TiL- Esther 6

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We're going to have a little bit on Twitter, which generates a good conversation, and so I'm going to pull up the screenshot.

I'll leave it at just for a second so we can have just a moment to read it and look at it.

But this is from Twitter, and Twitter had on there a video, a clip, from MSNBC, and it was, it wasn't one of the news anchors, it was one of the editorial type anchors where they, you know, do their opinions and have on guests or whatever, and they were talking about the

Christianization, Christians trying to make America a theocracy, where they're trying to take over the nation, and this spawned from the overturning of Roe versus Wade, and so she had on guests, a lady from Kentucky, and a lady from somewhere else,

I can't recall, but supporting her position about how

Christians are trying to take over America and tell everybody what to do, and it was interesting how she used the,

Dan, I don't know if you're familiar with the show or not, but she kept referring to Gilead, that Christians are trying to make

America Gilead, like was on the Handmaid's Tale program, America was called

Gilead on that program. Are you familiar with that? Heard of it? I've heard of the Handmaid's Tale, it seems like they're making a bit of a stretch there.

Oh my, it's a huge stretch, yes. But nobody said that people would think things all the way through, so.

Exactly. Well, and it's stretched intentionally, I think, because,

I mean, they're trying to persuade people to oppose Christian values and oppose

Christian principles, and really what they're doing is they're promoting almost, it leads to violence, and it's going to lead to violence because you muster up all these feelings inside people and create this opposition against Christians, and that's what this rhetoric is doing, is really stirring up those emotions, in people, which is, it's going to lead to violence, in some cases, with people.

The comparison to Gilead, if you have any understanding of what Gilead was in that show,

I mean, it is not even close to a good comparison, but that's not -

I kind of get where they're saying, because, I mean, we do this kind of the same way, and I think we do a better job of it.

We'll pick out something like 1984 or A Brave New World or something like that and say, not that this is what this is, but this is in the same vein, it's going to lead to something like that.

The thing is, when we look at A Brave New World or 1984, we have real world examples of, well, at least of 1984, we have real world examples of what happens if you continue on down that road.

You have the old Soviet Union, places in South and Central America that have gone down the socialist communist pathway, and then you have

Handmaid's Tale, which, when you look at the end, at what they're saying this could turn into, what do they have to point to that will say, hey, here's an example of how this particular set of ideology is going to lead to this thing in this show?

But if you look at what the Bible and Christianity actually promotes, it doesn't promote a forced breeding of females.

What it does promote is not murdering your children in the womb. So it's not like Christians want to create a breeding ground for people where women have no say in what they do with their own bodies.

We're saying that once you become pregnant, you've done your part.

And that's why rape allegations, rape is such a serious thing, because that innocence, that autonomy has been ripped from someone.

A crime has been perpetrated against them, and it's terrible. And that's why we go so hard after rapists, because that decision -making power where you should be able to have a child or not in that moment, because we know it causes children.

In that moment, somebody is taking that from you. And that's against the

Christian worldview. For forcible impregnation is against the

Christian worldview, because we believe that children are a gift from God, not a product of one forcing themselves on someone else.

I think you made some great points, and I think that's key right there, what you were talking about, because in the

Handmaid's Tale, exactly what you're talking about, it's control. And I think control is where they are trying to make the connection, the control part.

And they're saying that in Gilead, in Handmaid's Tale, they controlled or the men, the patriarchy, they controlled everything, every single aspect of the woman's life.

And so that's what Christians are wanting to do to you now, women here in America, they're wanting to control your body and tell you what to do.

And that's not the case. That's not biblical, like Dan was saying. It's not biblical to force those things.

What we're about is equal protection under the law. We're against murder.

And that's that's where we're coming from, not control, but we're against murder. And you were talking about the instances of rape.

I overheard somebody listen to a video today, and it was you'll hear these somewhat debates where you'll have a speaker and maybe you'll have an audience member asking a question.

And or I didn't get to see the video, so I don't know the context of it, but I did hear it. And so you had one person who was, quote, pro -life on the pro -life side, and you have somebody on the for the pro -choice side and the pro -choice person was making the making the claim or giving this example for them to to answer almost like a gotcha.

What do you do in this case? You know, if you're against abortion, what do you do in this case? How are you going to answer this question? And I listened to their their claim, the example that they used for their question.

And it was like. What do you do in the case where a 10 year old is pregnant because of rape?

And I'm thinking, well, first of all, you you are creating a very extreme case out of an example that rarely happens.

