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you have your bibles would you
turn with me please to the book of esther and chapter eight esther
and chapter eight Esther chapter eight, beginning
at verse one. I'm afraid I had an apple this
afternoon. I've got a bit of skin still
loose inside. If I cough tonight, that's what
it is. Okay, verse one. On that day, King Ahasuerus gave
Queen Esther the house of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. Mordecai
came before the king, for Esther had told her, told how he was
related to her. So the king took off his signet
ring, which he had taken from Haman and gave it to Mordecai,
and Esther appointed Mordecai over the house of Haman. Now
Esther spoke again to the king, fell down at his feet and implored
him with tears to counteract the evil of Haman the Agagite
and the scheme which he had devised against the Jews. The king held
out the golden scepter towards Esther. So Esther rose and stood
before the king and said, if it pleases the king, and if I
have found favor in his sight, and the thing seems right to
the king, and I'm pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to
revoke the letters devised by Haman, the son of Hamadath of
the Agagite, which he wrote to annihilate the Jews who are in
all the king's provinces. For how can I endure to see the
evil that will come to my people? Or how can I endure to see the
destruction of my countrymen? Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen
Esther and Mordecai the Jew, Indeed, I have given Esther the
house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows because
he tried to lay his hand on the Jews. You yourselves write a
decree concerning the Jews as you please in the king's name
and seal it with the king's signet ring. For whatever is written
in the king's name and sealed with the king's signet ring,
no one can revoke. So the king's scribes were called
at that time in the third month, which is the month of Sivan,
on the 23rd day. And it was written according
to all that Mordecai commanded to the Jews, the satraps, the
governors, and the princes of the provinces from India to Ethiopia,
127 provinces in all, to every province in its own script, to
every people in their own language, and to the Jews in their own
script and language. wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus,
sealed it with the king's signet ring and sent letters by couriers
on horseback riding on royal horses bred from swift steeds. By these letters, the king permitted
the Jews who were in every city to gather together and protect
their lives, to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces
of any people or province that would assault them, both little
children and women, and to plunder their possessions. On one day
in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the 13th day of
the 12th month, which is the month of Adar, A copy of the
document was to be issued as a decree in every province and
published for all people so that the Jews would be ready on that
day to avenge themselves on their enemies. The couriers who rode
on royal horses went out, hastened and pressed on by the king's
command. And the decree was issued in Shushan, the citadel. So Mordecai
went out from the presence of the king in royal apparel of
blue and white, with a great crown of gold and a garment of
fine linen and purple, and the city of Shushan rejoiced and
was glad. The Jews had light and gladness,
joy and honor. And in every province and city,
wherever the king's command and decree came, the Jews had joy
and gladness, a feast and a holiday. And many of the people of the
land became Jews because fear of the Jews fell upon them. Please keep your Bible open now.
Oh, look, we've already got that up there. I don't know how that
happened. That was the covering picture, wasn't it? Right, OK.
