Help you and quite a few blanks on there this morning. You need to fill in and And I think that that'll be a real big help to you Just a couple of other notes before we stand and read God's Word you can go ahead and begin to turn to the book of Esther chapter 3 the book of Esther chapter 3 in your Bibles and We're going to stand in a moment and read so just a couple of notes as you're turning there this is the last day for tickets to the Beth Moore simulcast Beth has spoken across the America is going to be speaking by way of video, and it'll be live here on Saturday. And you need to buy tickets for that. It'd be a wonderful opportunity for the ladies. Father's Day. Don't forget the great stakeout. We're not missing you this year, fathers. Great time together. Sunday night, the 20th. And we're going to have a lot of fun. VBS right around the corner. High Seas Adventure. We need help. And we also need you to spread the word and bring the children. We're looking forward to having a great time. One little note here. Please perk up and listen. We need a couple of guys. That would be willing to go with two or three others that we have out to Ohio, Canfield, Ohio, and bring Bill and Brenda Simpson, our new team members that are going to be working with praise and worship. And we need a couple of you to go and help bring them back if you would. And so on your care card, just write that down. Willing to go help bring Bill and Brenda back or help bring back Bill or however you want to say it. And then on the 12th, June the 12th, we will be unloading his truck here in Ankeny. He's moving into a townhouse, and so we will need some help to do that, so you can write that on there if you would like to help with that. On then the 13th, Sunday the 13th at 5 o'clock right here, we're going to have a reception for them in the Family Life Center, and we'll look forward to that. Now just one other note, I want you to just really just pay attention for a moment. I for the last one how many years but going back to 1997 Philip and I have been going on an Indian trek. I'll talk to you about it and some of you are here. You're going to be going. Some of you have already been. We carry Bibles where the road doesn't go in the Indies region of South America particularly the wildest valley of Peru. We've been going for many years. And it's been a tremendous blessing. We're going to go again this year. We've got 23 people that are going on the trip, 12 of them from our church, and then some others from other places that are going to go. So it's going to be wonderful. But what has happened has been beyond anything that we could ever imagine. In the process of doing this, at the dedication of the Bible, which was the Quechua Bible that was translated, there were more than 200 pastors and villages that were represented there in this area that came to dedicate the Bible, the vast majority of which heard about God in the first place the very first time because of the the Indian trek and the Bible distribution. When we first started out, we gave out Bibles in Spanish, but as time went on, we teamed up with Wycliffe Bible translators. They put it in Quechua and now then the Quechua Bible, the very first thing written in the Quechua language, the very first book ever published in Quechua. has been published for them, and they are now receiving the Bible in Quechua. And that's wonderful. But here's what has happened that we never dreamed of. There are more than a hundred villages through that area, through that entire valley where we're working, that have individuals that have come to say, we want to have a church in our village. We don't know what a church is. We don't know what a pastor is. We don't understand anything about it, but we know that we're supposed to do more than just meet and read a passage of scripture. So we have our Bibles. We want to meet. Can somebody come and help us to tell us how to do this? Adelite Yannick and Rachel, how many of you know them? Our missionaries down there, Adelite and Rachel. Adelite wrote me a long email and he told me, he says, Pastor Phil, he says, here's a great need. Here's something that we really need to do down in Peru. I want to know, would you put a team together and help us? To make a long story short, I'm going to have the privilege to meet with more than 70 individuals that represent all of these little villages where the Bible has gone and they're going to come together as if they were blank sheets of paper. What I mean by that, I mean, I'm going to talk about saying I've got the opportunity to go and talk about what is a church? What is its message? How does it work? What is the pastor? What is his responsibilities? How do things happen? Basically, This has given us an opportunity to help more than 70 churches start in one fell swoop. Now, stop and think about that for a moment. I was in Peru for 13 years as a missionary, and personally, me, myself, had my hands in on starting four churches personally. But in addition to that, there are dozens and dozens of other churches that kind of started on the periphery. Here is an opportunity to go and to talk to some people about starting a church, and they're going to turn around and go back with the express purpose of starting a church. And now, folks, they're not going to be like this light action camera of carpet pews. No, no, no, no. Don't don't get that in your mind. By the way, that's not a church. You're a church. You understand that. So they might have 10 members, 20 members, 50 or 100 members in these churches. We don't know. But what we do know is, is they need somebody to be able to be prepared to actually get up and give God's word to them and carry on some semblance of a witness in the village wherever they are. Now, what I want to do is I want to put the only tool that they will ever have, probably, these are very poor people, very separated, very high in the mountains. I want to put a tool in their hand that will help them do this. And what I want to put in their hand is a very comprehensive study Bible. A study Bible that will help them when they come to passages that they don't understand. I want to put a study Bible in their hands so that they can have a tool to work with that will help them as they try to pass through these churches. I have a team. I'm going to go and do this. Now, folks, I want to tell you that you have been more than gracious as a church since I've been back from Peru since 2001. You have not only allowed me, but encouraged me to go back and to minister, to preach and teach. I don't go often. God is my witness, and you are as well, that on Sunday morning and on Wednesday evening, when it's time to preach, I'm right here. This is where I am. I preach. When I'm sick, I preach. Whatever it is, I'm here. This is where I am. And when I'm gone, it's few and far between. But I want to warn you that at the end of the month of June and at the first part of July, I'm going to miss four straight Sundays from the pulpit. Two of them are going to be spent on the mountain trek. One of them is going to be spent in a seminar trying to help these pastors And I don't know about you, but I think it's a good idea to try to help 70 churches start at one time. How many of you are with me on that? Let's start 70 churches. So here's what I would like. I would like you to invest $16 in a comprehensive study Bible to put a tool