It probably has happened before. In fact, there's one in the news where that happened. OK, but it was an instance of rape from a from a mother's boyfriend.

It was an illegal immigrant. That's why they're leaving out half of the story there. They're trying to say that this is an instance where the young girl's life was at stake.

And so she had to flee Ohio and go to Indiana in order to get a in order to get an abortion.

But that's that's just not the case. Her her mother went from Ohio to Indiana in order to not have to report her boyfriend for raping her daughter.

So really, you have an instance not of people denying health care and trying to make sure that this this girl's actually healthy and taken care of.

But what you have is an instance where a woman fled the state that she was in in order to protect the the the pervert who raped her daughter.

It's it really when you know the whole story, it doesn't it doesn't tug on the same heart strings.

Right. It's it's a ridiculous situation that should have never happened.

Right. And I mean, a 10 year old body might not be able to handle a pregnancy.

So the doctors have to look at what do we do here? Obviously, we would say that you don't kill the child, but at the same time, some someone that young, you have to watch, watch everything closely, because like I said, you don't kill the child in the case of the unborn or the 10 year old.

Right. And that those type of situations are ridiculous and absolutely ridiculous because they should never happen.

Right. And they're sad and they're tragic. And but no one should have to die just because they are in that situation.

Right. And well, I'm glad that you knew that it was an example from real life.

I had not heard that it was a real example that happened recently. You know, I was just categorizing it with many of the other examples that they try to use that, like I said, they they're possible.

And as you say, that they do happen. But a lot of these examples that they use are rare, like the instances where the mom's life is in danger or ectopic pregnancies.

I don't think that they're. You know, I think they're kind of rare. And all these instances, incest, rare happens, but it's rare.

But still yet in all those cases, just like Dan said, both people are persons that we want equal protection under law for both persons.

Right. Yeah. And nobody is advocating for prosecuting someone for having a miscarriage.

I'm sorry. What's getting a woman for having a miscarriage? Right. That's what I'm going to say to someone because people are trying to make that argument.

No one's trying to prosecute someone for having an ectopic pregnancy. And there there are almost almost zero situations in which someone has to abort in order to save a mother's life.

Yeah. Now there are situations where maybe the child needs to be removed, in which case you give the child a fighting chance.

You don't have to chop it up before you take the baby out. Also, sad situation.

It's not good. But the whole issue comes in with saying, well, when is it

OK to kill a child? And it's not. Not on purpose anyway. Right.

Oh, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And we kind of got off on the topic that I wanted to take us to.

Yeah. Close to doing. It's not even close. But I mean, it's a good conversation.

I'm glad we talked about it. But streaming from streaming from that article, from that news clip, of course, on Twitter, you have comments.

And this person made a comment underneath that thread. And I'm just going to read it to you. And then we'll take it off.

This was a comment on that Twitter feed. It's gotten so. It's gotten so I dread seeing overt

Christians, and these are the people she's calling overt Christians. Last Sunday, I saw a dad and two boys dressed in white shirts and ties coming out of a restaurant was obvious they had been to church in the a .m.

look like the families in 1950s image. And I was surprised how it made me gag.

Wow. Wearing white shirts and ties are well, I can understand and making making you gag a little bit.

I mean, we just don't wear that kind of stuff anymore. It's not good fashion. But but it made her gag that a

Christian was being a Christian outside of their home or outside of their church building. Give me a break.

Yeah. They dress a certain way on a Sunday morning. Fine. But that's that's ridiculous.

The the the real issue here is that people don't want to be reminded of things that they don't like.

Yeah. She doesn't like Christianity for whatever reason. I don't know the lady.

So seeing people saying, hey, I'm Christian and I'm proud of it, it makes her stomach churn.

And then, I mean, really, honestly, it makes sense. The the gospel is foolishness to those to to to certain folks.

But it's it's wonderful and glorious to those of us who are being saved. So it should be it shouldn't be a surprise that somebody dresses up.

It's going to offend somebody. Well, it's kind of we get offended at, but right.

But honestly, it could have been a bunch of different reasons why it offended her.

It may have been that she was a part of a Christian home growing up and saw hypocrites, somebody who said, hey, you need to dress up.

We're going to give God our best. And then throughout the week, her parents just or whoever lived, you know, sickening lives that maybe affected her negatively or maybe they were sinful, that she thought saw it was nothing real, nothing substantive there.

So she saw that tradition of a hollow, disgusting hypocrisy pass on to another generation.

And that made her say, we really don't know the story behind why or what.

