SPEAKER_00: Got a Bible this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Turn it to Esther chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Esther chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: This is the third part of the sermon series, Risk is Right.
SPEAKER_00: And the title of today's message is It's Our Time.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to thank Pastor Danny and for him allowing me.
SPEAKER_00: This has kind of been a growing, exciting experience for me.
SPEAKER_00: First time I share with him, first time I've ever done an adult sermon series.
SPEAKER_00: I've been speaking to teenagers for 11 years.
SPEAKER_00: So I know how to study, but I also kind of know how to study for a specific group of people.
SPEAKER_00: And so you won't want to come in and seem like a fool before educated adults.
SPEAKER_00: Not that teenagers are not educated and not that they don't know a whole lot.
SPEAKER_00: But the studying's been different and trying to, I thought, how does he get to the gym?
SPEAKER_00: How does he make time to do all these visits, study, and go to the gym too?
SPEAKER_00: And I haven't been to the gym in three weeks, I have to confess.
SPEAKER_00: So but it's been good and I've enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_00: And I just appreciate my pastor.
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you all had a great vacation and I did pray for that.
SPEAKER_00: And we can feel his presence missed, is it right?
SPEAKER_00: We're glad you're back.
SPEAKER_00: It's like you ever had that person in your life where you just had to kind of check with him before you made decisions, or you know, like that leaning, you could just lean.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of been like empty for me.
SPEAKER_00: I had to make decisions this week.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm I'm I'm still here.
SPEAKER_00: I've had Heather, so I've got that.
SPEAKER_00: But anyways, we're glad you're back, and it just feels better to have y'all here.
SPEAKER_00: And so, anyway, in Esther chapter uh four, uh, we will start today.
SPEAKER_00: And I got a lot to do today.
SPEAKER_00: I did this kind of to myself.
SPEAKER_00: I knew I had three weeks to teach through a book, and the first week I did chapters one and two, the second week I did chapter three, and so we've got four through nine today.
SPEAKER_00: And so I need some coffee.
SPEAKER_00: Uh as we get started, let me let me pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, bless the reading of your word, bless God, uh, use it to transform hearts and lives, and God may I honor you.
SPEAKER_00: Your word says, if you be lifted up, all men would come unto you.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, that's our goal.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, just get me out of the weak way and you speak.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: The story of Remember the Alamo, it's one of the most courageous stories of undying self-sacrifice that you'll see in history.
SPEAKER_00: In the brave fight, Colonel Travis and his men in 1836 took on Santa Anna, who had somewhere between 1800 and estimated 5,000 men coming for a fight.
SPEAKER_00: Travis had 182 men, and he outlined to the men, you will die in this fight for liberty.
SPEAKER_00: We have three choices that we can make.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, we can rush the enemy, killing a few, but ultimately being slaughtered.
SPEAKER_00: We can give up or surrender, which will ultimately end in the same, a slaughter, or we can take this stand in this place and defend as long as we can, diminishing the Mexican invasion and giving time for the Texas army to formulate so maybe there can be a greater stand.
SPEAKER_00: So they faced death bravely.
SPEAKER_00: They gave no quarter and asked for none.
SPEAKER_00: This was not an idle sacrifice for them.
SPEAKER_00: The men at the Alamo seemed to have superhuman boldness, was said of them.
SPEAKER_00: When Santa Ana approached, he blew a bugle signifying and sending word to the men inside that it's time for them to surrender.
SPEAKER_00: And the response is my favorite part of the beginning of this story.
SPEAKER_00: As he blew the bugle, signifying that they needed to surrender, the Alamo's response was they fired the first shot.
SPEAKER_00: Bring on the battle.
SPEAKER_00: They were fighting for more than their own lives, you see.
SPEAKER_00: And death was not going to dissuade them.
SPEAKER_00: It was time.
SPEAKER_00: It was their time.
SPEAKER_00: That's the name of our message this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's our time.
SPEAKER_00: As we look at the background in chapter 3, Haman, wicked Haman, is what we kind of really targeted and looked at.
SPEAKER_00: And Haman at the end of the chapter had talked the king into writing a decree that would be the genocide of the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we catch up in chapter 4, that's the situation at hand.
SPEAKER_00: And now we're looking at the first point this morning: an ethnic disaster.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 4, verses 1 through 3, it says, When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city.
SPEAKER_00: He cried out with a loud and bitter cry.
SPEAKER_00: He went as far as the front of the king's gate, for no one might enter the king's gate clothed with sackcloth.
SPEAKER_00: And in every province where the king's command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
SPEAKER_00: And so this ethnic disaster is about to take place, and the first thing that you see is this great site of remorse.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great site of remorse.
SPEAKER_00: And as you see the sinfulness of society, this is what comes to.
SPEAKER_00: And this, if you can picture, it's not the first time that there's been a sinful society.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the first time that sin is mentioned in a major way.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to understand, God hates sin.
SPEAKER_00: Right after God created man in Genesis chapter 7, God would destroy man because of its sin.
SPEAKER_00: God would bring a worldwide flood.
SPEAKER_00: And it says that he repented in his heart.
SPEAKER_00: He was hurting in his heart, grieving over the choices that man had made.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis chapter 19, not much longer, you see the story of Abraham and Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham before Lot says, How many people, for how many people that are righteous would you save the city?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, If there be 40 people.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, I don't think there are 40 people, so let me say 35.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes down to 20.
SPEAKER_00: If there be 20 people, if there be 10 people, and God says, if there be 10 people in that city, we'll save that city.
SPEAKER_00: But there weren't.
SPEAKER_00: And God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of its sinfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to understand, the side of this great remorse is because of the sinfulness of society.
SPEAKER_00: After my daughter got saved, my daughter got saved because she wanted a relationship with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: She really didn't understand hell, which is kind of a neat concept.
SPEAKER_00: As a six-year-old, she had gone to BSF, Bible Study Fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Afterwards, my wife went to a restaurant with her and she began to talk to Heather about how she wanted a relationship with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: A few weeks, months after, she found out about hell.
SPEAKER_00: And it destroyed her as a little girl.
SPEAKER_00: She began to weep as a child to know that people were going to burn and suffer in hell.
SPEAKER_00: It just broke her.
SPEAKER_00: And a few months ago, she had a friend named, well, I won't say her name, but she had a friend in our neighborhood, and she wanted that friend to come to Iwana.
SPEAKER_00: And that friend, we talked last week kind of about the racism issue in why Haman he wanted to kill these people.
SPEAKER_00: He was that racist.
SPEAKER_00: And so my daughter had this friend and she was Indian.
SPEAKER_00: And I told her, she asked me about an hour before I wana, can we go ask so-and-so if they can come to Iwana?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, that's probably not a good idea just to pop in on somebody, you know, right before church and ask them if they can go.
SPEAKER_00: I said, you know, if it were our family, we would say no if we didn't know the people.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we we want to know them.
SPEAKER_00: Get and uh so the next week comes, I said, next week ask me a day or two before, and I'll go to the house on Tuesday.
