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All right guys, glad you're back with us. Esther chapter number four. So in this chapter here, you're going to get to see Mordecai now take his faith from private to public. You're going to get to see Esther in the beginning here. Okay, when she's faced with Mordecai's decision to go and put sackcloth and ashes on, she tries to throw a band-aid at the solution. Okay, instead of actually providing aid. And then you're going to see her transformation. You're going to get to see her make a very, very important decision in this chapter. What I'm going to say is that she basically goes from superficial to substance. And you guys, if you're familiar with the story, you already know the decision that she's going to make. We're going to talk about it. Lots of great stuff in this chapter as always. And of course, you know that God's fingerprint is definitely in this chapter as well. It's on every page of the Bible, especially every page of the book of Esther. Anyways, we hope that you guys are enjoying these messages. We hope that you're enjoying studying the book of Esther with us. God bless. Here's Brother Josh with a reading of chapter number four. Esther chapter number four, beginning in verse one, 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 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 and weeping and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. So Esther's maids and her chamberlains came and told it her. Then was the queen exceedingly grieved, and she sent Raymond to clothe Mordecai and to take away his sackcloth from him, but he received it not. Then called Esther for Hattach, 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. So Hattach 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. Also, he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan, to destroy them, to show it unto Esther, and to declare unto her, and to charge her, that she should go in unto the king to make supplication unto him, and to make request before him for her people. And Hattach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. Again, Esther spake unto Hattach 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. And 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 thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall their enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place. But thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed, and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Then Esther bade them return, return Mordecai this answer, 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 unto the king, which is not according to the law, and if I perish, I perish. So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him. Brother Ryan, would you please pray for us? All right, amen. Esther chapter number four. So just to start off with a title, then we'll go through a quick review and get into a breakdown and get right into the story for this evening. I'm going to call this the decree of death, the decree of death. And of course, last week we saw that the word went out from the king through Haman that all the Jews are going to be put to death in a year on a certain day. And of course, we're going to deal this evening with Mordecai and his response to that bad news. So let's just start off real quickly here with the review. Go back to chapter number three, and we'll start reading in verse 13 and just kind of go through our review. Remember last week we talked about a guy who's now on the scene and his name is Haman. And what is interesting about Haman and we talked about this is that he's referred to in the Bible as an Agagite. I called him a Gagite last week because he is so intoxicated with pride that he's literally just annoying to deal with. So we kind of went through and we talked about where the Agites, or yeah, the Agites, I guess you could call them, came from. They're basically Amalekites. And so what the Bible's telling us here is that Haman was a descendant from Agag. So he was an Amalekite by nature. And so we learned that Mordecai wasn't going to bow down to him. And Mordecai decided, you know, I'm not going to pay this guy his respect. And I forgot, I think I forgot to mention this last week that Mordecai is a Benjamite. Okay. And why is that significant? Well, because remember King Saul who dealt with Agag was also a Benjamite. So you've got this tribal knowledge thing going on here, but nonetheless, Mordecai just like, you know what, I'm not doing it. I'm not going to be like the world. Okay. I realized that I told my cousin Esther to keep quiet about who we are and who our people are, being Jews and all that, but this is too much and I cannot go through with it. And of course, what did that do? That upset Haman. And Haman learns, well, it's not just Mordecai that's a Jew that's not going to bow down, but there's a whole people group scattered throughout all of the Medo-Persian empire that's just not going to play ball. So word gets out and Haman says, you know what? I'm not just going to take out Mordecai, but I'm actually going to go for everyone. I want to take everyone out. We want to kill all the Jews. So just by way of review, look down to verse 13 of chapter number three. So the Bible says in the letters were sent by posts into all the King's provinces to