So. Well, what we what we can glean from this comment is that there is still this idea and in some folks mind that.

Christians, for this example, Christians dress up to go to church. That was that was her first assumption, white shirt ties, they must have been in church.

So that's that's really I don't know. I don't know. There was a maybe

Mormons that could have been. But regardless,

I mean, that's that's still in some people's mind that they associate dressing up with going to church. And.

You know, it could be. Praying before a meal. Sure.

You know, and they're like we talked about before the podcast tonight. There's been a reaction from within the church over the years to.

To these things, because to a degree, from my experience, from my observation,

I think, you know, and some people I think have have had good motivation, good, good heart toward, you know, toward that issue.

But hey, buddy, how are you? Good, good.

We're talking about dressing up for church and want to talk with us for a little bit. Now you're nervous.

Sorry. How's your turkey? How's your turkey? How's your turkey? The one in the one over here or turkey?

Yeah. How is it? Good. Well, that's good.

All right. You want to bed? It's past my bed time.

Give me a hug. Well, love you. See you tomorrow. Good night.

All right, man. But we were talking about the swing. And from my experience,

I noticed it as I felt like it was kind of a rebellious attitude towards or from Christians.

You can't tell us what to do. You're being legalistic. So we're going to dress however we want to.

And like I said, I can't judge their hearts or there may have been some folks with good motivations about that.

You know, some people said that we want to be welcoming to those who can't can't dress up or whatever.

There was good intentions in some places, but in some places it was a rebellious attitude. But what

I think I want to glean from, you know, situations like this is that there there are things that we

I think it's about watching our behavior, watching what we do in public, because there are still things that that people outside the church, outside Christianity that observe and associate with Christianity is some of that you said earlier.

Was that. These people, maybe one of the reasons why she has a bad taste in her mouth is because she saw these people when she was younger dressing up a certain way because they were supposed to dress that way because they're

Christians, but then she saw them behave differently during the week. And so it gave her a bad taste in her mouth because she saw the hypocrisy.

And so that just, you know, it should speak to us that. However, we're going to dress, how we're going to live, how we're going to represent

Christianity, know that people are observing it and. We should submit to Christ all throughout the week.

Maybe even find some of the stuff that's going to take them off and go ahead and do it harder. Yeah, sure.

I mean, not not in a hateful, rebellious sort of way, but a way that shows the goodness of Christ.

You know, I mean, if it's something we're doing, we're doing, it doesn't matter. It doesn't add any value or show who

Christ is. No, I mean, maybe we should just like not worry about it so much. Right. But some of those things where, you know, if we're going to take somebody off or doing something good and maybe find out whatever that is and do it more.

Because, I mean, if it's good, then it's good. What was it in the Romans? Was it 12?

I think towards the end of the chapter, it says that you're supposed to do what is right.

And in the end, it'll heap burning coals upon your enemy's head. Right, right.

So, I mean, it probably shouldn't be our primary motivation to take people off.

Right. But. I mean, there's a there's a lot of things where when you when you do something for the right motives, you have added benefits to it.

I don't see why. Causing a situation where a conversation could happen could be a bad thing.

Right. Well, yeah, that's right. Yeah, because, I mean, we don't want to do it just to take somebody off.

And that's kind of kind of bad taste. But if we can get somebody asking us questions like, hey, man, why are you always praying before your meals?

It's kind of annoying. Oh, well, I pray before my meals because I know that God provided me the food that I have and I want to thank him for it.

What's his earth, his air. You're breathing and eating the same stuff.

You may want to praise him, too. Well, the gospel itself, we know, is going to offend people. And it shouldn't be it shouldn't be us and how we how we speak.

It should we should leave it up to the gospel because it does a sufficient job itself. Like you said, it's foolishness of those who are perishing.

So it's going to do a sufficient job of self offending people because it says that they're sinners. Right. And we're going to offend people, too, if we're being obedient to the gospel and living it out like you're talking.

So they get examples that you gave. You know, we're going to offend people. We're going to annoy people because we we love

Christ and we're obeying the gospel. Right. Yes. So when people say stuff like, well, they're they're they're wearing this or they're wearing that or they're praying here or they're doing this or that.

Fine, be mad. I don't care. But why would why would we see a world that is in rebellion against Christ and think that us submitting to Christ would do anything other than take them off?

I don't understand why we are trying so hard to please the world.

I mean, like, who cares? The world is God's. So, I mean, obviously, we want to not offend needlessly, was it,

Peter says, if you suffer for if you're persecuted because you're doing right, then they won't be able to to say anything when judgment comes down or when facts are examined.

