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Thank you. Thank you. All right, everybody. Welcome to Pure Words Baptist Church. Glad you could make it here tonight. Just in time for the false Bible burning. Glad you could all make it. Let's go ahead and take out a hymnals. Our first song we're going to be tonight is 409. The fight is on. Song 409. Song 409. Sing it all together on the first. The fight is on. The trumpet sound is ringing out. The cry to arms is heard afar and near. The Lord of hosts is marching on to victory. The triumph of the Christ will soon appear. The fight is on, oh Christian soldier. And face to face in stern array. With armor gleaming and colors streaming. The right and wrong engaged today. The fight is on, but be not weary. Be strong and in his might hold fast. If God before us is better or us, then sing the victor's song at last. The fight is on, oh rowdy soldiers brave and true. Jehovah leads and victory will assure. Go buck along. The armor God has given you and in his strength. Forever we'll endure. The fight is on, oh Christian soldier. And face to face in stern array. With armor gleaming and colors streaming. The right and wrong engaged today. The fight is on, but be not weary. Be strong and in his might hold fast. If God before us is better or us, we'll sing the victor's song at last. The fight is leading on to certain victory. The Boa promise spans the eastern sky. His glorious name in every land shall honor be. The morn will break. The dawn of peace is nigh. The fight is on, oh Christian soldier. And face to face in stern array. With armor gleaming and colors streaming. The right and wrong engaged today. The fight is on, but be not weary. Be strong and in his might hold fast. If God before us is better or us, we'll sing the victor's song at last. Amen. Brother Sampson, would you mind praying for us? Amen. Next song is gonna be 146, A Shelter in the Time of Storm. 146, 146, let's sing it all together on the first. The lords are rocking him, we hide, A shelter in the time of storm. Secure whatever will be tied, A shelter in the time of storm. Oh Jesus is a rock in a weary land, A weary land, a weary land. Oh Jesus is a rock in a weary land, A shelter in the time of storm. A shade by day, defense by night, A shelter in the time of storm. No fears alarm, no foes of fright, A shelter in the time of storm. Oh Jesus is a rock in a weary land, A weary land, a weary land. Oh Jesus is a rock in a weary land, A shelter in the time of storm. The raging storms may round us beat, A shelter in the time of storm. We'll never leave our safe retreat, A shelter in the time of storm. Oh Jesus is a rock in a weary land, A weary land, a weary land. Oh Jesus is a rock in a weary land, A shelter in the time of storm. Oh rock divine, oh refuse dear, A shelter in the time of storm. Be thou our helper ever near, A shelter in the time of storm. Oh Jesus is a rock in a weary land, A weary land, a weary land. Oh Jesus is a rock in a weary land, A shelter in the time of storm. Amen. Great singing. Good evening. Thank you so much for coming to the Pure Words Baptist Church. If you didn't have a bulletin already, do we have some more over on the cabinet maybe? On the front we have our primary passage, Romans 4-5. In the inside we have our service and some winning times, as well as our church stats. Is there any salvation report for the last few days, anything that didn't get counted already? I think we had one tonight at least, so we had three more for tonight, so four for tonight. Praise the Lord on that. Great. Also, continue to pray for expecting ladies. We have an upcoming event tonight. We are going to be burning some trash and having s'mores. And so, really it's just a false Bible replacement program is what we do. And some people are ignorant of this, but in fact, if you have an American flag that has been tattered or torn or in some way just essentially it's not in good shape, the proper way to dispose of an American flag is to burn it. And the whole principle behind this is that if you actually have joy and pleasure in your country, you actually are patriotic and support your nation, then you wouldn't want for your flag to look poor or to not be represented accurately, you'd want a fresh version of the flag. And so, the theory is to have really nice looking flags to represent America. Well, in the same way, we should take the same level of pleasure and joy in the Word of God and say that we want everyone to have the exact Word of God without blemish, without spots, without holes, without problems. And we've noticed that if you compare King James Bible, a lot of these modern versions, it's just not the same. It's tattered, it's torn, it's worn out, it has problems, it's missing things. And it's because of that that we don't want people to have a poor representation of Christ, a poor representation of the Word of God, that we replace these bad versions with King James Bible. And so, I still think it makes sense and is equivalent that the proper way to dispose of these documents would be to burn them. And in fact, I personally don't even have a problem burning a King James Bible if it was in the same type of scenario where, let's say it was worn out, had holes, had problems, missing pages, essentially like that, so as to not confuse someone with a partial Word of God, you could dispose of that properly by burning it. And of course, people will take offense to the idea of quote, unquote, burning a Bible, but that's just because they're taking things out of context, just like people, if you saw someone burning an American flag, you might kind of think like, whoa, that's kind of disrespectful or that's weird, but in fact, actually the most respectful thing you could do is to replace it with a good one. And in fact, that's what we do. We don't just simply burn things, but rather we replace them and dispose of trash. Now would to God, Christians of like faith in the past would have done that, and so that we would have never found parchments like Sinaiticus, which was found in a monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai near Egypt and that part of the world, where essentially they found just discarded or trash-like documents that had not yet been burned, recovered them, and that's what actually gave life to the modern critical texts and these modern versions of the day. So we're just finishing the job of what the monk should have done in that Sinai monastery is throwing that parchment back into the trash, okay, and burning it, because if that had been burned, you know, it wouldn't have given rise to, wouldn't have been able to give birth to a lot of the modern Bibles that we have today, and a lot of people don't realize that, you know, our document, the King James Bible, as we go back through the lineage of history, it fades with history and faith picks it back up. Whereas the modern versions, it goes straight into a trash can and there's no faith that can pick that up, okay, and so it's a completely different ideology. It's a completely different perspective on the preservation of God's word, and in an effort to preserve God's word, we offer free King James Bibles to people to replace their pattern worn and defective version of the Bible. And so that is the program that I established for this church, and I think it's a good program. It helps remind people of why we do what we do, why we use the King James Bible, why it's important, and we don't want our children also to have the wrong idea about what we're doing or why we use the King James Bible. We want to educate them. You know, I've been to churches that are supposedly King James only, but young people, children, they have no idea why. They wouldn't even know the difference. They would probably walk into a bookstore and just grab anything off the shelf thinking that it's all the Bible, and we don't want people to have the wrong version, the wrong idea, a pattern and worn out version. We want them to have a fresh copy of the word of God. And you know, that also helps you realize why the text disreceptus is a superior ideology because if you believe that God makes it necessary for us to use the word of God, use the scripture, the scripture is getting worn out. I mean, if you look at some of my soul wanting Bibles, they get worn out like that. And it's not necessarily because I'm overly rough, but I mean, you go out, it rains, you know, you're flipping through pages. And often what gets worn out the quickest is John chapter three, Romans chapter three, Romans six, 23, you know, these types of passages, because that's where you're turning. And I've literally had, I bought a waterproof Bible, and it's not waterproof, but it rained. And I guess this is how it's waterproof, okay? You could take a waterproof Bible and you can just like throw it in water and then set it and let it dry and it'd be fine. But what you can't do is when it's wet, touch it. Because what happens is when it gets wet, the oil or the ink on the page starts to kind of lift. And so then when you move your thumb on it, you can smudge it and smear it. You have to let it set and dry again before you do it. So I have this waterproof Bible thinking this thing's indestructible. I'm out there soul wanting in the rain and just instantly smearing my Bible all over the place. And then all of a sudden, all the best passages to get someone saved is just like a, you know, it's like Biden reading your Bible or something out loud. And so of course, you know, you want to retire that thing, right? But that just makes sense that if you're using it over and over, you're going to have to constantly get new copies, right? And you know, most of the King James Bibles that I have in my hand, they were printed not that long ago, a year ago, two years ago, five years ago. But I don't look at it as like, well, this is inferior, the