destroy, to kill and to cause, to perish all Jews, both young and old, little children and women in one day, even upon the 13th day of the 12th month, which is in the month Adar and to take the spoil of them for a prey. I mean, this is absolutely insane here. I mean, could you imagine this? This is just far worse than a letter going out. Okay. Sometimes we read this like, okay, a letter went out and all the Jews are going to get killed. But think about this, all the Jews in all these provinces are finding out about this and they have to live with this fear now for a whole year. Like, oh, on this day, I've got 11 months left. I've got 10 months left. It's like getting that notice that you got stage four cancer and like your last day is coming up. It's just hard to mentally deal with here. And that's part of the punishment. That's kind of an Amalekite tactic, if you will. The Amalekites were notorious in the Bible for coming behind people and catching them by surprise and torturing them and just being extremely wicked people, which is why God said he was going to do away with the Amalekites. And he also said in Genesis that he would continuously be at war with the Amalekites through various generations, which we don't have time to revisit, but that's what's going on right here in verse 13. Now, of course, it also, you know, there's an incentive for the people here, like, well, you can have all their stuff, right? It'd be like if the government came out and said, hey, you know, we're going to dispatch all the Christians and, you know, all these people around here can just have all other things, you know, to take your car, your house, all your belongings, your bank accounts, all that stuff. Okay. Now, I know some people would be exceedingly joyous, especially the person that keeps calling the church phone right now, but we'll get into that another day. Look at verse 14. The copy of the writing for a commandment to be given in every province was published unto all people that they should be ready against that day. So again, you know, Haman wants everyone to be aware, number one, so that they can actually go forth with this and kill all the Jews, take their spoil. But number two, he wants to put that fear into the Jew. He wants to mentally torture them for an entire year because they simply won't pay him his respects that he feels that he deserves. So verse 15, the post, okay, and we talked about this last week, they had a post office back then. Okay. And it weren't as primitive as people would like us to believe, but the post went out being hastened by the king's commandment and the decree was given in Shushan, the palace, and the king and Haman sat down to drink, right? So like, let's give this decree out here, this decree of death and let's toast, let's just drink up, right? They're notorious for doing that there, but sat down to drink, but the city Shushan was perplexed. Okay. And, you know, I do think that if that decree went out to dispatch all of us to get us all off the planet or what have you, I think there would be a lot of well-meaning people that would be perplexed. People that just haven't made up their minds yet, you know, is this the one true God? Because they could be thinking, well, what if we do something to upset the president or what if we do something that makes the king mad? Are we next? Okay. So what they failed to calculate here is that this is actually having the opposite effect that it's going to strike fear into the hearts of the people that aren't under attack, because if they can do this to the Jews and they can do it to anybody, they can get rid of anybody they want to. And so we're going to go ahead and go over to chapter number four now. So this chapter breaks down. I got it broken down in three ways. So verses one through seven, you're going to see Mordecai's response to the decree of death. And then verses eight through 14, you're going to see his request to the queen, which is also his cousin. And then last but not least is Esther's decision, which is verse 15, all the way to verse 17. So I want you guys to look down at verse number 14. Okay. What I've been doing is I've just been kind of highlighting one fingerprint of God in each chapter. Very basic here, but really, you know, this, the, one of the most famous sayings in this entire book is actually in this verse right here in verse 14. So let me show you this here. Look at verse 14. It says, of course, this is Mordecai's request here slash response. He says, 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 and thy father's house shall be destroyed and who knoweth whether thou art come into the kingdom for such a time as this. Now keep your place there. We're going to come right back to it, but go to the New Testament real fast and go to the book of Galatians and go to Galatians chapter number three. Okay. Galatians chapter number three. So the writer there is expressing to us. And what I think God wants us to see here and understand is that what Mordecai realizes and what he's trying to get across to his cousin, the queen is basically this. Okay. He's trying to say, look, if you make the decision not to intervene, not to get involved in this and actually petition the king for us, then your, your household is going to die. You're going to die off, but the Jewish people are not going to all be destroyed. God will deliver us in some way, shape or form. So what does that indicate? Well, that obviously indicates that he knew some truth from the Bible, from the word of God. He knew that God had made a promise. And I want to show you that promise here in Galatians chapter three, because Paul refers to it, look down at verse number eight. So Paul talking to the Galatians here, he says this, and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham saying, and these shall all nations be blessed. And then verse nine. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. And of course, another huge slap to the face to the Zionist saying that anybody who's of Jewish descent is the child of God and they're of Abraham. Well, no. So they, which be of faith, okay, of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. But what I want you to see here is that Paul even brings up the fact that the gospel was preached to Abraham and just knowing that basic story there should have taught people the fact that there's no way that God was going to allow all of his people to be destroyed. But what he's admitting here, you can go back to Esther, is that if you don't intervene, a lot of us will lose our lives. And you know, who knows whether or not you were born for such a time as this. And so that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is involved in this book and this chapter. And on every single page of the book of Esther, you see the fingerprint of God. And I would challenge anybody to disagree with that. All right, so let's go ahead and start the chapter now. And so I'm going to go ahead and give a point out here real quick before we start. And that's, you're going to see right now, you're going to see Mordecai's faith go from private to public, okay. Remember up into this point, okay, when he first came on the scene and said, oh, hey, there's a job application for queen. And he decides, you know what, Esther, you know, you're really good looking. I think you would be a good fit for this, okay. And he allows her to audition for that. Obviously she gets selected for queen. What does he tell her? He says, hey, keep your faith private. Keep this whole Jew thing under wraps. You know, it's not going to profit you. Well, now it's gone the other direction. Now it's going to be made manifest who he is and who Esther is. So Mordecai's faith goes from private to public. Let's take a look at it. Look down at verse number one. So it says, 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, bitter cry. Okay, definitely the opposite of being private. Now he has made it very clear that he is upset about this decree, not happy about it. And I almost wonder as I read this, does he kind of feel some sort of blame? Because he could have just paid the respects and it wouldn't have been considered, you know, true worship. It's not like he's bowing down to Haman as a God or anything like that. But the point is he understands the significance. He understands the history involved between Haman and Haman's, basically his family line. And of course the Jewish people, the Hebrews going all the way back to the time of Saul and even further than that, all the way back to Genesis for that matter. So obviously we see Mordecai here. He's upset. He's no longer going to hide the fact that he is a Jew and look at what he does next in verse number two. It says and came even before the King's gate for a nun might enter into the King's gate clothed with sackcloth. Let's talk about that. Keep your place right here, but just go back if you would a book or two here. Go back. Actually, yeah, it's just one book to Nehemiah. Go to Nehemiah real quick. Nehemiah chapter number two. So it's kind of interesting. You ever wonder, you ever read this and kind of wonder, well, why couldn't anybody just show up to the King's gate in sackcloth and ashes? Is that because the King just didn't like disturbances? I'm sure that's definitely part of it, but I think this here will give it a little bit more perspective. Look at verse number one of Nehemiah chapter number two. So this is during the time of Nehemiah and whose King during this time is Artaxerxes. So not Xerxes, but Artaxerxes. Look at verse one and says, and it came to pass in the 12th, I'm sorry, it came to pass in the month of Nisan in the 20th year of Artaxerxes, the King, that wine was before him. And I took up the wine and gave it unto the King. Now I had not been before time sad in his presence. Okay. You see that word sad in his presence. It corresponds to the same sadness, if you will, that Mordecai is expressing. The only difference is Mordecai is much more intense, but look at verse two. Wherefore, the King said unto me, why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou are not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Now look at what Nehemiah says next. Then I was very sore afraid. Okay. So go back if you would to ask her. And so I just bring you there to just highlight the fact that the Medo-Persian Empire did not like bad news. They didn't like anybody sad and near them. They didn't want any kind of wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth anywhere near them. They wanted the appearance that all was good. I mean, think about five years prior to where we're at now. Okay. Ahasuerus throws a huge party. Okay. The six month party. And