In Esther chapter 4 verse number 1 the Bible reads when Mordecai perceived all that was
done Mordecai rent his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes and went out into the
midst of the city and cried with a loud and a bitter cry and came even before the king's
gate for none might enter into the king's gate clothed with sackcloth and in every province
whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came.
There was great mourning among the Jews and fasting weeping and wailing and many lay in
sackcloth and ashes.
So let me just quickly bring you up to speed with where we are in the story.
Of course Haman, the son of Hamadatha the Agagite, is a wicked man.
The king has advanced him to great honor and made him the second in command of the whole
kingdom and made a proclamation concerning Haman that everyone has to bow down before
him and do him reverence and make obeisance to him.
Well all of the Jews that are in the realm and most notably Mordecai, they don't want
to bow down to Haman because of the fact that it's against their religion.
They're only going to bow down before the Lord, they're going to bow down before God,
they're not going to bow down and reverence this man.
And so because Mordecai refuses to bow down to Haman, that fills Haman with rage and he
decides that he's going to kill all of the Jews.
He wants to basically provoke the king to allow him to persecute the Jews and to kill
all the Jews that are scattered throughout the realm by talking about the fact that they're
refusing to obey the laws, they're not fitting in, etc., etc.
And we talked about last week in great detail, we went to a lot of scriptures about the fact
that today, the Jews today are not God's chosen people today.
No matter how much people will tell you that and pretty much if you say, well I just can't
stand the fact that you said that, well you know what, you can pretty much pick whatever
independent fundamental Baptist church you want and they'll fly an Israeli flag and tell
you, you know, that the Jews are God's chosen.
The Bible's real clear.
You know, they rejected Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God was taken from them and given
to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
And unless they believe on Christ, they are broken off from the olive tree.
We saw it in Romans chapter 11.
And so God's people today in the New Testament, the Bible's crystal clear on this, I'm not
going to re-preach last week's sermon, but the Bible's crystal clear that today in the
New Testament, believers on the Lord Jesus Christ, they are God's people.
They are the chosen people.
They are the peculiar people, the holy nation, the royal priesthood, and not someone who
is ethnically a Jew.
Now if there is one who is an ethnic Jew who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, well then
he's one of God's people because he believes in Christ, not because he's an ethnic Jew.
And any ethnic Jew that does not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ does not have a special
blessing from God.
The Bible says, he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, but he that believeth
not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
And that was spoken unto the Jews.
He said, look, if you don't believe in Christ, the wrath of God is on you, not God's blessing.
And so those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ are under the curse, whether they be Jew or
Gentile.
It's irrelevant.
In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile.
The Bible says in Romans 3.22, for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus.
So in chapter 4 here we see that this proclamation has gone out to kill all the Jews that are
in the kingdom because of their adherence to their religion.
What we were talking about last week is how the modern day equivalent of that would be
to kill all Christians, to kill all believers, okay?
And that will come in the future according to the Bible during the tribulation.
The Bible talks about the fact that those who do not worship the anti-Christ will be
forced to either bow down or be killed.
And the Bible talks about that and that's a whole other sermon of itself.
So when Mordecai hears about this, who is a Jew, of course, who is Esther's cousin,
he is very upset and obviously he's upset.
He's got a death sentence pronounced on him and on all of his people.
And so the Bible says that he's crying out, he's wailing, he's weeping, he's rent his
clothes.
To rent something needs to tear it.
And often in the Bible people when they're very upset would tear their clothing just
as a sign of how upset they were.
And part of the reason is because in those days clothing was very expensive and hard
to come by.
You know, without machines to make clothing, clothing is actually very difficult to make.
That's why you'll notice that when people are making exchanges in the Bible of a lot
of wealth, they'll talk about changes of raiment or changes of clothing.
And very wealthy people would have multiple changes of garment because clothing was expensive
and hard to come by.
So I mean when you're tearing your clothing and replacing it with sackcloth, you know,
basically you're putting on like a burlap sack.
You're showing extreme humility.
You're showing you don't care about your material possessions but you're just so upset you want
to make an outward show of just how sad you are and you're trying to get God's attention
and the people around you.
And so the Bible says here that, you know, he's making a very loud and bitter cry.
He's clothed in sackcloth.
And it says,
And in every province, verse 3, whosoever the king's commandment and his decree came,
there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting and weeping and wailing, and many
lay in sackcloth and ashes.
It says in verse 4,
So Esther's maids and her chamberlains came and told it her.
Then was the queen exceedingly grieved.
And she sent raiment to clothe Mordecai and to take away his sackcloth from him, but he
received it not.
So she just sends him, you know, here's a new outfit, Mordecai, here put this on.
And he says, no, you know, don't you get it?
There's a problem here.
I'm not going to get out of my sackcloth.
I'm not going to put this clothing on.