Bibles that were made hundreds of years ago. Well, if it was made hundreds of years ago and no one used it, it might've just been a bad copy or edition or printing or whatever. Like it doesn't make sense because if you have a really good version, you're going to use it. All the stuff that's not being used is going to just be preserved on the shelf. In fact, in my home library, I have NIVs and other Bibles, and they're in pristine condition. I have this one version called the TLV version, the Tree of Life version. It's bizarre, folks, okay? It changed the name of Jesus every single place in the New Testament to Yeshua. And every English name of Jesus is changed to a Hebrewic alternative, which is bizarre because the underlying New Testament's written in Greek. So it's like, he went from Greek to English to Hebrew, which is like weird. But you know, what's so funny to me is that they changed the New Testament to have Hebrew alternative, right? But then when you go back to the Old Testament in the same version, there'll be lots of places where you look at a footnote and it'll say the Hebrew says. Now what that means is they didn't actually use the Hebrew for that section, they used the Septuagint. So it's like in the Old Testament, they literally deviate from the Hebrew scripture to use a Greek Septuagint. But then in the Greek for the New Testament, they changed that to the Hebrew. It's like, you guys are just idiots in both versions. It's like if the Hebrew is just that much more authoritative, why would you then rely upon the Greek for the Old Testament and then rely upon a Hebrew that doesn't even exist There is no Hebrew manuscripts of the New Testament that I know of. I don't know if anybody's ever found such a translation. I mean, you could literally find all kinds of translations of the New Testament. Where's the Hebrew one? Unless it's a modern one that someone did. I mean, there's no in Hebrew manuscripts of antiquity of the New Testament, the relying upon for Yeshua or the, I can't remember how you pronounce the Holy Ghost, but it's something like Rachashan or whatever. I don't know. I'm sure there's a lot more HaKlem in there, but this is a mini lesson. I haven't started preaching yet, but this is the point, I'm getting way off on a tangent. The point I was making is that Tree of Life version is in pristine condition. In fact, I love the cover. The cover is like this really nice, genuine leather that's like green and it's just like a really nice color of green and it's really high quality and the pages are like really thick and they're like gold lined and everything like that. I'm just saying from like a document, it's like really nice and it'll probably just last forever. I mean, you fast forward a thousand years, which I don't think we'll make it that far, but I'm just saying hypothetically, if we did, you'd find this, you'd be like, oh, this must be the word of God because it's in such good condition. But that's just because no one used it because it's trash. Whereas all my King James Bibles will look tattered and torn and worn and be turned into dashes way before then, the same existed with the word of God. Okay, folks. So, you know, even if you say, well, I object to King James Bibles being burned. Well, just by using it, it's going to eventually perish anyways. Do you think that paper just lasts forever or something? It's like, you really think that the Bibles several hundred years ago are really, you know, able to be used still? I mean, you go to these Bible museums and you get a King James Bible, a first edition King James Bible, these things are worth a million dollars, half a million dollars because they're so valuable and they're like, you have to handle a very delicate proceedings. You know, you can't, you have to be very careful turning the pages. I mean, you could do something, just crumble it or destroy it so easily. If someone, no one's going to be using an original 1611, that thing would be destroyed instantly, let alone it's like this big, you know, it's pretty giant. Okay. But you have to realize that, you know, the, the job that we're doing of replacing the word of God is biblical, it is scriptural, it's traditional and it's logical. You know, I, I, I think it's great. People get really mad at us for this. They want to throw a fit and they want to like, they'll be like, well, Hitler burned Bibles. Hitler wasn't even a Christian folks. And you know how many people Hitler handed a King James Bible and replace of a bad Bible? Zero times. Okay. It wasn't like he, he was out there replacing Bibles. He was just trying to destroy the word of God. And I guarantee in Hitler's day, he wasn't destroying NIVs since the NIV wasn't even created yet. Wake up people. You know, when Hitler was burning Bibles, let me tell you, he was burning the King James Bible. He was burning like the German Bible. He wasn't burning the NIV trash because it hadn't even, it doesn't even exist yet. Okay. We're burning things that are brand new pieces of trash. Okay. That deserve to be burned. And that's my rant. So I don't have to go on it later, but, um, thanks for coming to Pure Words Baptist Church. And here we, King James only, uh, that's one of our doctrines is really important. And, uh, you know, I just gave you that just to give you a little bit of insight, you know, if someone asks, you could just say, Hey, it's our Bible replacement program, no different than American flags. And that's what we do. And we're going to keep doing it. Right. Let's go to our third song for the evening. Song number three. Jesus paid it all. Song number three. If you need help finding it, raise your hand. Jesus paid it all. Sing it all together. On the first. I hear the savior say thy strength indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and pray. Find in me thine all in all. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Jesus paid it all. all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow, for nothing good have I whereby thy grace do claim. I'll wash my garments white in the blood of Calvary's lamb. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow, and when before the throne I stand in him complete, Jesus died my soul to save. My lips shall still repeat, Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow. Amen. While the offering plate is being passed around, please turn your Bible to Esther chapter number five. You can find the book of Psalms right in the middle of your Bible. Just go backwards, you'll see Psalms, Job, and you'll find the book of Esther chapter number five. As we always do, we'll read the entire chapter before we begin. Esther chapter five the Bible reads, Now it came to pass on the third day that Esther put on her royal apparel and stood in the inner court of the king's house over against the king's house, and the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house over against the gate of the house. And it was so when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court that she obtained favor in his sight, and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther drew near and touched the top of the scepter. Then said the king unto her, What wilt thou, queen Esther, and what is thy request? It shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom. And Esther answered, If it seemed good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him. Then the king said, Cause Haman to make haste that he may do as Esther hath said. So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared. And the king said unto Esther at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition? And it shall be granted thee. And what is thy request? Even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed. Then answered Esther, And said, My petition and my request is, If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it pleased the king to grant my petition and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I shall prepare for them, and I will do tomorrow as the king hath said. Then went Haman forth that day joyful and with a glad heart. But when Haman saw that Mordecai and Haman saw Mordecai in the king's gate, that he stood not up nor move for him, he was full of indignation against Mordecai. Nevertheless Haman refrained himself, and when he came home, he sent and called for his friends, and Zarash his wife. And Haman told them of the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things wherein the king hath promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king. Haman said, Moreover, yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared but myself, and tomorrow am I invited unto her also with the king. Yet all this availed of me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate. Then said Zarash his wife and all his friends unto him, Let a gallows be made of fifty cubits high, and tomorrow speak thou unto the king that Mordecai may be hanged thereon. Then go thou in merrily with the king unto the banquet. And the thing pleased Haman, and he caused the gallows to be made. So I'll bow our heads to the word of prayer. Dear Lord, I pray for you to feel faster generally with your holy spirit right now. Help us more for our youth to be open and ready to apply the key to these words tonight. We love you father and make peace to all you do. In Jesus' name. Amen. So we're in the answer to chapter number five, and just as a little bit of a reminder, as far as just the context of where we find ourselves, Haman had devised a plan to destroy all the Jews, and he'd asked a petition of King Ahasuerus that on a set day, all of those that wanted to destroy them would come together and they could destroy all the Jews. And Mordecai had been in great mourning, told Esther that she needed to make a petition to the king and essentially ask for mercy or grace for something to happen so that this great