then even when that's done, he's like, let's do another week. You know, let's get some more people in here and let's, let's really pour it on. Okay. They were about all as well. It's all good. Only news is good news. We don't want any bad news. So they obviously had made a law. Hey, you can't come to the King court. You can't come anywhere near us. If you're sad, if you're clothed in sackcloth, we don't want to hear it. We want you to just take that stuff and go without the city because it's toxic according to them. And that's what Mordecai is doing. So he's taking a risk here by even doing what he's doing. So again, no longer is he being private about who he is, but he is going to have to go public. Now look at verse three. And in every province, whithersoever 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. And of course, you know, a lot of times we read this about how they rent their clothes or they tear their clothes and they throw on, you know, sackcloth and ashes and just think like, okay, that's just something they did back then. But again, clothing was not necessarily always readily available. You weren't just going to go to Fred Meyer and be like, oh, look, you know, got a sale on Under Armour. I'm going to buy me a new polo or whatever the case is. Okay. It was a little bit more difficult to come by. So it really spoke out. Well, this dude's upset. There's really a major problem going on. So that's why the Bible reads the way that it does there. So let's look down at verse number four. So Esther's maids and her chamberlains, okay, these chamberlains, you'll often see chamberlains and eunuchs mixed together, males that actually helped to take care of the queen and obviously concubines and things of that nature. Verse four, 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. Now I just want to stop here for a second and kind of bring up the second point that I wrote down. And that's that Esther tries to give a bandaid here as opposed to providing aid. Okay. That's kind of the mentality that she has. So think about this. She went from just being raised by her cousin, you know, having experienced the loss of her family to now being royalty. And it's been five years and she has got no idea what's going on in the kingdom. Okay. She has no idea that this decree has gone out because otherwise she wouldn't have reacted this way. Okay. But she hears that her cousin is sad and he's doing this crazy stuff. She's like, just go give him some clothes. Okay. Tell him to put something on and to just kind of go on his way and be cool, be calm. Okay. Instead of actually trying to find out why. Okay. Read the verse again. So Esther's maids and her chamberlains came and told it her. Then was the queen exceeding grieve. Why was she grieved? Because Mordecai is wailing, gnashing teeth, clothing sackcloth. He's got his clothing rent tore up. So she's grieved. Of course she doesn't want to see the person that raised her like this, but, and she sent Raymond to clothe Mordecai and to take away his sackcloth from him, but he received it not. Okay. So again, Esther here, obviously in a position of luxury and this kind of just reminds me of things, you know, it almost seems like you'll find this out in the world. You know, the more luxury a person kind of gets wrapped up in, you know, and gets involved with rather, it kind of isolates you from the rest of the world. And that's why you listen to these politicians sometimes on TV and the things that they say, it's like, how could you be so stupid? Oh, that's right. Because you don't have to worry about paying five bucks a gallon for gas. You don't have to worry about your grocery bill, you know, raising up, you know, 50%. You don't have to worry about the price of red meats and ground beef going up because you can afford whatever. It doesn't really impact you as much as it does the rest of us. Right. And so they just say these stupid things. Well, we're just going to implement price controls, which is obviously communism by the way, and just the dumbest things possible. That's kind of the mental state that she's in here. Not really wanting to find out what's going on, but just, let me just throw out a quick bandaid instead of provide aid and hope that this all goes away. And of course we all know it's never the best way to deal with problems. When problems arise, we need to dig into them, figure out why they happened and how we can solve them. We want to be problem solving type people. Again, this isn't a knock on her. It's just, it's what it is. Okay. She's, you know, living the high life and you know, doesn't want to receive this news. So let's look down here at verse number five. So it says, then called Esther for Haytach. Okay. And this is interesting. So we get, we do get introduced to a new character even again this week. And it's Haytach. I didn't look up how his name was pronounced, but I can almost imagine that this guy, by the end of the chapter wants to be detached because he's having to go back and forth from Mordecai to queen Esther. You know, he's like literally a mediator. So you got royalty, right? Esther pictures royalty. And then you got the commoner down here and then you got a attach kind of in the middle doing this mediating thing. You know, it's kind of a picture obviously as well. But let's move on here. So it says then, then