into these people's heads. That's it? That's all I have to do? Yeah. $16 and it will put something in the hands of how I give it to you. I'm not. We're not passing a plate. We're not doing anything. Find an envelope right on their study Bible. Put the money in there. Give it to an usher. Just don't give it to me. You can't give me money. Give it to anybody else. And it'll find its way into the into the church. And we'll be able to put it together for that purpose. Now, I appreciate it. Now, folks, at this church, we I like to say we have a stable of preachers, and we do. We've got a staff that's second to none at this church, and I mean that very much. To listen to Pastor Chuck preach is probably a step up at this church. I just want you to know that Pastor Chuck is a wonderful preacher, but he and others are going to be preaching those weeks that I'm going to be gone. Don't assume that Pastor Phil's off on vacation somewhere, because if you've ever... Hey, where's Dale Polson? Is this a vacation, what I'm doing when I go on this trek? No, it's hard. It's wonderful, but it's hard work. And when I get done with that, I'm going to spend some time with these pastors. And I am just looking out. I have a question for you. Can I have your permission as a congregation to go help start this? Can I go and do this? What I'd like you to do is not take a vacation from the Lord's house. Just keep coming and keep listening to God's word. Keep listening to the preaching. Keep giving and keep serving God with all of your heart. I'm looking forward to it. And I'm just praying that God will do something wonderful. Well, let's stand together. We're going to read God's holy inspired word. And it's up on your screen. Kind of. This is a narrative that we're doing. We're studying Esther. We left off at the end of chapter two. Going to read selected passages. Follow along. Let's put on a good, strong voice. Pay attention to the to the punctuation. And let's read as is written on the screens up above from chapter three. Let's read. Ready? Then the king's scribes were called on the 13th day of the first month. And a decree was written according to all that Haman commanded, to the king's satraps, to the governors who were over each province, to the officials of all the people, to every province according to its script, and to every people in their language. In the name of King Ahasuerus it was written, and sealed with the king's signet ring. And the letters were sent by couriers into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adair, and to plunder their possessions. A copy of the document was to be issued as law in every province, being published for all people, that they should be ready for that day. The couriers went out, hastened by the king's command, and the decree was proclaimed in Shushan, the citadel. So the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Shushan was perplexed. When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and he went out into the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud and bitter cry. He went as far as the front of the king's gate, for no one might enter the king's gate clothed with sackcloth. And in every province where the king's command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. So Esther's maids and eunuchs came and told her, and the queen was deeply distressed. Then she sent garments to clothe Mordecai and to take his sackcloth away from him, but he would not accept them. Then Esther spoke to Hathatch and gave him a command for Mordecai. All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that any man or woman who goes into the inner court to the king who has not been called, he has but one law, put all to death. except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter, that he may live. Yet I myself have not been called to go into the king these thirty days." So they told Mordecai Esther's words, and Mordecai told them to answer Esther, Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king's palace any more than all other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place. But you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai. Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan. and fast for me, neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law. And if I perish, I perish. So Mordecai went his way and did according to all that Esther had commanded him. And Father, as your blessing to the reading of your word, and now then to the preaching and teaching of your word, may we have Your clarity added to the message may there not be a mixture or some sort of convoluted message come from the pulpit, but one that would help us understand that there is power in one person who takes a stand. Help us now. In the name of Jesus, we ask it. Amen. Would you be seated? Do you ever feel insignificant? Does it seem to you sometimes that the world around you is falling apart? And you would like to do something, and then you are hit with the realization that you are just one person. What can one person do, you might think? What can I really expect to accomplish as one person? I can't do anything by myself. As we move forward through this book of Esther, we're going to see that we should never, ever, ever underestimate the importance of one. In 1776, one vote decided that English and not German would be the official language of the American people. In 1876, one vote elected Rutherford B. Hayes President of the United States. In 1923, one vote elevated Adolf Hitler to be the head of the Nazi party in Germany. Never underestimate the power of one. You are just one, but you are one. And God has a way sometimes of working through the one in order to move the many. You see, one person can have incredible influence over other people. I want to just mention to you one other Bible person at this time who had great influence. His name was the name Nimrod. He was called a mighty hunter before the Lord in Genesis 10, 9 to 10. He was a hunter of the souls of men. He could influence men. He is the first person of whom it was ever said that he himself was building a kingdom. And the first place that he built as a kingdom was Babylon. And that very Babylon was the ground upon which Shushan, this palace of our story, was situated. One man had tremendous influence over his fellow man. I want to drive it home. I have one point for you today. One thought. This is not a three-point sermon, a ten-point sermon. This is a one-point sermon. That is, you make a difference. You count. There is power in one single person. And folks, again, I want to reiterate that this is a narrative. I cannot go back and cover all the elements leading up to this point if you were not here. I encourage you to keep up by doing two things. I've encouraged you to read the book of Esther once a week, every week, as long as we're in the book. Read it. Think about it. Let God speak to your heart. And then number two, if you have to miss a sermon or miss one of these, go online, listen to it by download MP3 or listen to it live or go out here and pick up the CD, but listen to it. And it'll help you stay up with exactly what we're saying. Now in the biblical account at hand that we ended last time, we ended with Esther being chosen as the queen. She is newly seated. She has been crowned and things are going swimmingly for her. Almost as a side note, chapter two, verse 21 to 