TiL- Esther 5

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I'll go ahead and cut this off tonight. Tonight, our current topic, we're trying to decide what we want to talk about tonight.

But our current topic that that we just thought we would would throw out there is our Christian response to to government authority, because this is this is something that we are.

Well, this has been going on since the beginning of time, since since governments were formed.

And this has been an American thing, a colonial thing. How do we respond to England?

How do we respond to the states? How do we. I mean, that just were arrested in in early

America for preaching. So there's been all kinds of oppression, government rule, overreaching citizens,

Christians having to decide how do we respond to government? And we're we're still facing that.

And, you know, then I'm really looking forward to the day. As I think you and I both believe,

I know we both believe in post -millennialism. We believe in this this future hope and that we're in the process of seeing this future hope that that Christ is building his kingdom.

And he currently rules and reigns all over the earth. But he what he said he would do in his word, how he said he would do it would be he would be putting his enemies under his feet.

And the last thing he's going to be dead. And it's the we see in the Gospels. He talks about it being a process.

We we've seen that process. We've seen some ebbs and flow in that process. But but we see the process and we see a lot of great things that God is doing, growing his kingdom.

We believe it's going to be politically having to do with the government. But we also believe that I believe that's going to be spiritually.

I mean, you're seeing right now, I mean, Dan's a Presbyterian. I'm a

Baptist on our laborers podcast. We've got a gentleman from the

Church of God. We've got some other guys from Presbyterian, some other guys from the Baptist Church.

So we've we've got a plethora, a wide array of theological backgrounds. And yet we're coming together on truth.

We have a we have a main objective, a central common point of view where we hold

God's word up and how we interpret it and the desire for truth. And I think that's going to be another way where we see unity as God grows his kingdom through Christ is unity in theology.

And here, my point was our response to government and how how we've struggled with that for centuries and centuries.

I'm going to be looking forward to the day, Dan, when there's a consensus on interpretation, a consensus on how we should respond as Christians to government.

The one of the passages that we we talked about that you wouldn't work, one of the go to passages when it comes to Christian response to government.

And I'll read it and let you comment, Dan. 1 Peter 2, verses 13 through 15.

So what do you gather from that?

What has been what's been your conclusion on our response from God's word to government?

Yeah, God has put government in place for us to to submit to.

I mean, not ultimately as an end in itself. I mean, he did.

Let me rephrase that. He didn't put government in place for us to submit to it. He put government in place for our benefit.

So that way it would be there would be something positive that came from it.

They're the ministers of God, the servants or deacons of God in the civil sphere.

So if something is done wrong, they're the ones who are supposed to punish evil. If somebody does something right, they're supposed to be the ones who pointed out and say, that's the type of behavior we want to see out of every single one of you guys.

So what are we supposed to do as Christians? Are we supposed to submit to our government?

And the answer is, yes, we are supposed to submit to our government. But the question arises, I guess.

How or why or what does it look like to submit to a government that has completely rejected what's going on here in the

Bible, where it says that their job is to punish evil and reward good.

And they take what's good and what's evil and they flip flop it. They say that the murder of young children is good.

That the silencing of Christians is also good. That the preservation of the nuclear family unit is a vestige of white supremacy in America that ought not happen anymore.

Even though a strong nuclear family is all across the board, one of the best ways to ensure your children have a leg up in the world.

So what do we do in those situations? I don't have all the answers.

But what I do know is this. Even if the government is going to say that certain things are wrong or wicked, that actually aren't.

Or they're going to say some things are good that are actually wrong and wicked. We don't live by the standard that's set forth by the government as to what is right and what is wrong.

So just because they say that something is okay, doesn't mean it's okay. Just because they say something is wrong, doesn't mean that it's wrong.

We go to God's word for our standard and we live according to his standard.

If they misjudge, that's on them, not on us. But we have to remember that in the end of Matthew, Jesus tells his people that we are supposed to go into all the world, baptizing the nations, discipling the nations, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey all that he has commanded us.

Which is how to live. So if our government is out of line, number one, we don't step out of line.

We don't combat evil with evil, we combat evil with good. And we speak up and we tell them, no, it's not okay to murder young children.

It's not okay to say anything goes when

God has instituted marriage itself. It's not a bad thing for Christianity to take over.

It's not a bad thing for the nuclear family to stay intact.

And we tell them those things no matter what they end up doing to us. So we should be people who are willing to go to jail, willing to take one on the chin, are willing to have everything that we have destroyed and taken from us.

But we should never be willing to compromise on what God's word actually says is right and what God's word says is wrong.

So if the government tells us something to do that's wrong, even if it sounds reasonable, if it's wrong, we don't listen to them.

Now there are some gray areas where it's not necessarily right or wrong. Maybe it's practical or impractical or pragmatic or those things we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

But the thing you want to keep in the forefront of your mind, the grid you want to put everything through is, is this evil or is this good compared to God's standard?

And then we either tell the government they're doing a terrible job or we tell them, hey, you're doing a fantastic job.

Keep up the good work. And they're going to tell us the same thing as we follow the law of God. I think this is such a relevant conversation to have, not just because we as citizens of a country and as we as human beings have dealt with this for centuries, not just because of that.