Well, I'm sure most of you are familiar with the film Lord of
the Rings and are familiar with the story where one of the hobbits
in Tolkien's famous story, Bilbo Baggins, finds in a cave a little
gold ring which had been in the possession of a strange creature
called Gollum. And he puts it in his pocket,
and at one time, Later, he puts his hand in his pocket, puts
it in the ring, and finds the ring makes him invisible. And
as a result of that, he's able to escape in many situations. But it has a negative effect
upon him. And it's a very powerful magic
ring, which is being drawn towards other magic rings for the purpose
of evil. And there's a great battle to
get rid of the ring. into the fiery pit of a volcano,
which I think his nephew, or something, I'll be criticized
for this later, which one of his relatives manages to achieve
at the end. But the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's
famous story. And he's not the only one to
have the idea of a ring for a story, either. C.S. Lewis, in his book
The Magician's Nephew, written around the same time, had a similar
idea. I can't help wondering whether
these two friends, whether they shared the idea or whether one
nicked it off the other or whether one did it to rub the other up
the wrong way. I don't know. But in The Magician's Nephew,
the first of the Narnia series, there's a young lad called Diggory
who actually appears later on in the series as well as the
old professor in the house at Narnia, in the house of the Lion,
the Witch, and the Wardrobe. But when he's a young boy, he
has an uncle, Andrew, who's a strange fellow who's into esoteric things. And he has two rings, and he's
trying an esoteric experiment with these rings, a gold ring
and a green ring. And he manages to persuade Diggory's
little friend, Polly, to try one of the rings on. She tries
it on, and instantly she vanishes. and it takes her through like
a portal to another place like Narnia, only in a sort of Narnia
multiverse really. And this ring becomes a ring
of power taking you to different places. Well, neither of those
men actually were the originators of the idea of a magic ring,
because even before them, there was a famous writer by the name
of Plato, the philosopher, the Greek Plato, and he had the story
in his book Republic No. 2 of the Ring of Gyges, and this
was a ring that some shepherds found in a field, which when
they put it on, it made them invisible, and they realized
then that they could do all sorts of things with this ring. And
there is a story, I don't know if it's based in any way on history,
but that that Plato was friends with the king of Lydda who had
a ring which he claimed would make him invisible and enable
him to see other people. I don't know if that was just
a legend or if the king really did claim to have such a ring,
but that's also in the annals of history. So, fascinating,
these rings that seem to be so significant and powerful and
changed everything. Well, in the story we have here
before us today, this is a true story, and the turning point
is a ring that has been put on the finger of a man called Mordecai
the Jew. The back story is this. The Jewish
people, after their exile in the Old Testament, they were
in the land of Persia, and they'd been taken away captives in the
days of the Babylonian Empire, which was then succeeded by the
Persian Empire, and now in the Persian Empire, They are under
the threat of annihilation. A wicked prime minister by the
name of Haman has risen to power and has made a decree that all
the Jewish people should be annihilated on a particular day in the month
of Adar. And he has, as the prime minister,
sealed it with the king's ring. What he doesn't know is the king's
wife, Esther, is a Jewess. and when she reveals this to
the king she says somebody's trying to kill me and he says
who's trying to kill you and she reveals that it's Haman with
his plot against the Jews and the king realizes what's happening
and he has Haman hung on a gallows that he had originally made to
hang Mordecai on and then the ring is given to Mordecai in
his place. And this is the turning point
in the story. And I've called the sermon tonight,
This Changes Everything, because that really is how the story
develops, the action here in this story. And I want you to
see tonight the three things that came as a result of this,
as we look at the text tonight, because it really is such a powerful
thing. It reminds us, of course, of
when Pharaoh gave the ring of authority to Joseph. What did
that make Joseph? That made Joseph head of the
land, didn't it? And as a result of that, he was
able to do great things for the people of God. Well, that's what
we have in this story too. The ring being given to Mordecai
means they have a new leader over them, they have a new law
made about them, and they have a new legitimacy to them as the
people. So let's have a look at this
text tonight and we'll share these thoughts together. First
of all, then, this changes everything because there is a new leader
who is over them. We see back in verses 1 and 2,
on that day, and by the way, that phrase there, those three
words, on that day, If you're using a King James, you'll notice
that's how the chapter six begins, only it begins on that night.