23, it records the story of how Mordecai, her older cousin who had raised her, how he discovered a plot against the king Xerxes. And he revealed it to Esther, and Esther revealed it then to Xerxes. An investigation was made. The plot was found to be true. They executed the two men. So in essence, Mordecai saved the life of Xerxes, the enemy king that had them in his grips. I don't want to make this the main point of the sermon, but I want you to know two things. And that is that it seems a little unfair that it was recorded, but not rewarded. He did a good deed and it was forgotten. At least he thought it was forgotten, but it was not forgotten by God. And there's something we need to know as Christians. And we need to remember that doing the right thing may not be applauded immediately in this world. In fact, it may never be applauded by your fellow man. Let me say it again. Doing the right thing may never make you famous. It may never get an applause from the people around you. But God is watching and God will reward those of his that are faithful. This story is interesting and also another factor and that is that this man Mordecai saved the life of Xerxes, the man who had his people in captivity. I want to ask you a question. Would you In favor of government officials that are in the government today that are doing diametrically the opposite of what you know would be the best thing and what God's Word teaches, would you save their life if you had the opportunity? Would you even pray for them that God would save them? You know, I think as Christians we've got it mixed up sometimes. We are, if we want to be like this guy, Mordecai, he saved the life of the king. Interesting. Satan has run a parade of villains across history stage to do all possible things to eliminate God's chosen people, the Jews. These people were chosen by God to bring the Messiah into the world. That doesn't mean they're automatically saved. It means as a race of people, God chose to bring his son, Jesus, into the world through these people. And from the Garden of Eden to the very present day, there are those that are bent on the destruction of the Jews. Satan has inspired many. He inspired Pharaoh in Egypt to try to eliminate the Jews and put hard labor on them, and at one point tried to kill all the boy babies. Satan inspired Sanballat and Tobiah in the days of Nehemiah to try to stop and confuse the work of God and to destroy those people. Satan inspired through time several rulers of Babylon, Persia, the Greeks, and other heads of state to try to destroy them. Satan inspired Herod in the day of Jesus to kill all the boy babies in Ramah or Bethlehem. He inspired Nero shortly after that to make the Jews public enemy number one and blame them for all things evil in the kingdom. Satan inspired his man Hitler to rise up and declare that the Jewish people were up. They were a pariah. They were a pain and a plague on the earth. They needed to be erased. Satan inspires multiple heads of state and terrorist organizations today to do everything they can to declare themselves that their very purpose is the annihilation, elimination of the Jews. the head of which is one man by the name of my mood I'm up in the job who is dedicated his whole life to the extermination of the Jewish people and to the great Satan the Jews helper you know who that is us. By the way it's not going to happen because God is in control and so I want to say this I don't understand our nation and I don't understand why that on American soil every year Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is invited to address the joint groups of the nations to rant and rage about how he is going to annihilate the Jews in a blow up America and we invite him to do it and there are even churches that invite him over afterwards to give him an honorary party. We have lost our collective minds. We have gone loco. There's something wrong with us. Now then into our text is introduced another version of Hitler. His name is Haman. He's a descendant of Agag, the king of the Amalekites. And you say, well, who is this Agag and what is an Agagite? Well, an Agagite was a descendant of Agag, the king, and because of the disobedience of Saul regarding Agag, if you go back and read in 1 Samuel, you'll find out that God told Saul, kill King Agag and all of the Amalekites who frustrated my purpose when they were coming into Canaan. Kill him and all of his descendants. And so he said, oh, no, we can't do that. And he didn't do it. He disobeyed. So here's Agag, a descendant of Agag, Haman, sitting next to this king. As he's introduced here in chapter 3, verse 1, it says, and after these things, King Ahasuerus, after what things? Well, after Esther sits down as queen, remember she hasn't told anybody she's a Jew yet, she sits down as queen, the very next thing he does is appoint a prime minister, and here's what he said. After these things, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hamadathah, the Agagite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the princes who were with him." So here's this wicked prime minister. Write down some things as we go through this story. Number one, one person's hatred can doom a nation. One person's hatred. You say, what's the power of one? Oh, it could be a negative thing or a positive thing. Our story has a heroine and her name is Esther. It has a hero and his name is Mordecai. Oh, but it has a terrible enemy. And his name is Haman, and he has tremendous, tremendous power. He's Haman. He's the devil's puppet. He's Haman. He is Satan's sinister minister of deceit and destruction, and he's bent on the elimination of the Jews. This one man's hatred can doom a nation. Several things about that as we contemplate him and we contemplate the world that we live in today. It's very hard to see the wicked prospering, isn't it? How many of you have a hard time with it? I do. I have a hard time watching the most godless, heathen, pagan people that just hate God and everybody associated with God, and then you see them prospering. I don't know whether it bothers you that people like Larry Flint are so wealthy or not. It bothers me. It bothers me to see people like that rise to great power. This man was wealthy. Look at chapter 3 and verse number 9. It says, if it pleases the king, this is Haman speaking to the king, Let a decree be written that they may be destroyed, talking about the Jews. And I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who do the work to bring it into the king's treasuries. Hey, let me kill all these people and I'll give you 10,000 talents. You say, Pastor, is that a lot of money? Well, 10,000 talents of silver is 375 tons of silver. You say, well, how'd he get that much money? I don't know, but doesn't it bother you when the wicked prosper? And it's hard to watch. And he he was more of in the Bill Gates of that time. He just had it running out his ears and the ability to get in that. But perhaps he bought his position in the first place. The second thing is, it's hard to watch when the wicked are promoted. Not only did he get in, not only was he prospering, but now then after his prosperity, he gets promoted. Chapter three, verse one, it even uses the word. It says he decided that he would promote Haman. So he put him right up at the top. He was higher than anybody else in the kingdom, except Hasuerus himself. He wore the