And it says in verse 5,
Then called Esther for Haytack, one of the king's chamberlains whom he had appointed
to attend upon her, and gave him a commandment to Mordecai to know what it was and why it
was.
She doesn't understand why he's so upset.
She hasn't heard the news.
And so in verse 6 it says,
So Haytack went forth to Mordecai unto the street of the city, which was before the king's
gate, and Mordecai told him of all that had happened unto him, and of the sum of the money
that Haman had promised to pay to the king's treasuries for the Jews to destroy them.
And if you remember, that was 10,000 talents of silver, a mass amount of money that Haman
was going to pay to the king's treasury to try to convince him to go forward with this
plan of destroying the Jews.
And he talked about also how the Jews did have some wealth that they were going to lay
hold on.
And so it says in verse 8,
Also he gave them the copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan to
destroy them, to show it unto Esther, and to declare it unto her, and to charge her
that she should go in unto the king, to make supplication unto him, and to make requests
before him for her people.
And Haytack came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.
So Mordecai is telling Esther the one that he had raised as a daughter because her parents
had died and so he had brought her up as his own daughter.
He's saying, look, you are the queen.
You're the king's wife.
You have the power to talk to him and reason with him and try to stop this thing from going
forward, this persecution from going forward.
He said you need to use your position with the king to go in and talk to him and make
supplication to him.
Reason with him.
It says in verse 10,
Again Esther spake unto Haytack and gave him commandment unto Mordecai.
All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces do know that whosoever,
whether man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called,
there is one law of his, to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out
the golden scepter that he may live.
But I have not been called to come in unto the king these thirty days.
Now if you would go to Hebrews chapter 4, it's interesting about this king.
And of course we've followed this king through the last several chapters.
He's a very self-centered man.
He's a very ungodly man.
He's an unrighteous man.
He's not a man who follows the laws of God.
He's not a man who's living a good life.
And so he has a lot of very selfish and unreasonable tendencies.
And it's interesting, in verse 2 it mentioned the fact in Esther chapter 4 that no one is
allowed to come in the king's court wearing sackcloth.
So Mordecai, who's usually always hanging around in the king's court and in the king's
gate, he is basically staying just outside the gate because he has sackcloth on, because
he's mourning.
Because the king says, you know, I don't want anyone around me who has sackcloth on.
I don't want to look at it, I don't even want to see it.
And then he has another rule that says no one can come in and speak to me at any time
without being invited.
You know, basically don't call me, I'll call you, okay?
And he just says nobody at any time can come in.
And this even extends to his wife.
And keep in mind, this man we know from other chapters has multiple wives.
I mean he has all kinds of concubines, he's practicing major polygamy.
He has all kinds of women, but one of these women, Esther, is the queen.
I mean that is the one that has the highest position out of all of the women.
She is his legitimate, you know, wife and the queen of the kingdom.
And she's saying that the law says that even if she walks in, and she's not invited, that
the law says that she will be put to death for just barging in and coming in to see the
king unannounced, unless he holds out the golden scepter.
So he's allowed to, at his whim, decide, okay, I'll let you survive.
You know, I'm not going to put you to death for interrupting me at the wrong time.
I'll hold out to you at the golden scepter.
And then we see the fact that she's not been called, I mean this is his wife.
She hasn't been called in in 30 days.
Now I'm, you know, I go out of town from time to time to go work in California.
Can you imagine if I went out of town and I was gone for three days and I didn't call
my wife, she'd probably think, what in the world, you know, what's the problem?
And that's what, what if I was in town and I just didn't even say a word to her, didn't
even talk to her, didn't even come say, and I just told her, look, don't come talk to
me.
I'll come talk to you.
Okay?
Anyway, I'm busy and, you know, 30 days go by and she hasn't heard from me.
I mean, so this is the kind of guy this is.
But it's interesting because we see in Hebrews chapter 4 something that's stated about God
that basically he's the exact opposite, you know, and by the way, all the kings of this
earth are nothing.
And in fact, the Bible says they're less than nothing.
You know, all these men who exalt themselves and, you know, I don't know whether Ahasuerus
ever got saved.
I don't know if he was a believer at any time.
You know, it doesn't look like it.
And the whole story we don't necessarily see any concrete evidence.
Perhaps he got saved later, whatever.
But the point is, you know, the great kings of this earth who have so much pomp and they're
so royal and they, you know, they hold everybody at arm's length and so forth, you know, most
of them are going to burn in hell when they die.
You know, I mean, why do we, why do we look up to them and think that they're so great?
You know, all these royal people of this world, all these dictators and presidents
and pontiffs and pontificates and maharajahs and whatever they are.
You know, the Bible says God's not a respecter of persons.
And God looks at them as nothing and, you know, they're just human beings.
But, you know, God is really a high and exalted king.
God is the king of kings.