SPEAKER_00: Well, next week comes, it's Wednesday again.
SPEAKER_00: And she says, Can we go over and ask if she can come?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, Callie.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, we're getting ready to leave for church now.
SPEAKER_00: I I'm trying to, in my mind, I said, I'm gonna set her up for disappointment if we go over there.
SPEAKER_00: And she says, no.
SPEAKER_00: She's, I said, well, and finally I said, no, we'll do it next week.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I went around, did something, I come back, and she's just bawling on the couch, face down, crying on the couch, and I'm like, what is wrong with you?
SPEAKER_00: I said, it's not that big a deal.
SPEAKER_00: And um she said, she said, Daddy, she said, what if she doesn't come to know Jesus and she goes to hell?
SPEAKER_00: I said, we'll go ask her.
SPEAKER_00: We'll go ask her.
SPEAKER_00: And her the parents, it was unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: They they didn't know us from anyone.
SPEAKER_00: We come in and different cultures, and she said, if you teach good things, then she can go.
SPEAKER_00: So we teach great things.
SPEAKER_00: So she came for a few weeks, and in Iwana, my daughter, afterwards, she could see God moving.
SPEAKER_00: My daughter led her friend to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: But it was that that sight of sin, that sight of the effect of sin, that thought of hell that brought great remorse.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to understand that God hates sin.
SPEAKER_00: It separates us from him.
SPEAKER_00: And the sinfulness of society brought great sin.
SPEAKER_00: The Persian people up to this point were greatly full of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And Haman's offer that he brings to the king, it's like the king flippantly doesn't really care.
SPEAKER_00: He says, okay, fine, we'll sign the papers, here's my signet ring, and we'll just get rid of the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: And it was an evil decree.
SPEAKER_00: And the decrees back then it was called the law of the Medes and Persians.
SPEAKER_00: And in the law of the Medes and Persians, it was a decree, it's kind of signifies the type of society it was.
SPEAKER_00: If you messed up on something, you weren't gonna go back on it.
SPEAKER_00: The law of the Medes and Persians shared that you couldn't go back and reverse the law.
SPEAKER_00: So it's like, well, you messed up on this.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're not gonna amend it, we're not gonna admit that I messed up.
SPEAKER_00: So when you signal, when you signed a decree, you were not supposed to go back.
SPEAKER_00: There was a law that you couldn't reverse the law.
SPEAKER_00: And so this evil decree was given.
SPEAKER_00: It was signed and sealed, and I want you to understand it's not just Persia, it's not just the flood, it's not just Sodom and Gomorrah.
SPEAKER_00: There is sinfulness in this society.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read to you a prayer that was shared in Congress that got a lot of people upset and gotten some feathers ruffled.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read to you this prayer that was given.
SPEAKER_00: It says, We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reserved our values.
SPEAKER_00: We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word and call it pluralism.
SPEAKER_00: We have exploited the poor and call it the lottery.
SPEAKER_00: We have rewarded laziness and call it welfare.
SPEAKER_00: We have killed our unborn and call it choice.
SPEAKER_00: We have shot abortionists and call it justifiable.
SPEAKER_00: We have neglected to discipline children and called it building self-esteem.
SPEAKER_00: We have abused power and called it politics.
SPEAKER_00: We have coveted our neighbors' possessions and called it ambition.
SPEAKER_00: We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
SPEAKER_00: We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it an age of enlightenment.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Search us, O God, and know our hearts today, cleanse us from every sin and set us free.
SPEAKER_00: There was a pouring out of people in Congress when this prayer was prayed as people left the doors because they couldn't believe what was being said.
SPEAKER_00: We have a sinful society, and that's the bad things.
SPEAKER_00: The bad is bad in our country, but the good sometimes is bad.
SPEAKER_00: You heard the word humanism?
SPEAKER_00: It's all about self.
SPEAKER_00: Those are good things.
SPEAKER_00: Or hedonism, the pleasure principle.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Timothy 3 says this that they will be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.
SPEAKER_00: See, today's idol is more in self than sitting on a shelf.
SPEAKER_00: Pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you today are parents that have children 18 or 100?
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, a lot of the crowd here.
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: When you think about what's going on today in our country with your children and my children, I went not long ago to an eight-year-old ball game, and it was pretty unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna lie to you.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen a lot like this.
SPEAKER_00: But this ball team with eight-year-olds could hit the ball, they could play.
SPEAKER_00: I saw three double plays in an eight-year-old ball game.
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, I played till I was 16 or 17, and I made all-stars.
SPEAKER_00: I did some, I almost made the Tennessee Temple baseball team.
SPEAKER_00: I probably only participated in two or three double plays my whole teenage life.
SPEAKER_00: These kids were turning double plays, bam! And I thought, that takes a lot of practice.
SPEAKER_00: For an eight-year-old to be that good at baseball, it takes a lot of time.
SPEAKER_00: And I was hit with this thought.
SPEAKER_00: My kids play soccer and and and why they're they're very good, but I was hit with this thought about the practice and all that it takes for a child to be that good at a sport.
SPEAKER_00: You have to practice, and you gotta do it a lot to get that good.
SPEAKER_00: How many of our children, you raised your hand, do you witness them reading the Bible every day?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand back up.
SPEAKER_00: But how many of you as parents, you witness your children reading their Bible?
SPEAKER_00: What's most important to you, parents, me, is gonna be most important to them.
SPEAKER_00: What you bring before them daily.
SPEAKER_00: Now they know if the ball glove is important.
SPEAKER_00: They know if your work is important because they know that you're missing, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're gone, you're working.
SPEAKER_00: They know if vacation is really important.
SPEAKER_00: You see, my daughter is taken up to cooking.
SPEAKER_00: What is my wife's biggest hobby?
SPEAKER_00: She's a great cook and she loves to cook for people.
SPEAKER_00: And so my daughter just decided that she was just gonna love cooking, and she does, and she's begun to get good at it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful.
SPEAKER_00: My sons will plop down now with me and cheer without knowing anybody's name or anything, but they will cheer the Red Sox because I've been a Red Sox baseball fan for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: If I turn it on, almost all of them say something, Red Sox, they get excited because that's important to me.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes in our society today, the sinfulness is that all these good things are before God things.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see this sinfulness in our society, and it was a site of great remorse.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the king brought forth an evil decree, but we have a sin decree.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 3.23 tells us.
SPEAKER_00: For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: And Romans 6.23 furthers that sentence.
SPEAKER_00: It says, For the wages of that sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: We have an expiration date, and that's been decreed.
SPEAKER_00: One day you're gonna face your death date.
SPEAKER_00: What have you done with the life that you've had before?
SPEAKER_00: You see, the first thing is a sight of great remorse, but the second thing that we'll see in this ethnic disaster is the speechlessness of the saints.
SPEAKER_00: The speechlessness of saints.
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't often get caught speechless, but uh Heather in our marriage caught me in a lie once.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I didn't let it happen again.
SPEAKER_00: But we had a small child, it was Callie, and she was young, and Heather said, Callie used to plop in bed with us, and all our she wanted juice.
