(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

It reads, Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king's commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them, though it was turned to the contrary, that the Jews had rule over them that hated them, that Jews gathered themselves together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the king of Hadres, to lay hand on such as sought their hurt, and no man could withstand them, for the fear of them fell upon all people. Just to bring you quickly up to speed in the story here, if you remember, once Haman has been exposed and once Haman has been killed, that didn't change the fact that that decree had been made that on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, all of the Jews' enemies would attack them and slaughter them and kill them. And once a law has been put in place by the Medes and the Persians, the way their legal system worked was that once a law had been done in the king's name, it could not be changed. Nothing could change it. They had to repeal that law. Once the law is made, it's set in stone. So therefore, Esther and Mordecai devised a way to stop this slaughter of the Jews from taking place without actually repealing the law because when they asked the king to repeal it, he said it's impossible. You can't reverse the king's commandment. So therefore, instead they put out a decree that on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, that all the Jews would be allowed to assemble together to unite and organize and fight back and basically fight against their enemies and to defend themselves and also to slaughter those that wanted to kill them. And the Bible says in verse 3, and all the rulers of the provinces and the lieutenants and the deputies and officers of the king helped the Jews because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them. So not only do they have the right to defend themselves, but since all the people in the kingdom have kind of seen which way the wind is blowing and all these government officers and lieutenants, they know which way things are going. They've seen the downfall of Haman, they've seen Mordecai lifted up, they basically know which side to be on if they want to be on the winning side, if they want to be in good graces with the king and they can also see that God is with the Jews, so they decide to get on the side of the Jews. So basically the Jews' enemies just have no chance against them. So all of the people who had plotted and devised to kill and destroy the Jews, they end up being destroyed. And you know, this is something that the Bible teaches over and over again that if we want to do ill unto someone, even if we don't accomplish our task, we deserve to be punished in the same way. For example, the Bible talks about in Deuteronomy about those who bring false witness against someone in court. You know, if you remember the story about Naboth, Ahab wanted Naboth dead and so therefore two false witnesses came and they lied about Naboth, right? And they said, we heard Naboth blaspheme God and blaspheme the king. Well that was a capital offense. So when they said that, they basically got Naboth put to death by accusing him of that crime. Now the Bible teaches that if anyone was ever caught doing that, those guys got away with it, but if anybody was ever caught bringing a false witness against someone in court, whatever punishment that person would get, it would be given under the false witness. So for example, let's say I went to court and falsely accused someone of murder and I told a lie to try to get someone convicted of murder and then it was found out that I was lying, then whatever the punishment for murder is, that's the punishment that I would receive. Death. Okay. Or if it was stealing, for example, and I lied in order to get somebody convicted of stealing, then basically I would have to pay fourfold because that's the punishment that that person would have received. So whatever ill I intend upon someone else or want to bring upon someone else wrongly is going to come back upon my own head, according to God's sense of justice here. So these people that were slaughtered, and as we read the chapter we see that it was 500 that were slaughtered in Shushan the palace on the first day and 75,000 throughout the whole kingdom, because remember this is like the entire civilized world pretty much at that time. This gigantic kingdom ranging from India to Ethiopia, 75,000 people are killed, but biblically those people deserved to be killed because they were people who wanted to kill innocent Jews and had every intention of killing innocent Jews and that was what they had planned to do and it was brought back upon their own head. They ended up being killed because they desired to kill innocent people. They're innocent, they end up being killed. That is justice and that's what we see take place in this chapter. So they assemble together, the lieutenants, the officers, and the deputies help them, and they end up slaughtering their enemies. So on the day that the Bible says in verse 1, on the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them, it says in parentheses though it was turned to the contrary that the Jews had rule over them that hated them. Now there's a lot of stuff in the book of Esther that ties in with end times Bible prophecy, a lot of symbolism, especially with Haman. He's a great picture of the Antichrist because he's a guy who's demanding that everyone worship him. And of course in Revelation 13 we know that the Antichrist is going to be worshipped of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples and that the false prophet will come and point people to the Antichrist and say that they need to worship him and command them to worship him and make a law that if they won't worship him they'll be killed. Well in the book of Esther we saw the same thing. Haman is demanding worship and anyone who will not bow down and do reverence unto Haman will be killed, namely the Jews. And so there's a lot of things in Esther that are parallel with that and it's interesting if we look at verse 1 here where it says that the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them that it was turned to the contrary that the Jews had rule over them that hated them. Go to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. So if we were to apply that to end times Bible prophecy where we know that there's going to be the Antichrist and we know that he's going to make war with the saints and overcome them because in the Old Testament the Jews were God's chosen people, right? And they were the ones who were serving the Lord and that worshipped the Lord. Well in the New Testament the Jews are not serving the Lord, they don't worship the Lord, they don't believe in Christ. I mean yeah there is a remnant according to the election of grace. There are some saved Jews but as a whole the nation of Israel has rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. You say prove it. Well the Bible says he came unto his own and his own received him not. But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name. But when he came unto his own, when he came unto the nation of Israel, they received him not by and large for the most part. So in the New Testament God's people are believers whether they be Jew or Gentile of all nations. Kindreds, tongues, and people, we the Bible says all of us are a holy nation or royal priesthood, a peculiar people, okay? So in the New Testament we see that the Antichrist in Revelation 13 will make war against the saints and will overcome them, okay? So it's not going to be Jews that are being killed but rather it's going to be believers that are being killed, okay? And if we think about it, in Esther the day that was the day when they thought that they were going to have the mastery over the Jews, when their enemies