And now, a chapter later, in between, you've had the death
of Haman, and we've gone from night to day. Can you see the
significance in that in the story? This is actually, you know, not
only something that literally happened at night and day, but
this is a daybreak in the story. On that day, King Ahasuerus gave
Queen Esther, the house of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. Now, it's
been proven by historians, Herodotus and Josephus and others, that
this was actually Persian law, that if a man was your enemy
and he died or was found to be guilty of criminal activity and
he was executed, then his property would pass to you. And the house
of Haman was given to Queen Esther. And then we see, and Mordecai
came before the king, for Esther had told how he was related to
her. Earlier on in the story, Mordecai
had saved the king's life by passing on some information of
a plot he knew about to assassinate the king. And the king had not
rewarded Mordecai. And chapter 6 is the turning
point there for Mordecai when he is rewarded. But now the king
finds out he's related to his wife, the queen, Esther. In fact,
he is her cousin and he's her acting parent because her parents
have died and he is looking after her. And so he told, she told
the king that Mordecai was related to her. Now look at this, verse
2. So the king took off his signet
ring which he had taken from Haman and gave it to Mordecai
and Esther appointed Mordecai over the house of Haman. And
basically what you have now is where Haman was prime minister,
now Mordecai is made prime minister over the Persian Empire in his
place. And all because he's been given
this ring, which is the authority to act in the king's name. and
the power to do so. And what we have, if you look
at these chapters, if you look at the Book of Esther in a symmetrical
fashion, you'll find that this chapter corresponds to Chapter
3 when Haman comes to the throne and the king gives Haman the
ring. We're now in Chapter 8, Mordecai
comes to the throne and he is given the ring. And what it means
is for the Jewish people is they have a new leader over them. And he's no longer their enemy.
Now he's one of them. And you'll notice he's called
Mordecai through the story, apart from in verse seven, where he's
called Mordecai the Jew. And that's a phrase that's used
very often in the book to emphasize the fact that he is Mordecai
the Jew. And for the Jewish people, this
changes everything. They have their man in power
now. You know, this to me has been
very real to me this week because I've been thinking about Donald
Trump coming into power and what that means for the Christians
and what that means for the people who are of the same political
views, perhaps, in America. You know, whereas they'd seen
so many things against them in the previous administration,
now The man who holds the beliefs that we have is in power. Now, you heard me warn last week,
and I hold out that warning still. There is a warning, I think,
to be had there, not to be deceived. But it's a feeling of this changes
everything, isn't it? And this is exactly what the
situation is for the Jewish people. Now, actually, What struck me
when I was reading this chapter in my quiet time this week was
verse 16. If you go on to verse 16, you'll
notice it said, the Jews had light and gladness, joy and honor. That's a beautiful little verse
on its own, just one little verse. And I was struck with the lovely
description of what this meant. The Jewish people had, they had
light and gladness and joy and honor. What a beautiful thing.
And what a contrast to the days before when they were fast in
sackcloth and ashes, praying that God would rescue them from
this plan to annihilate them. But now they have light and gladness
and joy and honour. And verse 17 says, And in every
province and city, wherever the kings commanded and decreed came,
the Jews had joy and gladness and a feast and a holiday. Or the King James says, a good
day. And that's the literal Hebrew,
the yom tov, good day. They had a good day. They had
a good day. This was a good day. Mordecai had come in. Now, what
struck me about this was this. Actually, nothing had changed. Nothing had changed. There was
still the decree of Haman set against them. There was still
anti-Semites who were going to rise up and kill them. They were
still in a foreign land. But this changed everything,
even though technically nothing had changed. The fact that their
relative, the Jew, Mordecai the Jew, had now come into power,
this changed everything. And they knew it. And they were
celebrating as if everything was all right now. It was all
over and done with. And everything, the breakthrough
had come through. And as I was reflecting on this,
the light began to dawn on me. I thought, oh, of course. That's us. God's people. We're still living in this fallen
world. But our man, the man of God,
the Lord Jesus Christ, has come into power. in heaven. What does
scripture say? What did the Lord Jesus say after
he rose from the dead? Oh, I have to come back to that.