He is the real king.
He is the real supreme authority.
And yet, he isn't like Ahasuerus at all that says, you know, hey, don't approach me, don't
be sad around me.
Look what it says in Hebrews chapter 4 in verse 14, it says, seeing then that we have
a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the son of God, let us hold
fast our profession.
For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
It says in verse 16, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may
obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
You see, a king is someone who is supposed to be there to serve the people.
You know, if you study the Bible, the purpose of a king and the purpose of why the children
of Israel originally chose a king was that he was someone who was going to fight their
battles for them, someone who was going to protect them.
He's someone who's serving a purpose of benefiting the people.
But in fact, King Ahasuerus is not that type of king.
He's the type of king that just wants to gratify himself with power, which is what, you know,
99% of people who are in power in the world today, that's what they use their power for,
to gratify themselves, not to benefit the people that they're supposedly ruling over.
But we see that God is not like King Ahasuerus.
He says, come boldly to the throne of grace.
He doesn't say, you know, don't call me, I'll call you.
He says, come boldly under the throne of grace and that we may find mercy and grace and obtain
mercy to help in time of need.
And not only that, but he says that he can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities
because he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.
You see, you know, you look at a man like Ahasuerus and you can tell this guy, you know,
is out of touch with what's going on amongst normal people.
I mean, just as you read the whole story, the whole 10 chapters, this guy is living
in his ivory tower and he's lost complete touch with what normal people are going through.
And you know, Jesus Christ, the amazing thing about Jesus Christ is that he lived and walked
on this earth for 33 and a half years and the Bible says that he was tempted in all
points like as we are, yet without sin.
The Bible talks about how he wept, he cried.
The Bible talks about how he was hungry, he was thirsty, talks about him being angry,
talks about him being sad, it talks about him being very heavy, which our modern word
for that would be depressed.
You know, when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was very heavy, he was weeping, he was
in sorrow, he was anxious, he didn't want to go to the cross and go through all the
shame and the pain and the agony and misery that that involved, but for the joy that was
set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame.
And so he went through loneliness, he went through problems with his family, he went
through pain and thirst and hunger and agony and everything cold, he had to sleep outside
at times, he went through sleepless nights, he skipped meals.
So he's been through everything that we've been through, so he understands.
You know, we can say well God knows everything he understands, but he really understands
because he actually went through it and he actually became a human being and he took
upon himself all the limitations of man as far as, you know, needing to eat and sleep
and drink and he had feelings and emotions and he suffered.
And so it says, you know, he is touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
He understands what we're going through, he can sympathize with us, and when we come to
him and we're sad and upset, he doesn't just say, you know, oh just get over it.
You know, he understands.
He empathizes with us.
You know, you think of a child comes to you crying over something that's so minor, right?
And if you think about it, children just have a rollercoaster of emotions.
You know, a child will just be, and you just have to ask yourself, what would have to happen
in my life, you know, to get me to wail that way?
I mean, what would it have to happen for you to just, you know, and then a minute later,
one minute later, you know, everything's great.
And it's just a rollercoaster of emotions with little kids, and then the older and more
mature they get, they get strong.
You know, so think about it, your child comes up to you, you know, just crying like they
just lost a loved one, you know, because, you know, their sucker fell in the sand or
something.
You know, they have this sand-covered sucker, you know, and you look at that and you just
think to yourself, like, this is not a big deal, you know.
But you know, that's not how God is with us.
I mean, we come to him with our problems, he doesn't just belittle them and think like,
oh, that's nothing.
I died on the cross, you know.
He understands, look, you know, when you're hungry, when you're tired, when you're sad,
when you're hurt, when you're going through a hard time, the Bible says he is touched
with the feeling of our infirmities.
I mean, he actually, he feels what we feel.
You know, when we feel sorrow, he feels sorrow.
And the Bible says that when he was on this earth, he was a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief.
And when we suffer, he suffers with us.
And he doesn't just listen to us, you know, oh wow, boo hoo, you dropped your sucker,
okay.
And you know, obviously our problems to him, that's probably how they would seem.
You know, in the grand scheme of eternity and all the billions of people in the world,
the things that we get so upset about to him are a drop of water in the bucket.
But the Bible teaches that he does care and that he is touched with the feeling of our
infirmities.
So when we go to him in prayer, and when the Bible says let us come boldly under the throne
of grace, he's talking about through prayer.
You know, we get on our knees through prayer, and when you get on your knees before God
and pray, it's like you've walked into the throne room.
I mean it's just as real.
And think about this, if you had access, if you had problems, you have access to talk
to the person who can literally fix any problem.
I mean he has the power to do anything.
He has the power to solve any problem, to give you anything you need, or to take anything
away from you, and at any time you want to, you can go to that person.
Think about this now.
