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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 2 of 5
Esther 7:1-10
The action has played itself out rapidly. Now we reach the final stages. When the queen tells of the things he has done, Haman is struck with terror. He is the adversary, the enemy, the wicked one – three words which the Word of God uses to denote the devil himself! And, there and then, at the king’s command Haman is hanged on the very gallows he has prepared for Mordecai (cf. Psalms 7:14-15). The scene is evocative for us of an incomparably greater set of circumstances. Just as Mordecai did not bow before the king’s favourite, Christ alone among the children of men did not bow the knee to Satan. We know His answer at the time of His temptation, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve" (Matthew 4:9-10), so that, being unable to make this perfect Man bow, the Enemy would not stop until he was rid of Him. With this aim he raised up men against Jesus, inciting them to prepare His cross, as Haman prepared a gallows for Mordecai (although the latter was never put on it). Now it was precisely this cross, by which Satan thought he had triumphed and had done away with Christ, which in fact marked his own ultimate defeat (cf. Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14). Every effort that he made in his hatred turned only to his own destruction . . . and at the same time to our salvation.