evil upon the Jews and her people would not befall her. However, there was a problem because she's not allowed to go unto the king just unannounced or whenever she wants, and the king had been set up or had been given like a 30-day decree or there's some kind of a time here where the king has like 30 days where he's not supposed to be interrupted. And so Esther says, if I just interrupt the king during his work and he doesn't reach out the scepter to me, then I'm just going to be put to death. And yet Mordecai basically explains to her, well, look, if you decide not to do this, you're just basically going to die and God will find out a different way to deliver us. And so she ends up asking, she's like, all right, fine, I'll do it. But everyone needs to pray, everyone needs to fast. And then they have the famous quote, if I perish, I perish, right? And then we find ourselves here in chapter number five, verse one, it says, now it came to pass on the third day that Esther put on a royal apparel and stood in the inner court of the king's house over against the king's house. And the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house over against the gate of the house. And it was so when the king saw Esther, the queen standing in the court, that she obtained favor in his side and the king held out to Esther, the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther drew near and touched the top of the scepter. So she goes in and it's, you know, while reading this, it might not feel very dramatic, but it obviously was a very stressful moment for Esther, not necessarily knowing if this was the day that she would die, if she would literally be put to death for having broken into her husband's quarters here, approaching the king when unannounced, when not expected, yet we have the king reaching forth the scepter, signaling the fact that she is going to find grace, she is going to find favor with him, she's not going to be put to death. And when I think about this chapter and I think about some of the spiritual parallels that are mentioned in the book of Esther, kind of some of the consistent themes we find in this book is that King Ahasuerus pictures God the Father. And Mordecai is consistently picturing the Lord Jesus Christ. And we had Vashti, the old wife, as being Israel, unregenerate, Christ rejecting Israel. And then we had stubborn Israel. And then we had Esther as the Christians and those that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and those get saved. And we kind of had that replacement theology illustration. So if Esther is Christians and King Ahasuerus is God the Father, then what it's kind of symbolizing, it's symbolizing the fact that us going to God presents a particular challenge in the sense that we are sinners and we are not allowed to just approach God just at our own will. But there has been made a way for us to approach God the Father and that's through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now in this illustration we have an interesting mention here in verse one that she put on her royal apparel. Well here's the thing, we don't have robes of righteousness ourselves. In fact, our righteousness are as filthy rags as the Bible describes. And so if we were to present ourselves to God the Father in our rags of works righteousness, we would be rejected and we wouldn't be handed out that mercy or that grace from God the Father. The royal apparel here is signifying the identification of Jesus Christ putting his robe of righteousness upon us, putting his apparel on us, putting the royal apparel upon us as it were, and then us being found pleasant in God the Father's sight. Go to Hebrews chapter four for a moment. I want to show you a verse here, Hebrews chapter four. Of course this could be symbolic of salvation itself, right? We find grace in God's sight not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by his mercy he saved us. And so I don't have anything that I could present to the Lord that would be pleasing in his sight except for my faith in Jesus Christ and really what he did, his righteousness which is well pleasing in his sight. Yet even in that particular scenario, Esther still doesn't deserve it, she gets grace. Just like me being clothed in Christ's righteousness, I still get grace from God. I don't necessarily need that. Now I believe though this parallel, this symbol here is not just about salvation, it goes beyond salvation. And in fact one of the great things about the New Testament is that when we sin, when we do wickedly or just the fact that we're habitual sinners really, still presents the idea of the fact that we have this animosity between us and God the Father. And that can only be resolved through the blood of Jesus Christ. Whereas in the Old Testament when you had ill will, animosity or some kind of an issue, problem between you and God, you had to offer a sacrifice. You had to go and take a lamb, you had to go and take an ox, you had to take doves, you had to take some kind of animal sacrifice, some kind of a meat sacrifice or even sometimes there was other kinds of offering, oil, incense, even grain, wheat offering. But in the New Testament we don't have those things. We don't go and offer a lamb somewhere. It's funny to me when people try to talk about Jews as being Old Testament Jews and I'm thinking like, what religion in this world today is offering animal sacrifices? I don't even know, I mean really the only religion that I can think of that actually does this on a regular basis is Islam. And maybe I'm ignorant of other religions but I know Islam when they sacrifice an animal they'll point its head towards Mecca and slice its throat and say Allah or some variation of that while they slice the throat and then they prepare the meat. They have to drain the blood in a very specific way and then that's what's considered halal. Who's ever seen halal meat advertised somewhere? That's what that means. Halalalala, you know, meat, okay. So they have to do their little ritual and yet that's still not in accordance to the scripture though. That's not according to the word of God, that's according to the Quran. When it comes to the Bible, no one's performing these animal sacrifices. So then how is God not just destroying us left and right? It's because Christ was a once for all sacrifice for us that appeased the wrath of God and when we do wickedly, when we do wrong, we can still have that reconciliation with God the Father. We can still find grace through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and Hebrews chapter number four brings this up. It says in verse 15, for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the filling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace that we might, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So in fact, we should have confidence approaching God with our requests, with our needs, with our insecurities, with our fears, with every problem that we have, we should go to God the Father and realize He's not going to reject us based on our problems because we have the blood of Jesus Christ to help intercede on our behalf and we can still find grace and we can still find mercy from God the Father. And so really we should have no fear in approaching God. The only reason you would have fear approaching God is when you're just like an unrepentant, willful sinner that's basically trotting underfoot the Son of God. You're basically doing despite under the spirit of grace. Yeah, obviously you don't want to walk into the house of God with wicked hands and an unrepentant heart. That would not be good. But when you have a contrite spirit, when you're trying to get right with God, it doesn't really matter what you've done because God is willing to pardon you through the blood of Jesus Christ. He really just wants you to have the right heart, the right mentality. And to me, I really think that this passage correlates directly with Esther in the sense that she shouldn't truly have fear in approaching the king as long as her heart's right, as long as her petition is right and she's approaching it in the proper manner, right? What if she went in there with rags on and she's just like, boy, come here, you know, I got something to tell you to do, honey. You get over here, stop whatever you're doing. It's not as important as me, honey. You get over here and you're going to do what I say. That's not how Esther walked in. Esther's walking in, meek, quiet, with the royal apparel on. She values the king and the king offers the scepter. I'm guessing when she came in there with attitude trying to order him around, we all know what would have happened. The scepter wouldn't have been offered, okay? It would have been off with her head. And we already saw what happened to Vashti, didn't we? So of course, you don't want to repeat or escalate and even go beyond what Vashti was like. I mean, when the king asked for Vashti to show up and she didn't, it was like, you're done. You know, he just set her aside. You're not queen anymore. I'm not going to see you anymore. You're done. And he takes, he doesn't take rebellion well, which is good. You know, and the fact is that God doesn't either. You know, God doesn't just pardon sin for no reason. God is a just God. Every sin will receive a recompense, will receive a punishment. It's just that we have a scapegoat with Jesus Christ that took all that punishment for us. So then we can still find grace and mercy in his sight. And so, you know, I think when you look at this passage, it should also motivate us to constantly go to God and ask him for help. You know, there's going to be things in our lives that we just need a lot of help on. You know, there's scary things, you know, sicknesses, illnesses, financial problems, relationship problems, enemies. There's a lot of things, you know, a lot of issues that