But tonight we're seeing Esther chapter five and Esther has to make, make this decision herself on what she's going to do, how she's going to honor the government she has before her.

I think it's, I think it's so great what you brought up.

And she does do that. She honors the office of a king as one who's been put there by God.

She also is going to tell the king that he's screwing up big time, but she's going to do it in a very sweet, kind way.

No way only a woman can, where they can tell you how much of a big dummy you are and make you think that you came up with the, oh man,

I messed up on my own. They don't always do that, but, you know, from time to time and they're usually right.

But yes, she kind of pulls that on them, just sweet and kind and yet firm and forceful and doesn't hold back.

Right. Yeah, I think it's so important too. The other thing that you brought up is that we can't, we're so, we so easily take a verse, a passage and we take it out of context because we just focus on that one passage instead of the, the totality of scripture and then harmonize it and understand it.

And so you were looking at 1 Peter chapter 2. We also talked about Romans chapter 13, but then you also brought up the fact that our

Savior, our King speaks to us in that at the end of Matthew and he's telling us to go make disciples of all the nations.

Right. Including government. Including government. Yeah. So there's that balance.

It's not, like you said, it's not total blind following submission.

Our first allegiance is to Christ the King who placed that government where it is, placed that person in power, who's in power, and he's our

King as well. And so we, we honor him first. And if, if they're honoring the one who put them in place that doesn't mean that we follow them and follow suit.

Our allegiance is to the King, the King of Kings. And so that, I mean, that's so important to point out that we, we find the balance in scripture.

And yeah, if there's, if there's tyranny involved, if there's going against God's word, then yeah.

And that for us, that's what tyranny is, you know, rebelling against the King and going against his word and the, and you gave good examples while ago.

Anything else on that topic? Nothing hard and fast, but there's, our constitution provides, it provides us with the ability to arm ourselves in case of a tyrannical government that tries to impose its will on the people from without or from within.

That is an incredible responsibility, not just a right, but a responsibility because vaccine mandates and mask mandates,

I don't believe rise to the level of, hey, now it's time to start shooting. Well, I think that, that they, they shouldn't have been sticking their, their noses in, in healthcare.

They've really had their noses in healthcare for a long time. So while they may have been overstepping their bounds, that wasn't necessarily a start shooting moment.

And I don't, I don't know how, how many start shooting moments there would be.

We'll see. It may come up. I don't, I don't know. But we, we should be very careful, especially as Christians before exercising that sort of right or responsibility.

Before we get to that point, we need to have exhausted every peaceful means of living with our government.

I guess would be no, don't shoot unless they shoot first. If you got to protect your family, protect your family.

But besides that, we're just not to that point yet. Hopefully we won't be, hopefully we'll just not go that far.

I haven't done. I think it's important to, to try to temper any expectations of revolt or revolution, especially when there are people out there who would fall into the dangerous camp, not every single

Christian, but the dangerous camp of Christian nationalism, where they are looking to make real deep, forceful, maybe even violent political change in the name of Christianity, which is not how we make political change through Christianity.

We preach the gospel also hearts of men be changed. Oh man, there's so many different directions that we can go with Christian nationalism.

You've got that aspect of it, their approach, their means, what they want to accomplish, what they want to do, how they want to do it.

You've got the churches, you've got Christian nationalism in the church, in your local churches that are not that extreme, but it seems like they're more patriotic than they are

Christian. It definitely looks like a shift of focus has occurred away from Christ and towards the nation.

In some instances, I don't want to say everybody waving an American flag after churches is a

Christian nationalist. We're not here to, because that term has been thrown around in order to hurt people a lot and for no reason.

And it's ridiculous. You want to be patriotic and a Christian, knock yourself out. That's great. Fantastic. We're supposed to love our country, but we're supposed to love it from a godly perspective.

So I'm not talking about those people who are just patriotic and go

American and stuff. We're talking about those who are looking to shoot now, ask questions later.

I think that's a great point to make because we want to appreciate the things that God has given us.

That's what I would mean by being patriotic is being grateful for what

God has given us. I think as a warning to Christians who want to be patriotic is not to bow at the idol of what we call freedom.

And I'm just speaking from experience, things that I feel and see as I look across the lay of the land and seen in churches.

We don't want to, and this is just a warning. This is not a blanket statement condemning everybody. Just a warning for us to reflect as individuals.

We don't want to bow to the idol of what we call freedom. And what

I think a lot of people underneath, they might not even understand it in these terms.

But I think what I see a lot of people mean when they talk about freedom is autonomy.

God gave us this country so that I can live however I want to live and do whatever

I want to do. And so we bow down to that freedom, not living in gratitude to the king, but because there's something so valuable about us that he's given us a country where we can live and do whatever we want to do.

And if somebody comes and tells us, no, you can't do this or live like this, we're rebelling for the wrong reasons.

Because you're telling me what to do. We're going to be living in such a way that somebody's going to be telling us what to do.