thought they would destroy them, it ended up being that the opposite took place. Look what 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 says and this is right after he describes the rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4 there where he talks about Christ coming in the clouds, the trumpet sounding, the dead in Christ rising first and so on. It says in chapter 5 verse 1, but of the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you, for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. So he's referring to that day where Jesus Christ comes in the clouds in chapter 4 as the day of the Lord. And he says, you know that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night, for when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness, therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. So look, the Bible here is not saying that that day is not going to overtake us at all, is it? It's not saying, well, you're not even going to be there because you've already been raptured long before this in the pre-trib rapture. I mean, is that what the Bible is saying here? You're not even going to be there on that day. You don't even have to worry about that day. No, no, no. He says it won't overtake you as a thief because you're not in darkness, you're watching. So it's not going to be a shock to you or a surprise to you. But will it be to the unsaved? Will the day of the Lord come upon them as a thief in the night? You say, well, Christ is coming as a thief in the night. Not if you're saved. He's only coming as a thief in the night if you're unsaved. And when the Bible says we're not of the night nor of darkness, he talks about children of light and then he talks about people being in darkness. What he's talking about there is knowledge. What he's talking about there is that, you know, if you're in the dark on something it means you don't know what's going on. And what he's saying is that we that are believers, we should not be in darkness. We should be watching. We should be understanding the times. Whereas those that are unsaved, they are in darkness. The God of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not. And the Bible says when they say, and the they there is the unsaved, the unbelievers. When they say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child and they shall not escape. So don't we see a turning of the tables there? Because when they say peace and safety, what are they doing to believers during that time? Killing them. They're going to be putting to death anyone who won't worship the anti-Christ. They're going to be making war with the saints. They're going to say, oh, we finally have world peace, a one world system. You know, peace and safety. It's so wonderful. And you know what, by the way, there's a lot of wicked things that go on today in the name of peace and safety. You know, we need to be aware of that, especially the word safety, because the Bible says safety is of the Lord, but I'm going to get that in a minute. So what we see here is the tables being turned. You know, just when basically the anti-Christ and Satan have their one world government and they're in control, they're in power, they have their system of peace and safety. Of course, everyone who believes in Jesus Christ is being executed or killed. Just when they think, we're finally going to wipe out these Christians, then the tables are turned. And that's exactly what we see in Esther. So Esther is symbolic of that, that turning of the tables. Now what we can learn from that is that, you know, we're on the winning side. And a lot of times we fear and dread and worry about things that don't even happen. Because for example, these people in the book of Esther, they probably dreaded that 13th day of December. You know, I'm just calling it December. I know the 12th month wasn't called December back then. But you know, they're thinking, oh man, December 13th rolls around, you know, this is going to be horrible. And they dreaded. They're scared. They're worried. But in reality, nothing happened. And you know, a lot of the things that we fear and dread the most and worry about, it's probably because they don't even end up happening. And we spend so much time worrying and fretting and tossing and turning. And then a lot of times they don't even happen. And here, it didn't happen. Now when something bad is going to happen, like they had this day looming over their head, how should we respond to that? The Bible says that we should in everything with prayer and supplication and thanksgiving, let our requests be made known unto God and the peace of God which passeth all understanding should keep our hearts and minds to Christ Jesus. So instead of worrying and fretting and being scared and fearful, we should just pray about it, pray for God's will to be done, maybe even fast. And then we just step back and say, you know what, it's in God's hands now. And I already talked about that a lot last week. But just pray, put it in God's hands and don't sit around worrying, stressed out. And you know, it's bad for your health too when you're stressed out and worried and nervous all the time. You know, we need to have the peace of God ruling in our hearts, the Bible says. And the way we'll do that is just by praying and putting things in God's hands and then just trusting in what He's going to do. And here, of course, He saved them. God is able to save us out of any situation. God is able to protect us from any danger. Look at all the people throughout the Bible that were miraculously protected by God. You know, you look at the three children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3. You know, they were protected from the fiery furnace. Daniel was protected from the mouth of the lion. Paul was protected from the mouth of the lion. You know, we see over and over again, God's people in a situation where it looks hopeless. You know, the children of Israel backed up against the Red Sea. The whole Pharaoh's army is coming toward them and going to slaughter them all. And God put that cloudy pillar and that pillar of fire by night between Pharaoh's army and the children of Israel and protected them miraculously, parted the Red Sea, allowed them to get across on dry land. God is able to keep us safe and protect us so we don't need to worry and be scared and fearful. The Bible says God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Over and over again, Jesus said, Fear not, and He said, Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Because fear is a lack of faith. Unless we're fearing God, that is faith when we fear God because He really does have the power to harm us if we go against His will. He can chastise us and chasten us and do us ill. But you know what? When we are fearful of man and when we're fearful of the devil and when we're fearful of earthly things, we're not trusting in the promises of God and we're exhibiting a lack of faith. That's why Jesus said, Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? And what were they afraid of? A storm. You know, they were afraid of a storm, they were afraid of drowning, instead of just trusting that Jesus had everything under control. Now if you would go back to Deuteronomy chapter number 2 because as you're turning there, I'll reread for you what I just read for you in verse 3 of Esther 9. It says that the rulers of the provinces and the lieutenants and the deputies and officers of the king helped the Jews because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them. And this is a phrase that keeps coming up over and over again in this chapter. At the end of verse 3 it says the fear of Mordecai fell upon them and it says how Mordecai was great in the king's house and so on. And in a couple places he says that the fear of the Jews fell upon them. It said at the end of chapter 8 in verse 17, the fear of the