Father, we are thankful that you never get tired. We're thankful that you never scream out of control because something isn't going right, or at least acting like a wild maniac. But you are consistent. You are faithful. Just that word righteousness that has been given to us, who are believers. You've clothed us in the righteousness of Christ, so you see us as you see Him. Thank you for that gift. May this message today be a benefit to each one who's taken the time to read it, to meditate on it, to be here today, and then to follow up, and to allow it to sink in this week and to put it into practice. So guide us and use us for your pleasure and your glory, I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Last week I had a helpful comment, I don't want to put it in the wrong light, that some of these messages are coming across with a lack of hope. And I don't mean to be doing that, so hopefully you're not feeling hopeless as we go through this. This is a hard book. There's a lot happening in this book that is a struggle. My desire is to explain, as I have, that the only hope that any of us will ever have is found in Jesus Christ. And the problem with the word hope today is it's used kind of the opposite of despair. But the biblical word for hope is not used that way. If you look it up, even in Vine's expository dictionary, the best definition I found for the word hope, the Greek word hope, is confident expectation. It's not so much that you're looking around at your situation or your circumstances and what's coming at you, it's that you have a fixed confidence in the expectation of what God has promised and the fact that Jesus Christ is coming back. So don't let me present you as hopeless. I'm trying to be real. All the way from Genesis 3 on, God was real with his people when he told us what Satan would try to do to Christ in bruising his heel, but he would crush his head in the prophecy of Genesis 3.15. But all the way through, God is real. He's honest. He's told us what's coming with the Antichrist. And so I want to be real, but I'm not, I am not hopeless. I am not losing or despairing over what's going on around me. And I don't want to lead you toward that direction either. We're jumping into Esther in chapter four. And this plot has been laid out by Haman. Mordecai wouldn't bow. Haman set up a plan to get it written into law that all the Jews would be killed on a certain day. We saw that last week. And so we move into this time here where Mordecai has to respond differently. And ultimately, I just put the title, Mordecai's Plan. as he's giving direction and he's still leading, even though they're facing calamity as you get into this passage. So Esther 4 verse 1 says, when Mordecai learned all that had been done, and this is specifically regarding what Haman had set up, what had been written into law, what is fixed. You cannot undo the laws of the Medes and Persians. It was going to happen. And Mordecai being an outsider and without a lot of influence, it looks like doomsday. It's over. There are no other options in man's terms. And so you see how he responds here. I don't know if you've ever responded this way, but he first off tore his clothes. That is a sign of deep despair and grief. And it's kind of like you don't want to be wearing your best when you do that. It's kind of like ripping it in some way. Your frustration, your anxiety, the pressure of all of this is causing you to rent the clothing that's on your body. And in exchange, in Mordecai's case, he put on sackcloth and ashes. Now, I always like to describe sackcloth as a potato sack. because that's what comes to mind. It's not quite what they did. These would have been a specific garment. It was made out of camel or goat hair, typically really dark. It was something that would be really rough, a loose garment, kind of like a sack. It was something they used to put grain into, so they did use it that way. But it's a mark on the exterior for others to see that you're now walking around in this gunny sack, for lack of a better term, and you have put ashes on yourself at this point. So you're making a public display. And if that's not enough, the third thing he does is he went out into the midst of the city and wailed loudly and bitterly. Who do you think is noticing? Who is this man? He's Mordecai, he sits in the king's gate. He has some position of authority that we think came through Esther, that he was moved up so rapidly. So he's known by people and here he is with this outcry of distress, this intense outcry, the idea of loudly and bitterly, it's a painful feeling. It's the idea here for him to have, painful feelings expressed through crying. And so he's making a big scene, is what he's really doing here, as he goes out into the middle of the city of Susa, and he is wailing loudly and bitterly. And then verse two says, he came as far as the king's gate. So he is right in the center of the activities, right up to the edge of where you would enter in with your position, your special positions. They would have had lines of guards, kind of a separate barricade, so to speak, as to who could get to another inner, more inner circle, closer and closer and closer to the king. There were attempts on his life. It's kind of like the Secret Service and all that went on around the president as Different situations come about here's Mordecai normally going into the king's gate