we can face that are scary, that are difficult. And really, you know, I think that the sky's the limit when it comes to what God would have us pray as long as it's within the boundaries of God's word. Okay. So God wants us to pray according to his will. And we know that he hears us if we pray according to his will. But within his will is a lot of broad things. We have to think about like anything that's mentioned in the Bible. The Bible talks about husbands and wives. The Bible talks about children. The Bible talks about your work. And we see God often honoring prayer requests and wishes of many people in all various manner of situation. Jacob is being mistreated by his boss, and we know that God cares about that. People have marital problems. God obviously cares about that. Women are barren. God cares about that. Women have children problems. God cares about that. Parent problems, brother problems, sin problems, government problems. I mean, God cares about the children of Israel while they're being oppressed by Pharaoh. So, I mean, I really feel like you could see that in the scripture there's all manner of issue that God cares about and wants people to pray about. I think that sometimes we just, I don't know if we sometimes just have a poor view of God in the sense that we think like he doesn't care, but God truly does care about our needs. You know, the Bible says casting all our care upon him. You know, there's not really anything that we should be holding back in our lives that are a struggle or difficulty. God wants us to ask him. And I'll tell you, as a father, and maybe this is just me, but I don't think it is, okay, as a father, one of the most frustrating things is for your wife or children to be upset about something and you were willing to fix it, but they just never communicated it. So it's like you were, you were like wanting to fix their problem, but they just never told you. So then you never really knew to then fix their problem. It's like, Hey, I wish you'd just told me that that's what you wanted. And then I would have done it, you know, or I would have gotten it for you, or I would have helped. Or, you know, it's like often you have not because you ask not, you know, that is a biblical verse found in the scripture. And you know, I think that I'm just gonna be honest. Women need that verse more than men. Okay. You have not because you ask not. You can't, you know, I think that there's this, there's this idea and, and I'm not against romance, but there's this idea out there that women have of like this romance where their husband can just, just know everything they want without ever asking. I mean, it's just, she just thinks it and he's just, he's got it on a silver platter for her, you know, and it's just so romantic because he just always knows and he always cares. And it's like, well, here's the thing. God actually does know everything. God actually, he knows all of your dreams and all of your wishes and everything you could have. He knows things you want that you don't even know that you want. But you know what? God actually still holds that from you until you ask him. So it's kind of silly to then put an expectation on your husband that God is not willing to fulfill because God is not willing to just grant you everything you want without you asking him. But then you put this expectation on your husband to then deliver on things you never even asked him for and he's not even God. So he didn't even know. And let me, let me tell you, most men are so stupid and self-absorbed. They have no idea what women want. Okay. We're so confused. Often we guess the exact opposite. You know, we're like sitting here thinking they want A and that's the last thing they want. They really want Z or something. And you're just like, wow, really? I have no idea. It's like, because we're just simple men. We don't really understand. And look, you want something, ask him for it. Isn't this whole chapter about a woman asking her husband for something? And here's something that would have never happened. If Esther had never asked King Ahasuerus for help with her nation or his group, her group of people, he would have never granted it. He's simply just ignorant of this particular request. And he needs his wife to just kindly with meekness and appropriateness ask her husband a petition. And you know, ladies, if you want to learn something about how to ask your husband a question, this chapter is great. Okay. Because she puts on the royal apparel, she dolls up, she comes in with meekness. And you know, here's the thing I like. She didn't interrupt. She just let her presence be known and then waited for her husband to then beckon her, right? And you say, oh, man, you're so old-fashioned, you're so misogynistic. I'm just telling you what the Bible said, okay? And I'm just saying, if you want the most pleasure from your husband, you don't just interrupt him, you don't just nag him, you don't demand his attention. You simply let your presence be known and if he reaches out the scepter, it's a green light. Maybe you should go home and get a scepter, you know, I'm just kidding. Get a rod or something, you know, it's like, you may speak to me. That will freak out your family. But it's like, hey, why do you all have this scepter? That's so I can know that my husband is going to let me talk to him. I'm just telling you what the Bible says here, folks, okay? You're laughing, but it's real. But seriously, you know, it's better if you approach your superior. And look, we laugh at this and it's a real easy application to make from husband to wife. But, you know, this application is true in all authority-based relationships. Children should also not demand the attention of their mother or their parents. You know, if adults are talking or discussing, you know, it's not right for children to interrupt or demand their parents' attention. They should just let their presence be known and wait for their parents to then acknowledge the child and allow the child to speak. Now, obviously, when they're little like toddlers and stuff, they don't know better yet. But you have to teach and train your children that they are not supposed to just demand the attention of their parents. They're supposed to wait for their parents to acknowledge them and give them attention. Your boss at work, men, you know, you should also not demand your boss give you attention just like that. You can let your presence be known. And if they reach out the scepter, green light. If not, whatever. And I kid you not, I've literally had a relationship like this. When I transitioned from banking into software development, I had a boss that was a developer as well. So we were both developers and he did a lot of work. So he didn't just manage. He did a lot of actual labor. But when you do software development, you know, it's a very intense process that's often utilizing a lot of your brain. So in order to do a lot of programming, you're thinking about a lot of things. You have a lot of things that's kind of in your brain all at the same time. And if you know anything about computers, kind of like memory. You kind of have all this stuff in your memory and your cache. And if you just divert your attention, you'll often lose a lot of that. You'll lose the train of thought and it can actually be detrimental to your work. So, and, you know, I didn't necessarily understand all this before I became a developer, but then you become a developer and you start doing it. You start realizing like, wow, there's a lot of trains of thought here that you don't want to lose because it actually slows down work quite a bit. It can really halt work. So anytime I had a question for my boss, I would literally, he'd be working. I would just kind of step into his office and I would just stand there. And I would basically wait five minutes. I kid you not. I would wait about five minutes. If after five minutes, he didn't even acknowledge me, I would just go back and leave him alone. But I gave him about five minutes. And then if he, at some point in that five minutes, said like, okay, is there something that you need? Then I would ask him whatever I needed. But that was how I approached him. And, you know, I think that, you know, I had a good relationship with my boss and I understood that his work was important. And so, you know, you get mad at me for saying like, oh, you think that's how wives should treat their husbands? It's like, I think that's how everyone should treat everyone in the position of authority. You know, I just let my presence be known. I didn't demand anything of them. And, you know, I didn't, whenever it was five minutes, I didn't go like, and then walk off. Oh man, it's been five minutes. You know, I didn't like throw a fit. I didn't act all upset about it or anything. Or I didn't sit there and like tap or, you know, do something annoying. I just simply left. And then when I saw him the next time, I wasn't, you know, kind of like, what? Oh, now you have time for me? You know, I didn't act all, you know, mean or bitter or something about it. I understood there's something important. He's going to deal with that. Okay. And it wasn't a contest of who is more important or any of this other kind of nonsense. Okay. It was just simply how you deal with authority. And we have to learn from Esther's example here because Esther is asking arguably the most important question or the most important petition that's asked in this century at this point in time. I mean, this is the ultimate question. This is the ultimate favor ask that she could possibly ask. So she's of course going to show us the idealic way to ask a question. Obviously not every question has to go to this extremity. Okay. We get that. But if you got an important thing you need from your husband, this is your example of how to do such a thing. Look at verse three, then