He said this, and Jesus came and spoke to them saying, all
authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Isn't
that amazing? The Lord Jesus Christ Our savior
is seated at the right hand of the throne of heaven. He is now
on the highest seat. Now, technically, nothing is
changing for us on earth, is it? We're still on earth, you
know, like the Jewish people. We've still got pretty grim things
ahead in history. You know, they had some pretty
terrible things ahead of them in the 12th month, which is a
picture of the last days. It's the last time. You know,
there's still an end time program with some persecution ahead of
the Christian church and so on like that. There's still the
day-to-day struggles of life to contend with. We've all had
difficult years in our lives, and we had a bad one as a family
last year. You know, technically nothing's
changed, but yet this changes everything. Because we have one
on the throne who has all authority and all power. And we can go
to Him, and we can appeal to Him, and we can pray to Him,
and He has power and authority. And that goes for salvation.
Some of you are concerned about your loved ones. Let me tell
you what the Lord Jesus said in John 17, verse 2. And you
have given, this is what He prayed to His Father, and you, Father
God, have given Him, the Lord Jesus, authority over all flesh,
that He should give eternal life to as many as you've given Him.
Isn't that great? All authority is given to the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's in the highest seat of honor. And this changes everything for
us. And we should be like these Jewish
people with light and gladness and joy and honor. You know,
when we go out of here tonight, we should be saying, Yom Tov,
good day. It's a good day. Our man's in
power. Our man's in power. You know,
I knew an old guy down in Weymouth in the church down there, and
he told me whenever the politicians came round canvassing, he said,
sorry, he said, my man's already in. And they said, your man's
already in. Well, what do you mean by that?
He said, you pull out his Bible and give him the gospel and tell
him the Lord Jesus has ascended to the right hand. That's what
it is for us. And our hope tonight is in that
very, very truth. By the way, you'll notice Mordecai
is a beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ in this book. He is a Jew. And Jesus is a Jew. He's of the tribe of David. He
refuses to bow down to Haman, you remember. And Christ refused
to bow down to Satan. All the Jews are hated on account
of him. And what did Jesus say in Matthew
24? He said, all nations will hate
you on account of me. And that's true. We see that
in Revelation 12. Haman tries to kill him by hanging
him on a tree. And it was the Persians who invented
crucifixion. It wasn't the Romans. And Haman
tries to have Mordecai hung on a tree. And it happened at the
Feast of Unleavened Bread. What a coincidence. I wonder
if that's why Easter comes from the name Esther. Do you ever
think about that? It's Astarte. It's a foreign
name. It's a religious name of a false
god, actually, Ishtar. But it's the picture of Easter,
isn't it? Of Christ dying on the cross.
And he's exalted three days and nights later. he ascends to the throne to the
right hand. And I could go on, there's more
as we see. In fact, if you look in this
verse, I talked about their new leader, if you look in verse
15, when he goes out of the palace, at the end of that, it says,
Sir Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal
apparel of blue and white, with a great crown of gold and a garment
of fine linen and purple, and the city of Shushan rejoiced
and was glad. Now, he goes out dressed in all
those beautiful colors and things, which were the royal colors of
Persia. And you think to yourself when
you're reading, you know, I've read that somewhere before. And
actually, if you read through the book more than once in a
sitting, and that's one of the ways to really pick up things
is to read it through and then go back and read it again. If
you go back to chapter one, You'll see in Esther's opening chapter,
we have the great feast that the king has for all the nobles
in his palace. And it says in chapter 1, verse
6, there were white and blue linen curtains fastened with
cords of fine linen and purple on silver rods and marble pillars.
And the couches were of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement
of alabaster turquoise white. and black marble. Those colors
and those precious things were back in chapter one decorating
the palace and displaying the king's glory in the palace. But
now all that glory is on a man. You see again what a picture
that is of Christ. In the Old Testament, we have
the temple and the tabernacle, and they're full of glory. You
come to Revelation chapter 1, you see the risen Lord Jesus,
feet like fine brass, eyes like burning fire. And so you see,
wow, this is an awesome vision of Jesus. It's amazing. And the
glory that was on the place where God dwelt is now on a man. It's
amazing, isn't it? This is what we've been told.