You can go to the king, not just the king of our nation, okay, but actually to the king
of kings and go to him and ask him for whatever you need.
And not only will he listen to you, not only can you come boldly, meaning you don't have
to have any fear or any worry, oh man I don't know if I should bring this up, you can just
boldly just waltz right into the throne room and say, here's what my problem is, here's
the suffering I'm going through, here's what I need fixed, and the Bible says that he will
feel what you feel.
He will be touched with the feeling of your infirmities.
But how many of us don't pray?
I mean we don't pray, it's like we don't take advantage of the great privilege.
I mean Esther, the king's wife, didn't even have that privilege in the story that we're
reading.
She can't even just walk in and just tell him what's on her mind.
But God invites us and tells us to boldly come into the throne of grace, come on in
and tell me what the problem is, tell me what you need, and he's right there to do it.
And not only that, but he says that he'll do it.
He says, you know, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.
And if we know that he hear us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions
that we desired of him.
And then of course Jesus gave the parable about the unjust judge and how the woman that
needed justice and she kept going to the judge and going to the judge and just kept bugging
him every day.
And finally the guy just said, I don't even fear God, I don't even, you know, just like
most judges, he didn't fear God, he didn't care what is right and wrong.
But he says, you know, I'm just sick of this woman bugging me, so I'm just going to do
what she wants.
And he says, how much more, you know, is the Heavenly Father going to avenge his elect
which call out unto him day and night.
And so, you know, we should not overlook the privilege that we have of being able to go
to God in prayer and to get help.
You know, you're going through a bad situation, you need help with something, you're suffering
in some way, take it to God in prayer, come boldly into the throne of grace, and he says,
we will obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
You know, he says something similar in James chapter 1, if you flip over there, in James
chapter 1 verse 5 it says, if any of you lack wisdom, and you know, most of the problems
that we have in life are due to a lack of wisdom on our part.
You know, we don't know how we should handle certain situations.
We don't know what to do to get ourselves out of situations that we're in.
He says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally.
So isn't that a prayer that God has promised to answer?
And you say, well I don't want wisdom, I need money.
But the Bible says that in wisdom's hand, you know, wealth and riches are in her right
hand, you know, and length of days is in her left hand.
I mean, wisdom gives you everything that you need.
Wisdom is the answer to all of life's problems, you know, if you have the wisdom, you can
get through that.
And the Bible promises to answer this prayer.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally, and
look at the next phrase, and upbraideth not.
Meaning, you know, God's not going to rebuke you for asking.
He's not going to get upset at you for asking for wisdom or for asking for anything for
that matter.
You know, the Bible says if ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your
children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them
that ask him?
But the Bible says you have not because you ask not.
And so we have the privilege to walk into the throne room of the, go back to Esther
if you would, we have the privilege to walk into the throne room of the King of Kings
at any time and to just ask him for what we need and he says, I'll give it to you.
I'll listen to you.
I'll sympathize with you.
I will be touched with the feeling of your infirmities and I will not upbraid you.
I'm here to listen and to help you and to give you what you need.
And that's a great privilege and it's something that we often don't take advantage of because
we don't pray and we have not because we ask not.
But here we see Esther doesn't even feel comfortable.
It's her own husband here, the king.
She can't even walk in.
She hasn't been called in 30 days.
She hasn't even talked to him in 30 days and she doesn't know when he's going to call her
in.
So she basically is telling Mordecai, sorry, I can't help you because if I go in and talk
to him, I could be killed for doing that and he hasn't called me in 30 days and I don't
see him calling me anytime soon.
I don't know what's going on.
So they told Mordecai, verse 12, they told to Mordecai Esther's words.
Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape
in the king's house more than all the Jews.
For if thou all together holdest thy peace at this time, then shall their enlargement
and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place.
But thou in thy father's house shall be destroyed.
And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this.
So Mordecai has no sympathy for her predicament at all here because he's, you know, he's looking
at this as, look, I just told you that our whole nation of people are going to be killed.
I'm going to be killed.
All the Jews are going to be killed.
And then Esther's saying, oh, but if I go in there, I might be killed.
It's like, well, wait a minute.
We're all going to be killed for sure if you don't go in there.
So he's saying, look, don't think that you're going to escape just by basically having this
selfish attitude that says, well, I'm just going to preserve myself.
I'm just going to take care of myself here.
You know, if I walk in at the wrong time, I could be killed.
And so I'm just going to lay low and, you know, I can't worry about this.
Mordecai says, look, if you do that, he says, then shall enlargement and deliverance arise
to the Jews from another place.
You say, well, how did Mordecai know that?
Well, Mordecai knows about the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
You know, he knows that they're not going to be wiped out.
He knows that there were, as Jeremiah stated, 70 years of captivity and then they're going
to be brought back to the land of Judah and so on and so forth.