said the king unto her, what wilt thou queen Esther? And what does thy request? It shall be even given thee to the half of thy kingdom. He was so impressed with how she did this. He's like, look, you know what? Ask whatever you want. And I'm going to give you 50% up to 50% of my net worth. You know, this is an incredible statement that he's offering her. And Esther answered, if he seemed good under the king, let the king and Haman come this day into the banquet that I had prepared for him. Then the king said, cause Haman to make haste that he may do as Esther has said. So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared. Her first question, her first ask, her first petition is not even anything selfish. It's simply, Hey, I prepared you a great and wonderful feast. Will you just come please and join me and even take your top official? Hey, it's a plus one dinner. And she's like, that's all I want. I mean, isn't that pretty cool? It's like, look, I'm willing to give you 50% of my net worth. Ask whatever you want. I simply just want to serve you a great meal. It's like, yeah, let's go. You know, right? Where's the brisket, right? So they come under this banquet that Esther had prepared verse six. And the king said, and Esther at the banquet of wine, what is thy petition? And it shall be granted thee. And what is thy request? Even to the half of the kingdom, it shall be performed. Then answered Esther and said, my petition and my request is if I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it please the king to grant my petition and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I shall prepare for them. And I will do tomorrow as the king has said. So she prepares them this banquet. And you know what I really like is how Esther always caveats her questions by simply saying, if this is exactly what you want, if you're super pleased to do this, I mean, look how she's wording this. I mean, it's just over the top. She says, if I have found favor in the sight of the king and if it please the king to grant my petition and to perform my request, then she asks it. So she's saying, look, as long as you really like me and you're really excited about my idea, then let's do this. And it's like, hey, if you really like this banquet, round two tomorrow. Yeah. It's like, let's keep this train going. I can see why he keeps asking her questions, right? I mean, wouldn't you want to ask your wife questions if every time you asked her, she's like, got a gift for you. You probably wouldn't stop asking her things like, hey, what else do you want? You want to rub my feet? It's like, want to rub my back? It's like, what else has got up your sleeve, right? I mean, isn't this incredible? I mean, think about your wife is coming in dressed in the royal apparel, making a feast. You're even offering like, you could have money, you can have riches, you can have wealth, you could have whatever, you can go on whatever shopping spree you want. You can go wherever you want. She's like, I want to serve you. It's like, all right, round two, what do you want? You can have whatever you want. You've pleased me well. I want to serve you again. I mean, this is what we're reading in the scripture of how Esther asked her husband for something important. And let me say this, think about the fact that if the king doesn't just bring up voluntarily another, like, what is your petition? She's like, squandered her entire opportunity. Because wouldn't you think like, the first time that would have been the right time to like, okay, he already offered me 50% of the kingdom, I might as well go ahead and lay it all out on the table, basically dump it all out and see what's going to happen. But no, no, no, she went ahead and just served him anyways. And then he voluntarily asked again, and she's like, she didn't even do it then. I'll serve him again. But here's what you have to understand about human psychology. If he keeps asking you for petitions, and you keep rewarding him with these type of blessings, let me just tell you a little secret. He's never going to stop asking you. Okay, so she knows what she's doing. And let me tell you something wise, if you only do good in your husband, and you're blessing him and rewarding him, every time he speaks to you, let me tell you something, he's never going to not want to talk to you. It's like, oh, man, why does my husband never want to talk to me? Was it because you nag the crap out of him every time he talks to you? It's like, are you constantly, you know, putting all this burden on him and just bitter and you're nagging him and you're just contentious and you're angry? You know, men don't want to talk to that. The Bible says it's better to dwell in the corner of the housetop. It's better to dwell in the wilderness. You know, men want to get away from that, but they love being buttered up. They love being served. They love all this attention, okay? So it's like, I don't know why, you know, I'm just not getting the attention that I want. Well, you got to some degree think about how is it that you're treating this person, okay? And I'm not saying that there aren't exceptions to this. I'm not going to say that someone couldn't be a perfect spouse and that in return they just get treated poorly for that. But generally speaking, this works. Generally speaking, if you want the attention from those that you desire, treating them this way is going to get it. I mean, you will get what you want, okay? And so this is a great way to ask a petition and let's go to a few verses. I don't have a lot of... I wanted to kind of finish a little early this morning, this evening, but go to Proverbs 21. I still have a lot I could possibly preach on this evening. Proverbs 21, look at verse 14. The Bible says, a gift in secret passeth fire anger and a reward in the bosom, strong wrath. Go backwards to chapter 18 and look at verse 16, chapter 18, look at verse 16. So it's the Bible saying if you had a problem with someone, one of the greatest ways to get past that is a gift. One of the best ways is a reward. I mean, a gift, a reward, doing good, blessing people, that's going to help overcome evil, overcome tense feelings. You know, if your wife is mad at you, flowers does a good job, you know. Or vice versa, if your husband's a little bit irritated with you, preparing him a great banquet and treating him well is going to probably pacify a lot of that anger resentment. Look at Proverbs 18, verse 16. A man's gift maketh room for him and bringeth him before great men. Doesn't that kind of even remind you of this situation where it's like this gift is kind of bringing Esther before great men and allowing her to have this opportunity and it's kind of giving her this vehicle to talk to her husband. Go to Proverbs 9. I want to look at another place. Proverbs 9. Now, I don't know if Esther had access to the Proverbs, but chronologically it's plausible because Solomon is well before the book of Esther as far as like a chronology, a timeline of events. Solomon built the temple, the temple was destroyed, and then eventually they went into captivity. Then after that they returned back and then we have a lot of these Persian, Medo-Persian kings ruling. Somewhere in that timeline is when Esther is. Esther is kind of like the latter portion of history. So, if there's a reason she probably had Proverbs to her disposal, well, I just, I can't help but feel like she almost got these ideas from Proverbs chapter number 9. Look at what it says in verse 1. Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars, she hath killed her beast, she hath mingled her wine, she hath also furnished her table, she hath set forth her maiden, she cried upon the highest places of the city, whoso is simple, let him turn and hither. As for him that wanted understanding, she sayeth to him, come eat of my bread and drink of the wine which I have mingled. So, the Bible in Proverbs chapter 9 distinguishes between a wise woman and a foolish woman. The foolish woman in verse 6 says, forsake the foolish and live and go in the way of understanding. Now, it gives kind of like more information in verse 13. A foolish woman is clamorous. Clamour is like a loud, it's loud, you know, it's like, it's just boisterous, it's annoying. It's not just loud, it's like an annoying loud sound, okay. So, it's just it's just like a cat being strangled or something, okay. It's just this woman is clamorous, she is simple and knoweth nothing, for she sitteth at the door arouse on a seat in the highest place of the city to call passengers to go right on their ways. Whoso is simple, let him turn and hither. As for him that wanted understanding, she sayeth to him, stolen waters are sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there and that her guests are in the depths of hell. So, notice the foolish woman steals food, the wise woman prepares food. And the wise woman, she furnishes a table, she prepares a meal and then invites guests. She didn't even necessarily invite the guests and then prepare, she already had it prepared. You know, she's already ready for this particular meal and we kind of see here in Esther how she's preparing this banquet, she wants to prepare a banquet for her husband or Haman and she's bringing them in to then dispel wisdom unto them to give them good advice. Whereas the foolish woman is just a loud annoying woman, boisterous, coming the opposite of Esther who's meek and quiet, a servant, preparing, building and of course I guarantee the meal. You know, this one woman says that stolen waters are sweet. She's kind of suggesting that this meal is going to be the best tasting. But I guarantee the one that the other woman prepared is actually the best tasting. You know, she has to say that it tastes so good because it doesn't. She's flattering you, she's lying to you, she's trying to suggest. You