Esther 7

Esther chapter 7 contains a startling example of the self-destructiveness of sin. Haman’s gig is up. When the king asked Esther to present her request, she replied, "If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated." (vs 3-4) That must have been a heart-stopping moment for Haman, as he realized the web he had spun for himself. I’m sure he never imagined that the Queen of Persia was a Jew.

That sealed the deal for Haman. The king stormed away from the table in anger (apparently a bad sign in Persian culture). And when he was told that Haman had a pole all set up on which to execute Mordecai, the king decided it would do just fine to use that pole for Haman instead.

Is it any wonder that, in the Psalms, David wrote, "An evil person is like a woman about to give birth to a hateful, deceitful, and rebellious child. Such people dig a deep hole, then fall in it themselves. The trouble they cause comes back on them, and their heads are crushed by their own evil deeds." (Ps 7:14-16) This is the nature of sin. It can’t help but destroy itself because it runs contrary to the principles of love and life. While love goes on forever, sin quickly spirals down to nothing.

Haman’s ironic ending made me think of Satan. He hated God so much that he would stop at nothing to put Jesus on the cross. It was his goal to see Christ defeated and destroyed. Yet his own evil backfired on him. The very thing he worked so hard for—the death of Jesus—was the very thing that sealed his own defeat. The plan that he thought would end up in triumph ended up in tragedy instead. It can be no other way when it comes to sin.

That’s where the title of today’s blog comes from. A lot of people still see God as the destroyer of the wicked, as if He is the one who must get justice, revenge, or retribution to "right" all the wrongs that have been done in this world. But sin destroys itself. That is its nature. God doesn’t destroy sin, because He doesn’t have to. Sin accomplishes its own destruction, and that’s precisely why God wants us to steer clear of it.