But it says he went as far as the king's gate literally up to the entrance of it For no one was able to or was allowed to enter the king's gate clothed in sackcloth Why would you think that would be? And some of these are rhetorical questions. I'm not looking for long answers. But as you think about this, you realize the king wanted nothing but joy, happiness, good news, friendly people around him. Don't come wailing up to me loudly and bitterly wearing this sackcloth and having ashes put on your body. He says, I don't need that in my life. I've got enough pressure. And so they had a restriction. So when he approaches in that form, he comes as far as he can because obviously he wants to get to Esther. He's not trying to go to work. work as nothing compared to what's going on here. He's got to figure out a way to deal with this and to get the king's ear. And he doesn't have it, and now he's even further removed. But here he is, and the situation is very clear. The calamity is obvious, this deep state of distress or misery, an extraordinary grave event that he's in the middle of, that's what a calamity is. He recognizes the severity of it and yet he also realizes a restriction that's been placed upon him So here's the reaction broader reaction verse 3 in each and every province where the command and decree of the king came remember it went out to all 127 provinces throughout the whole kingdom sent out by the couriers or the the Horsemen on the king's royal steeds to make sure this message got out when it arrived. There was great mourning This is just a general idea of lamentation or sorrow grief among the Jews and you think well, that's kind of obvious What are they just read? What are they hearing? What are people starting to do as they look at them? You're one of them. How would they be set apart that they would know who they were? They didn't have bands on them. Like they did in World War two when the Nazis were out to get them but they knew who they were then too. They were unique. They stayed close together. They had a unique dress and unique lifestyle, unique religious activities. So here they are, they knew who they are. And so as they hear this message to them, they respond again with fasting, a lack of food. It's not so much that they can't eat, it's that they choose not to eat. Again, a sign of mourning. They had a time of weeping. You know, I think back on my life, and right now we're going through a time of mourning, so it's hard for me to take a message that I've prepared and apply it the right way because I keep going different directions. But one of the greatest times of mourning in my life was when I thought Bev and I, who had been dating for a while, she was breaking up with me. I read the book of Job. Is that appropriate for mourning? And it was a misunderstanding and but I'd already had a meeting with her dad who's now gone This was about 40 years ago, and I had a lunch engagement to ask him if I could seriously date his daughter I wasn't asking for her hand in marriage yet, but I was convinced already and I get this message that Well, no need to break it off. She just felt like it was going too fast, and it was I I kind of knew within a couple weeks Yep She's the one. And she had just broken up with a guy whose name I can't remember. Don't want to remember. And so she's kind of going, this is all happening too fast. So here I am mourning. And what it did to me is I fasted. I just, I wasn't interested in eating. You can imagine when something this severe comes into your life. And then I can't say that I was weeping in the sense of bewailing, but this word carries out the idea that you are crying out words. you are Christ speaking, can I put it that way? Whoa, it's me, I can't believe this is gonna happen, what are we gonna do? But it's with tears, it's kinda how this word's bringing it out. And then there's this wailing, where you are just literally crying out loud, and that's without words, and many lay on sackcloth and ashes. So this idea here is that they had laid down sackcloth and ashes were on the ground around them and it was spread out and they were just laying on it. So you kind of picture somebody kind of wallowing in this. This is devastating. It's bad enough that they've been carried off into captivity, that everything was upended and they chose not to go back to the land at this point in time, but now they've been given a death sentence and they've got to suffer through for 11 months or however long it took for the message to get to them. Wouldn't you like that? Oh, yeah, you're gonna die. Your execution date has been set, but it's eight months from now. So just eat, drink and be merry for an eight months you die. It's kind of the message. You can imagine the emotions that are going on here and the lack of hope. They didn't have any confident expectation that anything could be done. So whether Mordecai is wearing this potato sack and putting ashes on himself, or they're laying on these potato sacks and the ashes that are spread around them, it is a severe time of calamity that gets set up in these first three verses. But then we move to a variety of communications. We see in verse four, then came Esther's maidens, or then Esther's maidens and her eunuchs came and told her, And the queen writhed in great anguish. Isn't this joyful? Isn't this great messages when I just point out all the struggle that