And Mordecai is a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. So dear
friends, I just want to say tonight, this changes everything for us. That all authority is given to
him. in heaven and on earth. He has
the ring of power, he's on the Father's throne and we can appeal
to him. So I don't know what's on your
heart at the moment, I don't know what you're battling with,
what your issues are, what your joys are, but you know what,
tonight you can take it to the Lord in prayer and you have one
who's on your side at the right hand. Let us come boldly then
to the throne of grace, find mercy and grace to help us in
our time of need, says the book of Hebrews. We can do that because
of the one who sat there. Second thing we see this ring
meant was not only they had a new leader over them, but they had
a new law about them. I was going to say new law concerning
them, but the word concerning wouldn't quite fit on the headings.
But that's what we see in this, in chapter 3 to 14, the longer
section in the middle. And it begins in verse 3, where
it says, now Esther spoke again to the king, fell down at his
feet, and implored him with tears to counteract the evil of Haman,
the Agagite, and the scheme which he had devised against the Jews. So even after Mordecai has been
exalted, Esther still then feels the need to fall down and plead
with the king to take action. Why? Why? Well, Mordecai has
been saved, but her people still haven't been saved. And Mordecai
is not going to be hung on the gallows now. It's Haman's body
who's hanging on that gallows. But there's still this law which
Haman made in the king's name against her people. And the Jewish
people have a law made against them by the law of the Medes
and the Persians. Now, you'll remember from the
Book of Daniel that the law of the Medes and the Persians was
an unchangeable law. When a king made that law, that
was it. And I remember my parents used
to say, And sometimes the youth leaders in the youth club at
church would use this phrase. I think people who knew the Bible
used to say, can we do this? And they'd say, you're not allowed
to. And they said, go on, go on. It's the law of the Medes
and the Persians. There's no shifting on this.
All right, you can't do that. You can't climb out the upstairs
window or whatever it was. But this was what their situation
was. They had an unchangeable law
against them. And it was a law that condemned
them heavy. By the way, that's how persecution
works. You make a law against the people,
then you enforce the law. That's what Hitler did in World
War II. When Hitler's stormtroopers kicked down doors and carried
the Jewish men off to the gas chambers and the gutters, they
weren't breaking the law. They were upholding the law.
They were upholding the laws they had already made. That's
why we've got to be prayerful about the legislation in our
country that goes against Christianity. and against the Jewish people,
because it's the first step towards persecution. That's why the Bible
tells us to pray for our leaders, and we should pray for them.
But they still had this law made against them that condemned them.
Now, the problem was this law couldn't be changed. And even
the king couldn't change it. He couldn't say, OK, we'll scrap
that law. We'll just do away with it. No.
It's the law of the Medes and the Persians. It's unchangeable.
So what can be done? for the king has an answer. The
king says in verse seven to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew,
indeed I have given Esther the house of Haman and they have
hanged him on the gallows because he tried to lay his hand on the
Jews. You yourselves write a decree concerning the Jews as you please
in the king's name and seal it with the king's signet ring.