SPEAKER_00: She would call it juice amore, like she wants more juice.
SPEAKER_00: She said, Juice amore, juice amoor.
SPEAKER_00: And so she plopped down in bed, and Heather looks at me.
SPEAKER_00: It's early in the morning, okay, I'll get it.
SPEAKER_00: So I go downstairs and I'm looking.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you need something like that, it's never there.
SPEAKER_00: You need the pacifier, you know, it's some other planet, it's going off to it's like getting a match for your sock.
SPEAKER_00: You you never, and so I'm searching and finally, I look, finally, I look in a dishwasher, I'm half out of it.
SPEAKER_00: I look at the thing, I go fill it with apple juice, I bring it back upstairs, I give it to her, and Callie's beginning.
SPEAKER_00: And Heather says, Is it clean?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Yeah, it's clean.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, Where'd you find it?
SPEAKER_00: The dishwasher.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Did you wash it out?
SPEAKER_00: I said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: She then, in all her detective skills, gets up.
SPEAKER_00: I hear her going downstairs, boom, boom.
SPEAKER_00: She goes down.
SPEAKER_00: I come downstairs and she says, There's no water in the sink.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh.
SPEAKER_00: She says, You said you cleaned it out, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, she had me.
SPEAKER_00: I was speechless.
SPEAKER_00: I had nothing to say.
SPEAKER_00: All I could do at that moment was apologize.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, I will never ever lie again.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, I can't get away with it.
SPEAKER_00: But second, the way I feel right now, I felt so small.
SPEAKER_00: Like I just lied, and my child's drinking moldy apple juice.
SPEAKER_00: So I could just get it done.
SPEAKER_00: But the speechlessness in that moment, listen, there was a survey done.
SPEAKER_00: Ten reasons why Christians are speechless.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, they're afraid.
SPEAKER_00: They're afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, they don't feel qualified.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, they lack compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Number four said, because they're imbibed with the worldly culture.
SPEAKER_00: They get too much of the world in them.
SPEAKER_00: Number six, they feel like they lack training.
SPEAKER_00: Number seven, they have intermingled faith beliefs.
SPEAKER_00: They're really not sure what they believe.
SPEAKER_00: They have no accountability in their life.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have anybody speaking in their ear.
SPEAKER_00: And the last one is they have a sin problem.
SPEAKER_00: You see, for me in that moment, I couldn't say anything because I was participating in the wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I had nothing I could say.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at this ethnic disaster, there's a speechlessness of saints.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at our churches today, the percentages of evangelism are dropping increasingly.
SPEAKER_00: People don't want to speak up.
SPEAKER_00: And why don't they want to speak up?
SPEAKER_00: Is it one of those reasons that was listed?
SPEAKER_00: Are they afraid?
SPEAKER_00: Do they not have strong enough faith?
SPEAKER_00: Do they not feel equipped?
SPEAKER_00: Are they involved in too much sin?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is, but there's an evangelist culture.
SPEAKER_00: There's a prayerless culture.
SPEAKER_00: We're not speaking up.
SPEAKER_00: And then on the opposite side, what we are speaking up for is watered down.
SPEAKER_00: And it's prosperity.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants to speak about hell and sin.
SPEAKER_00: There's a speechlessness of saints.
SPEAKER_00: Well, see, in this ethnic disaster, you could see that sight of great remorse, but then let it be, you could hear the sound of a great roar.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what it says.
SPEAKER_00: When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 3 it says, In every province where the king's command and decree arrived, there was a great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing.
SPEAKER_00: The sound of a great roar.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Mordecai was walking about and had this bitter cry.
SPEAKER_00: Mordecai may be one of the godliest persons in this story.
SPEAKER_00: He is broken for his people.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalms 51, 17, it says this God loves the broken heart.
SPEAKER_00: God can work through a broken heart.
SPEAKER_00: This week we took my kids to get shots and talk about a process.
SPEAKER_00: We get them in there, and Wyatt decides he's gonna man up and go first, and so they get Wyatt on the table and give him shots, and we told them, if you don't cry, we'll give you something.
SPEAKER_00: I forget what Heather told him, but Wyatt steps up to the plate, takes his shots, ooh, gets the band-aids, puts them on, and he's he's manned, but he never did cry.
SPEAKER_00: Callie goes second, she gets up and she gets hers, and she didn't cry while the shots were being administered, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Until she saw Mama just a few seconds later and lost her life.
SPEAKER_00: She was strong because Wyatt was strong.
SPEAKER_00: And then Weston got up and he saw all the both of them get theirs, and when they came coming for him, he cried before it even got there.
SPEAKER_00: He said, He was just terrible.
SPEAKER_00: And so these tears happen.
SPEAKER_00: Tears bring immunity.
SPEAKER_00: Tears bring strength.
SPEAKER_00: Tears can lead to protection for others.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the Bible says the Lord is near the brokenhearted.
SPEAKER_00: When's the last time you were broken about the society around you?
SPEAKER_00: When's the last time you were broken about your family, your own situation?
SPEAKER_00: You see, God is okay with your tears.
SPEAKER_00: He heals the brokenhearted, and the Bible says, and he bandages their wounds.
SPEAKER_00: You know, pain is okay with kids as long as there's a bandage at the end, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because the bandage is cool, right?
SPEAKER_00: The bandage, as long as you got one of these, I was in the office reading this morning, and the baggage says spiritual band-aids.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, well, that works.
SPEAKER_00: And so, as long as you get one of these, and whoever came up with characters and stuff on band-aids, you know, they were a genius because then the kid can focus.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look, I got Spider Man.
SPEAKER_00: Ah, Spider Man, I'm awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And so you get this, I got a sticker that's okay to wear on my body.
SPEAKER_00: And so we put these things on, and the band, as long as there's a band, and I want you to understand.
SPEAKER_00: Who is bandaging you when you're brokenhearted?
unknown: That's good.
SPEAKER_00: Who's bringing that bandage?
SPEAKER_00: You see, Mordecai, Mordecai had a bitter cry.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews were weeping and wailing, verse number three.
SPEAKER_00: And the Jews were scattered throughout Persia during this time.
SPEAKER_00: And while many of them still observed Jehovah as God, there was a great many other who were idolatrous and not living for him.
SPEAKER_00: And so the great roar of this coming genocide was symbolic.
SPEAKER_00: This weeping and wailing, you see it in other places in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It's talked about in a place called hell, where there'd be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Xerxes signed a death sentence that would go down to kill a people group.
SPEAKER_00: But sin signed our death sentence.
SPEAKER_00: And friend, you will have to face eternity because of your sin.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that in Romans 6.23.
SPEAKER_00: The wages of that sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: You have a death sentence.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, there's going to be a real punishable place called hell.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says there will be weeping and wailing, weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you hear that sound of a great roar, but then let her see.
SPEAKER_00: You'll experience as you look through the scripture a sign of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse number three.
SPEAKER_00: In every province where the king's command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing.