We're either slaves to sin or we're either slaves to Christ, one or the other. And so we should live as Christians in a patriotic way that we're grateful for what

God has given us, but not to live autonomously and rebel against oppression for the sake of oppression and denying our liberties.

That's an aspect of it, but that's not number one. We want to be patriotic and grateful for our country and honor

Christ who is king. We want to not be Christian nationalists, but seek

Christ's nation. And I put that in a possessive, this is

Christ's nation. Yeah, our rights and freedoms are wonderful things that God has given to us.

But if we're seeking to protect or further those rights and freedoms, and our first place of action where we try to do something about it is in the political sphere, we've missed where those rights and freedoms come from because rights and freedoms don't stem from the government.

Even the government recognized that it came straight from the hand of God.

But what we as Christians recognize is that the rights and freedoms that we're talking about, the rights and freedoms that we have come because we have been set free from sin by Christ.

That's the true freedom that we need to be seeking first off and foremost. That sort of freedom then informs the freedoms and rights and responsibilities that we have that are supposed to be protected and safeguarded by our government.

It's supposed to be an outworking of the biblical understanding of the forgiveness of sin and sanctification of changing of the heart from stone to a heart of flesh.

All of that is supposed to be recognized and realized in the civil government as more and more people are saved.

So if we're going to find true freedom, we don't find true freedom through government, what government does or doesn't do.

You find true freedom through Christ who frees us from sin. I think that's what you were saying. Absolutely.

And it reminds me of a quote that I just heard from Philip Kaser. And this was concerning Esther.

And this is what she did. Freedom to do what? Have dominion or take dominion over your circumstances.

And that's what Esther did. She took dominion over her circumstances in where she was, what she was doing.

She obeyed God and she left the results up to Him. Yep. And that's what we do in our response to government, whether they're behaving well or behaving evil.

We take dominion over our circumstances. That means react, behave, live in such a way that in obedience to Christ and we leave the results up to God.

Yep. It's interesting that Esther goes to take dominion and does so in a right and respectful way like she's supposed to.

And it turns out well for her. You think of other people, John Wycliffe, for example.

He went to take dominion over where he was. He did it in the right and respectful way. And he ended up getting killed.

And then they hated him so bad that they went and dug up what was left of his corpse and burned it. Yeah. Right. I mean, man, those people hated him.

But think of what Wycliffe did for the English Bible translation. What he did for getting the

Bible into the hands of the people. Just moving the whole

Reformation up to move. Just think of the work that he did. Both were great successes in what they did.

But they were great successes not because of what they did, but because through a faithful adhering to what

God had set forth. They succeeded because God used their faithfulness.

Not because they were big and strong or autonomous or whatever in their own right.

That, I think, is the difference between what we should see as Christians who want to take over the nation.

Take it over through the preaching of the gospel and an actual change of the hearts of men by God.

That versus a sort of Christian nationalism where you take a cross and a flag everywhere you go and just kind of do whatever you want when you get there.

It's almost like a superficial splashing of symbols around just to say that you're doing the right thing.

Quite a large possibility that you're not. Yeah, yeah. The way

I see the difference in those circumstances would be if you're one of the people that you're describing, to me it comes across as you're basically representing just a different political party called the

Christian party. Where in the positive sense that you were describing in the way that we should behave, we're just behaving as Christians seeking to change hearts and lives through the gospel, seeking to disciple the nations.

Yep, yep. And that's really what it boils down to. Are we acting in a way that is faithful to Christ or when we come to things that are political, do we start from a different point and just act how we think is best?

We have to start from that same starting point, which would be the gospel of Jesus Christ and our knowledge of who

God is, what he's commanded us to do. Right, exactly. So you ready to look at Esther chapter five and see how she handled things?

She handled them well. Let's look at her. Well, let's do a little introduction recap of what we looked at last time.

So Haman, he wanted to get rid of all the Jews. If you go back and look at the videos that we've done before, you'll know that there's a history there between Haman and his ancestors,

Mordecai and his ancestors. And it's a pretty heavy history that they have together.

And we believe that it comes out. They have knowledge of this history, that they were mortal enemies of each other.

And that's part of the reason that they butt heads, they don't like each other. The scripture here in Esther tells us that Mordecai, probably because of this knowledge, that Haman and his, the

Agagites being mortal enemies of the throne of the Lord, as scripture calls it, he doesn't bow down.

Haman, by the king, is placed in second command, given the king's signet ring.

So he has the most power over this whole kingdom, which goes from India to Egypt.

He has a tremendous amount of provinces under his control. He's second in command over all these provinces.

And so as Haman goes around, he orders everyone to honor him, bow to him.

Mordecai does not do that. And Haman is furious. So he goes to the king.

He kind of stretches things a little bit, I think. From my perspective of reading it, he kind of stretches it a little bit.

He says, you have this people that does not honor your law. They go against a different law, and they're troublemakers.

And basically this whole thing is over his hatred for Mordecai. Yeah, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

That's right. Because of his hatred for Mordecai, but we also believe that it extends to his hatred of what

Israel did to his people. He wants to destroy all Jews. And so he comes up with this plan.