Jews fell upon them. So the Jews were protected from their enemies not just because they had greater might or because they had the right weapons or because they organized themselves so well, but it was because God put the fear of them on the people around them. That's what caused the officers and the lieutenants and everybody to get on their side. Now God has done the same thing throughout the Bible for His people when they were obedient to Him. He put fear in other people around them to keep them safe. Look if you would at Deuteronomy chapter 2 verse 25. The Bible says, this day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven who shall hear report of thee and shall tremble and be in anguish because of thee. Flip over to chapter 11 verse 25. So God is saying that He's going to put the fear of them and the dread of them and their enemies. Now why is that important? Because if your enemies fear and dread you, they're not going to attack you. But if your enemies fear and dread you, even if they do attack you, they're not going to be effective in their attack. Now anybody who's done any fighting, any fist fighting, you know, boxing, anything, you know, if you're fearful, you're not going to win that fight. You know, what sometimes one person will try to do is instill fear in the other. Because when you're fearful, you don't fight effectively. Confidence is an important part of fighting. But especially when you're not just dealing with a one-on-one fight, but you're dealing with armies fighting each other, you know what happens when armies become fearful? They break ranks. They become disorganized. They begin to flee. And one of the most important things in warfare is that the soldiers can keep ranks, meaning that, you know, they stay organized, they stay in position, they don't just do their own thing, but they work together as a unit. And when fear strikes, then panic sets in and people start running every which way and it just becomes a bloodbath, it just becomes a slaughter. Because they can't keep ranks. And fear is a major tool that militaries have used throughout history to try to win battles is to just intimidate the enemy. You know, you study the Mongolian Empire and the Mongols taking over the Middle East in the 13th century and they would spread rumors that weren't even true, just spread all kinds of stories and spread rumors just about how barbarous they were, exaggerating it. And just exaggerating what had happened in previous battles just to get people intimidated and scared because they didn't even want to have to fight the battle, they'd rather just show up and see that white flag flying above the city that just says, we surrender, rather than even have to fight the battle. So they would try to spread fear and intimidation and they would try to spread this propaganda just to try to get people to be so scared that they wouldn't even fight. And think about it, what if you were a person where everybody was afraid of you? You think people are going to be picking fights with you all the time? No. So God would often put the fear and the dread of his people upon their enemies just so they would leave them alone, just so that they would stay away from them, right? And we saw that in Deuteronomy 2.25. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 11 though. And we'll see this was a conditional promise from God. It says in verse 22, for if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you to do them. So is this going to happen no matter what they do? No. It's only if they keep his commandments. He says, for if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you to do them, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways and to cleave unto him, then will the Lord drive out all these nations from before you and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves, every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours, from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coasts be, there shall no man be able to stand before you, for the Lord your God, why are they not going to be able to stand before them? For the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon as he hath said unto you. But is this just going to happen no matter what they do? No, because look at the next verse. Behold, I said before you this day a blessing and a curse, a blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day, and a curse if you will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day to go after other gods which you have not known. Question, are the children of Israel today in the nation of Israel in the Middle East under the blessing or the curse, according to Deuteronomy 11? No, no, they're under God's blessing. They're God's chosen people and God will bless those that bless them and curse those that curse them. They're blessed by God. I mean, can't you tell how God's blessing them and God's protecting them and God's put the fear in them? Well, hold on a second. What does the Bible say? The Bible says that God will curse them. Does it not say, does it say well God would never curse them because they're the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they will never be cursed? Is that what it says? I mean, does everybody else's Bible say the same thing that mine does? That he's talking to the children of Israel saying, you can have all this land because it's yours no matter what. No, he said, if you keep my commandments, if you don't follow other gods but you follow the true God and keep his commandments, then this land will be yours and he gives those borders if you keep his commandments. If you serve the Lord. That's why every time they disobeyed him, he's bringing in foreign invaders throughout the Old Testament. He's having them carried away captive to other lands because they didn't obey those commandments. And today, they don't believe in Jesus Christ. You say, well, but they don't worship another god. They still worship the same god. Okay, well the Bible says, whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. Did you get that? Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. So do the children of Israel today deny the Son? I'm not saying all of them. Obviously there is a very small minority, a remnant according to the election of grace that believes on Christ, but would you say that the majority of the nation of Israel today denies the Son? Do they have the Father? Okay, do they have a god that they worship? Is it the Father? Okay, well there you go. So again, I'm not going to spend the whole sermon on that, but this isn't that complicated if you go by what the Bible says. And people say, man, you know, God blesses America because we've been good to Israel, but here's what's funny about that. Israel was founded in 1948, right? Weren't we doing pretty good before that? And you know, this whole doctrine of Zionism and this doctrine of the Jews are God's chosen people in the New Testament is a doctrine that started in the 1800s really to gain any popularity in the late 1800s by the time it was gaining popularity in the United States because it started over in Europe. But the doctrine of dispensationalism and Zionism, you know, is a doctrine from the 1800s. You know, I thought we were doing pretty good before that. And I thought that in 1948 is probably when things started to go downhill the most. Because you sit there and say, well God blesses us because we bless the nation of Israel when the Bible teaches that they're under the curse of God for rejecting Christ, for worshipping a false god, for following the religion of the Pharisees, a false religion. Well, if God blesses us because we support Israel, then why has our country gone downhill since 1948? I mean, that's around the time we got into the United Nations. That's around the time that God was kicked out of the public schools, what, in 1947? 