For whatever is written in the king's name and sealed with the
king's signet ring, no one can revoke. What he's saying is this,
he said, I can't change the law, but you can make a new one. And
you can make one that offsets the old one, that counteracts
the problem of the old one. And by that means, you can protect
yourself. And so that's exactly what they
do. In verse 9, the king's scribes were called at this time. That's
what happened with Haman when he made this as well. And I've
seen pictures online of the Persian scribes and how they would, because
there were so many different nations, 127 different countries
or provinces, was it, in the empire that we read there,
you know, there were many different languages. And so you would see
these, it was almost like a classroom full of tables and desks with
all these scribes writing out the laws, which would then be
sent out around the empire. And this is what they did. The
king's scribes were called at that time. In the third month,
which is the month of Sivan, on the 23rd day, and it was written
according to all that Mordecai commanded to the Jews, the satraps,
the governors, and the princes of the provinces from India to
Ethiopia, 127 provinces in all. To every province in its own
script, to every people in their own language, and to the Jews
in their own spirit and language. That's the longest verse in the
Bible, by the way. But it tells us that they wrote a new law
and sent it out in all those languages to the people to offset
the old law. And the new law was a law which
said the Jewish people could gather together, as we see in
verse 11, they could gather together to form an army to protect themselves. Now, a gathering together for
an army would be against the law. I remember reading a book
about the Salvation Army, and I remember William Booth really
wanted to meet Queen Victoria and really wanted to speak to
her about Christian things, but she wouldn't meet with him because
she said, nobody sets up an army in my nation except the true
army of the British people. And she was quite indignant about
the fact that he said, now it wasn't the same type of army,
obviously, it was the Salvation Army, but kings are very touchy
about having another army established in their nation. But this gave
a permission that they could meet together to defend themselves
on these days for their protection. And this law was going to counteract
the law of the people who had been given the permission to
attack and annihilate the Jews. And the Jewish people could protect
themselves and even lay their hands on their property. It does
say back in verse 11 that they could handle and assault not
assault, they could protect themselves against little women and children
as well. Now some people have said, oh
that's really terrible. Well I just remind you that little
women and children were part, little women, little children
and women were a part of the plot against them as well. Just
like you've seen in in the Middle Eastern wars, the children are
also a part of the terrorist organizations. It was back then
too, and the women were as well. And it's not saying they could
go around attacking people at will, but it's saying if any
of these people attack them, they could defend themselves
against them. And this law was to offset the other law. And
it was sent out by the king's couriers. You know, those king's
couriers, we read in verse 14, the couriers who rode on royal
horses went out. The Persians had a famous postal
system. You've heard of the Pony Express.
Well, it didn't begin in America. It began with the Persians. And
they had a postal system all over the world. where they would
send horses, fast horses out, and they could get a decree across
those 127 provinces in three weeks. Now, given that's by horseback
in those days, over difficult terrain, dangerous country, different
languages, that's very fast. Very fast. And they had this
efficient system set up. And so this is what they did.
And this was all because they had that ring. They could make
that seal, and it could make a new law that would offset the
old law. Now, you say, well, John, that's
very interesting. All right, we learned something
from history here, but what's that got to do with us? Come
on, what's that got to do with us? Well, dear friends, I want
to tell you, we're in exactly the same place. Because you may
not realize it, but there is a law that condemns you. It's the law of Moses. The law of Moses in the Old Testament.
It's a law of condemnation. And when I read in the Ten Commandments,
You shall not, you shall not lie. You shall not steal. You
shall honor your mother and father. You shall not take the Lord's
name in vain. You shall not commit adultery.
And we go through the Ten Commandments. You know what, I find I've got
ten fingers pointing at me saying, you're guilty, you're a sinner,
you've done those things. You're condemned. And don't think
that God is gonna just say, well, I'll just do away with that boy.
No. God doesn't do away with his
law. His law is eternal and standing. It's written in stone. So what's
the answer? God makes a new law to offset
the old law. It's called the gospel. And Paul
says in Romans chapter eight, the law of the spirit of life
in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.
Can you see how this is a picture of that? And the gospel message
is now the new law that the Lord Jesus has given. And if we flee
to Christ on the basis of that, then we can be saved from the
law that condemns us. Isn't that wonderful? This is
the gospel here in the Old Testament all planned out. And I love it
because when they wrote this law, They did so in the month
of Sivan back in verse 9. Do you know when Sivan is? It's
Pentecost. What happened at Pentecost? All
the nations of the world were at Jerusalem for the feast of
Pentecost, as we read in Acts chapter 2. And they heard the
wonders of God in their own languages, just like they hear it here.
And they all carry the gospel home with them across the world.
Isn't that beautiful? And you know, Here, this was
so important. This message had to get out because
the Jewish people had to know these laws were in their favor
so that they could act on them if they wanted. Now, nobody was
going to force them to, but they had an option to act, to flip
for salvation. And if they acted in it, then
they would be safe, which they did, as we read in chapter 9.