people are having and their death sentences coming? It's a hard book, but what it does is that it exalts God as we realize our limitations. His strength is made perfect in weakness. So why do we fight it so much? Why do we fight old age? Complain, grumble, try to dress like we're 30, try to go to spas and join Sun City Health Club, and all these things that we say, I'm not saying you should stop, and I don't want you to stop at all, but I'm saying, well, why don't you make your walk be useful? Why don't you make your exercise have more purpose to it? Why don't you go wash somebody's windows? Really good exercise. Why don't you go find some things to do in service rather than just say, I gotta make sure that I am happy. in my controlled environment. I'm sorry, I'm meddling again. But here he is, or here's Esther now, zeroing in on Esther, the focus of the book, and she's writhing in great anguish. And it's kind of an interesting description as he goes in here. It's a convulsive grief. She has this severe pain with a wounded heart and this great or deep exceeding suffering. But I thought the term used in the Hebrew lexicon, convulsive grief, kind of describes this. You can almost picture her as just rolling around on the ground or however she's responding or on her bed or wherever she may be. but she's struggling greatly with this, this excessive travail in her life. And so she struggles and they're laying that out, but she said, and she sent garments to clothe Mordecai that he might remove his sackcloth from him. Why? And I mentioned it earlier. Mordecai, you can't get close enough to me. You can't have direct contact through my eunuch or my maiden right there. And you're going to see what's going to have to take place. She goes, let's talk. But you can't get in here the way you're dressed. And his response? No. It's too deep of grief. This is the end of everything, everything good that we've ever known. And you're looking around kind of like, and again, I can't talk about what's happened in the recent days, but you're looking around at things, there's somebody not being at the dinner table or whatever it may be. And you start looking at the little children who won't be able to play and what they're going to do to them when the day comes. And Mordecai is extremely grieved. And again, as I told you, this is a causative stem, it's a PL, and he refused. He took great position here. He's still the leader over Esther. even though she's his queen. And we're going to see that as it comes down here. So here's the information going out. The queen finds out and she tries to get Mordecai to respond. So here's what Esther does in verse 5. She starts this investigation in order to find out what's going on, because I'm not getting this straight from the one who is my replacement father. So in verse five, Esther summoned, however you pronounce his name, Hathak, we'll put it that way. She called for him from the king's eunuchs whom the king had appointed to attend her. So this is a special guy. He already was an elevated man. he was a servant or an attendant of hers, and ordered him, she charged him or commanded him to go to Mordecai to learn, to gain knowledge about the what and the why. She's not needing more information. This is not, not good at all. And there's a serious problem here. And so when he switches over in verse six, we see the report. Hathak went out to Mordecai to the, and the word you could put in here is the open square of the city. So we're in Susa. It's the open square. It's in front of the king's gate. This is a very, very public place. And here's Mordecai. What's he look like? Sackcloth, ashes. in great mourning, wailing, who could miss him? Others would do that in their community. They knew there was a serious problem, but they're kind of going, Mordecai, who died? And it's not who died, it's who gonna die. Well, who cares about the Jews? Except those that know that Mordecai is one. And so in verse seven, Mordecai told him, Hathak, all that had happened to him and the exact amount of money that Haman had promised to pay to the king's treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. Why would the exact amount of money mean anything? It would be a shock and a what? Yeah, here are the details that she's looking for to put in the report and would have been shocked to find out what kind of sum of money is being promised back. It's like, there's no way they're gonna undo this. This would be too great of a loss. for the king. Haman's his best bud. He's number two in the kingdom now. And so they've got a serious problem going on here, but he passes it all on that the Jews are gonna be destroyed and they're being bribed into this situation. And he also gave him a copy of the text of the edict, this written decree, which puts it in writing so you have no questions or doubts about what's going on. And it says here, which had been issued in Susa for their destruction, their extermination, their annihilation, the desire here to cause them to be blotted out and destroyed. Why send all that stuff? Why tell her this news? Why send a copy of the edict? And he says in verse eight that he might show Esther. So he's given it to her with her own eyeballs to see. And again, who knows what might happen to him because Haman hates him. And to inform her, so explaining to her the situation of what's going on here. And then it says also to