1948 is when they started, or 1953 I think was the court decision, right? 1953, 1947, I mean these are dates that keep coming up as dates of kicking out God, turning away from God. We went, you know, before 1948 I think 90-some percent of churches were preaching out of the King James Bible, weren't they? Is that the case today? I mean, look at all the, I mean, did you see a bunch of homos walking around in our nation before 1948? You didn't see these false Bible versions. That was when they prayed and read the Bible in school. That was when, you know, we as a nation acknowledged the Lord Jesus Christ and acknowledged God and acknowledged the Bible. And by the way, wasn't the money, wasn't the dollar stronger back then? Wasn't the money worth more back then? Right, see, all that stuff has successively gone downhill as we've supported Israel. I thought that we were like the nation that never loses a war, right? I mean, we won every war, right? I mean, did we win World War I? Did we win World War II? You know, we won a lot of wars, right? Okay, did we win the Vietnam War? No, but God's going to bless us, right? Because we're supporting Israel, right? Okay, you know, yeah. So I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing where things just got way better in 1948 when we started supporting Israel. And we've kept supporting them and it just keeps on getting better to this day. Things are great, aren't they? Can't you tell God's really blessing our nation right now? So that's not a Biblical doctrine. It doesn't have a lot to do with what I'm preaching tonight, but I just wanted to point that out in Deuteronomy 11. But the main thing I wanted to show you is that when you do keep God's commandments, God will bless you and God will put the fear of you and the dread of you in your enemies. This is the same thing that God did back in Genesis 35. Flip back if you went to Genesis 35. He did this for the person Israel because in Deuteronomy 2 and 11 we see Him doing it for the nation of Israel, but back in Genesis 35 the person Israel, what's Israel's other name? Jacob, right? His name was Jacob and then later it's changed to Israel. Look what it says in verse 35. This is after Jacob's sons had slaughtered a lot of innocent people. They really committed a serious offense by killing innocent people, you know. You can see why they did it, but it still wasn't right. Their revenge was not Biblical and Simeon and Levi had killed some people and now Jacob is really scared about what his sons have done. He's fearful and he's afraid that people are going to retaliate on him for what his sons have done. So it says in verse 1 of chapter 35, and God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee when thou fledest from the face of Esau the brother. So God's reminding him of another time when Jacob was afraid because there was a time when Jacob was afraid of Esau and he sought the Lord to protect him and God did protect him. Now he's in the same situation. God's telling him, look, just like you trusted in me with Esau, you need to trust in me with this situation as well. You need to pray to me. You need to put your trust in me. I'm going to be your safety. I'm the one that can protect you. I'm the one that can keep you safe. Look at the next verse. Then Jacob said unto his household and to all them that were with him, put away the strange gods that are among you and be clean and change your garments. See he's saying, look, I want God to protect me. I want God to keep me safe and so I'm going to put away the false gods. I'm going to keep his commandments. I'm going to worship him because then he's going to protect me and keep me safe. Look at the next verse. Let us arise and go up to Bethel and I will there make an altar unto God who answered me in the day of my distress and was with me in the day which I went. He's saying, look, in the past God protected me, he's going to protect me again. Verse 4, and they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hands and all their earrings which were in their ears and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. Now again, they're worshiping strange gods and they have earrings in their ears and when they get rid of the false gods, they get rid of the earrings out of their ears. Now the Bible does make positive mention of women wearing earrings in Ezekiel chapter 16 and also in Genesis 24. So therefore, I believe that men should not wear earrings because we see women wearing earrings in the Bible as a positive mention, especially Ezekiel 16, it seems to be something that God is sanctioning or condoning, but here we see someone getting rid of earrings in a bad way. So I'm not, I guess I can't really show you a command that says, men, thou shalt not wear earrings. Okay? But I'm going to tell you right now, just my son will never wear earrings and I will never wear earrings because I believe that wearing earrings is a feminine on a man. You know, that's what I believe. And you know, you say, oh, I'm offended, I'm wearing earrings tonight or, you know what? I didn't, I didn't really ask you what you thought about it. I'm just telling you that I think that it's feminine for men to wear earrings. And by the way, when men were men in this country, they didn't wear earrings. I think that was post-1948, you know, when they started putting on the earrings, you know? And it's amazing, you look at the men of yesterday and the men of today, it's sad. You look at the role models today that are lifted up, the movie stars that everybody fawns over and they're so queer. You know, and I mean, the earrings on men, it's just, it's not helping your manhood at all. Say, well, you know, I have a really manly looking earring, you know. I'm not saying, I'm not saying, I never see a guy with an earring and think he's more manly because he's got that earring. To me, I just think, girlie, you know. And then, and then also they say, well, you know, if you have the earring in your left ear, you're straight. And if you have your earring in the right ear, that means you're a homo, right? Is that still like that? I mean, it was, I don't think so, but when the eighties and then the nineties, who remembers that? Yeah, the whole auditorium's got their hand up. In the eighties and nineties, it was like, if you have the earring in the right ear, you know, so God forbid you look at yourself in the mirror or something, you know. And everything's backwards in the mirror, right? So you, you know, you're looking at this queer image in the mirror, I guess, every day. Because you know, things that, something in your left ear, when you look in the mirror, it's in your right ear. Everybody know how mirrors work? But, but I like what, what Pastor Nichols used to say. Remember he said, you know, he said, you're this close to being a queer. You know, you're this close, if you have it in the left ear, you know. So I'm just saying, you know, I, I think that today, with the gender roles becoming so blurred, we should try to get away from anything that's a gender neutral or gender bending or traditionally, something that's traditionally feminine. We should stay away from it because we're already so in danger of just these blurred lines between men. I think we should make the lines even more distinct than they've ever been to try to counteract what the devil's doing of feminizing men and masculinizing women. So here they get rid of the earrings, you know, they bury the earrings. And it says in verse 5, and they journeyed and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. So what do we see here? We see prayer. We see getting the sin out of your life. We see offering unto the Lord. And then what do we see? God protects them. And how does he protect them? By putting fear in the hearts of their enemies, terrifying their enemies. And that's a common theme throughout the Bible. You know, if we want to be safe, if we want to be protected, we've got to keep God's commandments. And as a nation, the best thing we could do for national defense would be to get the sin out of our lives. I mean, if we wanted to be safe as a nation, it's not a naked body scanner that's going to do it. It's not, you know, it's not a bigger budget for the CIA and a bigger, you know, more, we need more foreign bases. You know what? You can literally, I mean, you could have all the weapons in the world. You could have the mightiest army in the world. You could have all the power you want. God is either going to bless you or he's going to curse you. And it's based upon whether or not you love him. It's based upon whether or not you keep his commandments. You know, I'd be, I'd feel safer, completely unarmed in a dangerous situation knowing I've kept God's commandments. God is with me. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. Right? Knowing I'm right with God, I'm serving God, I'm in the will of God. He's going to protect me. He's going to keep me safe. And to just be armed to the teeth and to know that I'm living in sin. And to know that God's displeased with me. What's the safer situation, according to the Bible? And so that's what we see throughout the Bible. Let's go back to Esther chapter 9. We see that God protected them by putting the fear of them in their enemies. God can put fear and dread into people's hearts just to cause them to just leave you alone, personally or as a nation. We see it throughout the Bible. And look what he says after that, he says in verse 6, in Shushan the palace, the Jews slew and destroyed 500 men and Parshandathah and Dalfon and Esphatha. You know, you ladies that are pregnant, here's some baby names, alright, biblical, biblical baby names. Although you probably don't want to name it after these sons of Haman, but Dalfon and Esphatha. Let me introduce to you my children. Dalfon and Esphatha and Paretha and Adeliah and Aridatha and Parmashta and Arisei and Aridei and whoa, Vagizatha? That's a serious name, right? That sounds more like a girl name to me, but anyway, Vagizatha or Vagizatha or whatever. The ten sons of Haman, the son of Hamadatha, the enemy of the Jews slew they, but on the spoil laid they not their hand. Okay, so why did they not lay their hands on the spoil? Because the decree was that they could kill all the enemies and take their money. Because that's what was going to be done under the Jews, they were going to kill the Jews and then take all their goods, take all their money, take all their wealth, right? So the Jews were given permission to do the exact same thing back to them that they wanted to do to them. Why did they not lay their hands on the spoil? I'll tell you why. Because if they had laid their hand on the spoil, if they had decided, because remember they did this together, they didn't do this as individuals. They all assembled together and they united together to fight against their enemies. They all decided, we're not going to lay our hand on the spoil. We're going to kill our enemies, but we're not going to take their goods. I'll tell you why. Because don't you think that if they were taking their goods, there'd be some people who would kill some innocent people just to get their goods? Think about that, because there's a conflict of interest there. See the Jews only wanted to kill the true enemies that were guilty, that were guilty of plotting their own death and destruction. That's who they wanted to kill. They didn't want to just kill for financial gain and you know when you put that in front of people that says, well we're going to kill these people and we're going to take their stuff, then they might just say, oh yeah this guy was one of them, because he's got the nice stuff. He was one of the people who was plotting against us, and a lot of innocent people could be killed that way. When you basically put, see listen to me, the love of money is the root of all evil. So when you put that out there, when you mix money into the equation, you're not going to get justice. For example, when judges are getting kickbacks, and this goes on, I've heard about this going on in the United States, where judges will convict people of domestic violence because of what they said, you know like, oh you said a bad word to your spouse, that's domestic violence. This is in Colorado, I heard about this. You know, you threw a raw hot dog at your husband, that's domestic violence. You know, you hit her with a pillow, that's domestic violence. But here's the thing, these judges in Colorado that were just handing out all these sentences for domestic violence, for just minor little scuffles between a husband and wife, then they would force them to take these anger management classes. But it turned out that they're the ones who owned the anger management classes, they're the ones who profited from it, they were expensive classes, you had to pay hundreds and hundreds or like a lot of the judges, I mean think about this, what if a traffic judge owns the traffic school that you're being sentenced to? You're sentenced to go to traffic school, or his relatives. Or what about like, what, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, isn't it, somebody help me out, isn't it true that his family owns, like his brother, and you know, heads are nodding, that his family owns a lot of the suppliers of his prisons and tent cities and they supply the food and supply the clothes, his family owns it? And he gives them all the business because they're family? So whenever you turn prison into something profitable, corruption. When you turn crime into something profitable for the judge, you think he's going to stay guilty or not guilty? The love of money is the root of all evil. And so you've got to be very careful, because for example, you know, I remember when I was a kid, I thought to myself, you know what, I thought people in prison, instead of just sitting in jail cells, this is what I used to think, you know, those people should be put to work. And then it would pay for itself. You know, then the tax dollars would not have to pay for the prison system? Put them to work and then it'll pay for itself. Now, doesn't that sound like a pretty good idea? That is a horrible idea. That is an awful idea, okay? And you know what, you know what really drove that home with me was when I read the book The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn where he talks about the prison industry. That's what the first chapter is called, you know, or the first section is called in The Gulag Archipelago, he calls it the prison industry of the Soviet Union. And now the Soviet Union would arrest people just because they needed more workers in the forced labor camps. And so a forced labor camp basically becomes profitable to the state and then the state wants to arrest people and wants to put people in prison to get that free labor and for financial gain. Look, that's going to mess, whenever you bring money into justice, you're corrupting justice. You've got to make sure that there isn't a conflict in people's motives and when you're telling people, hey, we're going to kill these guilty parties who have been plotting to slaughter innocent Jews, we're going to kill them, you know, when you take money out of the equation, you're going to get a more fair outcome and, you know, I don't know out of those 75,000 people that were killed in Esther 9, I don't know if they were all guilty. You know what I mean? I don't really know if all 75,000 of these were truly the Jews' enemies and were truly people who were guilty of plotting their destruction. I don't know, but I guarantee you there were, if innocent people did die, I don't know if they did or not. I don't know, maybe they were all guilty, maybe it was legitimate and I'm sure that most of them were guilty from the story as we read it, but I will say this, I guarantee