Now, they needed that message, so it had to be spread out to
them. Verse 10 says, it was sent out
by couriers on horseback, riding on royal horses, bred from swift
steeds. I know that King James says about
camels and things like that. but actually there's an alternative
translation there. And what we have here is the
message being sent out with great haste and speed, whichever way
you interpret that verse. And God wants us to do the same
thing. He wants us to get this message
out to the people so they can be saved. There is a law against
them, but they can be saved if they turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. I love verse 14. I know we're
jumping about tonight. I'm sorry, I'm not doing very
well with the old verse by verse, but in verse 14, the couriers
who rode on royal horses went out, hastened and pressed on
by the king's command. You know, the Lord Jesus has
given us a command, doesn't he? Go into all the world. We should
be hastened and pressed on with that command to take that message
to the people. Wow, what an exciting turn of
events this was. This changed everything. And you know, literally, for
sinners like me, the gospel has changed everything. It's changed
everything. It's changed my eternity. When
I put my head on the pillow for the last time and I leave this
world with my last heartbeat, I'm at peace. I'm going to heaven
because of Jesus Christ. And even as I live now, I've
got hope in this world. I've got hope, and I'm brought
into a relationship with God. This changes everything. What
a glorious, glorious message the gospel is. The third thing
we see here, and the final thing, was that this ring brought about
a new legitimacy for the people. If you look in verse 17, the
last verse of the chapter, we've already talked about the Jews
rejoicing and so on, so we'll just go down to verse 17, but
it says at the end there, last sentence, then many of the people
of the land became Jews because fear of the Jews fell upon them. And what this brought was a change
in the attitude of the people towards the Jewish people. The
people's attitude went from those quote unquote Jews to, oh, those
Jews. Now they saw the Jews in a different
light. Now these people were legitimate.
They weren't the scum of the earth. They were the people who
were respected because the fear of the Jews fell upon them. That's
not the fear of them fighting, but that's actually a fulfillment
of the covenant promise of Deuteronomy 28. God said that if they obeyed
him and followed him, then the fear of them would be on the
nations. And it's a respect. And it corresponds to Mordecai
and that ring. If you go into chapter 9, verse
4, it says, for Mordecai was great in the king's palace, and
his fame spread throughout all the provinces. For this man,
Mordecai became increasingly prominent. Sorry, the last part
of verse 3. And it said, because the fear
of Mordecai fell upon them. there's a change there. And I
love this little twist to the story because you know what Hayman
did? Hayman wanted to wipe out the
Jews. But now there's more of them. Now they've increased. Now other
people want to become Jews. Gentile proselytes to Judaism. And many of the people of the
land became Jews because fear of the Jews fell upon them. They
wanted to become Jews too and they converted to Judaism. I think, as well, they saw that
the Lord had delivered them, the Jewish people. They thought,
well, our gods never did anything like that. And Persia was fighting
Greece at this time and suffering defeat. But here, the Jewish
people, when they were prisoners of war, that their god had brought
this great deliverance after these days of prayer and fasting
that they'd had. They saw the Lord was real. They
said, you know, I want that god to be my god. and they joined
the Jewish people. Now, some people could cynically
say, oh, it was just, you know, just temporary because it was,
you know, popular because the queen was Jewish. Can I just
remind you what it means to become a Jew? If you're a proselyte
to Judaism, sorry to be graphic, if you're a man, it means you've
got to be circumcised. It means, as well, you've got
to switch your diet. and take on the kosher diet laws
of the Old Testament. It also means you start observing
the Jewish laws and the Jewish feasts and living by them. This
is a major change. You're not telling me anybody
did that like me. That was a shift of heart. Nobody, no man would
go through that unless there was a shift of heart. So this
is wonderful what happened there and the new legitimacy to the
people. just absolutely was wonderful as a result of this change in
the situation with Mordecai and the ring. You know what? We're
in that situation too. There's a change for us. And
how we respond to what's going on, you know, can be such a testimony
to the world around. The world despises Christians.