order her. Who's in charge? Haman, this is him charging her, commanding her to do three things. One, I want you to go into the king. Now there's two ways to go into the king. Show up unexpected or appeal for an appointment. Now, why wouldn't she want to appeal for an appointment? Okay, it may take a little bit of time, but they have months. They have lots of months. That's not the problem. What would it reveal? She'd have to tell somebody. Why do you want to see the king? She may have to reveal who she is to realize the urgency of this. She may have to tell Haman. Now remember, Esther's just a queen. What happened to the last queen? Didn't go so well for the last queen, did it? Because of her problems, Haman has reaped this great relationship with the king. He's promising in this millions and millions of dollars in our day of the silver that's going to be promised to him. And Esther's kind of gone, ah, if Haman finds out, what's he going to do next when he finds out I'm a Jew? He'll know he's in trouble, but he's going to have to cover his bases. So there's this tension here, but he orders her to go in or to enter into the king. And secondly, to implore his favor. to make supplication, to seek the king's consideration. And the word kind of carries the idea of look for his grace. And thirdly, to plead with him for her people. She is going to make a specific request and an entreatment. Now, what is he going to do about the laws of the Medes and the Persians? Nothing. You can't undo it. So how is she going to plead? What is she going to say? What is there even a possibility to have happened? In verse nine, Hathak came back, related Mordecai's words to Esther. He made known or expounded everything that he had taken in, including a written edict. And so here we have this investigation is concluded. The information has been sent back to Queen Esther. And so now she speaks. to Hathak and ordered him, here we have this communication back and forth, back and forth, but she ordered him, charged him, commissioned him, is kind of the idea of this word, to reply to Mordecai, and here it is in quotes. So you kind of have this idea that in case it get confused, I'm writing it down. And here's the message. Here's her message. Verse 11, all the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that for any man or woman who comes to the king, to the inner court, who is not summoned, he has but one law, that he be put to death unless the king holds out to him the golden scepter so that he may live. And I have not been summoned to the king for these 30 days. We got a problem, a big problem. And the word there for no is kind of our Gnosko word. She says, all the King's servants and the people of the King's promises know experientially. How would they have known that? People have tried and what happened to them? Or whatever the method of execution they were going to do to them. It wasn't a pretty picture. They're all aware of it. Nobody forgets that this is a no-no. And it specifies man or woman who comes into the court, or to the king, to the inner court where he actually is seated. and has not been summoned, hasn't been invited, hasn't been called for. So this is a serious situation and Esther is kind of going, this is bad that we're all going to get killed and you're asking me to do something just as bad and I may get killed instantly. So she's struggling with, she's being real. God is revealing to us that she's no different than we are in the situation what's going on. So is she going to be rejected? Is it going to reveal her publicly to Haman? Is there going to be other problems that are going to creep in because of this? And so you have a struggle going on and she makes this message really clear and it gets delivered to Mordecai. What do you think Hathak is thinking about? When Mordecai orders the queen to do something, what do you think the eunuch does with that? Oh, this is normal. Everybody tells the queen what to do. You've got to have a man here, and again, we don't know what happened to any of these people if you'll ever see them again, but you've got to have a man here with great character, great devotion, one who's able to keep his mouth shut and not react, trying to show loyalty to the king, one who maybe liked Mordecai. It may have had that relationship when he interacted with him. Mordecai was somebody that he could respect. He may have interacted with him prior because of Mordecai's position sitting at the king's gate and all that took place. So much is left out here we don't understand. But at the same time, we're able to see this interaction that's going on, this communication that's taking place. But Esther's insecurity is what gets revealed here. She's not a pushy woman. She's not a domineering woman. It's probably why the king loved her. She's a very submissive woman. But she's kind of going, you're asking me to do what? We don't do that flippantly around here. And I haven't even seen him. And I'm his wife for 30 days. Maybe he still doesn't want to see me. Maybe he's mad at me about something. Maybe she burnt the toast. I don't know what she did, but there's a concern here as far as what's going on. I see we have others that have burnt the toast before. But it goes from this insecurity to insight. And this is kind of the crux of this passage, where you're starting to get at. And yes, I'm going to end very early today. I hope you don't mind. Encourage you to stand around and visit. Find somebody that has a need, pray with somebody. But verse 12, they related Esther's words to Mordecai. The communication continues. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther. And here's some strong language again that Hathak would have had problems with possibly. He says, quote, do not imagine, do not think, do not form an idea, don't even let it enter into your mind that you in the king's palace can escape any more than all the Jews. Why not? She's the queen. What's the law say? Who would have struck the queen to take her out? Haman, Haman would have convinced some people around him to make sure that you do this dirty deed. So he first off wants to make sure she understands, even though there's severe danger there, don't imagine that because you don't go to the king uninvited, that you're gonna somehow escape any more than all the other Jews. You're not gonna slip away or be delivered from all of this. And he says in verse 14, for if you remain silent, if you are speechless at this time, if you try to keep your mouth shut to protect your own skin, he says, and this is an interesting statement, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from some other place, but you and your father's house will perish. That is an interesting statement coming from Mordecai. Remember how we talked about the book doesn't have any mention of God? You kind of go, where is he? Why isn't Yahweh or Elohim or Adonai or some form in there being used of him? Why isn't he brought up? And again, we've talked about that one of the possibilities is that this book is going to be read by too many people. That would create severe problems. They can get the message across without appealing to a foreign God. But he tells her, if you keep your mouth shut, relief, this recovery or freedom and deliverance, the rescue that God's gonna promise to the Jews, it will arise. It will come on the scene. It's kind of like the cavalry will show up for the Jews, but not before you're dead. How does Mordecai know that? What had God promised in the Old Testament leading up to this time? Remember Genesis 12.3, just for starters? Whoever blesses you will be blessed. Whoever curses you will be cursed. To present the hope in spite of what anything the Antichrist may do in the days ahead, and they may be closer than we think. God is in control. What's gonna happen to the Antichrist? He and the false prophet aren't judged normally like all other peoples on planet Earth. The two of them are thrown alive into the lake of fire. You think that's going to be a different kind of torment? See, I think that's what people think hell is. To be in this physical body and enter into that lake of fire. When you really look at what hell is and the struggle that people go through, and I'm not minimizing it at all, but you have The rich man in Lazarus, you have the rich man going into Hades and he's in torment, but he's still able to request. He's still able to think. Could someone put a drop of water in my tongue? He still has concern for his brothers. It's still him thinking and processing in a way that he's not in so severe agony that he cannot do anything. I think when the Antichrist and the false prophet go in alive in the lake of fire, that will be a different kind of agony. the greatest, severest judgment that God could give to man. Hell's bad, really, really bad. But the only way you can get in there is kicking and screaming. You realize that? Matthew 25, 41, I believe it is, hell was created for the devil and his angels. God didn't create hell for man. And hell is gonna be cast into the lake of fire. So it's kind of a holding place until the final abode of where we will end up. But it's a holding place of torment, not like the abyss, which seems to be just a bottomless pit that keeps somebody in suspended animation while they're waiting what's going to take place next. Hell is a big topic to people today. Many people want to get rid of it altogether. There are books being written in our day that tell people there is no hell and try to use the Bible to say so. And they forget that Jesus Christ talked more about hell than he did about heaven. He's trying to warn people, but as I said, to get into hell, you've got to kick and scream. You've got to fight God who has sent his son to die for you, who has not left himself without witness in Romans 1 about creation, even his eternal attributes and his Godhead. He has, in Romans chapter two, given us a conscience so that we're able to process and interact and understand the dangers. He has sent the Holy Spirit in John 16 to convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment. God has done everything possible to stop men from going into hell. They go into hell because they want to. They reject all the rescue boats and the helicopters and whatever may come along the way. And they say, nope, I got it. I'll take my chances. So when you share with people, you need to help them understand it's not a mystical non-existent place. It is a place where God is going to send those who are going to pay the wages of their sin forever and ever. And they say, well, God won't be there. And then you go to Revelation and you realize that yes, God will be there. And I just went blank as my brain is not working really well this morning. But when you go to Revelation, I believe it's chapter 