SPEAKER_00: Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
SPEAKER_00: The sackcloth and ashes in this scripture is symbolic.
SPEAKER_00: Sackcloth and ashes was kind of the sackcloth was like a burlap sack or like goat's skin strewn together, and you would put it on to be in physical discomfort, to be in outward discomfort.
SPEAKER_00: And then they would take ashes and place them over their face and over their head and let them pour down their face as an outward sign of an inward feeling.
SPEAKER_00: There's another place in scripture that you see this.
SPEAKER_00: You see it in the book of Jonah, when Jonah comes with his great short message.
SPEAKER_00: Repent, repent, or the city will be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jonah came to that city, the king of that city said, Everyone take sackcloth and ashes and begin to fast and pray.
SPEAKER_00: It's a symbol of an outward sign and inward feeling.
SPEAKER_00: Well, look at verse number four.
SPEAKER_00: So Esther sees this.
SPEAKER_00: Esther's maids and eunuchs came and told her, and the queen was deeply distressed.
SPEAKER_00: She sent garment to clothe Mordecai and take his sackcloth away from him, but he would not accept them.
SPEAKER_00: You see, he had a suit of clothes and he rejected it.
SPEAKER_00: Esther didn't even really understand the situation at this point, and that this decree had been made.
SPEAKER_00: And she hears word of Mordecai down there and being in sackcloth and ashes, and she says, Take him another suit of clothes.
SPEAKER_00: Just take a he can't be near the king's gate dressed that way.
SPEAKER_00: Take him another suit of clothes.
SPEAKER_00: And he rejected it.
SPEAKER_00: He said, You don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: We have we have an ethnic disaster on our hands.
SPEAKER_00: The sum total of the Jewish population were on the verge of disaster.
SPEAKER_00: An unknown author said this a man's destiny is not determined by chances, but by choices.
unknown: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: By choices.
SPEAKER_00: And number two is Esther's destiny.
SPEAKER_00: We'll look at that.
SPEAKER_00: The choices that Esther will make.
SPEAKER_00: It's her destiny.
SPEAKER_00: See, her background up to this point is that she had not necessarily been living for God.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people, when they get in the book of Esther, they make her this hero in the story.
SPEAKER_00: And what she does following this is very heroic.
SPEAKER_00: But up to this point, you're not given any real idea that she's necessarily living for God.
SPEAKER_00: The chronology of the book says that she had been married for almost five years at this point, and you don't see anywhere where she's practicing her Jewish background.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, because she's trying to keep it hidden from the king.
SPEAKER_00: And so she wouldn't necessarily be worshiping in public or attending services.
SPEAKER_00: If she was doing anything, it would be in secret.
SPEAKER_00: But it's amazing how God can change a person's life, even if they haven't been publicly living for him in a spotlight or anything like that, if they'll just be a little bit obedient.
SPEAKER_00: There's much in obedience.
SPEAKER_00: See, she would go in her marriage sometimes 30 days without seeing the king, and you see that through the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: He needed not know that she was a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine you lived with someone for five years and they didn't know your background.
SPEAKER_00: If Heather were just cooking and she said, Rick, I gotta tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: I'm Filipino.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: We've been together all this time.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean to tell me this?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you think you would know a little more about somebody if you spent a lot of time with them?
SPEAKER_00: And so probably the topic of religion didn't come up very often.
SPEAKER_00: It was says that, said that Xerxes observed a god called Xoostrium, an idolatrous god, but they probably it probably didn't come up at their table often.
SPEAKER_00: And so at this time, the Greek historian Herodotus said that Xerxes was pretty well controlled with his time with his harem.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of his time was with his harem.
SPEAKER_00: So that's important background information so you can see how Esther's destiny plays out.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse number eight.
SPEAKER_00: It says he also gave him a copy of the written decree for their destruction, which was given at Shushan, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her, and that he might command her to go into the king to make supplication to him and plead before him for their people.
SPEAKER_00: So we see in Esther's destiny is that her strategic purpose lies ahead.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 8, she has a strategic purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to understand, God has given every person here a strategic purpose, CCW.
SPEAKER_00: You have a strategic purpose and you have gifts that God's given you.
SPEAKER_00: And Esther, in this part of the story, as she moves forward, will become a picture of Jesus in her strategic purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, that she had purposed after this was to go in and repeal the law.
SPEAKER_00: She was to repeal the law that the king had decreed.
SPEAKER_00: That was part of her strategic purpose.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in 1865, Abraham Lincoln amended a law that would abolish slavery.
SPEAKER_00: William Wilberforce in Great Britain had great movement and the move to abolish slavery.
SPEAKER_00: Esther was called to go before a king on a legal matter.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The picture here, Jesus went before a king on our behalf on a legal matter.
SPEAKER_00: To make supplication.
SPEAKER_00: And then the second thing, she was to reveal her plea.
SPEAKER_00: She was to repeal the law, and then she was to reveal her plea.
SPEAKER_00: That the Jews be saved, that her people be saved.
SPEAKER_00: In 2 Peter 3:9, the Bible says this that God is not willing that any should perish.
SPEAKER_00: That all should come to repentance and faith.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus came, he came to seek and to save that which was lost.
SPEAKER_00: And so the picture here of Jesus, I hope you don't miss it.
SPEAKER_00: Her purpose was to come and repeal a law and to reveal a plea for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: You see, but she has a stressful predicament.
SPEAKER_00: She has a strategic purpose, but she has a stressful predicament.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verses 9 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: It says, So Hath returned and told Esther the words of Mordecai.
SPEAKER_00: Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a command for Mordecai.
SPEAKER_00: All the king's servants and all the people of the king's provinces know that any man or woman who goes into the inner court to the king, who has not been called, he has but one law.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, they can't reverse the law.
SPEAKER_00: Put all to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter, that he may live.
SPEAKER_00: Yet I myself have not been called to go into the king these thirty days.
SPEAKER_00: And so Esther says, This is terrible.
SPEAKER_00: This decree is a terrible decree, and I don't want my people to go, but now this, if I go in before the king, the law is if I if he doesn't hold up the golden scepter to me, I could die, I could lose my life.
SPEAKER_00: Stressful predicament.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've had some stressful predicaments.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, be anxious for nothing but in everything with prayer and supplication.
SPEAKER_00: Let your request be made known unto God.
SPEAKER_00: It was stressful.
SPEAKER_00: And it was illegal and punishable by death.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't remember the first week, it's notable to know that this was a king who was a known lunatic filled with rage, often drunken.
SPEAKER_00: And she would have to go in before him.
SPEAKER_00: Stressful.
SPEAKER_00: Then not only that, but she would have to reveal her lie that she had concealed.
SPEAKER_00: She would have to reveal her identity.
SPEAKER_00: And she would have to call out the king's best man.
SPEAKER_00: Second in command was Haman, evil Haman.
SPEAKER_00: She would have to call out his the man who he put in control, which would question the king's judgment.
SPEAKER_00: So talk about a stressful predicament.
SPEAKER_00: But it's time, church, for the body of Christ to do hard things.