you that far less innocent people perished than if they would have taken their hand on the spoil, they would have gone after a lot more of the wrong people or maybe when in doubt they would have just gone after them, you know what I mean? And so you've got to take money out of the equation. You know, speaking of that, money being in the equation, it's funny, me and my wife were talking a couple months ago or maybe a month ago and somehow the subject of being an organ donor came up, you know, and we were chatting about this, right? And I said to my wife, I'm like, no, no, I'm like, you should never be an organ donor. Don't be an organ donor. And my wife's like, what in the world, why not? You know, you've got to help all these people with organs. And I said, no, no, no, I said, I heard about this and I said, I don't remember the details, but I heard about this, how they'll basically kill you for your organs because they make money off the organs. And she's like, no way, you know, we were kind of talking about it and she wasn't buying it and I couldn't really convince her because I couldn't remember the facts. I couldn't remember the information. Okay, then like a week later, she happened to see a news article about it that explained exactly what I was telling her and since then, my wife did a ton of research on it and she looked it up and here's the thing, it's impossible to take the organs out of a corpse. They can only harvest the organs while you're still alive. So what they'll do is they'll say, well, this person can't survive. It's too late for them. Can we go ahead and harvest their organs? But see, here's the thing though. I'm sure that sometimes that's true, that the person's, you know, about to die or dying and they really are going to die, so yeah, let's harvest their organs and save someone else's life. But you know what? When you, but there's money associated with it. There's money for these kidney transplants and these other, you know, organ transplants. So what will often happen is that basically, you know what, you're in pretty bad shape. Let's go ahead and harvest those organs, even though you totally could have survived and could have made it. You know, I'm thinking, if my wife's in the hospital and they're coming to me saying, you know what, we don't think your wife's going to make it, we're going to go ahead and harvest these organs, I'm going to say, no, I mean, you need to do everything you can. Let's wait until the bitter end. You know, let's let her die on her own, you know, and let's pray to God that at the last minute, cause you know what, there are a lot of people where they'll say like, oh, this person's brain dead, this person's gone, it's too late, and then two weeks later they walk out of the hospital. My wife just showed me a news article like that. This guy, they said, oh man, there's no way, you know, we're going to stop feeding him, he's done, he's over, and then he gets up and walks out a week later and he's completely full recovery. So you see how money can sometimes corrupt judgment? You know, when you're thinking to yourself, oh, you know, we can make all this money off this kidney transplant, they're going to harvest out of you while you're still alive. You know, anyway, that's probably made somebody mad, but whatever, I mean, look, if you want to be an organ donor, I mean seriously, if you want to be an organ donor, I'm fine with that. I'm not religiously opposed to it. If you want to be an organ donor, you go ahead and get that on your driver's license that you're an organ donor, but you know what, don't you dare let them harvest my organs until I'm gone. You know, and even then, give me some time in case I wake back up. You know what I mean? You never know. I'm just saying, man, I'm not going to, I'm not, I don't trust these people. I don't even trust them while I'm alive. You know, I don't even trust them when I'm coherent, let alone when I'm, you know, at the point of death I don't trust them, but anyway, that's neither here nor there. But either way, we see here that, what did that have to do with the sermon? Oh yeah, they didn't lay their hand on the spoil because they didn't want to corrupt their judgment with money. And how many times did the book of Proverbs warn us about judges who take gifts? How the gift is blinding the eyes and the gift is perverting justice, but that doesn't happen anymore, right? That was just back then. No, it still happens today, so we need to be careful that we don't let money corrupt our judgments. So then the king in verse 12 says to Esther, you know, they've slain 500 men in Shushan the palace. Man, what has it been done in the rest of the province? Because obviously they don't know right away how many people have been killed. They didn't have a phone back then where you could just tell them thousands of miles away how many people died. And then what they end up doing, Esther says, well let's do it one more day because obviously they didn't kill all the enemies on the first day in Shushan. So she said, give us one day more to kill the enemies. So on the first day they killed 500, on the second day they killed 300. Now you say, well why didn't they get a second day throughout the rest of the kingdom? Well they couldn't do it on that short of notice. Because if you remember this was published many months in advance to get communicated out to everybody that on the 13th day of the 12th month they're going to do this. You can't just instantly put out a satellite bulletin, you know, okay we're doing it on the 14th also. So that's why it was only done locally at Shushan that they did the second day where they killed an additional 300 but did not lay their hands upon the spoil. And then as a result, just to hurry up and finish here, in verses 18 and onward he talks about the fact that after they killed their enemies they assembled together and just had a day of rest. They had a holiday, they rejoiced, they feasted, and they thanked God. And not only that but they decided to ordain this as a tradition. And if you would look at verse 27, the Jews ordained and took upon them and upon their seed, meaning that their children after them would also keep this tradition, and upon all such as join themselves unto them so as it should not fail that they would keep these two days according to their writing and according to their appointed time every year, and that these days should be kept in remembrance and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city, and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews nor the memorial of them perished from their seed. So this is a holiday that they're instituting or a tradition or something that they're passing on to their children as a memorial of the day that they were saved out of their enemies. Now when it comes to tradition, we know that sometimes there are bad traditions. The Bible talks about how the Jews had made the Word of God of none effect through their tradition. Matthew chapter 15. And we see that there are a lot of denominations and religions today that base what they believe on man's tradition instead of on the Word of God, right? Catholicism comes to mind. You know, they've got a lot of traditions of men and they're very lean on the Word of God, okay? But is tradition just always a bad thing? Now go to 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, let me show you a positive mention of tradition because the word tradition, all it means is just something that's passed down. A tradition is something that I pass down to my children, hey, this is what we do. This is how we do it. Now I had this in my notes but I just don't have time at all. If you want to read up on this, Jeremiah chapter 35 is a whole chapter about the Rechabites. And the Rechabites had some traditions from their father, Rechab, that were not the commandments of God. It was just traditions that