But if you're persecuted or even thrown in jail for being a jerk, then you get what's coming to you.

So you shouldn't. We should be bold and just not care that whole you're going to drive people away.

No, I'm not. Not if I'm not doing what's right, because the gospel offends people.

And the only thing the way that people are going to come to Christ is through the gospel anyway. So we're going to have to run the risk of people not liking us, of ruining relationships, of causing trouble.

All right. Being talked about on Twitter. Oh, no. Half of people on Twitter talking about us are bots anyway.

We found that out when Elon Musk tried to buy it. And he's like, no, I don't think I'm going to buy it because half of your people that you said are real are just bots.

Exactly. So, yeah, I don't know. The whole extra commandment, thou shalt be nice, just needs to get thrown out the window.

It's ridiculous. Is that the 11th? Godly. Who cares about being nice?

Yeah. I mean, to your wife. Yeah. Be nice to your wife. Always be nice to your wife.

Exactly. But besides that. Well, I think

I think we're in this conversation where the rub has has always been for me is. Not exactly what you were talking about, but in a different way, not caring in a different way, because they wanted to they wanted to use their freedom in Christ to to live however they wanted to live and not care what this person said and not care what that person said when when we should be careful not to be a stumbling block.

It goes back to the offense of the gospel that we talk about. I think we're unnecessarily being an offense to the gospel when we have that rebellious attitude.

I don't care what this these Christians say. I don't care what these unbelievers say.

Coming from a rebellious attitude so that I can exercise my supposed freedom in Christ and live however

I want to live, dress however I want to dress, you know, because nobody can tell me what to do.

That's where I've had the rub because we were image bearers. And when we.

When we're unnecessarily being stumbling blocks. Or we somehow in in in that behavior, we're tarnishing that image, image of Christ.

Oh, yeah, the was it Paul said, should we keep on sinning so that grace may abound?

He said, no, we shouldn't because we have forgiveness of sins doesn't give us a license to go out there and do whatever we want to.

Yeah. So when we when we say that we can do whatever we want to, we throw that in everybody's face, all while calling them a bunch of dirty, rotten sinners are going to Yeah, I can see why that rubs people the wrong way.

It's just it's just wrong. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. You can't. When that happened in the church, you know, and I experienced that and saw that and.

You folks had young people had this attitude, people had this attitude, you know, these buddy duds, these legalists, they're trying to tell me what to do.

And you intentionally oppose that in in that assembly.

Right. The focus is on you and not on Christ anymore. Right, right.

Because it was a Titus tells us that the older men should teach the younger men and older women should teach the younger women.

So there's a disconnect there where the older men and the older women are saying something that the younger people are just not on board with.

It's on the older folks to to understand, well, why are they not on board with this? You know, why are they not?

Why is what we're saying going over their head? Why do they think this certain behavior is OK? No. Is it that we are asking for something that doesn't have real spiritual merit?

Is it something that's not biblical that we're is there a standard that we're imposing that's a something that maybe shouldn't be there?

Maybe we've gone a step too far. You know, why are we doing this? All right. Because, I mean.

A lot of times, if you just I found this out, if you just talk to folks before you get upset, a lot of times most of the issue just goes away.

You know what happens a lot of times is is people will get upset before. Before they go and talk to somebody and then they generally if they may not talk to them so that that's when you end up having that rebellious spirit, you know, dress how you want to dress, act how you want to act.

We're going to do this, that and other thing just to throw in these other schmucks faces. And yeah, that's that's all

I'm putting to everyone. Exactly. All right, brother, you ready to start in Esther?

Let's do it. All right. Esther, Chapter six. And let me let me give a little introduction, a little spiel before we get started in Esther, Chapter six.

I think if if you really take time to look at Esther, Chapter six, along with the rest of the book.

But as I as I was reading and listening and looking into Esther, Chapter six, this is where what we understand to be the theme of Esther really comes to life when you begin to look at it and look underneath the surface of what's going on.

So we know that Esther is the main character and God used Esther to to save her people.

But we also can see that almost just as much Mordecai was huge in saving

God's people, huge in that. But then above,

I mean, this is where we we talk about God, God speaking to us about his his provision, his providence and his protection in Esther.

We can see all those things bubbling up and making themselves visible, especially here in Esther, Chapter six.

And we this is the thought that I had today, Dan, as I was reflecting on Esther six and our study in Esther, we we've gone to Esther because we were we were looking at prophecy and we were looking at eschatology and we we looked at Ezekiel and we looked at go back to thirty eight and thirty nine.