And so, you know, Mordecai has the faith to know that somehow God's going to step in.
Somehow God's going to deliver them.
But he warns her, he says, you know, if you don't step in and help here, you're going
to be the one that gets killed.
We're all going to survive and you're going to die.
Now, it's interesting that he says that because, you know, you say, well, how did he know that?
But what he's talking about is that, you know, there's a divine justice.
The Bible teaches that what's over a man soweth, that shall ye also reap.
And when I was reading this, I thought of a statement that Jesus made over and over
again.
You can turn to Luke 17, 33 if you like.
But this is just one place where Jesus made this statement.
And Jesus made this statement many, many times, and this is just one of them.
But in Luke 17, 33, he said, Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, and whosoever
shall lose his life shall preserve it.
And so there we see the concept, like Mordecai is saying, that if she seeks to save her life,
that she's going to lose it.
Now, I think that what we learn from this is that we need to just worry about doing
what's right in our lives and not try to, you know, look at the outcomes and the odds
or the probabilities of, you know, how we're going to end up being safe.
You know, the Bible says safety is of the Lord.
And so the safest place that you can be is where God wants you to be, doing the will
of God.
And not always worrying about how things are going to turn out.
You know, I was thinking about this.
People have often said to me, because I've preached a lot of controversial sermons or
preached a lot of hard preaching, and then, you know, basically every sermon that I preach
is put out on the internet.
And it's put out on YouTube and it's put out on the church website and it's downloaded
by many people.
And people have often said to me, you know, aren't you afraid?
They said, aren't you afraid of, you know, preaching on a subject like, let's say, spanking
your children, right?
Which the Bible is crystal clear on.
I mean, the Bible says, withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with
the rod, he shall not die.
Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell.
And the Bible says he that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth
him betimes.
People will say, well, aren't you afraid of just saying that so loudly?
You know, just getting up and preaching that and getting up and preaching that the Bible
teaches to spank your children and getting up and saying that and then putting that out
on the internet, you know, and then everybody, I mean, aren't you afraid that somebody's
going to turn you in or try to report you for child abuse or, you know, report you to
the CPS or whatever?
But you know what?
Honestly, I'm afraid not to preach it.
I'm not afraid to preach that.
I'm afraid not to because, you know what, there's only one person that I'm supposed
to be afraid of and that's God Almighty and no one else.
No one else.
I am commanded by God not to fear anyone except Him alone.
He doesn't want to share that with anyone.
Fear to fear God and keep His commandments and the Bible says the fear of man bringeth
a snare and the Bible says not to fear those that kill the body but are not able to kill
the soul but rather fear and which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
You know, God is the one who holds my fate in His hand.
God has the power to lift me up or to put me down and so that's the one I ought to be
afraid of.
And you know what?
I'm going to sit there and hide the truth under a bushel tonight and take the truth
of God's word, the light of the glorious gospel and not just the gospel of Jesus Christ but
also every word of God, the teachings of God's word.
I as a preacher am supposed to preach all the counsel of God.
I'm supposed to preach all of God's commandments and teach everything.
You know, if I hide it under a bushel, don't you think that God could find a way to make
what I fear come upon me?
Think about that now.
God might look down and be angry and say, wait a minute, you call yourself a pastor,
you call yourself a man of God, you call yourself a preacher, you stand up behind the pulpit
with the Bible and you're censoring the message because of fear.
You're fearing man, you're fearing government, you're fearing the devil and you're not preaching
everything in the Bible like I told you to.
Shame on you.
And He might just look down and say, you know, I'm going to curse your life because you are
abusing your position as pastor.
You're standing up there pretending to be the messenger of the Lord of hosts, pretending
to be a man of God as you withhold the truth from God's people and leave them in darkness
because you're afraid to preach the truth.
Let me tell you something, if the truth isn't preached then people don't know the truth.
Now would the God that every church member would read their Bible cover to cover multiple
times a year?
But let's face it, that's not always the case.
And I wish you would, I wish you would read the Bible every day.
But you know what, honestly, people need preaching.
You know, because not everybody's doing the reading that they're supposed to be doing,
number one.
And number two, things that we read need to be reinforced with Bible preaching from the
pulpit.
People need preaching to get them stirred up.
And you know what, if I just said, well, you know what, you know, a lot of places they're
starting to make it maybe illegal to spank your kids and, you know, they're starting
to come down on you and they have all this power to abuse you, you know, and this and
that and take away your kids.
And then I say, you know, I better just back off on that subject.
You know what, you know what's going to happen then?
People aren't going to spank their kids like they should.
Because they're not getting that encouragement.
And probably other places in their life, they're getting mother-in-laws and hags of other female
relatives or limp-wristed male relatives saying, ah, don't spank their children.
They're probably getting the opposite.
They're probably getting opposition to spanking their children.