King goes along with it. They figure out a day in which they're going to do it. And that takes time because he's got to get letters in different languages and different dialects to all the different provinces.

So on this day, gather up all the Jews, go kill them all. That's what the plan was.

Mordecai is in the streets of Susa, capital city. He's renting his clothes. He's screaming, crying.

Esther gets wind of it. She sends some of her servants out there to take some clothes to him. She says, stop crying, stop crying, put on these good clothes.

And he sends back a message to her saying, this is what

Haman has done. He's coming after us. And then the last part of chapter four, which I find really interesting.

Chapter verse 13. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther. Do not imagine that you, the king's palace, can escape any more than all the

Jews. So at this point, Mordecai has revealed himself as a Jew. Esther, she's still unknown.

She hasn't revealed it to anybody yet. But he's like, it's going to be found out. Don't worry. Verse 14, for if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the

Jews from another place. And you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this.

As I was reading that, Dan, let me know what you think. I believe he's putting his faith and trust in the promise of God in the first half of that verse.

If you remain silent, the Lord will deliver us. We'll find relief and deliverance.

It will arise from somewhere, even if it doesn't come from you. He's putting a trust in the promise of God.

You see, and we've looked at that too. We went to Daniel and Ezekiel and looked at the prophecies.

He fulfilled his promise, fulfilled the prophecy of them being able to return home after 70 years.

That was fulfilled exactly. And then in Ezekiel, we see this other promise that the armies are going to come after them, that God is going to deliver them.

And he's trusting in that promise. Do you think maybe he takes some license here and says, maybe trying to convince her to do the right thing in his mind?

Don't think for a second that you're not going to get found out and you and your father's house will perish. The only person left in her father's house was her.

Yeah. So he's basically saying you and your bloodline with you is going to, like, if you go, you'll all go. Right.

He may have been, but at the same time, I think he also knew her a little bit.

I don't know. If I was in the king's house, I would say

I was a servant of some sort. And I knew that every single one of my folks was being killed on a certain day.

And I see smoke piles from the bodies burning and you hear the calamity down there.

I don't think I'm going to be able to keep a straight face all day. Why are you crying? Are you one of those

Jews? Why are you upset? You're not supposed to be upset in the presence of the king. Are you one of them?

What do you do? You say no, you bust up crying and they figure you out. So, I mean, I think he may have taken a little bit of license there, but it's not farfetched to see that what he's saying would probably happen fairly easily.

Yeah, and along that line of thinking too, just another possibility. I mean, as they're dragging, because she asked

Mordecai to draw all the Jews in Susa that you know of and ask them to fast. So, once this started and they're dragging them away to their death,

I mean, at least one of them could have pointed back up to the palace and said, she's one, she's one.

Or even if they weren't trying to out her saying, you know, Esther do something, we're all getting about to be killed.

Well, why would she be able to do something? How do you know? I think those are great possibilities.

So, you know, he wasn't too creative with this persuasive talk here. It was a well -educated guess.

Right, right. But also in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about, she's not, she's not laid it out there yet, who she is.

And if she wanted to, to preserve herself, she could have kept quiet.

I mean, that could have been her motivation. That's a choice that she had. I want to preserve myself.

And, you know, I'm alive and I could, my father's line could continue.

So, I'm just going to be hush hush. And that could have been a possibility. So she had a decision to make.

And so that's where we come to the verse 15. Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai. Go assemble all the

Jews who are found in Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day.

I and my maidens also will fast in the same way. And thus I will go to the king, which is not according to law.

If I perish, I perish. So Mordecai went away and did just as Esther commanded. So let's jump into chapter five.

I'll read a few verses and let you give some commentary. Well, let me pull it up. I did this tonight.

There we go. Now, it came about on the third day. So we're in our timeline here.

They've been fasting for three days now. And now it came about on the third day that Esther put on her royal robes and stood the inner court of the king's palace in front of the king's rooms.

And the king was sitting on his royal throne in the throne room opposite the entrance to the palace.

When the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she obtained favor in his sight.

And the king extended Esther the golden scepter, which was in his hand. So Esther came near and touched the top of the scepter.

You want to give some commentary there? You want me to read a few more? Yeah, that had to have been a long, long, long, long, long, long, long pause.

At least in Esther's mind. Absolutely. It's like they made eye contact.

The next few seconds must have seemed like an eternity. I mean, I don't know.

I would hate to be in a marriage like that where you wonder if your husband's going to kill you. That'd be in a marriage with a husband anyway.

That'd be weird, not a real marriage. But anyway. Yeah, she just stood there and she looked over and he saw her and the world stopped.

And then he held out the scepter to her. She must have been about ready to fall over right then.

And now she's got to talk. So she walked up, followed the protocol. Make sure he's not out of the woods yet.

Let me kiss this thing and make sure he's not coming after me. So she went and she touched the scepter and they started talking to her.

Man, that had to have been nerve wracking. Yeah, absolutely. It takes a lot of courage.

Well, and not only that, because she brought it out earlier in chapter four that this was illegal.

This was not something that you'd do. Right. Even though there was a sigh of relief there that she made it past that first stage, it wasn't the last.

