reading His own a lecture on His care of them, while this book was being read before the King. He uses both wicked Haman and godly Mordecai for His people's welfare, making all persons as well as all things "work together for good." Such a display is fraught with divine instruction.

1. Let not special deliverances lead us to forget our common daily mercies. We forget that all our blessings flow from His special care, the least as the greatest. A sparrow "shall not fall to the ground without your Father." A special mercy, indeed, if we are thrown out of our carriage without broken bones, but think of our daily preservation in bodies so "fearfully and wonderfully made " that swallowing a morsel may occasion death! Sad not to own a God of providence as well as of grace- a God, not of cold abstraction, but a Father to be drawn on in all the emergencies of life. He cares for His feeble as well as strong ones, yearns over them and supplies their need. No difficulty need heavily oppress us. If carried to Him, it only the more endears Him to us. Yet too often we brood over our common trials and forget our daily mercies.

2. What encouragement is ours to trust in God under all troubles! How many views of our faithful God for our stay and comfort! What a train of evils were preparing here for His people! How ignorant were they of them, and yet how near their execution! But there was One whose all-seeing eye, infinite wisdom and grace, baffled all. Was He not in the King's bed-chamber for His people's good? Who but He directs the reader to the right page? Then all followed, brighter and brighter until it was complete. We know not what plots Satan has against us, but our joy is that if he is watching us God is watching him. God loves His people too well to commit them to any but Himself:"He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep"'(Ps. 121:4). "He keepeth His vineyard, lest any hurt it, night and day" (Isa. 27:2,3). Should we not exercise unbounded confidence even in the midst of danger, and look to the Lord Omnipotent when no means of escape are manifest? Should we not look for "His footprints" in the most minute circumstances? Shall we be discouraged by conscious weakness? Faith may be only a feeble spark, but it shall not be quenched. "He will send forth judgment victory" (Matt. 12:20.