And we that's one of the places where you can then go to Esther. But. We learn about the battle of Gog and Magog and the chief prince, not

Rosh, Rosh is not Russia, Rosh is chief and where you have a chief prince, we saw it in chapter five again, but the chief prince is mentioned over and over again here in Esther.

But we see that prophecy in their future about these armies that are going to come against and they're everywhere.

Did it give a number, maybe 14? I can't remember the exact number. Do you remember? Yeah, I can't remember.

But I mean, there was there was a number and it was a great number of nations that were going to come against Israel and and the.

The kingdom that had this great number of under under his rule here was

Persia and Xerxes, Ahasuerus. And Haman used that to his advantage when he sent out this decree to all the different dialects and different languages saying on this day, all the

Jews in your town and we're going to go go against them in Jerusalem. But on this day, we're going to we're going to go and wipe out this whole nation.

But where it took me and reflecting on God's providence, his protection and provision was that.

If you were a Jew, if you were a Jew that had made it because. Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, these are books that are after the end of the 70 year prophecy where they were in exile and God prophesied that they would return to Jerusalem and they were released and they will return to Jerusalem.

Nehemiah, Ezra and Esther are books at that time period. Speaking of that event, and if you had made it back to Jerusalem or if you were in another part of the kingdom.

You probably were aware about this decree, maybe you weren't aware at some point you may have seen a movement, a movement of the armies, something going on, something fishy is going on.

But if you were if you weren't there, if you weren't in this small circle, I mean. Even even people who lived in Susa probably had they didn't have access to the inner circle, the inner going zone of the king.

You probably would have only got the bigger picture for some reason, this kingdom represented by Haman.

Is going against the Jews, for some reason, you would have got the bigger picture.

So what why is Esther in the Old Testament? God takes us in the inner courts where nobody else would have had access and God is showing us how he is providing, protecting his providence, his provision for his people and where it took place.

If Esther hadn't been in scripture, we would have been just one of those folks on the outskirts of the kingdom of Persia and only really had seen the big picture and in even really only a glimpse of it.

Sure, like most world history, like most world history, God takes us here into the inner courts because of Esther.

Isn't that amazing? It's pretty cool. Yeah, that just really. My heart swelled up with joy as I reflected on that today about.

That's the reason for Esther. Yes, provision, providence, protection, seeing

God's work in Esther, but God is taking us into a place where nobody gets to go to inner court where we see how he did it.

It's to me, it was amazing. So let's start in chapter six and I'm going to give Dan a chance to talk and give some explanations and commentary on six.

But hopefully you guys will be able to see some of the things I was talking about. So let me pull it up here on the screen.

So we're not looking down. All right. So in verse one, during that night, the king could not sleep, so he gave an order to bring the book of records, the chronicles, and they were read before the king.

So right before this in chapter five, Haman was on cloud nine or and should have stayed there because he's the king's right hand man, second in command in charge of the whole kingdom.

And Esther, the queen, has invited him to two banquets and nobody else, just the king and Haman.

But yet he cannot get over the fact that Mordecai will not honor him.

So his wife, Zeresh, this is the end of chapter five, gives him an idea.

Why don't you just build some gallows and hang this dude and get him out of your life? So that's that's where we end up.

Now the king couldn't sleep. And he has the book of records, the chronicles brought to him to be read.

It was found out, verse two, it was found written that Mordecai had reported concerning Bithana and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs who were doorkeepers that they had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus.

The king said, what honor or dignity has been bestowed on Mordecai for this?

Then the king's servants who attended him said nothing has been done for him. Well, that's kind of sad.

It is sad. Yeah, well, a little bit ago, remember, was it chapter two?

Mordecai heard a plot against the king. Just being faithful, good citizens said, hey, king, somebody's trying to kill you.

They stopped the plot and they wrote it down and the king didn't do anything for him. So Mordecai never tried to call in a favor, never tried to say, hey, you need to do this for me or that for me or throw me a little money or whatever.

He just kind of just sat back, but it was written down and it kind of worked out for him.

It's one of those things where God had him in the right place at the right time so that way he could do something for the king.

And it ends up working out in his favor, as we'll see in the next few verses and chapters.

Yeah. And that's one of the ways that you see God's working. Um, he wasn't honored then, but he's questioning it now at this opportune time.