he passed down to them and they kept those traditions and God praised them for keeping the traditions of Rechab, he was a righteous, godly man. He gave them commandments and traditions and they kept those traditions and God praised them for that. I was going to read the whole chapter, you know, sometimes when I'm writing the sermon seems like there's going to be more time than there is, but that was Jeremiah 35, it's a great chapter about a great tradition that they had. But here in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 we see a positive mention of the word tradition when the Bible says in verse number 6, Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he received of us. For yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we behave not ourselves disorderly among you. And what he's saying there when he says tradition, if we use verse 7 to interpret it, he's saying look the tradition is basically I've left you an example, not just the word of God that I preached to you, but the tradition that you received of us, you saw that we didn't walk disorderly, you saw that we worked hard, you saw how we lived our lives, you know, we did that to be an example unto you. And you know what, there are traditions that parents pass on to their children. There are traditions in various churches. Now look, if a tradition is contrary to the word of God, it needs to be rejected. And if we teach a tradition as the commandment of God, when it's actually man's tradition, that's wrong. Because the Bible says we should not teach for doctrines the commandments of men. But is it wrong to just have traditions and say well this is the way we do things. This is how we do it. This is our tradition. And it's a good thing, there's nothing wrong with it, as long as we're not saying well God commanded this. And as long as it's not something that contradicts the word of God, it's not wrong. Now here they set up this holiday. Now did God give them holidays in Leviticus 23? He gave them holidays. He gave them feast days. He gave them the new moons and he gave them the different feast days in Leviticus 23. Okay, is this one of the holidays that God gave them? No. This is just something that they instituted to remember something where they wanted their children after them to remember it. Now we today in America have holidays that are traditions of man, right? But there are people out there today that think it is wrong to celebrate any holidays. And they say that these holidays are bad, they're the traditions of man, God didn't tell us to keep these holidays, and so forth. But my belief is that if the holiday is not sinful, if it's a wholesome tradition, if it's something good and honorable and godly that we're celebrating, and the way that we celebrate it is honoring and pleasing to God, what in the world is wrong with celebrating holidays? You know, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. And I was thinking about some of the holidays that we have in the United States. You know, if you go through the calendar year you think of New Year's Day, right? What a wicked holiday. What a sinful pagan celebration. You know, look, I think New Year's Day is a great holiday. Because I love New Year's Day because I make a lot of New Year's resolutions and some people make light of that and they mock that and they think it's silly, but you know what, what's silly about trying to make yourself a better person and trying to get sin out of your life or trying to improve yourself and be a better husband, a better father, a better pastor, a better Christian? You know, the New Year's a great time to jump back into Bible reading if you've fallen off the wagon or start praying or start going to church faithfully and say, I'm not going to miss any services this year. You know, New Year's Day, God said in Genesis 1 that he gave us the sun and moon and stars for signs and seasons and days and years. And you know, a new year is like a new start. I love it. I think it's a great holiday. You know, and then the next national holiday on the calendar is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I don't celebrate it. Oh, you're a racist. You know what, here's what I've learned. If you're white, people are going to call you a racist no matter what you say and do. So I might as well just say and do whatever I want. Because no matter what I do, I'm going to be called racist anyway. Aren't you afraid people are going to think you're a racist if you say you don't celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.? They're going to think I'm a racist anyway because I'm white. Being white automatically makes you a racist in America. You didn't know that? But you say, well, why don't you celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day? Because Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist pastor who denied the deity of Christ, denied the virgin birth of Christ, and denied the bodily resurrection of Christ. Oh, but you did civil rights, mama. Okay, let me say that again. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist pastor who denied the resurrection of Christ, he denied the virgin birth of Christ, he denied the Scriptures, he denied the Trinity. Why would I celebrate the life of an apostate, false prophet who's burning in hell? Because he called himself a pastor and people walked into his church thinking they're going to a Baptist church and their souls are damned by his doctrine. Let's celebrate. Oh, by the way, shut up, the guy was a stinkin' communist anyway, do the research. But anyway, even if he wasn't communist, the fact that he doesn't believe the Bible and he's calling himself a Baptist pastor is enough for me to skip that holiday. And so, you know, you can say whatever you want about me not celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. It has nothing to do with race. You know, red and yellow, black and white, they're precious in his sight. He's made all kindreds of the earth of one blood. You know, and I know there's a lot of people out there trying to foment racism in America right now and trying to get black people and white people to hate each other, but you know what? I don't hate black people. I love black people just as much as I love white people. In fact, I was out this afternoon with Brother Dave and who else was out so anyway? Quinn? John? Chris Segura, right? Scott? Who am I missing? Catherine, right? Jimmy? Okay, we were out and what color were the people that we were witnessing to today, Brother Jimmy? They were predominantly black, weren't they? Because we're so racist that we left our families and left our jobs and left everything we were doing to go to a black neighborhood and give people the good news of Jesus. Because we're racist. You know, it makes me mad and I'm sick of it and I don't, you know, I don't know what that had to do with the sermon, but anyway, Martin Luther King Jr. day. I skipped that one, okay? You know, President's Day. I mean, I don't necessarily get all excited and jump up and down for it, but it seems like a fine holiday, right? Celebrate George Washington, you know, that's the president I choose to celebrate on that day. And then, you know, St. Patrick's Day? I haven't worn green on St. Patrick's Day in a long time, you know. St. Patrick's Day is usually one of those things that's like, oh, that was three days ago? Oh. Because if you don't watch TV, I mean, you know, it passes you by without even noting it. I mean, literally this year, I thought about St. Patrick's Day like four days after it happened. I was like, oh, oh, okay, I guess I missed that. You know, Easter, right? That's a big holiday. Oh, it's pagan. Well, Acts 12, 4 uses the word Easter, so don't tell me it's Ishtar and pagan. When the Bible calls the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Easter. No, no, Sam Gipp told me, shut up. The Bible says that