She put on her royal robes. So it means that she knew if I'm going to do this, let me do it right.

So she put on the... She's supposed to be looking right, supposed to be wearing the right dress or the right robe or the right whatever it is, the right headpiece, the right jewelry.

She needs to be looking queenly as she comes. And she did. She stood there like, hey,

I understand that this is yours. I'm going to stand back over here and just let you notice me. But I'm ready and I got something to say if you'd like me to come on in.

You know, there's two types. One little jump in the pool, you know, cannonball style.

And then the one that dips her toe. That's right. She dipped the toe before she kind of got thrown in the deep end.

That's right. She had to feel the atmosphere first. Yeah. I think there's a good point for me to just point out these five things that Pastor Phillip Kaiser pointed out, because we can read through these passages in Scripture and they can go by so fast in our reading that we don't meditate on all the things, all the obstacles, basically.

And that's what we're talking about, the phases that she had to go to, the obstacles, the hurdles that she had to face that were extreme, that were,

I mean, they were so bad, you know, she could have been sweating almost drops of blood in worry.

Yeah, I mean, the king hadn't called for her in a while. Yeah. And these obstacles were that intense.

She could have been just so distraught. So let me just remind everybody what she had to go through.

So we talked about the first one. She had to break a law, and it normally meant the death penalty.

Eventually, she's going to have to admit that she's a Jew from the same people that he has already said are going to die.

She had to convince the king to reverse a law that can't be reversed.

And that's a law coming from the Medes and the Persians at that time, that once a king has made a law or command, it cannot be reversed.

And we see that back in Daniel chapter six, where Daniel was a friend to the king.

And yet he was convinced to make a law that if you don't worship me, you get thrown in the lion's den.

But his friend had to go visit the lion's den because he couldn't reverse the law.

Yet Esther has to go in and convince the king to reverse a law that cannot be reversed.

The fourth one was, she had to oppose, and she chose to do it face to face.

She didn't have to, but she invited him to both parties. But she had to oppose the second most powerful man in this kingdom.

And then she also had to face the pride of the king.

How dare you ask me to go against a law that I incited?

I mean, she really had to face a lot of obstacles.

And it's no wonder that she called for everybody that could fast for three days.

All right, let's read the next few verses. Verse three, then the king said to her, what is troubling you,

Queen Esther? And what is your request? Even half the kingdom, it shall be given to you.

Esther said, if it please the king, may the king in heaven come this day to the banquet that I have prepared for him.

There's another tough thing in there for her. Probably one that is not too related to the story.

But day three, she's still fasting for three days. And then she makes a banquet. Oh, man.

And then watches him eat the whole time. I don't know. She may have not asked him about it on the first day just because she was like, well,

I'm fasting today. But let me have another banquet tomorrow so I don't do this on an empty stomach. Yeah.

You just have to imagine that she was physically weak at that point. Trusting on the strength of the

Lord. Absolutely. Completely trusting on his strength.

Absolutely. Yeah. Verse five. Then the king said, bring Haman quickly that we may do as Esther desires.

So he was really into Esther. I mean, he said, bring her. Bring him quickly. And he was offering her up to half the kingdom.

So not only does, in my mind, I'm thinking about Esther. It's looking

OK. He lets me live. He's offering me half the kingdom.

He's wanting to honor my request as quick as possible. It's OK.

So the king and Haman came to the banquet which Esther had prepared. As they drank their wine at the banquet, his favorite thing to do, it seems.

The king said, Esther, what is your petition? For it shall be granted to you. And what is your request?

Even to half the kingdom, it shall be done. Any thoughts on those verses?

No, I mean, it's kind of foolish for a king to get drunk and then say, hey, what do you want? I'll give you anything you ask for.

It just seems like a recipe for getting yourself into a situation you don't want to be in. Absolutely.

It kind of makes me think about the request for John the

Baptist's head. Something he probably didn't really want to do.

But he got himself there in a pickle. Yeah, you know, it's happened a couple of other times.

This guy said, the next person that comes through, I'm going to sacrifice them for something.

It was his daughter. It was like, dude, what are you doing? Or who was it?

Was it Saul and Jonathan, maybe? Whoever does this, whoever eats and doesn't keep this fast until we're done chasing after them.

And then he ate some honey. He was revived. I think that's who it was. Yeah, he said he was going to kill him.

And then people are like, no, don't do that. I kind of back him off. Don't make decisions on an empty stomach when you're drunk.

An empty stomach that's full of alcohol. Yeah, I mean, just like be sober minded.

Well, this is another reason why I think Esther is a great example. I mean, she's spending three days fasting, putting her trust in the

Lord, and contemplating and coming up, using her mind, coming up with a plan, taking care in her approach.

She's strategic. And I think that's, I think scripture allows for that, teaches that for us in our relationships, in our approaches to things, approaches to government, that we should take care, that we should seek him first, but also use our minds.

Do it with care. Use our intelligence. Be strategic. Perfect example here with Esther.