signet ring. You say, what does that mean? Well, he had a ring. I've got a ring this morning. He had a ring. Mine's just a little black onyx, but sometimes he had a ring and they would put the seal of the king on there and that was the king's authority. And so this man, he used the king's authority to do anything he wanted. A little bit of wax on a piece of paper, put his signet on there, and that piece of paper just became the law of the land. Everybody bow. Everybody obey. because old king has where it has got his agent. His name is Haman. It's hard to watch when the wicked are promoted and given positions of power. It's hard to understand as the wicked are empowered. Look at 310, if you would. So the king took a signet ring from his hand. He gave it to Haman, the son of Hamadathah, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. And the king said to Haman, the money and the people are given to you. Do with them as it seems good to you. So he's empowered. I don't know about you, but it bothers me to see people empowered and put in places of position and given power to declare edicts and decrees and to do all kinds of things that make the life of people that are just trying to do right, do the right thing, work, obey God, love their family, to make their life absolutely impossible and to decree things that are completely the opposite of what God has to say. It's hard to understand when they're empowered. It's hard to tolerate when the wicked make proclamations. Chapter 3, verse 12. And the king's scribes were called on the 13th day of the month, and a decree was written according to all that Haman commanded to the king's satraps, governors, and so on. And he goes on to say to destroy, to kill, to annihilate the Jews, both young and old. They passed a law. And the law that they passed said, all right, on the 13th day of the month of Adair, which is roughly 10 months away from when he was writing at this time, 10 or 11 months. This is in the month of Adair on the 13th of the month. All you people out there, tell you what, we want you to just find all the Jews everywhere in the kingdom, all 127 provinces, all 20 sacrifices. I want you to find every Jew and we want them killed all on the same day. Do you know in the United States of America today, we've never been under that kind of a situation where as Christians somebody would make a statement and say, all right, on a certain day we're just going to come and kill. What if that kind of a statement had been made? In Washington, D.C. or over here at the state government said everybody that was attending Grace Church on Memorial Day weekend, 2010, if you attended over there, then before the end of the day, you're going to be killed, annihilated, heads chopped off, eliminated. Do you think we would go, I wonder what's for lunch? No, we wouldn't. We'd get serious, wouldn't we? Do you know that the Satan? Did you know that Satan, the prince of the power of the air, is doing everything in his power? He is working non-stop to maintain the souls of the damned in his power so that they can never be saved. And you know what we're going to do? Go to lunch and not even think about it. It's hard to tolerate when the wicked make proclamations, make edicts, decrees, We're talking about legislation. What do we have going on here? We have going on, first of all, that they legislated their very existence as being a crime. It's a crime for you to exist. It's happened all through history. They had to legislate, find a law to make Daniel's praying illegal. It wasn't illegal. They couldn't find anything wrong with Daniel, so they had to find a way to accuse him. So what'd they do? Made a law. And they knew what he was doing. He was praying. So they made a law so that they could make sure that Daniel was breaking the law. It's hard to believe that the wicked could be so callous that when edicts are signed, that is going to mean the end of millions of people. The estimate was that there was 20 million Jews living in those 120 provinces at the time, that they could all, that they all would die. It's hard to understand that they could just sit down and have a drink. But that's what Ahasuerus and Haman did after they got it signed and sealed and sent out as a message. Man, we got that done. Let's sit down and have a drink. What are you doing tomorrow? One person's hatred can doom a nation. One person's vigilance can arouse a nation. Now, let's get the picture. Haman was ruling. He was prime minister. Let's get the picture. Haman was revered. One of the things that was said back in chapter three. That is, that all the king's servants who were within the king's gate bowed and paid homage to Haman, for so the king had commanded concerning him. In other words, everybody had to bow down. This is the king. It's as if the king is walking by. He is instead of the king, and when he comes by, you'd better get down on your knees, you'd better pay homage, you'd better pay your respects. Haman was ruling, Haman was revered, but Haman was rejected. Mordecai rejected him and refused to bow. Why? Read the passage. It tells you he could not do that because he was a Jew. Jews didn't bow down to other gods or idols, and they did not bow down to anyone who reported themselves to be an authority over God. They did not bow down. They didn't. And Mordecai would not bow down. It infuriated Haman. He was told, you got this one Jew over here, he won't bow down. What are we going to do about it? I mean, this is bad. He won't show you any respect whatsoever. And so Haman seethed with anger when he understood that he was a Jew and he wanted to do him damage. But he withheld himself and made a decision, no, let's make it bigger than that. Let's not just get rid of Haman. Let's get rid of all of Haman's people. Let's kill them all. He was rejected. Can't you just bow the knees, somebody might say, in the day and age in which we live? Can't you just bow down and go along to get along? Can't you just look the other way? I mean, when the king requires you to do this or that, when he requires you to, but can't you just look the other way? You say, Pastor, why are you even mentioning this? We don't have any... You know, we have been living in a land of Pollyanna Christianity for so long. We think that we as Christians in the United States have some sort of insulation from trouble or hardship. I'm here to tell you this morning and to announce to you that there are all kinds of mechanizations that are going on right now in this country to make it illegal for me to stand in this pulpit and to preach from Romans chapter 1. It's already happened in Norway and Finland. It's already happened in Canada. Would you listen to me this morning? We do not have any kind of a promise from God. I mean, American Christians forever have had it in their mind, oh, we're just waiting on the rapture. Everything's great. We're just going to just cruise in to the end. We're just going to just, I've got my helmet of salvation. That's all I need. And I'm just waiting on the Lord to come. We will never suffer. There's not a single shred of biblical evidence that says that America has a corner on God's favor and that He's never going to let us suffer. Are you a believer in Jesus Christ? Do you know Him? Have you trusted Him? All right, then. All they that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer what? Persecution. Pastor, this is not a very good Memorial Day sermon. God bless everybody that gave their life for America. I'm glad that people laid down their lives for America, but it's time for some Christians to stand up for Jesus Christ, his word, and for our nation. It's time to stand up. Can't you just go along? Can't you just, can't we just go on and do our work and keep reaching people and just stay quiet? John Bunyan, can't you just admit that the crown has authority over your pulpit? And can't you just preach government approved messages? No, he couldn't. And he went to jail for it. And he wrote Pilgrim's Progress from jail because he would not admit that the government could tell him what to preach and when to preach and how to preach. You say, Pastor, is it getting that bad? Oh, you don't know. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, can't you just go along with the government policy in Germany? And can't you just, can't you just look the other way with the pogroms of the Jews, which are killing and slaying and robbing and taking them right out of, off of the benches of your church. You don't want these people there anyway. Can't you just look the other way? No, he can't look the other way. No, he can't go along. And what did he do? He died because of it. He died. No, in a million times, no, we cannot give the government the authority that only belongs to God. So several things about this whole situation, vigilance, write it down, vigilance will cost you your anonymity. Mordecai could not sound the alarm without standing out from the rest. Note that the accusation of Haman against the Jews was that they are different. Look at chapter three, verse number eight, Haman said to King Ahasuerus, There's a certain people scattered and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different. Do you know what the definition of prejudice is? Here's the definition of prejudice. It is when people are unlike, it creates dislike. People are disliked because they are unlike. Do you know why the world's going to hate you? Because they hated your master before you. Do you know why the world, if you're living for Jesus and following Him, He said, well, I just never suffer anything. Nobody ever says anything to me. Well, that's because you're never standing up for Jesus, period. Prejudice is the dislike of the unlike. And that's what he said to the king. Hey, king, we've got a bunch of people out here that have different laws, different customs, and they're just bad for the kingdom. We've got to get rid of them. How many of them are there? 20 million. Okay, sign it. I want to say this morning, I hope and pray that the people of Grace Church in Des Moines, Iowa can be accused of being different. I pray that the people that you work with know that you're a believer. I hope and I pray and my spiritual ambition is that the people of Grace Church would be different people, that you are loving people and you're kind people and you're caring people. And then instead of cursing your blessing, and instead of grabbing everything you can get, you're looking for an opportunity to bless and to give. And instead of walking to the drumbeat of a dog-eat-dog society that you're living your life in the footsteps of Jesus, I pray that you're different. I pray that people know that you're a believer. God has called us to be a special people, different people. Now, not weird people. You say, what does that mean? Well, God hasn't called us to be weird, goofy. Folks, goofiness doesn't win anybody to the Lord. We don't need to dress like pilgrims and speak Latin in order to be different. No, no. We need to love like Jesus and live like we believe something, and that's the tacit test of whether you believe something or not. If you say you believe it and it has absolutely no effect on your daily life, you don't believe it. If we say, I believe that Jesus is Lord of everything, yet we never submit any of our plans to his Lordship, we're just living a lie. And so then, if your Christianity is wrapped up in two to three hours of bench-sitting, God-tipping, head-nodding agreement, while you look for a few good thoughts about God to give you a religious feeling so you can go on and live like you don't even know God the other 165 hours a week, then I've got news for you. You're fooling yourself. You say, Pastor, are you upset this morning? I'm getting there. I'm getting to what's going on. He said, oh boy, that was just a great story in the Bible. And the Bible says so clearly that all these things are written for our admonition. They're written for our learning, for our teaching. It's a warning to us. Oh, we just don't have Haman's in the world. What do you mean we don't have Haman's in the world? One is the king or the president of Iran. Vigilance may get you into jeopardy. Write that down. Chapter 3, verse 12 to 15, the reason that Mordecai and the Jews were the target of attack was that they just simply identified themselves. There was a time to be quiet. It wasn't time for Esther to tell who she was when she was getting into position of being queen. But once she became queen and once Mordecai, once the government passed a law that said you can't be who you are, you can't believe what you believe, you just can't be who you are. It's against the law to be who you are. Once they passed that law, they stepped across the line. Mordecai stood up and said, no, you can't bow, I'm a Jew. And Jews don't bow. Now I want to say something about Christians. Christians don't bow either. We bow at the foot of Jesus Christ and of Him crucified. We bow at the foot of the cross. We bow at the authority of Scripture. We bow at the God and Father of us all. We bow in the face and in the presence of the Holy Spirit, but we bow to no earthly king. Do you understand that? Vigilance may put you in jeopardy. Why was he in trouble? Well, he didn't break any present law or moral law. They just had to pass a law in order to make them be in obstinance to it. Vigilance may get you in jeopardy. Third, vigilance may waken you from apathy. It will waken you up from apathy. When your whole world and life is on the line, it has a tendency to wake you up. chapter the last part of chapter three said that the people in Shushan were perplexed look at chapter four in verse number three it says and in every province where the king's command and decree arrived there was great mourning among the Jews with fasting weeping and wailing and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. I mean, they were they were greatly affected by what was good. Listen, folks, if the death of your children was decreed and the death of your family was decreed, you would not be sitting back discussing it and chatting and wringing your hands about how bad things were. You would be laying out before God Almighty. You wouldn't want to eat. You would you would be in deep prayer to God Almighty to do something. And then you'd be standing up to do whatever you could to stop the flow of what was happening. Vigilance will awaken you from apathy. The people were perplexed. They were scared to death. They were thunderstruck. These are Middle Eastern people. They mourn a little differently than we do. They don't just pull a tissue and cry a little bit, no. Have you ever watched anything on television of when one of those places have been bombed? What happens to the women? What happens to the people? They