Like you said, we'll see. And here's something else I found interesting, too. You know how a lot of people read, read the

Bible. They they just open it up randomly and point their finger and oh, this is what

God wants me to read today. I thought about that when when the king said, bring me the book, the book of records, the

Chronicles, and read it to me because I can't sleep. What's so interesting about that is this is four to five years later.

And, you know, they're keeping records all the time, and it just so happens that they read the story of Mordecai that happened four to five years earlier.

Yeah, you think about the king. I can't sleep.

Come read about all the good stuff that I've done as king. Oh, man,

I believe if if I did that to my wife, hey, baby, I can't sleep. Can you can you read off my list of achievements one more time for me so I can go to bed?

Just tell me how good I am. All right. So I mean, it makes sense here a little bit later.

He's a. I guess made a fool of him, he doesn't like it, he leaves for a little bit.

We'll get to that in the next few weeks or so. All right.

Starting in verse four. So the king said, who is in the court? Now, Haman had just entered the outer court of the king's palace in order to speak to the king about hanging

Mordecai on the gallows, which he had prepared for him. The king's servant said to him, behold,

Haman is standing in the court and the king said, let him come in. Any comments on those two verses?

Esther is fascinating to me, just the interpersonal dynamics, the stuff that people must have been going through this guy, you know.

Centuries of hatred running through his veins, gallows built. Hey, King.

Let me go kill this guy. He's been nothing but trouble. And that night,

King hears that this dude saved his life. And then Haman's coming in there.

I, the king, you know, he had me at the bank with him and his wife, the queen. No, I am somebody.

Let me get this thing that I want. Everything will be right in the world. A little did he know it wasn't going to go the way that he had planned.

You, you've got two locomotives headed right towards each other and the hood ornament on both of them are

Mordecai. Mordecai is on the mind of King and Mordecai is on the mind of Haman.

Yeah. For different reasons. Yep. Yep. Oh yeah.

I find that fascinating as well. Verse, verse six.

So Haman came in and the king said to him was to be done for the man whom the king desires to honor.

And Haman said to himself. Whom would the king desire to honor more than me?

Then Haman said to the king for the man whom the king desires to honor, let them bring a

Royal robe, which the king has worn game worn Jersey right there. And the horse on which the king has ridden and on whose head a

Royal crown has been placed and let the robe and the horse be handed over to the one of the king's most noble princes and let them array the man whom the king desires to honor and leave him on horseback to the city square and proclaim before him.

Thus it shall be done to the man whom the king desires to honor. Oh man.

So he walks in. Hey, what do you need?

King? I want to honor somebody. What should I do for the person who needs to be honored? He's like, well, let me tell you exactly what

I would like. I would like to be paraded around in the king's clothes and the finest of the farm, everybody say, this is what the king does to the somebody who is happy with it, the king's pleased with me.

I am somebody I have made it take that Jews who tried to kill me. I'm on top now.

Oh man. Read the next verse. It's gotta be, it's good. It's a blow. It's got to get, got to get them right, right there.

I mean, just imagine at this point in his mind, I mean, he's thinking it's him. Oh, he's a hundred percent hook, line and sinker.

Yeah. And at this point in his mind, he, he's, he, he's already been to one banquet.

He's coming to the king to talk about killing Hayman. And then the king brings this up. Oh, I'm going to get paraded around town in a, in a robe and a crown and announced to the, to the crowd, to the whole city.

And so I'm going to have a parade just for me. I'm going to get to see my mortal enemy home, and then

I'm going to get to go to another banquet. Today's going to be a good day. Yeah.

I'm going to go out and do some work this morning. And then I'm a, I'm going to go partying tonight. Here come the breaks verse 10.

Then, then the king said to Hayman, take quickly the robes and the horse as you have said, and do so to, or for Mordecai, the

Jew who was sitting at the King's gate, do not fall short in any of all that you have said, wow,

I can just imagine him hearing that, that sentence, take quickly the robes and the horse that you have said, and do for yourself.

No, for Mordecai, the Jew, head down. Oh, he could probably, he probably had to, you know, excuse me.

What was that? I don't think I heard you correctly. And I don't, oh man, the biggest, most bitter piece of humble pie somebody's had in a long time.

And he just did it. Look at verse 11. He took everything, arrayed

Mordecai, led him on horseback throughout the city. The dude that he hated, he wanted him dead.

He's got the gallows at his house. He probably, he went through the city square. I know. I don't know where, where Hayman lived.