The world hates Christians. But you know what? The Church
of Jesus Christ still grows. That's a wonderful thing. You
know, one of the things I love is Satan's kingdom can never
get any bigger. He can only lose people. Our
Lord Jesus doesn't lost anybody. All that the Father has given
me will come to me and I'll never cast them out. And he says as
well that none shall pluck them from my hands, that we're his
for eternity. He's not lost a single soul.
His kingdom is not getting smaller, it's getting bigger all the time.
Satan's kingdom is getting smaller. Isn't that wonderful? And the
kingdom of God is growing day by day by day. I wonder if you've
ever heard of this lady. Her name is Christiana Tsai.
T-S-A-I is how you spell Tsai. And she was brought up in a strictly
Buddhist home in China. But her parents allowed her as
a girl to attend a Christian high school, which was run by
missionaries, where she heard the gospel and she accepted Christ
as her savior. When she became a Christian,
her father went ballistic. He tore up her books. They brutally
treated her, really punished her. And yet she just walked
with the Lord through it all and just kept plodding on in
her Christian faith. And you know, after time, one
of her brothers came to see her one day and he sat down in her
bedroom and he said, tell me about Christianity and why you
became a Christian. He said, I've noticed that in
spite of the way we treat you now, you seem much happier than
you used to be. I think I'd like to believe too.
Isn't that beautiful? as a new legitimacy and we can
show that to the world as the Jewish people did in their behavior
as well. So this changes everything, friends. We have one at the right hand
of the throne. There's a new law in our favor,
the gospel. and new legitimacy, we can win
souls for Christ. I pray it will well. You know,
there's a story in the newspaper a while back about a ring. Now,
I've got to be honest with you. Rings like this, I just think,
bling. There's nothing attractive about that to me. But you know
what? That ring is worth something like 35,000 pounds. because that ring was one of
only 362 that have ever been given in history to American
footballers for their skill in playing. It's the Footballers
Hall of Fame. And Andre Reid was given that
ring. The ring itself is encrusted
with diamonds, and it has his own name inscribed on it. And
it has a very big diamond, a blue stone in the middle. It's a very
expensive ring, as I said, and it was given to him. He had his hotel burgled, and
he had the ring stolen. And it was in this country when
he came to this country to watch his old team that he had played
in. He came to watch them compete.
They were having a contest in this country at Tottenham Hotspur
football ground, and he came to see it. And somebody broke
into his room, stole his wife's handbag, a Gucci handbag, and
stole this ring. Now a long story, newspaper story,
about how the police, real detective work, found the guy who did it. And they found, do you know where
he was? By the time they caught up with him some months later,
he was in prison for another offense. And they said, let's
have a look at his possessions in his locker. And they found
in the locker a little envelope issued by the prison service
that had all these diamonds in it. Can you believe they said,
you know, this, the guy said, How did you give this to him? How was he able to put this in
a prison locker? And they said, you'll have to ask the other
departments about that. And they never got a straight answer,
of course. But they had the diamonds. What happened to the ring? Do
you know what happened? He melted it down and got rid
of it. Now, thankfully, they were able
to return the stones to the man, and he was able to get another
one made. But you can lose something like
that. I want to tell you, my Lord Jesus
is never going to lose his authority. He's got it for eternity. And
that's why this is a message which is never going to go out
of date. This changes everything, not for a season, Donald Trump
come to power, it may be good news for some people, but it's
only for four years. Jesus Christ for eternity. So
if you don't know him as your Lord and Savior, put your trust
in him even tonight. This changes everything.
This Changes Everything
Series Encouragement from God's Word
| Sermon ID | 12725184152759 |
| Duration | 46:11 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Esther 8 |
| Language | English |
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