Verse seven. So Esther replied, my petition and my request is, drum roll, if I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and do what

I request, may the king and Haman come to the banquet which I will prepare for them, and tomorrow

I will do as the king says. So, I don't know, maybe

I'm telling on myself a little bit here, but I'm thinking of a middle school boy about to ask somebody out to a dance and he's just a little bit too scared to actually ask them.

So he goes up to the girl and says, hey, how you doing? She's like, hey. And you go to ask, you want to go to the dance with me, but do you, can

I borrow a pencil? He gets a pencil and walks away to ask her another time. I don't know, it kind of seems like she's getting nervous here, but I don't know if she's getting nervous here or not because she would have been weak, she wouldn't rely upon God because she's fasting.

But she has seen success because the king's happy, he wants to give her what she wants, brings her into the court, didn't kill her.

So it may be that she is thinking through this and she's going to, it may not be that she's not courageous, it may be that she thinks that she can, it will have a better outcome and more in her favor outcome if she allows the situation to simmer a little bit.

I don't know which one it is. I don't know if she says, let's let the king get fat and sassy for two days with Haman right there by his side before I drop this bombshell on him.

Maybe it was that she was nervous and being uncourageous.

Either way you look at it, the events that happened in between the two festivals are incredible.

So you may not hear God's name in this book, but for these two things, this series of events to happen in between those two festivals and then for her to ask again right at the end of it, it's incredible the way the whole situation was manipulated to where the question almost got answered before it got asked here in the next couple chapters.

Because God shows up even though his name doesn't. He's there moving and shaking and doing stuff, which is interesting.

So whether she was lacking courage or whether she was scheming and plotting a little bit,

I don't know. But what I do know is that the hand of God was in it, whatever it was. There's a lot going on in the interim.

And Esther doesn't tell us or the book of Esther doesn't tell us her thought process or her intentions or the details of her strategy.

We just kind of see the results of everything. Let me read the first few words of the next verse and let me give you an observation that I've made based on what you were just talking about.

Chapter five, verse nine. Then Haman went out that day glad. This is the observation that I made when

I saw this. What's his relationship with Mordecai? We're getting in the same verse.

We're getting ready to see what his relationship with Mordecai is. But what's his relationship with Mordecai? He hates Mordecai.

Yeah, it's not good. He hates him. And why is that? Because this whole time, Mordecai has refused to honor him in any way, shape or form.

But Esther, a Jew herself, is doing just the opposite.

And she has created this banquet to honor not just the king, but Haman.

And she's doing the complete opposite. And maybe this is a part of her strategy that we were talking about.

Don't know because it doesn't tell. We just kind of see the results. But she is feeding this pride of the king and feeding the pride of Haman.

And Mordecai did the complete opposite and caused this fierce hatred and anger to come up in him.

But it says Haman went out that day glad. And we see how glad he was.

We'll see that here in the next few verses about what he does and how his pride swells up. I just made that observation about the total opposite approach to Haman.

And it may be part of her strategy. It's also interesting that the walk from the palace to the palace gate had to have been about as long as this verse is.

He wasn't happy for long. No, no. Let me finish reading the verse. He was glad.

He went out that day glad and pleased of heart. But when

Haman saw Mordecai in the king's gate that he did not stand up or tremble before him,

Haman was filled with anger against Mordecai. Haman controlled himself.

However, went to his house and sent for his friends and his wives.

So despite the fact that he was so mad at Mordecai, he still had to brag about his situation a little bit.

He didn't forget about that. Verse 11, Then Haman recounted to them the glory of his riches and the number of his sons and every instance where the king had magnified him and how he had promoted him above the princes, the servants of the king.

Now, there's that. If we want to throw a little eschatology study in there,

Haman, the chief prince, the head of the princes, we see that in Ezekiel.

So just a reminder, that's where we get our eschatology from is letting scripture interpret scripture.

So he's bragging. He's bragging all over the place. He's above all the princes and all the servants of the king.

Haman also said even Esther, the queen, let no one but me come in with the king to a banquet, which she had prepared.

And tomorrow also, I'm invited by her with the king. Any comments on that before we go to the last two verses?

Yes. Please stall while I look it up. Do what now? So yeah, I have comments, but please stall while I look it up.

Sorry about that. I wanted to mute the mic so I could call. I mean, he's in a full array of emotions and probably has to do a little bit with the wine that he's been drinking already.

This is where I entered the quote in when I shared the podcast earlier today, and I put that quote in from Philip Kaiser.

This is where he entered in that quote when he was talking about pride, and this is what he was talking about when he said, Pastor Philip Kaiser, when pride is not fed, no matter how well things go, you will be miserable.

And I thought, what great information there for us to take in individually to reflect on, looking at our responses, our individual responses to circumstances and situations, and how is it reflecting me?

And it can really be telling on our heart how we're viewing, how we're reacting to the circumstances.

So things could be going well, and yet our focus is somewhere else, and something else is weighing and dragging us down because there's this one little thing over here that's not going our way, yet God is blessing us so much in so many other different areas.

We've all heard, count your blessings. Heyman was not, well, he was counting his blessings, but he had this one other thing here that brought him down to the point of ruin.

I think it's great reflection. The other part of that quote was, pride is not willing to be anonymous.