wail. They wail, they scream, they mourn, they lay in sackcloth an identification of the fact that I have been greatly afflicted. They wailed, they wept, they mourned, they cried. Note the coldness and cruelty of Xerxes and Haman. The decree went out to destroy millions of people and they sat down for cocktails. How cold hearted? How hard hearted? How could it be that they would just put human beings to death like that and not think anything more about it than to just have a cocktail? Now, be careful, because by your words you will be judged, the Bible says. So what does that mean? Well, let me ask you a question, Christian. How much of the work of God goes undone? How many opportunities to witness goes undone? How many missionaries can we not get to the field? Because we knew the condemnation of their sin-sick soul was sending them to hell all over the world, but what we decided to do was buy a bigger yacht. You say, Pastor, you're really making this... Listen, folks. It is time for Christians to stand up. Listen. It is. I mean, just like in the book of Haggai, whenever they were trying to rebuild the temple and they were doing the work, they had been standing there and working on this, trying to rebuild the temple. And what did the people do? Haggai had to tell them, say, listen, it's not time to build your sealed houses and to go find cedar and to build up your own kingdom. There's nothing wrong with having a house. He's saying that the temple of God lays waste. I'm telling you today that we are supposed to be building up the kingdom of God, seeing people come to know Jesus. And what are we doing? Let me just ask you a question. Has your Christianity ever interrupted your entertainment schedule? Has your Christianity ever interrupted your economic plan? Has your Christianity ever interrupted anything that you did for yourself and for your own comfort? Has it ever done that in your life? You say, Pastor, you're acting as if the sky is falling. I'm telling you, if you would just listen to me this morning, if you would listen, The sky is not falling, but the end of the world is coming. Jesus is coming again, and we have little time. We're supposed to be busy about the Master's vigilance. Vigilance will call for true humility. What is that? Well, Mordecai lowered his head and wept. He lowered his dignity. He put on sackcloth and ashes. He lifted his prayers. And then he lifted his voice. He sounded the alarm. He sounded it in the right place. That was before God. He lifted his voice to God. And then he sounded it before God's appointed person, Esther. And he said, Hey, Esther, I don't think you know what's going on out here. You're probably busy, you know, doing whatever you do and getting your fingernails done and everything. But here, Esther, I just want you to know, oh, what a life Esther has been elected to, selected to. Just want you to know, Esther, that you've been condemned, we've been condemned, 20 million Jews' lives hang in the balance. She's busy living the life of a queen. She has maidens to pamper her and servants to serve her and eunuchs to go do whatever her bidding. She needs no money in her position because her position is her currency. She's the queen. She wants, she gets. She wants, and she gets it right now. She doesn't seem to have to even deal with old Xerxes very often. As we see in the text, it was 30 days since she'd even had to sing the old buzzard. Now, wives don't get any ideas here. The will of God for her, listen to this carefully, the will of God for her seemed to be a bed of roses. Lots of Christians would like to serve God if it meant living like that. God put her in the palace for more than her personal happiness. He put her in the palace for more than wealth and enjoyment. Her pretty face was a plus, but it was the integrity of her heart, the integrity of her soul, the character of her spirit that's going to make the difference right now. One person's courage can deliver a nation. Number three, write it down. One person's courage can deliver a nation. Things are about to change. I don't know any Christians today. I don't know any Christians today that don't want to be overcomers. Everybody wants to be an overcomer, but nobody wants anything to really have to overcome. Everybody wants to have the victory in their Christian life. They just don't want any enemies to have to have the victory over. Everybody wants to live a life of faith, but they don't ever want to have their faith put to the test. We live in a Pollyanna Christianity in the United States of America thinking that we've been insulated from all difficulty and that the next event is going to be the rapture. It just sweep us all away and we're just going to go from our yacht to heaven. Not going to happen. Courage understands the issues at hand. Write it down. Courage understands the issues at hand. It investigates verses four through nine. Esther looked into the matter. What's going on? Why are you in the sackcloth and ashes? What's happening here? What's the news? And she investigated. She found out what's going on. We need to be aware and awake and understanding Satan's bid for our family and his bid for our children, his bid for our unity and his bid to destroy the church. We need to be aware of what God is doing, both in the home and in what Satan is trying to do in the home, in the church. He said, Satan goes to church. Of course he does. He hates this church. Courage understands the issues and then courage takes risk. Courage understands the risks. Look at verse number 10 of chapter 4. And Esther spoke to Hathash and gave him a command from Mordecai and all the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that any man or woman who goes into the inner court of the king who has not been called for has but one law, put him to death. except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter that he may live. Yet I myself have not been called to go into the king these 30 days. Courage understands the issues. Courage understands the risk. Folks, courage is not the absence of difficulty. Courage is not the absence of danger. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is when God helps you go on in spite of the fear. On Omaha Beach in 1945, listen to me, when my Uncle Frank was on an amphibious craft coming off of one of those destroyers off the coast of France, and he landed on Omaha Beach with 119 people in that boat, I asked him, I said, were they fearful? He said, so fearful they were sweating like you wouldn't believe and crying and calling for their mamas and calling for their grandma and anything because of the bombs, he said, but when they dropped the front of that amphibious craft down, 119 men hit the beach running, and I'm one of three that live. You see, courage is not the absence of difficulty or hardship. Courage is going on in spite of the difficulty or hardship and in spite of the fear. Oh, listen to me, this morning, sooner or later, Christians are going to have to stand up. There's a little event that went on here in Des Moines over the last couple of weeks. A lady in the name of art at Wright Elementary School decided that it was a good time to introduce these second grade children to pornography. And what you saw on the television and that little quick clip on the news was not all that was in there. If you go online and look at it, there is gross, vile, Sex acts