And you know, pretty soon that's going to wear them down.
But when they come to church, it's like they can get somebody that will back them up and
bolster them and say, hey, here's what the Bible says, here's what the book of Proverbs
says, here's what the New Testament says in the book of Hebrews about disciplining your
children and you need to spank your children.
And then a lot of people will say this, well, I know the Bible says to spank my children,
but you know, these days you've got to be careful because, you know, it could be illegal
and my relatives are all against it and so blah, blah, but you know, when they come to
church and the pastor gets up and says, he that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he
that loveth him chasteth him betighteth, you know, that's going to bolster them.
That's going to cause them to say, yeah, I do need to spank, I need to love my children
and discipline them and lovingly correct them.
But if they don't hear that preaching, it's not going to happen and then a whole generation
grows up without discipline, without proper upbringing and goes to the devil, okay?
And so what I'm saying is, you know, we need to get out of this mentality where we're always,
you know, living in fear, often scared of our own shadow, you know, afraid of phantoms
and constantly saying, oh man, I don't know if I should do this, if I preach this because,
you know, I could get in trouble.
You know what?
Why don't we just focus more on doing what's right in the sight of God and let the chips
fall where they may and say, oh, but I, and that's just one example.
You know, aren't you afraid to rail on the sodomites and homos?
Aren't you afraid that they're going to come, you know, and burn your house down or, you
know, throw a brick through the window or whatever?
But you know what?
I'm more afraid of what God thinks than what man can do.
David said, I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
And you know, it said in Revelation 2 10, fear none of those things which thou shalt
suffer.
Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison that ye may be tried and ye shall have
tribulation ten days.
Be thou faithful unto death and I'll give thee a crown of life.
He says, look, some people are going to go through stuff like that.
Some people are going to go to prison.
Some people are going to lose their lives for the cause of Christ.
But he says, fear not.
Do what I say and let my will be done.
You know, we can't sit here and go through life always thinking like Esther's thinking
here, well, you know, I just, I just can't take any chances.
It's like, no, Esther, it's the right thing to do.
People's lives are at stake.
Somebody needs to speak up.
Somebody needs to say something.
You know, it says in Proverbs 31, open thy mouth for the dumb.
In the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.
The Bible tells us we should speak up for those who need help.
Speak up for those who are going to be destroyed.
And you know, when we let fear make, let us, oh, you know, I'm just not going to say anything.
I'm just scared.
You know, that's wicked.
And you know, any pastor who doesn't have the guts to get up and preach the stuff that
needs to be preached in 2013 and to preach on spanking your kids and to preach against
these filthy sodomites and to preach against all the wickedness and ungodliness and abominations
of our day needs to sit down and shut up and let somebody else take the job who has the
guts to preach what needs to be preached.
Because they don't belong there.
And the paycheck that they're receiving, they're stealing.
Because you know what, that paycheck is, the Bible says the laborer is worthy of his
hire not to muzzle the ox when he's treading out the corn.
If you're not going to tread the corn, then you know, you need to go find an honest job.
If you're not going to get up and you say, oh, but isn't there risk involved with preaching
this way?
Of course there is.
But that's the job.
I mean, what do you think you're signing up for if you're going to be a pastor?
You know, if you want a really safe job, you know, you could probably find some company
that has a great safety record, they'll put you in safety goggles and a hard hat and harness
you up with all the PPE that you need and you can have a really safe job.
You know, but being a pastor involves persecution.
Being a pastor involves getting death threats.
Being a pastor involves people threatening you and attacking you and lying about you
and calling the IRS on you and calling CPS on you and calling the FBI on you.
You know, it's just part of the job.
When you preach the Bible, people are going to hate you and revile you and the Bible says
they're going to say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.
I mean if I had a nickel for every time I got an email that says, I just reported you
to the IRS, I just reported you to CPS, I just called the FBI, you know what I mean?
If I let it bother me, you know, I'd be bothered a lot.
But I don't care about it, you know, and you say, I know.
Because so, you know, so far God's protected me for seven and a half years of preaching.
And how many times people have said, well just take the sermons down from the internet,
just don't, you know, preach, preach right, but just don't put it on the internet.
No, let it shine.
This world's in darkness.
People all over this nation and this world are in darkness and they need, somebody needs
to tell these people what's really happening.
Somebody needs to say it.
And you know what, honestly, I can say God's protected me for the last seven and a half
years and I believe he's going to continue to correct me, protect me, he's going to correct
me also, you know, whenever I mess up.
But anyway, he's going to protect me, you know, he's going to continue to do so.
But look what it says, also he says, you know, and who knoweth whether thou art come to the
kingdom for such a time as this.
Okay, now think about this.
Esther has gone from being a poor orphan, right, to now living a life of lavish luxury.
Is she not?
She's the queen.
She's got chamberlains and servants and fancy clothing and royal apparel.