SPEAKER_00: It's time we stop skating issues.
SPEAKER_00: It's time we face the persecution that we have to face in order to not be politically correct.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to take bold steps.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a coincidence that CCW this year called on the Lord as a year of prayer and God's put it to its test.
SPEAKER_00: It's time, it's time you go to an altar.
SPEAKER_00: It's time, prodigal, to come home.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to serve, time to clean.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to help a neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to get rid of that last dime to help somebody.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to start a ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Time to write a check.
SPEAKER_00: The door is open.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to plead.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to call sin a sin.
SPEAKER_00: Look at somebody next to you and go, it's time.
SPEAKER_00: It's time.
SPEAKER_00: Look at another person, your second choice, and say, it's time.
SPEAKER_00: You know they're your second choice.
SPEAKER_00: Or you'd have looked at them first.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you a practical question.
SPEAKER_00: What have you honestly put off?
SPEAKER_00: You know God said something, spoke something in the stillness and quietness of your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, It's time.
SPEAKER_00: It's time for you.
SPEAKER_00: I've given you this gift.
SPEAKER_00: Is there something you've put aside?
SPEAKER_00: Something you need to revisit this morning?
SPEAKER_00: There's a courthouse in Ohio that stands in a very unique location.
SPEAKER_00: Raindrops that fall on the north side of this building go into Lake Ontario and the Gulf of St.
SPEAKER_00: Lawrence.
SPEAKER_00: While those falling on the south side go into the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.
SPEAKER_00: At precisely the point of the peak of the roof, just a gentle wind can determine the destiny of many raindrops.
SPEAKER_00: It will make a huge difference of more than 2,000 miles as to the final destination.
SPEAKER_00: You see, by the smallest deed or choice of words, we could set in motion influences that can change the course of the lives of others here and now, and it can affect their eternal destiny.
SPEAKER_00: Esther had a destiny, and she had a stressful predicament.
SPEAKER_00: But let me show you in verse 14 through 16 her spiritual power, where she found her power in it, where the tide begins to change for Esther.
SPEAKER_00: It says, For if you remain, she gets this letter from Mordecai, for if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place.
SPEAKER_00: They're God's chosen people.
SPEAKER_00: But you and your father's house will perish, yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this.
SPEAKER_00: Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me.
SPEAKER_00: Neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day.
SPEAKER_00: My maids and I will fast likewise, and so I will go to the king which is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.
SPEAKER_00: You see, her spiritual power in that moment was she went to the Lord in prayer and fasting.
SPEAKER_00: She asked all her people, Tell everybody, pray and fast.
SPEAKER_00: Don't eat a thing, pray and fast for me.
SPEAKER_00: I may die in this, but pray and fast because if it's the time that this is gonna happen and God's gonna break heaven open and save our people, then I will go.
SPEAKER_00: She said, pray and fast.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder how much of us are praying and fasting, spending our time investing on our knees.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Esther would ask the people to pray and fast, and that's where her spiritual power came from.
SPEAKER_00: And then she began to live and follow in God's will.
SPEAKER_00: Look at chapter 5, verses 1 through 3.
SPEAKER_00: Now it happened on the third day that Esther put on her royal robes and stood on the inner court of the king's palace across from the king's house.
SPEAKER_00: While the king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, facing the entrance of the house.
SPEAKER_00: So it was when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court that she found favor in his sight.
SPEAKER_00: And the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand.
SPEAKER_00: Then Esther went near and touched the top of the scepter, and the king said to her, What do you wish, Queen Esther?
SPEAKER_00: What is your request?
SPEAKER_00: It shall be given to you up to half of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: You see, she began to live in God's will.
SPEAKER_00: She said, Fast and pray, and she found favor.
SPEAKER_00: You think that's a coincidence or by accident?
SPEAKER_00: It's a rage-filled lunatic who his wife prior wouldn't come in and dance before him.
SPEAKER_00: So he had her vanquished from the kingdom, and this woman walks before him, which would be illegal, and she said, She all of a sudden has favor.
SPEAKER_00: It says in the scripture, there'd be time where they wouldn't see each other for a month.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like they were close.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't know she was a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: And she found favor.
SPEAKER_00: Coincidental, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way the Holy Spirit works.
SPEAKER_00: She said, Pray fast.
SPEAKER_00: And she began to live in God's will.
SPEAKER_00: Well, secondly, it says in verse 4, so Esther answered, If it pleases the king, let the king and Haman come today to the banquet that I have prepared for him.
SPEAKER_00: So she said, I'll give you anything you want, queen.
SPEAKER_00: So first she found favor.
SPEAKER_00: Second, she found food.
SPEAKER_00: There is no doubt that Esther is a Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: Probably a Southern Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: Because her plan that God gives her, maybe in a dream, is you got to go through the king's stomach to get to his heart.
SPEAKER_00: You got to go through a banquet.
SPEAKER_00: Not just one banquet, two banquets.
SPEAKER_00: And there's probably some good old-fashioned PFC, that's Persian fried chicken involved.
SPEAKER_00: And so she says, I will have a banquet for the king.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
unknown: That's good.
SPEAKER_00: So you can't find it, it's rare.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter six.
SPEAKER_00: I told you I had to get through a lot of chapters.
SPEAKER_00: So move on to chapter six.
SPEAKER_00: Let's see what happens.
SPEAKER_00: She's living in God's will.
SPEAKER_00: That night, verse one through three, that night, all of a sudden the king could not sleep.
SPEAKER_00: Strange.
SPEAKER_00: So one was commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king.
SPEAKER_00: And it was found written that Mordecai had told Abicthana and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs, the doorkeepers who had sought to lay hands on King Asweris, Xerxes.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king said, What honor or dignity has been bestowed on Mordecai for this?
SPEAKER_00: And the king's servants who had attended him said, Nothing has been done for him.
SPEAKER_00: You see, she found favor, she found food, and then all of a sudden you see fate happening.
SPEAKER_00: The fate of God, its destiny working itself out.
SPEAKER_00: God will wake somebody up and put you on their heart.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that crazy?
SPEAKER_00: God will wake somebody up.
SPEAKER_00: I've had people in my life said, You were on my heart at 3 o'clock this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it was.
SPEAKER_00: God will wake somebody up and all of a sudden they will have a check and put it in the mail on your behalf.
SPEAKER_00: God works in these ways.
SPEAKER_00: And God did this for him.
SPEAKER_00: He wakes them up.
SPEAKER_00: I said in week one, God works through big miracles, external displays, and day-to-day provisions, the providential work of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so God could have sent an asteroid to answer this problem.
SPEAKER_00: You want to kill my people, the Jews?
SPEAKER_00: Asteroid.
SPEAKER_00: And they're done.
SPEAKER_00: He takes care of all the Persians, all the people against him.
SPEAKER_00: But he's working provisionally through Esther and these people.
SPEAKER_00: And so he sent Esther and he could have sent a plague, but instead he sent some indigestion from the banquet.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Provisionally, God works.
