Is there someone that you love to hate? A person that no matter what he does, says, or how he acts, you struggle to be kind to him? You just hate everything he does because everything he does is from envy, jealousy, and pride? Well, Haman is that man! As you will see today in this blog post, Haman[ref]Haman was the “most powerful official in the empire” (Esth 3:1)[/ref] is a man you can easily love to hate. Yet, there are some good principles you can learn from his life and apply to your life as a Christian.

Photo Credit: “Haman Recognizes His Fate” by Rembrandt (1606-1669)

HAMAN
Human Control or Heavenly Control?
(Esther 3-7)

I. I ENCOUNTER GOD’S WILL WHEN I KNOW HIS WORD

All the king’s officials would bow down before Haman to show him respect whenever he passed by, for so the king had commanded. But Mordecai refused to bow down or show him respect. Then the palace officials at the king’s gate asked Mordecai, “Why are you disobeying the king’s command?” They spoke to him day after day, but still he refused to comply with the order. So they spoke to Haman about this to see if he would tolerate Mordecai’s conduct, since Mordecai had told them he was a Jew. When Haman saw that Mordecai would not bow down or show him respect, he was filled with rage. He had learned of Mordecai’s nationality, so he decided it was not enough to lay hands on Mordecai alone. Instead, he looked for a way to destroy all the Jews throughout the entire empire of Xerxes. (Esther 3:2–6, NLT)[ref]Unless otherwise noted, all translations are from the New Living Translation[/ref]