You don't think she's eating the best possible food?
I mean, she's the queen of a worldwide empire of 127 provinces.
Do you think she's living a life of luxury?
I mean, this would make Marie Antoinette probably blush, or Michelle Antoinette or whatever,
you know, Michelle Obama with her 19 servants or whatever she has.
But anyway, you know, she's living a life of lavish luxury here and Mordecai is saying
wait a minute, maybe God put you in this position so that you could save your people.
I mean, think about why else would she be in that position?
Just to just live it up?
Just to eat the caviar and relax and just be wined and dined for the rest of her life?
And you know, when we look at the things that God does for us and God blesses us financially
and God blesses us with a great family and a great church and a great house, whatever,
we should look at the blessings that we have and say, you know, God gave us these blessings.
Not so that we can just enjoy them.
You know, great, enjoy them, but use them for His glory.
Use them to serve Him.
Use them to help others.
You know, if you've been given, well, the Bible says, who so hath this world's good
and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how
dwelleth the love of God in him?
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
God says, look, if you've been blessed, you know, John the Baptist preached and said,
you know, him that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none, right?
He's saying, look, if you've been blessed materially, use that to help others.
You know, if you've been given luxury and good things, use that for the glory of God.
Serve God with your life.
Don't just sit around and say, wow, this is great, I'm going to eat, drink, and be married
all the time.
He says, no, maybe you've come to the kingdom for such a time as this.
You know, me as a preacher, if I just said, oh look, all these people listen to my sermons
on the internet.
That's just so that I can just, you know, speak to all these people and just look at
me.
No, it's so that I can tell them the truth whether they want to hear it or not.
You know, that's why I have that platform to reach out to people, is to tell them the
truth whether it's popular or not and whether it's legal or not.
It doesn't matter.
It's whether it's biblical or not that matters.
And so I need to use my position as pastor to preach the truth, to preach God's word,
and to preach all of it.
And you know, there are a lot of pastors out there that have an even bigger platform than
I do.
And they have great crowds of people that come to hear them every week and they have
multi-million dollar buildings and they have nice cars and nice houses and a nice ministry
and all kinds of people downloading their podcasts and they have all kinds of people
look up to them.
And you know, you want to say to these people, you know, maybe God put you in this position
not so that you could keep preaching sermons that make you look good and that make everybody
feel good and that make everybody like you so that you could just be so cool and have
these great photo ops and just look, you and your wife just look like you're peeled out
of an egg all the time, you know, and you're on all the photos and on the letterhead and
you know, you're just such a popular conference speaker, you know, maybe God put you in that
position so that you could preach the truth and to tell people what they need to hear.
And what they need to hear is not always a positive message.
And it's not always a safe message.
And you know, Esther is put in a position of power as queen, a position of authority
as queen, a position of influence as queen and he's saying, look, you were put there
so that you could help people, okay, and you need to put your neck out there, you need
to risk your life to help your people because that's why you've even been given that position.
And you know, I would say the same thing to every pastor and you know, I'm preaching to
men in the auditorium, you know, there are men in the auditorium right now that have
expressed an interest in pastoring, that are going to be pastors someday and they need
to hear this and to understand, you know, God gives you that position not to please
yourself, not to aggrandize yourself and to see how popular you can be, but rather to
save the people.
Rather to help people and to preach what's needed, whether it be popular or not.
And then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer.
So now, once she hears Mordecai's admonition and rebuke, you know, she takes it to heart.
And she says, go gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan and fast
ye for me and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day.
I also and my maidens will fast likewise and so will I go in under the king, which is not
according to the law.
She's saying, look, I'm going to break the law here and I'm going to march in and see
the king when I'm not invited.
And she says this, and if I perish, I perish.
You know, and that ought to be our mentality also.
You know what?
If this is what God wants me to do, if this is what God's telling me to preach, if this
is what God wants me to live my life, if I perish, I perish.
And you know, the great thing is, at the end of the story, they don't end up perishing.
Nobody ends up perishing except the enemies of the Lord.
Haman and his ten sons perish, all the other wicked enemies perish, but you know what?
Esther in the end doesn't perish.
But you know what?
We need to be willing to perish.
The Bible says, be thou faithful unto death and I'll give thee a crown of life.
The Bible says in Revelation 12 and 11, they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and
by the word of their testimony, it says they loved not their lives unto the death.
Jesus said, look, if you seek to save your life, you'll lose it.
If you lose your life for my sake, you'll find it.
And oftentimes, the things that we fear don't even come to pass.
And we need to realize that in our lives, we need to worry about doing what's right
in the eyes of God and nothing else.
And you know what?
You'll be busy enough just keeping God happy, without having to worry about keeping everybody
else happy.
You know, you need to get in your Bible and figure out, hey, what does God want me to
do?