SPEAKER_00: Woke him up.
SPEAKER_00: He woke him up.
SPEAKER_00: And instead of speaking words, I said, God could just speak words and something could happen.
SPEAKER_00: He spoke and the world came to existence.
SPEAKER_00: He could have just but spoke words.
SPEAKER_00: There could have been hail drops.
SPEAKER_00: He could have done anything, but instead he uses an old book.
SPEAKER_00: He's working provisionally in this story.
SPEAKER_00: Keep living in his will because you can't see it or understand it on this side, but on the other side, he is at work and he's pushing and doing something that you may not understand.
SPEAKER_00: There's a story told us here that David Wilson, when he was working for Morrison's cafeteria, he and Christie were planning to make a move.
SPEAKER_00: And in the history of kind of our church here is here, maybe because this move never happened.
SPEAKER_00: There wasn't an asteroid, there wasn't some great accident, but a pastor said to a man, maybe you should consider staying, and we'll see how God works this thing out.
SPEAKER_00: And instead of moving, they thought about what without a plan.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a plan, I don't have the money to make this happen.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just start a business without the money to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll see what God does and how he opens doors.
SPEAKER_00: See, you might not know what's on that side, but on this side, keep living in God's will, keep moving in God's will.
SPEAKER_00: We moved from Indiana to Alabama, really not knowing how everything was gonna work.
SPEAKER_00: And we still praying, keep praying.
SPEAKER_00: I've got a house sale that if they if what they said is true will happen next week, but it's been two years going on, and we didn't know.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't have a plan, but we had a God who said, This is my will, so you follow his will.
SPEAKER_00: She found her fate, and church, it's time for us to find our fate in him.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to stand.
SPEAKER_00: She was willing to stand, she was willing to sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: She said, I could lose my life.
SPEAKER_00: If I perish, I perish.
SPEAKER_00: She stood.
SPEAKER_00: She sacrificed and she stirred up.
SPEAKER_00: It was Esther's destiny to go before the king for such a time as this.
SPEAKER_00: And number three, to lead it led to enemies being destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: Move on to chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: We're moving.
SPEAKER_00: Enemies being destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: Look through verses 1 through 6.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see first the demonstration at the dinner table.
SPEAKER_00: Second banquet.
SPEAKER_00: So the king and Haman went to dine with Queen Esther.
SPEAKER_00: And on the second day at the banquet of wine, the king again said to Esther, What is your petition, Queen Esther?
SPEAKER_00: It'll be granted you, and what is your request up to half the kingdom it shall be done.
SPEAKER_00: The Queen Esther answered and said, If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given, me at my petition, and my people at my request.
SPEAKER_00: For we have been sold, my people and I, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated.
SPEAKER_00: Had we been sold as male and female slaves, I would have held my tongue, although the enemy could never compensate for the king's loss.
SPEAKER_00: So King Aswaris answered and said to Queen Esther, Who is he?
SPEAKER_00: And where is he who would dare to presume in his heart to do such a thing?
SPEAKER_00: And Esther said, Right there, the adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman.
SPEAKER_00: So Haman was terrified before the king and queen.
SPEAKER_00: You see, at this moment the enemies were about to be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: There was a demonstration at the dinner table.
SPEAKER_00: And notice a couple of things.
SPEAKER_00: Esther does three things in this conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, first she goes before the king and she is the king respectable?
SPEAKER_00: Everything we know about the king.
SPEAKER_00: No, the king is not a respectable character.
SPEAKER_00: Is Esther respectful?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands, you may save some time in counseling.
SPEAKER_00: If you will be respectable, then you might get respectful.
SPEAKER_00: And so in this presentation, she goes before the king and she's respectful.
SPEAKER_00: Then she comes secondly boldly with her petition.
SPEAKER_00: She comes boldly.
SPEAKER_00: She says, This save me and my people.
SPEAKER_00: Would you save me and my people?
SPEAKER_00: She gives the request.
SPEAKER_00: She comes respectful, she gives the request.
SPEAKER_00: And the third thing she does is she identifies herself.
SPEAKER_00: She says, I'm the Lord's.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't know this about me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the Lord's.
SPEAKER_00: I'm God's chosen people.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't know this about me.
SPEAKER_00: And Haman, your second man, is an enemy of ours.
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to have us destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: Talk about a stressful moment.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas a lady poised before a king, knowing she could have been at death's door, she says, Save me and my people.
SPEAKER_00: Well, look at what happens.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just happen quickly.
SPEAKER_00: There's an important verse, verse number seven.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king arose in his wrath from the banquet of wine and went into the palace garden.
SPEAKER_00: But Haman stood before Queen Esther, pleading for his life, for he saw the evil that was determined against him by the king.
SPEAKER_00: See the second thing, they had a demonstration of the Dinner table, and then we have deliberation at the deck.
SPEAKER_00: The king goes out on the deck for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, you'd have to at least assume that Haman was his friend on some level.
SPEAKER_00: He was second in command.
SPEAKER_00: He allowed Haman to do pretty much all his bidding and going.
SPEAKER_00: And so you have to assume that he was on some level his friend.
SPEAKER_00: And he was the king, and he just signed with his signet ring a decree that all should be killed under his name.
SPEAKER_00: He sent it out.
SPEAKER_00: It's already gone out.
SPEAKER_00: And so the king is on the deck thinking, how do I get, how do I undo this?
SPEAKER_00: And notice, now the king is not really concerned about the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: Because if he was, he would have never signed it to begin with.
SPEAKER_00: Now the king is not concerned about Esther's God.
SPEAKER_00: The king is still concerned about the king.
SPEAKER_00: And when he sees all this happening, he goes out to the deck.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe he's thinking, how can I get this taken care of without getting any blood on my hands?
SPEAKER_00: How can I get this taken care of without looking any lesser of a king to my people?
SPEAKER_00: How do I get this taken care of?
SPEAKER_00: Because if my queen has a problem, it's really a king problem.
SPEAKER_00: My reputation is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: So he comes back in from the deck and look at what he sees in verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: It gets crazy.
SPEAKER_00: When the king returned from the palace garden to the place of the banquet of wine, Haman had fallen across the couch where Esther was.
SPEAKER_00: Talk about bad timing.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king said, Will he also assault the queen?
SPEAKER_00: I am in the house.
SPEAKER_00: As the words left the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face.
SPEAKER_00: No, he comes back in.
SPEAKER_00: And what a curious altercation.
SPEAKER_00: There's Haman strewn across Esther on the couch.
SPEAKER_00: Now, only the eunuchs were really permitted to be around the king's wife, the queen.
SPEAKER_00: In this special time, because Esther had asked for Haman to be at the banquet, he happened to be there, and the king allowed it.
SPEAKER_00: But you weren't supposed to come in and be on a couch with a queen.
SPEAKER_00: That was not befitting a queen.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't come in.
SPEAKER_00: And there's some historians and some people some theologians who in this scripture write that they believe the angel of Gabriel came and gave old Haman a little nudge.
