The Intercession of Rees Howells – Queen Esther
by Doris Ruscoe

Stage 1: The Preparation

Esther was brought also into the king’s house….Esther had not showed her people nor her kindred. And the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and favour in his sight…so that he set the royal crown upon her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti. –Esther 2:8, 10, 17

How great this king, Artaxerxes, was! His kingdom stretched from India to Ethiopia. How could God reach a monarch as great as this? Who would have thought, after Vashti was removed, that Esther would be chosen above all the other maidens in that vast country, that a Jewess would occupy this, the highest position that any girl in the kingdom could have? How wonderful it was that God had put her in that place just at the right time! God is always ahead of the devil and he knew that the enemy through Haman planned to destroy the Jewish people. Who but the queen could have acted over the head of the king’s chief minister, and one who had the law on his side?

Stage 2: The Crisis

When Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath. And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone: for they had shown him the people of Mordecai: wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom. –Esther 3:5, 6

If it had come to the mind of Mordecai that through not bowing down to Haman the lives of all his people would be at stake, I wonder if he would still have refused? This is not the only time that the devil has tried to destroy the Jewish people. He tried in Egypt at the time of the birth of Moses, when Pharaoh commanded that the Hebrew children should be thrown into the Nile. He tried to destroy the Saviour when Herod ordered the slaughter of the Jewish infants. He has tried again in our own century when Hitler attempted to destroy the Jews in the extermination camps. The king gave them into Haman’s hands and the order went forth that on a certain day all the Jews, in every province, were to be killed. Think of Mordecai crying through the streets of Shushan! The order could not be withdrawn: it was sealed with the king’s seal, and the laws of the Medes and Persians could not be changed. Mordecai realised that Esther was the only person who could intervene with the king. So he charged her, through Hatach, that “she should go in unto the king to make supplication unto him, and to make request before him for her people.” But what a test for Esther! She had not been called into the king’s presence for thirty days, and to enter without being called was to face certain death. But the challenge of Mordecai to her was, “Think not that thou shalt escape more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place” (Esther 3:13, 14).

Stage 3: The Intercession

Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this. Fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise: and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish. –Esther 4:14, 16

Think what it cost these people to go through. Before God will use you in intercession it will cost you. If anyone had known a way of escape would they not have paid any price for deliverance? The fasting is not the point—it was the burden to be carried. When you face death neither food nor anything else will appeal to you. Fear turns away the need for food. We do not enter into the experience of these people because we are not in a similar position. Esther was not only facing death: she would have to disclose the fact that she herself was a Jewess. Can you see that volume of prayer going up for those three days from the Jews while their queen was facing death? They knew that unless she prevailed they would all die. This is what I mean by a real death. This young woman was giving her life for the nation. Could the throne refuse that cry? These people raised up a standard to be a channel for God.

Stage 4: The Victory

And the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther drew near and touched the top of the sceptre. Then said the king unto her, ‘What wilt thou, Queen Esther, and what is thy request? It shall be even given thee to the half of my kingdom.’ –Esther 5:2, 3

How near the enemy came in this situation! Even Esther could not go through the first time. She had to stand against the king’s chief minister. She failed the first day, and so would anyone. This shows what it cost to do it, but she went through the second time and threw her all into it. Haman discerned nothing of what God had prepared for him. What a show God made of the devil in Haman and what a deliverance for the Jews! Even so the king nearly had a civil war on his hands, and hundreds who opposed the Jews were killed. How great was the victory!

When we enter into our king’s presence shall we be able to prevail as Esther prevailed? You will never enter into that presence with a shade of anything between you and God. Your victories will be as real as your deaths. If the enemy has any hold over you, you will not prevail. Unless your death is as real as Queen Esther’s, you will not prevail to deliver others.

–from The Intercession of Rees Howells
by Doris Ruscoe