What does God expect of me?
And we need to do what God says and let the chips fall where they may.
And if God says, you know, you must spank your children, you're commanded to chase in
your children, to spank them.
And don't give me this time-out, Barney and Friends, Sesame Street garbage, okay?
The Bible says the rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself causes mother
shame.
And you know what?
99% of Baptist pastors agree with what I'm saying right now.
But we need more preaching like this.
You know, if they'd say it louder, it would shut up all these atheists and liberals that
are trying to take away our freedom to be the king of our own castle and to raise our
children the way that we see fit in the eyes of God and according to the Holy Bible.
And so we need to say, you know what?
If God's telling me to spank my children, I'm just going to do it and let the chips
fall where they may.
And if I perish, I perish.
And if that's in the Bible, many times, and I'm a preacher, and God tells me to preach
to feed the flock and to give the whole council of God, then I'm going to preach it and let
the chips fall where they may.
Oh, you know, the Bible says all this stuff about homos and it's considered hate speech.
I'm going to preach it anyway.
Let the chips fall where they may.
And I like what Jesus said to Pontius Pilate, thou couldest have no power at all against
me except it were given thee from heaven, therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath
the greater sin.
He looked at Pilate and said, you have no power except what God is allowing you to have.
And honestly, any government official has no power over you except what God allows.
God can preserve you or God can cause you to be destroyed.
Look, we need to worry about keeping God happy.
Let's get the blessing of God.
If we hide the truth under a bushel, we will not be blessed by God.
If we let it shine, he will bless us.
Yes there will be enemies, yes there will be adversaries, yes there will be opposition,
but in the end we're better off to just let it shine, do what's right.
And you know what?
I want, Jesus said, what I tell you in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.
That doesn't sound like, oh, you know, let's shut all the doors and lock them and turn
off all the internet, you know, and just, let's just make sure that it's just us here
so I can, you know, give the real preaching.
You know, no, we need to let the real preaching of God's word thunder forth.
You know, and if it's not in the Bible, then forget it.
But I mean, if it's biblical preaching, let's sound it out to the whole world.
And let the heathen rage.
You know?
If the devil doesn't like it, he can sit on a tack, you know, as the song goes, okay?
So I'm not going to sit here and worry about all the time what's going to happen if I do
what's right.
It doesn't matter, just do what's right.
And if I perish, I perish.
You know, we're all going to die someday anyway.
I mean, nobody in here, you know, obviously our soul's going to live forever, but the
body's not going to live forever, we're all going to die, we might as well go out in a
blaze of glory is the way I see it.
So you know what, I'm going to preach the truth, and you know what, I hope God allows
me to live to be a hundred, and perfect freedom, and maybe He will.
You know, maybe I'll abide until He comes, you know, what is that to thee?
But I'll say this though, if I perish, I perish.
And you know, otherwise, I'm not worth my salt as a preacher.
And we as God's people need to take all the commands of God, and we need to live by them
and obey them, and not worry about what's going to happen.
And also, we need to make other people's problems our problems.
And not just say, well, you know, I'm going to keep myself safe, and if those people die,
well that's not my problem.
You know, later on Esther's going to say, you know, how can I endure to see the destruction
of my people?
And you know, we need to look at lost souls and realize, hey, we need to help these people.
We need to speak up for these people.
We need to get them the gospel and help them.
And not just live a life of gratifying and pleasing self, but rather a life of self-sacrifice,
denying self, taking up the cross daily, and following Him.
And so she says, fast three days and three nights, and this is a pretty hardcore fast.
This is one of the most hardcore fasts in the Bible, because usually when they fast
in the Bible, they just do without food.
This is a fast away from food and water for three days and three nights.
And that's about the limit of what you could do and not, you know, damage your body severely
or even die.
I mean, going three days and three nights without food and water is very extreme.
You know, but they're trying to get God on their side.
They need God's help, and so they're praying, they're fasting.
And she says, you know, I'm doing everything I can.
I'm going to pray, I'm going to fast, and I'm going to obey God, and if I perish, I
perish.
That should be all of our motto in life.
If I perish, I perish, but I'm going to do what's right.
Period.
I'm not going to compromise, I'm not going to change what I believe.
It says, so Mordecai went his way and did according to all that Esther had commanded,
meaning he's going to go out and get everybody, all the Jews and Shushan, to pray and fast
also, to abstain from food and drink.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you for this story of courage.
You know, we see Esther in the beginning, not really having her heart in the right place,
but Mordecai explains to her the need to put her neck out there and to take risks and to
do what's right no matter what the consequences could be.
Help us to live our lives the same way, help us to live a life that says, you know what,
I'm going to do what's right, I'm going to obey God, and I'm not going to fear man and
let the fear of man stop me from obedience to the Lord.
Please just help us to live that life and to have that mentality.