the Feast of Unleavened Bread is called Easter, and if you did any research, you'd know that the Tyndale Bible, the first Bible in modern English, used the word Easter 22 times. What a pagan piece of trash that Tyndale Bible was. That was the word of God translated into English that the King James Bible is even translated from or revised from. Every English Bible leading up to the King James, you know, except the Geneva Bible, used Easter like 20 times, 15 times, 10 times. So to say that Easter is a pagan holiday is ignorance because the Bible in the Tyndale 1534 New Testament uses Easter 22 times to refer to the Passover. And just a clear reading of the context of Acts 12, 1-4, he mentions it as the Feast of Unleavened Bread, then he restates it as Easter. And you know, somebody told me that the book of Esther is pagan. Because Esther, Ishtar, Ashtaroth, Easter, Esther, Easter, Esther. What about Easter, Eastern? You know? Or what if your name's Bill? That's pagan because it's Bail. Bail, Bail, huh? Oh your name's Malachi? That's pagan. Molech. Molech. That comes from the name Molech. Molech, Malachi. You see that? Molech, Malachi. See how it's pagan? Bill, Billy, Bail-i, Billy. Oh your name's Tammy? That's from the false god Tammuz. Look, if you want to make everything pagan, you can, but to say that the word Easter is pagan is a contradiction of Acts 12. I say every word of God is pure. God used that word about the Feast of Unleavened Bread. I'm not going to believe that the word Easter is pagan. Now on Easter, I celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not a bunny who's miraculously able to lay eggs, even though it's a mammal. I celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I don't think it's wrong for me to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ every year on Easter, and that's what I do. It's a wholesome, godly, now look, I don't think that when things are not spelled out in the Bible, we shouldn't judge people on things that the Bible doesn't mention. The Bible doesn't say do celebrate Easter or don't celebrate Easter, so how about this? If you want to celebrate it, celebrate it. If you don't, then don't, because the Bible doesn't mention it. Same thing with New Year's Day, you know, 4th of July. Some people are against celebrating that. I believe that our nation seceding from England was a good thing. They gave us freedom and liberty and I like it. So I celebrate 4th of July. And you know, we had a tradition when I was growing up, we would have shish kebabs on 4th of July. Oh, you wicked pagan. So I'm just saying, I think that it's okay to have traditions, it's okay to celebrate the birth of our nation, because God has used our nation to do a lot of good things through the years and we've had a lot of freedoms through the years. I think it's great to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, celebrate the New Year. I don't celebrate Labor Day because I'm not a communist, and Thanksgiving, I mean Thanksgiving is a day where we're just thankful to God and we just give thanks unto the Lord, you know, for He's good because His mercy endures forever. And you know what, I celebrate Christmas and I celebrate the birth of Christ and I don't believe, and people say, oh, but Santa Claus, Satan, Claus, and others, but here's the thing, I don't celebrate Santa Claus, you know. You know, when my kids brought home some kind of a Christmasy thing and it had Santa on it, I took a black Sharpie and I just turned his beard from white to black and then he just looked like some kind of a big Russian guy, like he just had like, you know what I mean, he had like this big curly black beard and black hair and you know, he just looked like this, you know, this Russian guy from Siberia by the time I was, I changed the color of his hat, you know, because I don't approve of Santa Claus, because I don't believe we should talk about a mythical guy who knows when we're sleeping, knows when we're awake, you know, that's Obama, you know, that's the NSA, okay, that's our government, you know. Ask Snowden or whatever, but you know, I just don't believe, and I don't believe we should lie to our children and say, oh yeah, Santa, he's watching you, because then it's like, they're going to be like, well they lied about Santa, are they lying about Jesus? Are they just using this to keep us in line? So I don't believe that we should teach about Santa, I don't do Rudolph the reindeer and all that kind of stuff, we don't sing songs in our house, you know, of Frosty the snowman, I mean we sing basically songs about the birth of Christ, that's what we celebrate is the birth of Jesus Christ, I don't think it's wrong to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, and people are like, well you do know that Jesus was not born on December 25th, and I always tell people, you know what, there's a 1 in 365 chance that he was, you know what I mean, I mean he probably wasn't, but there's a 1 in 365 chance that he was because we don't know what day he was born on, you know, and I don't think, I'll bet you that 99% of people who celebrate Christmas, probably if we asked them, do you think Jesus was really born on December 25th, I think 99% of people would say no. They know it's just an arbitrary random day where we celebrate it, so what, I like the hot chocolate, I like giving, and you know, people say exchanging gifts is pagan, but biblically, God's people did exchange gifts in the book of Nehemiah, there were times when God sanctioned the exchanging of gifts in the Bible. And so anyway, all I have to say is, nothing wrong with traditions, I like family traditions, they bring a family close together, I like holidays sometimes, I like some of them, and you might say, well Pastor Anderson, I do celebrate Labor Day, well fine, I'm not going to go after you and attack you and call you a communist, okay? I'm just telling you, I don't celebrate it, you say, well I celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, well do whatever you want, you know, I'm just saying, I don't celebrate it, I told you why I'm not going to celebrate it, but you know what, we as God's people should be more focused on things that the Bible actually says than to just go around policing everybody on things that aren't really biblical, like what holidays they do and don't celebrate, you know? The only holiday that I will say that no Christian should celebrate is Halloween, but I mean, Halloween's kind of just clearly evil, I mean I don't think there's any question about, you know, is this pagan? I mean, when everybody's dressing up like the devil and has blood trickling out of their mouth and they're, you know, dressing as a zombie and a werewolf and a vampire, I mean, and a wizard and a witch, I just don't really think that there's any debate on that, that that's not something that we should be doing, you know? And then people get mad because we had a chili cook-off on October 31st, but we know costumes, we don't celebrate Halloween, we don't dress up, we just eat chili on that day because we're trying to provide an alternative for people, you know, just okay, let's go to God's house and do something wholesome as we don't participate in this activity, you shouldn't do anything on that day, but then I'm almost celebrating it because a day off is so rare for me, that would be a holiday if I did nothing, I mean, I got to do something, so I might as well eat a bunch of chili in God's house, but anyway, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word and thank you for this chapter that reminds us that you can always turn the table on the enemies whenever you want and that we shouldn't be fearful and scared and timid and worried, we should just pray to you and just trust you and you can keep us safe and we should sleep well knowing that you're going to protect us and keep us and in Jesus' name, amen.