Pride is self -worship. Another wise words for self -reflection.

Did you find it? Yeah, yeah. Okay, go ahead. So Heyman, I can kind of understand where he's coming from.

You've been having a hard life, a hard time. Your people have been all but wiped out by some stinking

Jews from a little bit ago, and then all of a sudden, everything seems to be looking up, going in the right direction.

You're number two in the kingdom. The queen's asking you to come and eat, and you're like, hey guys, rejoice with me.

Some stuff's been going. Finally, I caught a break. Things have been going my way. I got good sons.

I got good princes. The queen asked me to come over and eat all by ourselves, and he wishes he had the book of Proverbs in his tool bag when he was going through all this.

I can guarantee you that he wishes he had the book of Proverbs, because listen to chapter 23. When you sit down to eat with a ruler, a king, ruler.

Sounds familiar. Observe carefully what is put before you, and put a knife to your throat if you're given to appetite.

If you're going to gobble it all up, and it's not just talking about the stuff that's actually put before you.

It's not just talking about being poisoned. It's talking about watch out what is actually set before you while you're at the meal.

What are you being told? What is this actually doing? Political meals are not just about food and friendship.

They're about some sort of political agenda. There's an angle there. If you're there just to get your fill and move on, be careful, because there's something else extra at play here.

This is what it says. Put a knife to your throat if you're given to appetite. Do not desire his delicacies for they are deceptive food.

Do not toil to acquire wealth. Be discerning enough to desist. When your eyes light on it, it is gone.

For suddenly it sprouts wings like an eagle toward heaven. Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy.

Do not desire his delicacies for he is like one who is inwardly calculating. Eat and drink, he says to you, but his heart is not with you.

You will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten and waste your pleasant words. He had all sorts of stuff that was going in his direction, and he was bragging on it and feasting, living like there's no tomorrow, and that's exactly what ended up happening to him, because in 24 hours, you know, spoiler alert if you haven't read it already, in 24 hours, the dude's going to be dead.

Yeah, yeah. He was not paying attention. He was full of pride, and that's the thing that I can see where he's coming from when he's bragging to somebody.

You know, you have your friends and your wife over for a party. Hey, guys, I just got a promotion at work.

I'm actually doing pretty good. Look, I've got my kids here. My kids are doing well in school.

We've got all these birds out here in the yard because the birds are, you know, they're going to be, you know, good.

The turkey pooped on my shoulder, but hey, he's a cool turkey. You could say, hey, I just got this money or I've got these cars.

I've got this house. I've got five acres and a pond. I've got all these skills, and the very next day, you might die.

What does it matter, right? See, he spent his time thinking about revenge and evil and wickedness, and the good that came to him was fleeting.

It fell apart in just a day. Now, it may not fall apart in just a day for everyone who does that, but in the scope of all eternity, it might as well be a day because it's short.

So when we do wicked things, when we live in wicked ways, when we have political rulers who are doing things in wicked ways, sometimes we don't have the strength or political clout or power to actually do something about it, but if we are faithful, if we trust in God, if we remember that He's always there to judge the wicked and the righteous, if we put our trust and faith in Him, then things will work themselves out in the end, even if the end is beyond our lifespan.

It's one of those things that's kind of important to remember because He is reminding me of the people of Psalm 2 who are nations raging against the

Lord, but in the end, He needs to repent, otherwise He has no hope.

It could be like that for a lot of us, even those of us who call ourselves Christians, to be full of pride thinking, hey, we just got

Roe versus Wade overturned. Look at us. Oh, the Supreme Court looks like it's moving in the right direction.

They're putting stuff back to the states. Now, I'm kind of excited that we're decentralizing some of this federal power. Hey, we're doing great.

We're doing awesome. And then we still live in a life of wickedness and they come after some of our leaders that we thought were doing good, good people.

Boom, child pornography, cheating on their wife, running drugs over here or guns over there.

It can all fall apart quick if our standard and our practice isn't focused in on Christ and what

He's doing in the world. Because the only people who survived the situation are the ones who, here in Esther, are the ones who didn't look like they were going to.

The only reason they did survive is because they were faithful and faithful to God and what God had called them to do, to be faithful, to stand up for life, to stand up for the people of God, and God took care of the rest because God is faithful to His promises.

So, I don't know where all that came from, but hey, there you go. That was really good. I appreciate it.

Have some. Let's look at these last two verses, 13 and 14.

Sorry about that. Yet all this does not satisfy me. Every time

I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate. So, like you said, he's full of rage and he's full of glorifying himself.

We can see his heart in these chapters. Everything's perfect in my life except this one dude over there.

One dude. He's just ticking me off. We can take care of him. Everything is going to be perfect.

Right, right. Let's compare Esther to his wife because I think they do the same thing but for different reasons.

Then Zeresh, his wife, and all his friends said to him, have a gallows 50 cubits high made and in the morning ask the king to have

Mordecai hanged on it. Then go joyfully with the king to the banquet. And the advice pleased

Haman. So, he gave the gallows. He had the gallows made. So, Zeresh, his wife, is doing something similar to Esther.