14. And he says in verse 10, anyone who takes the mark in verse nine, verse 10, he'll also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength, Revelation 14, 10. In the cup of his anger, he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. I'm hearing a lot of teaching today where people are saying, oh, it's removing them from God. No, it isn't. You can't get away from God. God is everywhere present. But it's real. Don't let people tell you it's not real. Extensive information all through scripture, especially coming from Jesus Christ himself. So here's this reality of what's going to take place, how I ever got off on that thing, I don't know. But the Jews were going to die if Esther didn't step up. That's basically what Mordecai's saying to her. You're it. You appeal because you have access to the king or we all die. Oh, great. That's a nice thing to put on a 20-ish year old. Well, it's been a few years down the road. Maybe she's 24 by now. Young lady. It's up to you, Esther. So he says there at the end, who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this. Fascinating. The word again for know here is the same word with the idea of gnosco. Who among you is discerning or perceiving? It's hard for us to grasp that, but it's using a similar word in a little different way, but whether or perhaps you have attained royalty, you've come into this position with hundreds and hundreds of women that have been brought in and you were picked. God made the way you looked. God brought you up in the way that your personality, your whole attitude toward all of this, your willingness to submit, your ultimate trust in God, we're assuming. But he says, who knows if God didn't pick you out of hundreds for such a time as this, for this specific moment in time. And in applying that to our lives, I say the same thing about each one of us. We struggled for the last couple of weeks. when Bev's dad was going down the worst, and the last few days when he was making no sense. His dementia had taken his mind away, but he's still physically active and doing things. And we struggle with all that, and Bev and I prayed a lot, we ministered whatever way we could, but we're asking God, well, not really asking God, we're acknowledging to God that he's still here, so there's a reason for this, and it's not about him. What are we learning? What is God teaching? If we have a memorial service, which is still in the works, what is the purpose of all of this? What is God trying to do? And we realize now when all of a sudden God brought it up and it was getting worse and worse and worse to where you thought, I can't do this. Okay, all done. But new things now are coming out of it. The loss of a husband for her mom. and the adjustments where he's no longer there, sitting at the table, eating with us, or interacting, and all the memories that go into that. And you have to come back to the same thing, and you realize that God says, I'm perfectly in control, and I use every single little thing in our lives, everything, to guide you. And most of it we think is really bad. It's far less than what it could have been, because God is protecting and buffeting the situation, not allowing us to be tempted beyond what we're able, never leaving us or forsaking us. So here we are watching the situation, Esther, reading from afar with really no idea. We'd have to pick your nationality. Let's say you're German, or let's say you're Scandinavian, and a decree came down from the United States government, all Italians are going to die on a particular date. How hard would that be to detect? Your first question would be, how much Italian do I have to have? Guys, we're really mixed up around here. But if you named a decree and said, all the Jews are going to die on a certain date, you wouldn't have very much trouble figuring out who they are. They're a very distinct group of people. Satan hates them. They have resisted God in obeying what he's commanded. And yet they have a unique role that God says, don't curse them. I don't care how nasty they are. God will spank the living daylights out of them. I will take care of my people, but do not curse them. I have a special role for them. Bless them. How do you bless them? I don't know if we have an answer to that, do we? You can pray for them. Psalm 122-ish, verse six, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. I have to look these up because I don't remember. As I get older, I need more helps, but I want you to know where these are and make sure they're real. Psalm 122, six, God must be helping me with this message. This is what he's after. He's using Israel today. They are not a forgotten people. They're not a thrown out people. They have not been disregarded by God. They are his people. And when you get to Revelation chapter seven, 12,000 males from each tribe are gonna be marked specially before the earth is harmed. How does God know that? How did God keep them so pure that he could pick them out and say, 12,000 from this tribe and this tribe and this tribe? Because he's in control. The hope is obvious. And so the last thing you really want to focus on is the hope found in Jesus Christ. He is our hope. There is no hope apart from Jesus Christ. Do you know him today? And I don't say that lightly. It is the crux of everything. That is how I live today. It's knowing Jesus Christ, having a relationship. Bev and I often