know, if the meal is good you don't have to tell everybody. You know, when you go down the street or you go up and through Houston and you see on the window the best coffee in the world, the greatest coffee, it's like you just know it's terrible, right? All the people they're just like the most amazing or the super greatest or whatever. It's like they have to say that because no one actually thinks that. You know, let another man praise thee. Okay, you don't necessarily have to worry about telling everybody if you have great food because if you have great food everybody's going to come buy it. Everyone's going to come get it. You know, it's funny I saw this billboard when I leave Houston and it's like we do miracles here. It's like a billboard, it's like an arrow to like some church and it's like we have miracles here. And I'm thinking like if you actually have miracles you wouldn't have to have a billboard to tell everybody about it. Okay, if you were just healing people left and right and doing miracles everyone would come to your church. Okay, whenever Jesus came into town everyone showed up. You know, when Paul showed up everyone showed up to get healed. Everyone got the because it's like it's cool. You don't have to advertise that kind of stuff. That's why I'm against MLM, you know, multi-level marketing schemes because it's like if your product's so good you don't even have some guru invite you to the house and feed you food and then sell it to you. You know, in the special discounted price it's like no, I mean if it's great product you don't have to convince me I'll just want it, right? I'll be asking you for it. Now, go back if you would to Esther. The reason why I pointed that out is, you know, this wise woman is a servant. She's humble. She's working hard. The other woman is loud, prideful, and not a hard worker. She steals things. And if you want to have pleasure from your spouse, from your superiors, you need to be a hard worker. You need to prepare things for them. You need to serve them. That is how you get the pleasure of your authority is by serving. And of course it parallels to Christianity. How do you want, oh I want God to be pleased with me. Serve. You know, just don't squander the things that God gave you. Don't waste the things that God blessed you with. You know, you serve. So they get the second day of banquet and then we see in verse number nine, then went Haman forth that day joyful and with a glad heart. But when Haman saw Mordecai in the king's gate that he stood not up nor move for him, he was full of indignation against Mordecai. Nevertheless, Haman refrained himself. And when he came home, he sit and called for his friends and Zorash his wife. And Haman told them of the glory of his riches and the multitude of his children and all the things were in the king and promoted him and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king. Haman said moreover, yay, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king under the banquet that she had prepared, but myself. And tomorrow I'm invited under also with the king. So I don't know if you were counting, I'm just trying to count these things. Okay. I got six. Let's just try it again. Right? Glory of his riches, one multitude of his children, two, all things were in the king and promoted him, three, how he advanced him above the princes and the servants of the king, four. Then the queen had led him into the king to a banquet that she repaired, five. And then tomorrow he gets the exact same invitation. That's six things. That's an interesting number. Okay. Obviously six is a wicked number in the Bible. You know, these six things that the Lord hate, all this pride and boasting that Haman had. Okay. A prideful look is simply one of those things. This guy is just oozing with pride. I mean, he's just like, I am so great. I'm so wonderful. I have so many kids. And some of this is weird because I'm thinking like, I don't know, maybe they're all from his rash, but the fact that he has a multitude of children, it's like, does he have multiple wives? It's like, why would you want to brag about that in front of your wife? Like, hey, all these kids or whatever. No one likes a braggart. No one likes someone that's boasting about themselves. You know, it's annoying to be around people that just think that they're all that. But it's so funny that he literally almost quantifies his life as having everything, but then look at verse 13, yet all this avail me nothing so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King's gate. So it's like, I have all the money, all the children, all the glory, all the promotion. I'm invited to the best parties. I'm in the most elite group of the elite group. Everyone loves me, but it doesn't even matter at all because Mordecai exists as a person. It's like, what is wrong with this guy? This guy is a classic psychopath and he's a classic reprobate because he's implacable. You know what implacable means? It means you're not able to be placated. To be placated means to be pleased, okay, or content. Content is a state of satisfaction, a state of pleasure. So someone who's implacable means that they're never satisfied. They're never content. They're never able to just be happy with where they're at. They always have to have more. And this is a perfect example here of someone that just can't stand not having every, literally everything because there's really in my mind only two things that he's lacking. Mordecai exists and he's not the king himself, right? I mean outside of that, what else could Haman even possibly want or wish for? Now who does Haman consistently represent in the Bible? The devil. And think about it this way. The devil himself is at the top of the food chain bar God and the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what? To the devil having all the beauty, all the glory, being the anointed cherub that covereth, being one of the greatest creations that God's ever made avails him nothing because he's not Jesus. Just because Jesus exists, because he doesn't have all of the position, because Jesus isn't going to bow down to him, because Jesus won't worship him, because Jesus is actually the second in command. And so it's just like the devil where Haman is not content with what he has even though I mean how many people wouldn't wish to be in his position, wouldn't wish to be second in command theoretically or high ranking officer in the king's court having all the riches, having all the money, having all the children, having all the fame. I mean in fact Haman is so well regarded everyone even has to bow down to him as a decree made by the king. Now of course Mordecai doesn't. Mordecai doesn't bow down to him, you know, and that's why he hates him. That's why he's just so vexed and he's so envious. And here's the thing, not being content is a dangerous sin. Go ahead to 1 Timothy 6, 1 Timothy 6. Why? Because it leads to irrational behavior. It leads to illogical behavior because uh you know here we have a man who literally has almost everything and he's still not satisfied. That's unreasonable. That's illogical. You would think like why can't you just be satisfied? You're almost there. Like why do you have to have everything? Why do you have to be the absolute top of the top? Why do you have to have every single thing you could ever want? I mean because when you if you've got a list it's like someone said all right make a list of a hundred things that you want but you can only have 99 of them. It's like well then I won't even do it. It's a hundred or nothing. It's like wouldn't that be stupid? Wouldn't you be like sure I can think of 100. I mean you're getting 99 of them but just because you can't have 100 you want none of it? I mean that is what Haman is saying. That's how illogical. That's how foolish he is and that is what it's like when you're not a content person inside. Where you're just going to come up with irrational desires and wishes because the problem is your flesh cannot be satisfied. Now first Timothy chapter number six the Bible says in verse number six but godliness with contentment is great gain. We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out and having food and raiment let us be there with content. You know it's it's funny because if you think about where you started you started as a naked infant with nothing and a hundred percent dependence upon your family. And to the point you're now here and again you know barring little children I mean you are able to clothe yourself, bathe yourself, you can read, you can write, you can sit up, you can drive, you have money, you have clothes, you have relationships. I mean you are infinitely blessed from where you started yet isn't it that most people today are not even content with where they're at, where they find themselves, the relationships they have, the knowledge they have, the intelligence. I mean it's like we started with almost nothing, whole dependence and most of us get to a point of complete independence, tons of blessings, tons of things that we have to our disposal. I mean you live in America you can eat so much good food. I mean you don't have to eat all the bad food that's out there you have so many good options. You don't have to eat it in and out and eat their fries or anything okay. No one's forcing you to eat their fries okay. I know there's a lot of peer pressure to like their food and like their fries you don't have to. You don't have to you can and you know what I'm content not eating there okay. I don't have to have one. I don't have to have lots of things you know we don't have to have everything. There are areas of my life where I'm batting really low okay. Where like I'm not doing great you know have you ever seen my truck okay. I don't think there was very many people that are envious of the truck that I drive. You know when I drive