When Esther goes to King Ahasuerus to plead for her people, he asks who is responsible for the planned atrocity against them. He will of course know about Haman’s law but perhaps hasn’t yet connected Esther with the Jews. Esther explains that the one responsible is:
An adversary and enemy! This vile Haman!”[1]
Earlier we have been told that Haman is an Agagite and this identifies him with the Amalekites and particularly their royal family. The Amalekites were a historic enemy of Israel, a people who were themselves meant to have been wiped out due to their evil. It was a certain King Agag that Saul had failed to deal with leading to him forfeiting the kingdom for David.
What Esther has done here is to identify the danger and to name the one responsible. God’s people are not just in generic, general danger of oppression, they have a literal, personal, historic enemy. This is important because as the book points us to the bigger story of God’s redemption plan with Esther herself offering us a picture of the church, the presence of a personal, dangerous and vile or wicked enemy reminds us that God’s people have always faced a specific enemy, Satan.
Satan is the adversary or the accuser. The Bible tells us that he was an angel who sought to rival God and so was thrown out of heaven. He led a rebellion of fallen angels or demons against God. It’s Satan who appears in the form of a serpent in the garden of Eden to tempt Adam and Eve. Satan shows up in the courts of heaven to request permission to test Job through suffering. It’s Satan who tries to tempt Jesus in the wilderness and fails.
We can sometimes be reluctant to talk about Satan and demons, preferring to speak of evil in abstract terms only. I think there are two reasons for this. First, it’s a reaction to an other extreme of superstitiously blaming everything on Satanic and demonic attack. Secondly, we can fear that by naming Satan as real we will give him too much authority, seeing him as exercising equal power with God. Yet Scripture is clear that the devil and demons are real. It’s important to recognise this.
We should take Satan seriously as a dangerous and determined opponent. His methods include sending persecution and suffering but also include tempting us in the middle of comfort when we are complacent.
However, it is also crucial that we remember that he is finite. He is not God or equal with God, his power is limited. This means that he needs God’s permission to do anything and that as with evil people, God works good through and out of what Satan intends for harm. He is also a defeated enemy. At the Cross, Jesus disarmed the principalities and powers by removing Satan’s basis for accusing and shaming. Finally, he is a judged enemy. Satan’s final fate is sealed. He and his evil army of demons will be thrown into the lake of fire on judgement day. We need to be alert to withstand him but we do not need to fear him.
[1] Esther 7:6.
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