SPEAKER_00: And then he fell on the couch at this moment.
SPEAKER_00: Because he came in and all of a sudden there's Haman lying across his wife.
SPEAKER_00: And the word he uses here is not lying across, my wife, but it's the word that's equal to molest.
SPEAKER_00: Will you molest the queen in my presence?
SPEAKER_00: You see, this all goes down, and Xerxes has his answer.
SPEAKER_00: Blood off my hands.
SPEAKER_00: He was assaulting the queen.
SPEAKER_00: He's done with.
SPEAKER_00: The decree he put forth, it has no bearing anymore.
SPEAKER_00: That was his problem.
SPEAKER_00: Blood off my hands.
SPEAKER_00: All Haman ever wanted, you gotta understand, was to see the face of his king.
SPEAKER_00: Haman, you remember back in the other chapter when he when the king asked him, How would you be reward a man of honor?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, He said, put the king's royal robe on him.
SPEAKER_00: Let him ride the king's royal horse.
SPEAKER_00: Put a headdress on him like the king.
SPEAKER_00: He loved the king.
SPEAKER_00: And all he wanted to do was be close to his king.
SPEAKER_00: And partially he wanted his king's power.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted that power.
SPEAKER_00: He hungered for it.
SPEAKER_00: He longed to ride the king's horse and have people look at him and this banquet he thought was going to be a special time where he would be honored.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to see the king's face.
SPEAKER_00: And at that moment, they covered his face.
SPEAKER_00: And when he opened his eyes up, he seen a whole nother king.
SPEAKER_00: There's a term called quorum Deo.
SPEAKER_00: And quorum Deo means living in the face of God.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians says, one day we will see Jesus face to face.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Xerxes was Haman's king.
SPEAKER_00: And it didn't work out for him.
SPEAKER_00: Who is your king?
SPEAKER_00: Who do you follow?
SPEAKER_00: Who do you long to impress?
SPEAKER_00: Who do you want to be your provider?
SPEAKER_00: Who do you long for?
SPEAKER_00: Is it a spouse?
SPEAKER_00: Is it a co-worker?
SPEAKER_00: Is it an employer?
SPEAKER_00: Is it in the mirror?
SPEAKER_00: Who is your king?
SPEAKER_00: You see, Haman was banking on that king.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the wrath has always subsided at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Now Harbona, one of the eunuchs, said to the king, Look, the gallows 50 cubits high, which Haman made for Mordecai, who spoke good on the king's behalf, is standing at the house of Haman.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king said, Hang him on it.
SPEAKER_00: The king's wrath requires blood be shed.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, I said earlier that we have a sin decree?
SPEAKER_00: It requires that blood be shed.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody has to get crucified.
SPEAKER_00: Haman, remember, longed to crucify Mordecai because he was worried about somebody taking his place.
SPEAKER_00: And so he built in his backyard, 75 foot tall, 50 cubic, a very large cross-like structure, gallows, so that others could see that Mordecai was a man that would have to bow to Haman.
SPEAKER_00: So others could see how great Haman was.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in a horrendous day of transition, he's hung on his own cross in front of his own family, in his own yard.
SPEAKER_00: He opened his eyes to see another king, and that king with a deeper wrath and a greater sense of justice, more perfect justice.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God calls a pastor to prepare you for your day of death.
SPEAKER_00: Are you prepared?
SPEAKER_00: People want to say, well, we we don't know anything about Haman.
SPEAKER_00: Was he psychologically imbalanced?
SPEAKER_00: Did he he can't be all that dark?
SPEAKER_00: He must be misunderstood.
SPEAKER_00: There had to be some light in Haman.
SPEAKER_00: There's too much dark.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like to think that God treats people like this.
SPEAKER_00: Some preach the opposite, that Haman got poetic justice on this day.
SPEAKER_00: And look, he's getting crucified in his yard.
SPEAKER_00: Awesome! He's really a bad guy and deserved to die.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, in John 11, 35, such a quick scripture, Jesus weeps.
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't weep because Lazarus is dead, because he's coming to show off and show out in a second.
SPEAKER_00: But when he gets there, he's grieved at the process of sin.
SPEAKER_00: He sees his friend's death and he hurts because of the pain of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And he sees his other friends crying and grieving, and he's hurt because they're hurting.
SPEAKER_00: And the whole process of sin is grieving.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, as much as we know, Haman didn't get saved that day.
SPEAKER_00: He went to hell.
SPEAKER_00: And one day there's condemnation of Haman and there's salvation of a whole people group.
SPEAKER_00: They're saved because Esther identified herself as a portrait and picture of the coming Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The great king burns against sin.
SPEAKER_00: God hates sin, but Jesus got off his throne next to God and lives as a Jew and identifies himself with his people, and because of his identification with the same blood, he covers us with that blood, and we can share in that salvation and not be condemned.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine in this story if when Xerxes said, take Haman and crucify him.
SPEAKER_00: If Esther stepped up and said, King, everything Haman has done is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Everything he's done has been against my people.
SPEAKER_00: I'll take his gallows for him.
SPEAKER_00: I'll die in his yard in front of his family for him.
SPEAKER_00: That wouldn't be right.
SPEAKER_00: That would mess up.
SPEAKER_00: No, we deserve listen.
SPEAKER_00: That is exactly what Jesus Christ did for you and me.
SPEAKER_00: He stepped onto that scene when we deserve the punishment of hell, death, and the grave, and he said, I'll take it for the chance that they might choose me.
SPEAKER_00: I'll take his place.
SPEAKER_00: Well, after Haman is destroyed, the enemy of the Jews, we see number four, the emancipation declared.
SPEAKER_00: Look at chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: Emancipation declared.
SPEAKER_00: You yourselves, look at what the king says to them.
SPEAKER_00: You yourselves write a decree concerning the Jews as you please in the king's name and seal it with the king's signet ring.
SPEAKER_00: For whatever is written in the king's name and sealed with the king's signet ring, no one can revoke.
SPEAKER_00: So the king says, write a new decree.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: By those letters the king permitted the Jews who were in every city to gather together and protect their own lives, to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces opposed to them, both little children and women, and to plunder the possessions.
SPEAKER_00: And so the second decree is commanded and it's salvation decree.
SPEAKER_00: There's no more genocide of the people.
SPEAKER_00: Salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Satan, hell, and death, Revelation 20, 14 will be all cast into the lake of fire.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus did, and that's what he will do.
SPEAKER_00: The second decree rendered you without condemnation in Romans 8.
SPEAKER_00: It says, There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There's no more condemnation if you know him.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 10, 9 says, if you believe and confess, you'll be saved.
SPEAKER_00: You'll be saved.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Jewish people on that day, because of Esther's work and be and because of her courage going before the king, the enemy was destroyed, but the Jewish people were emancipated.
SPEAKER_00: Then we see in chapter 9, verse 21 and 22.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen the second decree commanded, now we see the first feast celebrated.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 21 and 22.