demonstrated in cartoon form on that video, on that YouTube video. It is despicable. It is horrible. It is inappropriate for a 99-year-old person, much less a 9-year-old person. Now, in the name of art, it was put on there. And when questioned about it, the school began to run back up like a cat on a tin roof, trying to get a grip, trying to find out some kind of way to save face and protect their situation and save each other's back. It disturbed me. Pastor, is that what you're upset about? Well, that's one of the things. So I wrote a letter. I didn't write the letter. I was too mad walking around the office, spitting, screaming, hollering, kicking over benches and everything. I was very upset. So I called Chris. I said, Chris, here's what I'm feeling. Here's what I'm thinking. Here's what I want done. Write me a letter. He wrote me a letter. Letter to the editor. Madam editor, I'm writing this letter as editor of the Pastor of Grace Church, not just Phil Winfield. More importantly, I'm writing this letter to Born Again Believers in Jesus, the church in Des Moines, not to Des Moines Public School or to the principal of Wright Elementary or the teacher, the teacher guilty of showing. If you want to read it all, I've got copies of it. It's out there. You can have a copy. I sent this to the editor. Guess what? It was rejected. Now, I've had 25 people tell me, Pastor Phil, it will be shown. We know how to get this done. So we'll see what happens. If you want to know what I think about that, what I think Christians ought to do, then you need to read this. What should Christians say? We're not going to solve the world's problems by getting art, getting pornography out of the art class. It's just one more issue that we're willing to say, Oh, isn't it terrible? It's horrible. Oh, what are we going to do? What's for lunch? That's pretty much how Christianity has been for the last 200 years in America. Oh, it's horrible. Oh, they put Jesus in a bottle of urine up there in New York City and called it art. Oh! And what do we do about it? We scream, we yell, we spit, we holler. And then we go to the ballgame. Don't you see? If we understood, if we just understood what's going on around us right now, we would understand that it's time for Christians to stand up. You can't be an anonymous Christian. Many people love being anonymous Christians even to the point that they come to church and they don't ever want to connect with a small group, a Bible class. They don't ever want to be asked to do anything. They don't want to work in Bible school. They don't want to serve. They don't want to even put out cookies for the children. They don't want to do anything because that would require some kind of commitment and I would have to be counted on to be here. And I need the liberty to be able to just show up when I feel like it. I just want to be an anonymous. Attender of Grace Church. Well, yeah, I got news for you. If you live in anonymity at Grace Church, then you're really living in anonymity in the world. That kind of Christianity is never going to stand up. Oh, it's time to stand up. Courage understands the risk. Courage understands the reasons. Look at verse 13, Mordecai told them to answer Esther. Do not think in your heart that you will escape the king's palace anymore than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely, look at this verse 14. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this. For such a time as this. He says, if you remain silent, oh, isn't that the message for the Christians of America today? Isn't that the message for the Christians of Des Moines? Isn't that the message for the Christians of Grace Church? If you remain silent, God is not limited. His hands are not shortened. It is not that He cannot do what He wants. The sovereign God of the universe, He can raise up deliverance from some other place. But, Esther, you were raised up for such a time as this. Courage understands the reasons. In a moment of time, she understood it all. She could now see the reason that she was born beautiful. She could now see the reason she was taken from her home. She could see the reason that she had a cousin like Mordecai to take care of her. She could see the reason why Haggai, the guard of the harem, she found favor in his size. She could see the reason that Xerxes chose her. She understood the reason that she had this wonderful cousin that was always looking out for her. She understood why she was queen. She was the only one with a possibility of a chance to stand before the king and have him extend his royal scepter and say, all right, speak, Queen Esther, anything that you want up to half my kingdom. It was for such a time as that. I know what you're thinking. Well, I'm not a queen. No, I don't sit on the throne. No, I just don't move. Pastor, I know there's a lot that needs to be done, but what can I do? Before I answer that, I want you to understand the resource. Look at verse number 15. Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, go gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan and fast for me, neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast alike and so I will go to the king, which is against the law. And look at these words. And if I perish, I perish. Where are the Christians? Where are the Americans, like Patrick Henry that said, give me liberty or give me death? Where are the Christians that are saying, I stand here, I can believe no other, and if I perish, I perish, like Martin Luther did? Where are the Christians that are ready? to stand up, no matter what you say. Pastor, do you really think it's that crucial? Do you really think that Christians ought to be standing up? Listen, folks, we won't even stand, we won't even stand up when our feelings get hurt. If we can't stand up when our feelings get hurt, we're never going to stand up when our neck is going to be on the chopping block. You say, well, that'll never happen here because Hip-hip-hooray, the Lord's going to come and just whisk us all away so we can just buy yachts and have fun and, you know, go on extended vacations. Because we're just going to be whisked away. Well, what about all the Jews that have been killed throughout all of history? What about all the Chinese that are, their churches underground? Do we think it could never happen here? Do we think? that in America we've got this deal with God that, oh yeah, those kind of terrible things happen everywhere. Listen, we did have the divine protection of God Almighty because of our commitment to the gospel and of preaching the Word of God around the world, that He did, like the Philadelphia church, open a door that no man could shut. But we don't have any deals cut with God as a nation that He's going to allow us to live without difficulty or persecution. Do you not see the shaking of the foundations of the kingdom as you listen to the news even now? Courage understands the resources. It's time to pray. It's time to pray hard. It's time to fast. It's time to stand up. I want you to remember from today's lesson these four things. Number one, God has his purposes. God has his purposes. Where you were born, how you were born, who were your parents, what are the circumstances and difficulties of your life? What have you suffered? What have you gone through? Maybe it's the blessings of your life. Maybe you're articulate. Maybe you can speak. Maybe