75 feet tall. You could probably see the gallows from where he was. No, while he's yelling out, this is what is going to be done for the one that the

King desires to honor. While he's looking over here at, at this, uh, this gallows that he has set up, it's like the

King's going to honor him. I wanted to kill him. I've got this big old gallows set up.

Oh man. Heartbreaking. Like top of the world down to he's scraping bottom now.

Yup. Verse 12, then Mordecai returned to the

King's gate, but Hayman hurried home morning with his head covered. I bet he did the equivalent of what kids do today when they get made fun of on the playground.

He put his hoodie up, pulled the strings and he ran home to mama. That's right.

Poor guy. Verse 13, Hayman recounted to his wife and all his friends, everything that happened to him, then his wife, then his wife, hold on one second.

You pulled the strings shut. You go home to mama. What do you want mama to say to you? Oh baby.

It'll be okay. You're going to be just fine. We're going to get through this together. Now read what his wife said.

Then his wise men and Zerus, his wife said to him, if Mordecai, if Mordecai before him, you have begun to fall is a

Jewish origin, you will not overcome him, but will surely fall before him.

They looked at him and they said, Hey man, you set this thing up where all the Jews are going to die. And now he's honoring the

Jew who saved his life. You say you're going to, you need to watch out.

You're not going to overcome him. You're going to, you're going to like you, you thought that you were high up.

It's not going to end well for you. And he, he was already humiliated.

He had to be thinking, Oh, what did I do to deserve this? Should I, should I go somewhere?

Should I leave? Should I just like skip town? I mean, he must've had a hundred thousand things running through his head.

Uh, he didn't have time to think through all of them though. Uh, verse 14 says that while he was still sitting there talking, uh, the

King's eunuchs arrived and hastily, like they grabbed him quick. It's like, come on, man, you gotta go.

You gotta be over here. The King's banquet when the estuary prepared dudes in trouble.

Yeah. And it's going to get worse. And that's the thing. Like it can be, it can be comical.

Just how, how bad, how quickly stuff changes.

But when you think about it, um, this is a, this isn't just a story. This is a real dude's life.

This was his actual existence. Like, this is how he lived. And the thing is, it was, it was pride and hatred and sin in his heart, and he thought he was doing right.

That's the proverb that says, uh, there's a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof leads to destruction, leads to death.

And the thing is, it's the same thing for every single one of us that we may.

Some people have a rough go of it because of sin. Some people don't, and they think that they're doing all right.

They think that they're doing wonderful. But in the end, what happens is when they think they're going to get the reward, when they think they're coming to the end of their life and, oh, now he can rest easy, she can rest easy.

They're going to have peace. No, but they never knew Christ. They never knew the forgiveness of their sins on this earth.

They're not resting in peace. They're not, their pain is not gone. In fact, it's intensified to think that you would come to the end of your life with such pride, thinking that things are going to finally go well for me.

And then I have every single thing unravel right in front of you. I mean, it'd be hilarious and comical if it wasn't so sad and tragic.

Because we've all been there where we've had something fall apart, but we're all still here to laugh about it.

That's how we can kind of laugh at how the events unfolded. But when you really look at it, this was his end, like real life end.

Like he had no more breath, hearing just a few verses. He had no more breath.

And that's exactly how quickly sin can destroy us. We go on in it.

We think we're fine. We don't repent of our sin. We don't turn away. We try to overcome what we think is our enemies and obstacles.

And really what happens in the end is sin jumps up and bites us and we die quick.

Even if we come to the end of our life, it's like a vapor. I mean, I'm 37 right now.

I was in high school like last week. Like I'm like knocking on the door of 40.

Like, how did I get here? Like it's I can only imagine like the next 30 years are going to fly by.

If I make it that long, I'm going to be what? I don't know. Almost 70. And then you're right there.

I mean, like it just it goes by so fast. And that's that's one of the reasons why the story is so great, because God does preserve his people, which means his promises are sure it says his promises are sure the promise of forgiveness of sins is sure.

And that's why, you know, Jesus came, died on the cross and and everyone who comes in will find forgiveness.

We don't have to live like like Haman did. I said a lot there.

You go ahead, say you say something for a while. No, I'd like for you to finish that up, because that's a good way to wrap it up.

Sure. I mean, I mean, speak to us about and you were going there. Speak to us about the the way that seems right to a man and how to how to get away from that, how to how to shake that and how

God can preserve us. Yeah, I mean, when we think back to what we're talking about before, you have the whole abortion issue, got the people talking about this guy who was in his kids were dressed in white and it just it made him gag.

The Christians want to take over and make a theocracy, like, well, of course we do. We want God to be in charge of everything.