SPEAKER_00: It says, To establish among them that they should celebrate yearly the 14th and 15th days of the month of Adar, as the days on which the Jews, listen, had rest from their enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Church, do you have a day of rest and you celebrate the salvation of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a day in your mind and your heart where you've given your life to Him?
SPEAKER_00: And you didn't know how it was going to work out, and if you And He gave His all.
SPEAKER_00: As the month which was turned from sorrow to joy for them, and from morning to a holiday, that they should make them days of feasting and of joy, sending presents to one another and gifts to the poor.
SPEAKER_00: You see, they would have a feast that would be celebrated, and that feast is celebrated to this day.
SPEAKER_00: The feast of Purim.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what scripture says.
SPEAKER_00: The heading in my Bible says, This is the good news of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 61 says, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.
SPEAKER_00: He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted.
SPEAKER_00: Is that what Esther did?
SPEAKER_00: To proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them, listen, remember the sackcloth and ashes, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called the trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
SPEAKER_00: And listen, and they shall rebuild the old ruins.
SPEAKER_00: They shall repair.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to use you, and he wants to use me to preach, to heal, to be there for the broken, to proclaim a feast of what God's doing.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're here.
SPEAKER_00: We're here to proclaim a feast of God's word each week.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel unchains the bound.
SPEAKER_00: It exchanges beauty for ashes.
SPEAKER_00: It takes off the sackcloth and it says, live with a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Get out of that pit, get out of that despair, get out of that depression, and exchange that garment of heaviness for the spirit of praise.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we get together and we praise because it is the joy of the Lord is our strength.
SPEAKER_00: It says, we'll rebuild a nation.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it's our time, church.
SPEAKER_00: Before leaving to fight their freedom, in a letter to a friend, Davy Crockett said the following about his willingness to die for the independence of Texas that day.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I have come to the solemn conclusion that I would rather die in these ditches than give it over to the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Eight hundred Texans shouted, Remember the Alamo.
SPEAKER_00: It proved to be an emotionally charged battle cry.
SPEAKER_00: It sustained men who might otherwise have shrunk back during the great battle.
SPEAKER_00: It brought victory over a superior army that ensured the independence of all.
SPEAKER_00: In like manner, our battle cry is this today.
SPEAKER_00: It's our time.
SPEAKER_00: It's done the same for the church throughout centuries.
SPEAKER_00: When church people will realize it's our time.
SPEAKER_00: Even when faced with hard opposition and persecution, Christ's church has found the motivation and strength in his kingship to say, it's our time.
SPEAKER_00: Let me finish with this poem.
SPEAKER_00: It's called It's Our Time.
SPEAKER_00: We must rise up and no longer disparage.
SPEAKER_00: It's our time, church, to honor our heritage.
SPEAKER_00: We have a Savior and He gave all on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: We stand beside martyrs who counted nothing as loss.
SPEAKER_00: They took God's mysteries and opened them up for us.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is one we cannot confuse nor muddy up with some trite excuse.
SPEAKER_00: You say you're not ready, well-versed, or able.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think Moses even tried to use that fable.
SPEAKER_00: The time we have now is more urgent if we want to hear done, faithful servant.
SPEAKER_00: Church, it's our time.
SPEAKER_00: It's our time to confess the ways we're mangled.
SPEAKER_00: Sin and selfishness have us entangled.
SPEAKER_00: Lust, greed, and pride, their past lead to the grave.
SPEAKER_00: Yet we return to them as if we're a slave.
SPEAKER_00: So let's lace them up and fight the good fight.
SPEAKER_00: Become to the earth both salt and life.
SPEAKER_00: Our life is merely a vapor.
SPEAKER_00: Our chapter must move from pen to paper.
SPEAKER_00: So, church, let's get to writing because it's our time.
SPEAKER_00: We have what it takes to help the earth from its slumber awake.
SPEAKER_00: To Jesus, we are his beautiful bride.
SPEAKER_00: Whom shall we fear with him on our side?
SPEAKER_00: We have each other, we're not alone.
SPEAKER_00: It's iron to iron in this combat zone.
SPEAKER_00: There's a promise of life full of adventure if we use both talents and treasure.
SPEAKER_00: The workers are few, the harvest is plenty, with many lives running on empty.
SPEAKER_00: Scores of people trying to cope, they've come to the end of their proverbial rope.
SPEAKER_00: Young eyes are looking and wandering for direction.
SPEAKER_00: We have to point them to his resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: The clock is ticking.
SPEAKER_00: We're not yet left behind.
SPEAKER_00: Church, rise up.
SPEAKER_00: Rise up, church.
SPEAKER_00: It's our time.
SPEAKER_00: Heads bowed this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Bible says this in 1 Corinthians church, chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, now is the acceptable time of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow's not promised.
SPEAKER_00: We're not promised to tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says now, Revelation 3.20, behold, he stands at the door and knocks.
SPEAKER_00: He will come in.
SPEAKER_00: If you will open that door, it says in Romans, there is Romans chapter 8, there is now no condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: Now for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're here this morning and you've never given your heart and life to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, it's time.
SPEAKER_00: Today, it's time.
SPEAKER_00: If you had the cure for cancer, when would you give it to a person with it?
SPEAKER_00: If you had a lifeboat and somebody was drowning, when would you think they should take it?
SPEAKER_00: It's time.
SPEAKER_00: If you're here this morning and you have not done that before, you can pray a prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Bible says if you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth, Lord Jesus, that you can be saved.
SPEAKER_00: So today you can pray a prayer like this: saying, Dear Lord, I know that I am a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry for my sins.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that Jesus died on a cross, that he was buried, and that he rose again for my sins.
SPEAKER_00: Take my life.
SPEAKER_00: Today is my time.
SPEAKER_00: With all heads bowed and eyes still closed.
SPEAKER_00: There be any this morning between me, you, and the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Real honestly, would you uplift your hand and say, I prayed that prayer, Pastor Rick, and I meant it.
SPEAKER_00: I know it was my time, and I've given my life.
SPEAKER_00: I put my trust and faith in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If that's you this morning, would you just raise your hand up real high?
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's looking.
SPEAKER_00: It's just me, you and the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Just raise your hand up, signifying it's our time.
SPEAKER_00: Second part of the invitation is this, Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Can you sing?
SPEAKER_00: Can you work with kids?
SPEAKER_00: Can you write cards?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe God wants to call some today.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in churches that put out missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's some here today where God has put something on your heart and you've kind of pushed it aside.
SPEAKER_00: God's calling on you.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying it's time.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's some here today like that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe God's calling you today, and you know that there's, as you thought about the sinfulness and the speechlessness, you thought, it's time I get that thing taken care of.
SPEAKER_00: It's time.
SPEAKER_00: It's time I reclaim my family back.
SPEAKER_00: It's time.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how the Holy Spirit spoke into you this morning, but I'm gonna ask everybody to stand.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I do know about the story of Esther.
SPEAKER_00: When it was time, she boldly and courageously moved.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna ask you to do the same this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If God spoke into your heart as we have an invitation, would you move as the Holy Spirit spoke into you?