you're educated. Maybe you have money. Whatever it is, God has his purposes in all of it. Second, God has his people. God has his people. You're one of them. But oh, when the hour seems the darkest and the bleakest, and it seems like there's just no one, there's just no hope whatsoever, then Mordecai stands up. And then Esther stands up. And all through history, there have been that person that stood up and stood in the gap. And they've been the person to speak for God. Joseph Maccabeus stood up between the end of the book of Malachi and the beginning of the book of Matthew in the New Testament. He stood up! And he stood up to Antiochus Epiphanes and said, No, we're not going to bow down to Zeus. that you put there in the temple in Jerusalem. We're not where He stood up. God has always had His people. Sometimes they're quiet people working behind the scenes. Sometimes they're out front. God has always had His people. God is patient, third thing. You know what we like? We just like action. We like it right here, right now. OK, God, I'm praying. You've got 25 minutes to get this done. God is patient. He's patient. Oh, God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to what? Repentance. God is patient. He's long-suffering. He waits. God has his purposes. God has his people. God is patient. And then, oh, I love this one. God will prevail. Say, oh, but Satan just looks like he's just having his way and the world's coming apart. Listen, just read your Bible. Read it. We're just coming to the end. Just read it. You say, oh, there's just no hope. We're just coming apart. I want you to know that Satan in this world and all of his demons and all of his minions, he can't do one thing beyond what God Almighty lets him do. Are you understanding me today? The Bible, if you just remember the man Job, Job was, was, he was tested and tried beyond what any of us have ever dreamed of. And yet God said up to here, no more. The book of Revelation, the church at Pergamos is told you're going to be tried and tested for 10 days. You are going to be tried. You're going to be, go through hard times for 10 days. You know why he said 10 days? Just to let it be known that Satan couldn't do it 11 if God said 10. God is in control. I don't want you to get in there, oh, what are we going to do? You know what we're going to do? We're going to stand up and do valiantly. You know what we're going to do? We're going to stand up for the cause of Christ and the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're going to stand up and be counted, not because we're proud and cocky and not with an in-your-face attitude, but yet we're going to stand up and we're going to share the gospel of Jesus. We're going to preach the truth. We're going to let people know that God is God and He had a son named Jesus and He died on the cross for the sins of the world and no, We will not be quiet about it. It's time to preach. It's time to teach. It's time to tell the world. You say, well, that's great, Pastor. You know, you're a preacher. You've got that pulpit and big platform up there. God's giving you the gift of gab. And you just go on and on and on. You say, but Pastor, I'm a mother. I'm just trying to raise my children. Or I work over here. I'm a secretary. I've got a farm up here that I'm working on. I'm just doing this, that, and the other. Boy, I'm glad that God's got his people, but you know, all I can do is just go on and do my thing. I just can't. Well, there's a lot to be said about living your life in quietness and confidence before the Lord and in peace. There's a lot to be said in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 about earning your bread with your own hands. There's a lot to be said for that. But I want you to know that God hadn't created anybody without a point, without a purpose, without a place to stand. I'm talking to you, mothers, to stand up in your home. You know what? You can take a stand for God in your home about what's happening in your home with your children, what they see, don't see, what happens with them. You dads can take a stand for God in your home. You can take up the leadership of your home and quit advocating that responsibility to a spiritual wife. You can take a stand in the place where you work. You can, instead of going along with all of the slang and all of the vulgarities and all of the cursing of the name of Jesus in our heaven, you can do something different. You can just, instead of cursing, you can bless. Instead of lying, you can tell the truth. Instead of living like a dog-eat-dog world, you can live like everything comes from God. And if they want to fight over it and lie and cheat in order to get that promotion, well, just go ahead. I'll trust God. You can be different. So you can be a different person in this world. You don't have to just go along. You say, well, yeah, OK. But I mean, I'm talking about making a big splash. You know, I'm never going to do that. I want you to just answer this question. Did you read the story? Did you get it this morning? Did you hear the name Hathatch? Who? Hathatch. Well, who was Hathatch, Pastor? I'm sure you're going to tell us. Well, Hathatch. Somehow, was a eunuch of the king that had been assigned to the harem and had been given by Haggai the responsibility to be the hand servant to this Queen Esther. And Esther, somehow in her life and in her demeanor and in her character and in the way that she shared, was able to get an influence over Hathatch to the point that Hathatch, who was nothing but a messenger, was willing to risk his life To go behind the king's back and to take these messages back and forth between Mordecai and the people and between Queen Esther, she was nothing but a messenger. Well, if you're nothing but a messenger to give the good news to other people all of your life and just keep going behind Satan's back and just telling people the good news about Jesus, let me tell you what, you're in the line of half-ash. You know who else is in this story? Oh, I love this. Queen Esther, and she understands it. She's the one. She's indicated. She's the queen. She's come into the world for such a time as this. She says, Mordecai, you and everybody, all the Jews in Jerusalem, you go pray. You pray for deliverance. And tell you what I'm going to do. Me and my maids are going to fast, and we're going to go before our God. My maids. You say, well, maids, maids? Yeah, right. Queen Esther had influenced Hathatch, and she had influenced her maids, and her maids are right there, and whether they're Jews or Gentiles, we have no idea, but they loved Esther and believed in her God, and they fasted as well. You say, Pastor, what's the point of this whole thing? Oh, there's power in one. There is power in one person. It just takes one mother to be a good mother in a home. It takes one father in a home to say, I'm going to be God's father in this home. It just takes one person in the workplace to stand up and be different. We get it in our mind that we just got to have, oh, if we could just get an army of people. No, there wasn't an army in this place. There was Mordecai. There was Esther. And they stood up. Boy, there's something about it. When one stands up, another stands up. When somebody gets strong, other people get strong. There's something about it. If somebody will show courage. Let's bow our heads. Father, I pray for courage.