up people are like sweet ride man yeah. You know I do get complimented a lot but you know what it's usually on my family because I have so many children and they're so well behaved that I often get a lot of compliments of my family and you know what praise God for that. You know what they're I don't get complimented in every area of my life. People aren't complimenting me on how I dress. They're not complimenting on me on my height you know. They're not complimenting me on my truck. They're not complimenting me on lots of things okay and that's fine. I don't have to have everything. You don't have to have everything. The Bible is teaching that it's great when you have godliness with contentment. Meaning you're a god just being a godly person is enough. You don't even even have money. You don't even have to have clothes. You don't even have to have children. You don't have to have any of these things. Just hey be a godly person and just be content that you're a godly person because you could be an ungodly person. You could be a meth head right now. You could be a drug addict. You could be in the gutter with beer strapped to your forehand. You could be in prison right now for having made stupid mistakes when you're a teenager. You could be a paraplegic. You could be blind. You could have all manner of evil things happening under you right now and they're not happening. You know why don't you be thankful for where you find yourself right now. What does not being content look like? It looks like the child at the grocery store that the parents just went up and down the aisle and got them tortillas and they got them hamburger meat and they got them chicken and they got them apples and they got them oranges and they got them bananas and they got them bread and they got some ice cream. But you know what they didn't get? They didn't get the chocolate bar at the aisle. So they got 99 things. They got food for the week. They're gonna have great meals prepared for them for mom. But you know what? They didn't get the candy bar at the aisle and all the groceries in the grocery cart avail them nothing. So they just start throwing a wild fit in the aisle. That is what not being content looks like. It's a spoiled brat mentality. And you know what? We should not have a spoiled brat mentality as God's people. Obviously it's real obvious that little toddler in the grocery aisle and how disgusting that attitude is. But you know what? Christians can be this way too. Where there's some area and their life is great in lots of areas but there's just this one area that's bad. Whether it's their spouse or it's their children or it's their car or it's their finances or it's their whatever and it's like they can't be happy with their life because that one area is problematic. And it's like get over yourself. Quit being the little baby that's in the checkout aisle that's screaming and upset and can't just be pleased with life because they're not getting the one thing that they wanted in that moment. You know some kids they have every toy they could want but then they walk by the store or they see that one toy that they don't have and it's like I want no other toy. I throw all my toys away at home. I want that one. And it's just like no you spoiled brat. You know we as Christians need to decide that we're going to be content. And you know what does content mean? Content means that you are happy and you are in a good mood when you don't have something that you want. Okay. Okay. Hey chocolate bar I want but I can't have no problem happy anyways. Now there's nothing problematic with wanting things. There's nothing problematic with desiring things. There's nothing problematic with acquiring things. What is problematic is your attitude when you don't have something you want. So it's like well I would be happy if I had this car. But here's the thing if you're not happy without it you won't be happy with it. Well I'll be happy when I get this outfit. I'll be happy when I get these shoes. I'll be happy when I get this job. I'll be happy when I grow to this height. You know as a kid that was real for me. You know as a child I was very short. And growing up I was the shortest kid ever. And I just remember thinking like you know I'll be happy when I'm like taller. You know if I could just be taller then I'd be happy. You know that's a dumb attitude. That's a foolish attitude to think that you'll be happy later when you acquire something else because you'll never ever ever ever ever ever be happy with possessions. You'll never be happy with goods. You'll never be happy with that next thing that you want because as soon as you get it you're going to immediately be unhappy because there's something else you don't have. And then there's going to be something else you don't have. And here's the problem for you and me. We're never going to be king of hazardous in the story. We're never going to literally have it all. You will always be Haman. Even at your best you'll always be Haman where there's at least one thing you can't have. There's at least one item. And look let's be realistic. None of us are at the point where we have 99 percent and there's just one. There's probably hundreds okay of things that we don't have. You know in a content person it doesn't matter how many things they're lacking. They're still happy. They still have joy. They can still go on the day and say you know what I don't have tons of things I need or want. Blessed be the name of the Lord. How can you be Job and literally have lost everything and still be saying blessed be the name of the Lord because it's not about what good you have. It's not about where you find yourself in life. Go over to Philippians. Just flip back a little bit. Philippians chapter number four. You know you might even be mad about your social status in life. That's really easy to be mad about especially as a Christian because you know people don't really like Christians anymore. I mean they used to in theory I think but I don't know. I don't know. There's no other thing under the sun but you know there's a group out there they're like this and I want to contrast them because I'm preaching way longer than I wanted but it's you deserve it okay. Be content all right. Here's the thing. There's the pride community. They are implacable and they cannot be happy until they have everything they want but here's the problem they're never gonna have everything you want right. It's like well we just want to be able to be out of the closet and it's like but that wasn't enough so it's like then we want to be accepted in society but then we want equal laws but then we want marriage but then we want drag queen shows for kids but then we want sex transitions for children but it's like when are they going to be happy. They never will. As long as Christians exist they'll never be happy. It's like all of this availeth me nothing as long as Pastor Shelley can still preach Romans 1. You know it's like as long as steadfast Baptist church and pure words Baptist church exist you know I can't be happy. It's like you can literally have everything you could ever want but just Mordecai exists and I just can't handle it you know. It's just like these people are freaks. They're psychopaths. They're implacable and you know what is a wicked attribute if we follow likewise where we say you know what I just can't be happy until I get that whatever and you fill in the blank. You know better than I do. Okay. I don't know what it is that you think you know until I have grandkids until I get that spouse until I get that kid until I get 10 cars until I get that house until I get that boat. You don't want a boat. Okay. It'll be fun the day you take it out and then it won't be fun anymore. Okay. It's like all these things that you think you want. I mean Ecclesiastes makes it abundantly clear that your eye is not satisfied with riches. Okay. The eye is not satisfied with seeing. The ear is not satisfied with hearing. You're never ever going to have enough. I've never met a rich person that said you know what I have enough money. I'm done. They always want more. Even the richest people. Even the Elon Musk of this world. They could have double the next guy and they say you know what I'm not gonna be satisfied until I have triple. And it's like you know what triple is not nearly enough. I'm not going to be satisfied until I have 10 times the amount of the next guy. I'm not as long as this guy even has money. I'm not going to be satisfied. You know it's just like they can they're never going to arrive. They're never going to have enough. And it's like the numbers that these people have where it's like billions. It's like it's unfathomable to us how much money that even is. Like if you had billions of dollars you could spend like several million dollars every day of your life and still not even like get there typically. I mean with all the interest and all the other money that's coming I mean these people are just making so much money. I think someone won the lottery and they won like 1.4 billion dollars. And I had originally calculated it wrong because I think I'd brought this up in a previous example but it was like if you got the if you took the the the lump sum it's usually about 50 percent. So it was like 734 million dollars. Well I was thinking like what if you just took the 1.4 million in an annuity because you can take these things as an annuity. And what that means is that in about a 30 year time period they'll pay you out that amount of money. So you take about 1.4 billion. You divide that by 30. That's how much you get annually. Then you divide it by 12. That's how much you would get monthly. It was like four million dollars a month. Now think about it this way. You're getting four million dollars a month. That's at a rate of 1.4 billion. So what about the people like Elon Musk that