He's in charge of heaven and on earth anyway. So, of course, we do. But to to think that we should completely remove

God from everything. We've seen the trajectory that that has in a nation.

We left God out of our Declaration of Independence, the the

Constitution. We did not proclaim Christ as king, as our European forefathers and ancestors had done.

We were the first ones to take that out. We tried to allow for people to be godly on their own.

And we we were not. And the further we move away from those Christian principles that we set in place, the more that we want to do things on our own, do do things the way that we think is right to ourselves.

The further we fall, the more problems we have. And it's not just the country, it's each individual as well.

As we pull farther and farther from God, as we delve further and further into sin, like we go closer and closer to destruction.

It may even look good for a while, but you can't fall unless you're on top of something.

It may not be much, it may not be on top of much, but you can't fall unless you're standing or at least sitting. Mordecai, or not

Mordecai, Haman had to go go high up before he could fall so far. It's the same for each one of us, because each one of us, when we do things the way that we want to, the way that we think we want to, we indulge in that sinful nature that we have and we just sin against our

God over and over again. But like I said, here in Esther, is

God keeping his promises? As the Jews face certain destruction at the hands of this nation,

God presented a way where his people would be preserved, because he knew he was sending

Jesus through this nation. And when Jesus came to the earth, he was, still is,

God, took on human flesh, took that flesh to himself in order so that mankind could have a redeemer.

So that way, those who were doing things the way that they saw right, could turn from their sins, say, I'm not going to do this anymore.

I'm going to trust in Christ to forgive me of my sin, and I'm going to live with him as my king, because he is king, he is

God. And so what you see here is you see almost like a tale of two ends, faithfulness and unfaithfulness.

Those who trusted in God and waited for his promises, and those who hate him and live in their sin.

Those who trust in God, who believe in the forgiveness that can be found in Christ, through his death, burial, and resurrection, those people find eternal life.

They find that promise of salvation. They find that promise of all the good things that they think they're reaching on their own.

They actually find those in Christ, and they don't just find them here and now, because sometimes the here and now looks ugly and ridiculous, and we don't want any part of it.

But they find it throughout all of eternity as they pass on from this life.

One of their blessed hopes is that they can one day be risen from the dead.

The grave has no hold on them. People go to the grave all the time. Christ has promised that we'll be risen from the dead, and we will reign with him forever.

That is fantastic, because the other direction is that the wages of sin, or the payment for sin, is death, and not just death in this life, but eternal death, which is separation from God forever and payment for our sin.

I say all that to say this. Each and every one of us has a decision to make.

If you've heard what I've just said today, then your decision is, am

I going to follow Christ or am I not? I plead with you that you would. If you're unsure, comment section,

DM us. I don't know. Get a hold of us. We'll show you in the scripture how you can know that you have a redeemer in Christ.

Nothing that you said needs any addition, but just hearing you speak calls me to be excited about what

God's doing, excited about Christ. Ultimately, that's what Esther is all about, is

God preserving his people so that he could send the Messiah, his one and only son, so that he could ultimately eternally preserve his people.

That's what it's all about. I'm just reflecting on the things that you said.

We see an example of what you're talking about. There's a way that seems right to a man.

We see that with Haman. There was a way that seemed right to him. Momentarily, he had the greatest riches, the most success he had all this world could offer, but in the end, it led to destruction.

You have Mordecai and Esther who were trusting in God for that preservation, ultimately for Christ to come to preserve us ultimately, eternally.

And I would reiterate what Dan said. We all need

Christ. We would plead with you to come to him. And we would plead with you to plead with others, as we're going to talk

Thursday about evangelism. We would plead with you to plead with others, have a passion for others to come to know

Christ, because as Dan said, there's going to come a time for all of us. There came a time for Mordecai and Esther.

It just come a little bit earlier for Haman, but it's going to come for all of us. And love

Jesus and love other people that you would plead with them. Any last thoughts you want to share?

No, I said a lot. All right, I'm going to pray for us. Father, we thank you for this time that you've given us, that we've had together to have a conversation about Esther.

And we so desire that you are glorified. And Father, we pray that you would use this time that you've given us to glorify yourself, to encourage and edify those who would listen.

And we pray all these things in Jesus name, amen. Well, thank you guys for watching. We really appreciate it.

Again, let us know that you watched. Ask a question, leave a comment. But as always, remember that Jesus is

King. Go live in the victory of Christ. Go speak with the authority of Christ and continue to go share the gospel of Christ.