called Esther for Haytach, 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. Now see, now she's inquiring, okay, now I want to know what's going on because he's refused the clothing. He's refused to give up his sackcloth. He's not going to put away with it. So that's going to cause more disturbance. So now she's like, okay, you know, you're starting to put me on the radar here. You're going to put me on blast by doing this. So let's get it figured out. So she sends this guy down to deal with it. And of course this is now the custom. She's all in, man. She's in like isolated. She is royalty. And this is how the queen operates. You're not just going to roll up to the queen. They don't have an open door policy. You're not going to go and knock on it and be like, oh, you're going to talk to the queen. It don't work like that. Okay. There is a chain of command. There is a process that must be dealt with. And you know, Mordecai is lucky here that he even has the ability to even be where he's at to, to be able to access the queen anyways. So verse six. So Hitach 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 the sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay the king's treasuries for the Jews to destroy them. So again, kind of referenced this last week, this money thing, right? When someone's trying to manipulate you, if they're like, hey, you know, by the way, there's money involved. I told the story about the guy who wanted me to pray for his grandmother's death. He didn't quite put it like that, but that's basically what he wanted and was just like, and by the way, I'm giving a large offering to the church. And if you happen to put a down payment on that house, I don't care. I'll look the other way. It's like, yeah, you think I'm that stupid. Give me a break. But that's what sometimes people will do, right? They'll try to throw a little money, you know, to try to sweeten the deal. And so of course, Mordecai here is just bringing that fact up to the messenger, to the Chamberlain here. And look at verse number eight. So it says, also he gave him 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. So obviously if you look at the language here, Mordecai is definitely not playing games. He's like, I'm charging you to do this. He's still got that dad kind of, you know, feel towards the king. Just because she, his cousin became queen, doesn't matter in his eyes. That's still his little girl. He raised her. He took care of her. He put in the time and the effort. And so he kind of has a right to speak to her like this. And it also communicates to us the severity of the situation. So verse nine, it says an attach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. So what else does this mean? Well, this means now what you're starting to see is a hatach or hatach, hatachi, that's his Japanese name, hatachi grill. You know, this guy here, now he knows that the queen is a Jewess. And so that's going to cause some issues here as well. So verse 10, again, Esther spake unto attach and gave him a commandment unto Mordecai. So now she's like, you command me, I'm going to command you back. Verse 11, 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, unto 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 30 days. Okay. So she's reminding here Haman, or not Haman, but Mordecai that like, if I have not been called into the king's presence, there's no way I can go in unto him because he's going to, he could possibly have me killed. So obviously these Medo Persian kings had these laws and obviously they're paranoid. And so one of the rules, one of the laws was like, unless you're invited into his presence, you can't come. Okay. And so they probably had it set up. He's got his guys around him. Some unknown person just shows up acting weird and they just go and take care of him. And obviously if you know the story, that's not going to happen to Esther, but unless the king invited you, held out his golden scepter and approved you, you were not supposed to go in there. And of course, if you know anything about the Medo Persian empire, when they made a law, they did not alter. They did not change. They did not go back. There had to be another way around that law. And for some, some good reading on that, just go read about Daniel in the lion's den. Okay. When Daniel was told he's going to be thrown into the lion's den, remember the king was like, this is terrible news. I really don't like this. This is, I was tricked into this and he could not change that law, but luckily God intervened and took care of Daniel anyways. So let's move on here. Look at verse 12. It doesn't need to be told to Mordecai, Esther's words. Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, think not with thyself that thou shall escape in the king's house more than all the Jews. Okay. So remember the decree, the decree of death as it is right now. Okay. When that day comes, when that final day comes, the commandment was to find a Jew and kill a Jew. Okay. Find a Jew, kill a Jew, kill them, get rid of them, take their possessions. And so Mordecai is trying to remind Esther like, Hey, look, you're a Jew. You're not going to be able to hide this for very long. They're going to know who you are and you're right there. You're right next to where Haman, right next to where Ahasuerus and all these people are. You're going to be the first one to be taken out and they're going to find another queen. You know, he's probably thinking about how easy it was to replace Vashti and probably how much fun it was for the king too. Not saying that that's fun. I'm just saying to the pagan world, you know, his process for selecting queens. I'm sure that's something they definitely enjoyed, but I don't want to rehash that. That was difficult enough to get through. So let's look at verse 13 one more time. Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, think not with thyself that thou shall escape in the king's house more than all the Jews. And we already read verse 14, but we're going to read it again because I want you to see a paradox here. Okay. Verse 14, for if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall their enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place. We'll stop right there for a second. Interesting. There's a decree that's gone out, this decree of death. Okay. And it's all Jews on this date, 12 months from now, dispatch gone, completely removed. Okay. But yet Mordecai brings up the fact that though that's gone out, we know, and it's not even debatable that God is going to save our people. God is going to save the Jewish people. So it's almost like, okay, they're going to lose some life, but God's still going to preserve his people throughout the generations. So it's like the safest place in the world to be at this time, like from an eternal perspective is one of God's people. You know what I mean? You think about it because all these people around the Jews, right? Most of them are not saved. A lot of them become Jews later on in the book. And we're going to spend a lot of time talking about that. A lot of people get converted and get saved, but just think about it. You know, just your average guy here in Shushan, the palace, it doesn't call upon the Lord. That's just got some other God. He dies. He goes to hell. You know, people are dropping dead all the time, but yet we've got this decree going out that's going to kill God's people. And yet you can't really kill God's people because not only is God going to intervene somehow, but you know, those that are saved, obviously in this situation here, they're going to go on to everlasting life. So I thought that was interesting. So one more time, for if that altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall their enlargement and deliverance to the Jews from another place, but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed and who knowest whether thou are come to the kingdom for such a time as this. And of course, that verse in and of itself has been the heart of many sermons throughout Bible-believing Christianity, throughout, you know, time, probably since this was first penned down, because it's a great statement. You know, a lot of times we get into situations where we've got a difficult decision to make, okay? We've got this difficult decision to make, and we have the ability to do the right thing, but yet the problem is the right thing is a hard thing. It's not a certain thing. We have no idea. Think about the fear and think about the scenarios that she's probably running through her head like, man, you know, what's it going to be like when I actually walk towards the king uninvited? What's he going to say? What's his reaction going to be? Is he going to flip out? Am I just going to be put to death right there? You know, am I going to be the first of the Jews to go? She has no idea. And so that's tormenting. And a lot of times you and I, we find ourselves in these kinds of situations, but the other side of the issue is how do that God didn't put us here for such a time as this? And so, you know, like I always say, a lot of times, you know, it's better to just take that chance and just take the risk as long as, you know, you've already gone through and thought it out a little bit, right? Like, okay, obviously this is pretty clear. She has the ability to possibly save the people. It's not a guarantee, but she has the ability. She knows the right thing to do is to stick up for her people. And it's the same for us. You know, a lot of times it's like, you know, like for example, I'll just bring this up, you know, this lady has just been blowing up the church phone from soul winning today. She left the nastiest message, you know, and it's one I actually responded to. So that was an interesting conversation, but you know, she's blowing it up just like you, this, this, and this, don't you ever say, don't you ever come back here again. If you come back to my complex again, I'm going to do something to you. I will defend myself. Just breathing out threatenings and just also just sending text messages. I'm like, you do know that's illegal. You know, so I took a picture of the solicitation law, just listing and I sent it off to her. I don't care. I'm a 10th generation Idahoan and I've got rights. And she goes, I've got the right for you to never come to my apartment complex. You can't come anywhere near. You can't even come to the street. That's what she says. You know, so we get that all the time. You know what we do when we're faced up with going back to those places, we go right back and we knock on those doors. Okay. And here's what I told her and what I tell other people, unless you give me your