praying different times in the last 24 hours, sometimes thanking God, sometimes appealing to God, but seeking out His perfect will. And when it all ended so suddenly, because they thought it was still weeks away, it brought to my mind how the rapture is gonna end things suddenly. You're going to think, I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't take any more. And then you'll see Jesus Christ coming in all of his glory. That's the cavalry. I said it wrong. Cavalry. Always mix those two up. All those angels, they don't need to be there. They're almost for just to make an impression. God allows him to carry out his wishes, but he could do everything just fine on his own. but it's going to be a very impressive display. When the sky splits and it's pure black, and then you have all these angels coming in their glory, and Jesus Christ being in far more glory. And why is He coming back? Keep His promises, because He loves us. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. The first time He came was to die. The second time he comes is to rain. So our desire is that you know him, that it's a personal relationship, that you can find that hope, that confident expectation. And the better you know the word, the more confident you can be. If you have ignorance and you just have a couple little promises somebody gave to you as a brand new believer, you're in trouble. That's why moms hold their kids. That's why moms take care of them. That's why they don't let them crawl all over the place. Although you would enjoy it. But when you're growing up in Christ, God gives you more and more responsibility. Look at the responsibility on Esther. Would you want that? All my people are going to die, and the way to fix it is for me to go in and die. Maybe. All right, and they're up or they're coming. A couple questions. In verse 13, is it yet known that Esther is a Jew? I believe not. Just to give you my guesstimate as to what's going on in the book. That is what's going to be revealed. And that needs to be revealed. And then that's why the king is going to enact another law that lets the Jews defend themselves. In verse eight, does Mordecai hold a position that he can order the queen to do something? No. except that he raised her. So the only position of leadership over her, the only reason he can order her to do anything is because she is submitting to him. And she recognizes the position that God has put in her life. But legally, no. And if the king found out, that would not come across real well to the king. Did Haman know that Esther was a Jew? Not yet. That's coming. In fact, he finds out just before he dies. And if not, then how was she in danger? the danger for her would probably be that she's going to have to reveal maybe to the king. And that's why I brought up the idea, if she had to do a public appeal to get in line with everybody else that's making appeals to get to the king, that's a different way to come in. But if you simply walk in uninvited, which she has access to, she's in the king's domain. She can walk in there. Some of his princes could walk in there. Others could have access to him in a different way. So her danger initially was because of him being in a bad mood or seeing Esther in the same way he saw Vashti. Get out of my life and I'll go find somebody else. He obviously had no concerns for anybody. He had no compassion for people. When he wrote up that whole decree to kill off Somebody else told me it was a lot more than 1,270,000. I was trying to guesstimate to get down to 10,000. They said it was many millions of Jews that were in the land. He didn't care. He's heartless. So what's the possibility how he's going to respond when Esther walks in? Depends what mood he's in. So that would be a serious danger. And at that point, she would have to reveal to him who she was. because that's the issue. They're not only gonna kill all these people that you can't undo, they're gonna kill me because I'm one of them. So we don't know what the king knows at the time that this whole thing, but watch, as you read ahead now, the end of four and going in chapter five, six, read ahead, cheat, find the end out before we get there, but take in the message of what's happening. Look at the interaction and what God allows people to know, what God doesn't allow people to know. But He's in control. That's why you have hope. I don't care what comes to America. He's in control. Let's pray. Father, we are grateful to you. We have a confident expectation, not in our circumstances and not in our feelings. We find it very easy to despair or to be anxious. But we have a confidence in you because of your promises, because of your perfect love, because your Son is coming back for us. and He will take care of all of our needs. There may be some ups and downs between now and then, but you won't allow us to be tempted beyond what we're able. You will meet our needs. And in the process, we will grow in Christ, and we will share the gospel with those around us. So may we be bold, may we be strong, may we be eager to please you, may we be in your word, may we learn what you have for us and what your instructions are. and may we obey. We're excited, Father. You've placed us here for this time, for such a time as this in America's history. Help us not to hide, and may we not fear to step out and to carry out your will. And I thank you in Jesus' name.