She's honoring him but she's more feeding his pride like we were talking about a while ago.

But her motivation is probably more selfish. I want to stay in his good graces.

If he stays in command, I'm going to continue to live a lavish life.

It's probably self -serving in a lot of ways but she is honoring to him.

She is feeding his pride. She is building him up, pumping him up. And Esther, inviting him to two banquets.

It's a very exclusive two banquets, just the king and Haman. She's building up his pride.

He goes away glad and well pleased. But on Esther's side, her trust is in the

Lord. She's planned this out. She's come up with her strategy and she's trusting in the

Lord, using the position that God has given her to try to enact change and leaving the results.

She's taking dominion over circumstances but then leaving the results up to the Lord and trusting

Him because she knows on one hand if she does nothing, they die.

If she does something and it doesn't work out, they die. And she does.

So she's leaving the results up to the Lord. She's trusting Him and goes to the king.

Just to conclude a little bit, I was thinking about the passage that our pastor preached from this morning in Matthew chapter 8 starting in verses 18 through 27.

I'm not going to read them but just to recap, Jesus, the crowd comes to Him and He gave orders to depart to the other side of the sea.

But before they go, a scribe comes to Him and He says

He'll follow Him wherever He goes. Jesus says, Foxes have holes, birds have nests, but some man has nowhere to lay his head.

So this is what you're looking forward to if you follow Me. Then another disciple comes up and says, Let me first go bury my father and then

I'll come follow you. And Jesus says, Follow Me. Allow the dead to bury their own dead.

Then He gets in the boat and the disciples follow Him. And then this great storm on the sea comes about.

So the boat was being covered with waves. But Jesus was asleep. And it's interesting what the disciple says.

They came to Him and woke Him saying, Save us, Lord. We are perishing. To me, that's a similar situation that the

Jews were in in Esther's time. They were perishing. But Esther had faith and trusted in the

Lord. She took dominion over circumstances and trusted in God for the results. She put her faith and trust in the

Lord, in His promises, and remained obedient.

And here Jesus shows His divinity, calms the storm, calms the waves and the wind.

But here could have been an Esther situation where they took dominion over their circumstances.

But just as Jesus was resting, they could have rested in Him, put their faith and trust in Him, and continued to go about going across the sea because that was

His command to go across the sea. Dan and I were talking about this before the video started.

It's interesting that Esther commanded them to fast for three days. And it immediately made me think about Jesus being in the grave for three days and three nights.

Those three days, basically they were dying to their self. Fasting.

No food or no drink. You die to yourself and you're solely focused on the

Lord. Putting your faith and trust in Him. Praying to Him. Seeking Him. So basically those three days they were dying to their self.

And Jesus came and died literally and was put in the grave for three days and three nights.

Scripture doesn't make that connection, so we can't make a hard fast connection there. But just three days it made me immediately think about Jesus.

He died on our behalf. And that's exactly what He calls us to. He said the only way that we can live is if the sea dies.

The only way that we can live is if we die to ourselves and we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

We've got to die to ourselves, repent of our sins, and put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And that's the only way to live.

That's the only way to have the freedom that we were talking about. And that's the only way because without Him we can do nothing.

Apart from Christ we can do nothing. And that's the only way that we can have faith and confidence moving forward in our relationships at home, our relationships at work, and our relationships with the government.

That we can have dominion and take dominion over our circumstances and trust in God's promises that He is going to establish

His kingdom. That's the only way that we can go out and make disciples knowing that God will fulfill and be good on His promises.

That He's going to establish His kingdom. And it's going to reign forever and ever. His kingdom will have no end.

It will be forevermore. The only way we can do that is to have

Him give us a new heart. A new life. Be born again. Be brought out of death into life.

We must die to ourselves just like Esther and the Jews did. Just like Jesus did.

Die to ourselves spiritually. And if you have not If you have not come to Jesus Christ and repenting of your sins and putting your faith and trust in Him we so encourage you.

We implore you. Jesus commands repentance. And He is calling out to you and to all who are hearing

His voice to repent of your sins and put your faith and trust in Him. And join this family.

Join His kingdom. It will be the greatest joy.

The joy and the gladness that Haman had was a false temporary gladness in himself and his accomplishments and the temporary pleasures of life.

And they did not last. But the joy that we find in Christ will begin now and will last for eternity.

That's a joy that's priceless. That we could never obtain on our own or for ourselves.

But it's only given to us by the grace of God. Any last comments on Esther?

No, it was a good way to end it. Good deal, good deal. Well, I appreciate you, Dan. And I really appreciate all your insights.

Would you mind to close us in prayer? Sure. Dear God, we thank you for today.

Thank you for the opportunities we had to go to worship with your people. Pray that you would cause your word to sink into our hearts, that we would remember you for who you are and that you would guide us by your spirit.

We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys for watching. We really appreciate it.

Remember, if you would, give us a like, share, comment. Let us know that you're watching. We appreciate the encouragement.

Pray for our ministry. And as always, remember that Jesus is King. Go live in the victory of Christ.

Go speak with the authority of Christ. And go share the gospel of Christ. And we hope to see you really, really soon.