address, okay, I'm knocking again and we can't live by fear. Okay. Why? Because fear is a snare. That's what it is. Fear is a snare. Fear will stop so many things in your life. And that's kind of what Mordecai is getting at here. Hey, don't allow fear. I understand this is kind of a fearful situation, but if you allow that to cloud your mind, then you're never going to know. Right. And so it'd be better for her to just take this chance and find out, Hey, is this going to work? Is God actually going to work through me? Did God actually put me here for a time such as this or not? And of course it all works out. But you know, every time somebody sends us one of those threatening messages like that and we go back, yeah, sometimes we accidentally knock on the door and they get triggered and they yell or whatever. Okay. But they never do what they say they're going to do. I'm going to come out there and start swinging. And it's like, look, are you that American? You're that American. You're that free that you've got whatever right that just pops into your mind. I've got the right for you to not even come on my street. That's not a law. It's like I showed you a law. I took a picture of it. I sent it to you and I told her, I'm going to print out what you said and bring it with me. When we come back to that complex, you cannot threaten my church with bodily harm. I'm going to defend myself. If you do this. Okay. Look, we can't live by that kind of fear. You can't do stuff like that. That's illegal. That's what's against law, but that's a problem with a lot of these people out here. You know, they're just so free in their mind. They're just so trumped up that it's just like, Oh boy, I'm so mega. I'm so Trumped out. I got the right for you to do whatever I want you to do. That's delusional. Okay. That's absolutely ludicrous. And so obviously this is nowhere near what I'm talking about on the same scale is what she's dealing with, what Mordecai is dealing with, but it's still applicable. Okay. We find ourselves in situations that are similar to this and maybe you haven't, but you will someday. Okay. And you're going to know what the right course of action is based off of wisdom. Hey, if I make this decision, who gets impacted? Okay. Well, if she makes this decision, only she gets impacted. If the King's like, Hey, I didn't call for you. Take her out. And well, she loses her life, but at least she goes down as a martyr. At least she goes down as trying. At least she goes down for fighting for something that's right. Something that's biblical, something that obviously God would approve of. So that's kind of how you gauge decisions that are tough, that you got to make in your life. And of course, this is just such a great statement at the end of this verse here, which he says, whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this, we're almost done here. So what you're going to see now here in the last three verses is that Esther, and I mean this politely, Esther goes from superficial to substance. Okay. I'm not saying she's stuck up and arrogant, but she's just isolated. She's living the good life, man. She's the queen. She's got Chamberlain. She's got people waiting on her, attending to her. She don't even know that this decree has gone out. She's got no idea. Now she does. Okay. So you're going to see this. She kind of goes from that superficial state to substance. Right. And by the way, what does that tell us about empires? What does that tell us about these kingdoms of the world? Well, their only concern is really superficial things that are on the outside. Okay. They're not going to give you spiritual advice or anything like that. So let's take a look. Verse 15. It says, then Esther bade them, return Mordecai this answer, 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 unto the king, which is not according to the law. And if I perish, I perish. I mean, think about how quickly she transformed. You know, we talked about transformation this morning. She goes from just providing a bandaid to actually accepting the fact that she needs to provide full aid. She's going to risk it all. She's going to go in there and she just has this attitude now. Okay. If I perish, I perish. It is what it is. Verse 17 and we're done right here. So Mordecai went his way and did according to all that Esther had commanded him. And of course he would because he wants to save or be part of saving the people as much as now she does. So that's it for today. I'm going to stop it right there. And then next week we're going to see Haman's intoxicating pride in full gear. You're going to see him go back to his people and be like, Oh man, look at what I did. I got promoted. I got this. And they're going to mention a solution to him about gallows. They're going to say, Hey, you know, once you make gallows and hang that guy Mordecai on them. And then of course, in a few chapters from that, you'll see what those gallows are actually used for. So with that being said, let's go ahead and bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, for preserving these stories for us and we might learn them and the admonition that comes with them. And we pray, Lord, that you'd bring us back safely on Wednesday, bless the fellowship after the service. And we thank you again, Lord, for all that you do for us in Jesus' name. I pray. Amen.