have over a hundred billion dollars in net worth? And I know it fluctuates. I don't know where he's at right now but I think it's been like 100, 140 or something ridiculous. It escalates. Tesla stock goes all over the place and Twitter in a stock whatever. But it's like if you had a hundred billion dollars at 1.4, remember? So let's just round up to two. So we're going to do 50 times the amount that you're making per month. Okay so what's 50 times four? Any children know? 50 times four. Bam 200. All right so if you had 200 million dollars every month would you have more or less than a million dollars to spend every day? If you had 200 million dollars a month would you have more or less than one million every day to spend? More. So I'm not even exaggerating when I say if you have Elon Musk's wealth you could be literally spending over a million dollars every day for 30 years and you still wouldn't even run out of money. I mean in fact since he's bringing in 200, think about it this way. You spend one million dollars a day for 30 years straight and you still had 170 million every month you didn't spend. I mean like you probably you mean just literally just wouldn't be able to run out of money because you think like spending a million dollars a day like I could do that but it would start adding up like it becomes stressful right I mean how could you even you wouldn't even know what to buy you're like I don't know what to buy anymore just buy everything you know you walk into stores just buy it all and it's like that was 300,000 you're like dang it go to the next door you're like oh I guess I'll buy this it's like that would be stressful even spending that much money and the people are still not content. I mean like how much money do you have to have to be content? How many children do you have to have to be content? It's like one should be enough and I'm not saying that's enough because I want more but I'm just saying like whatever you have just be content with whatever you have stop worrying about all the things you don't have and worry about the things that you do have be content just be a happy person just have joy of the Lord and just look at Philippians 4 look what it says in verse 11 not that I speak in respect of want for I have learned in whatsoever state I am there with to be content I know both how to be a base I know how to bound everywhere and all things I'm instructed both to be full and to be hungry both to abound and to suffer need I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. So notice that the Apostle Paul is saying that we should be content no matter what state we find ourselves in and in fact in some of this look at verse 12 I know both how to be a based what is it to be a base it's to be brought down low right what if everybody in the whole town just thinks you're scum everybody your name becomes mud everyone looks down on you your family looks down on you you've lost money I mean Job was greatly a based he lost money goods and in fact all of his friends were looking at him like he was a loser and even Job brings it up if you read the passage of Job he says like you know back in the old days when I laughed everyone was like terrified they were that I was making fun of them but he's like but now I'm the I'm the brunt of the joke now everybody mocks me now children are you know think that I'm still he was brought all the way down to the bottom he was brought really low and it's in you know Job's a picture of Jesus in the sense that Jesus took upon him the form of a servant and humbled himself and became a man and Jesus went from the greatest down to being the one of the lowest of no reputation for people didn't have respect under what he said even though they should have it's not like you shouldn't have respect to Job back then either it's just they didn't and yet they still had joy Jesus was still a happy person Job was still you know finding some contentment obviously he was a little bit upset okay but at the same time that was pretty extreme but even in that extremity if we can find contentment that's what God wants for us God wants us to be a content person good bad ugly no matter what you have and here's the thing you have to think about stop worrying about how many problems you have for a second and just answer this question honestly in your heart have you been happy this week have you been happy today have you been happy yesterday have you been happy this month and you know let's stretch it out like a month if it's been a month or a week and so you know I've not been happy this week I've not been happy this month then ask the here's the next really important question why it's like okay well I lost my spouse suddenly okay well that makes sense all right don't beat yourself up on that right I got all my legs and arms chopped off and I have found I have terminal cancer okay you know what that's that's understandable you know I don't have everything that I want that is not an acceptable reason to not be happy that really just shows that you don't have contentment in your heart and in your life and you have you need to change the person because you don't want to end up becoming Haman where you get to a point where you literally have I mean there are people in our lives that arguably have the most that argue you would look at this person and be like how is this person not happy I mean they have it all they have the it seems like they have the greatest spouse they have the greatest cars they have they have money they go out to eat and eat whatever they want they have all these great children they have all these blessings and all these things they're just somehow not happy it's because they're not a content person whereas you can find other people and it's like they got a train wreck of a life no money all kinds of issues but then it's just like they're smiling and happy and you're just thinking like what's wrong with you you never realize your life sucks and it's like no no you suck because you know what there's nothing wrong with being happy and content in your life we could go down to Mexico right now and find tons of people that have almost nothing in comparison to you and they're way happier than you and you know that's a shame in our approach to Christianity when people have nothing are happy and joyful and content in their life and Christians have literally everything and are spoiled brats spoiled rotten are just upset with all the things they don't have well let me wake you up you're not going to get everything buddy hey you're never going to have it all you're never going to just get all of your wishes it's never going to be your favorite meal every meal you know it drives me insane but it's like when i you take our you take your kids out to dinner and it's a really fancy dinner and then you leave and they're like oh are we going to get dessert and you're like no we're going home and then they throw a fit and you're thinking like you don't even deserve dinner it's like oh this dinner avails me nothing unless i get dessert it's like you spoiled brat you no no no you should just be thankful hey there's nothing wrong with asking but you know what you should be happy regardless of the answer there's nothing wrong with desiring a new car a new house new clothes whatever you know what well you while you don't have it you should still be happy and if you lost it you should still be happy and if you never get it you should still be happy you know there's no excuse to just be upset bitter angry envious prideful person don't be a Haman be someone like Paul who can lose it all and just still be fine go back to our our chapter we have one more verse we had to read so i had to get a few things off my chest so there you go be a content person you know even if the sermon was 30 minutes be content with that all right it's an hour and a half you know whatever verse 14 then said his wife and all his friends on them let a gallows be made of 50 cubits high and tomorrow speak thou unto the king that mordecai may be hanged thereon then go down merrily with the king under the banquet and the thing please amen and he caused the gallows to be made so he thinks that he's not happy even though he has everything but he'll finally be happy if he just kills mordecai you know it's it's it's sad that we see the contrast of two women here one woman makes petition of her husband and serves him the other husband is a nag and offers wicked advice this is a rash beware of your wife's counsel when it's not godly you know jezebel gave wicked counsel unto ahab to kill naba you know what it cost him his life and eve gave to her husband cost him his life okay we have here's the rash giving hayman this bad council you know what's going to do it's going to cost him his life and in all of these cases what was it that was the deciding factor they weren't content with what they had adam wasn't content having all the trees of the garden but he can't have the one naboth can have all the vineyards in the land but he can't have naboths hayman can have everything but mordecai exists and notice this is a common pattern where men or people have everything but one thing and god sets that sometimes god will just set a tree in your life the tree in the midst of the garden that he's like you can have everything but this one and he just wants to see what you're going to do he wants to see if you're going to say well you know what all those trees suck i just want that one no no build a fence around that one i have a party with all the other trees you know stop being so discontented it's like well i have so many great things going for me but if i just can't have that one thing you know there's even men out there they're like a soul winner they're active in church they have a great family they're great kids it's like but if i can't be pastor then i don't want to serve god it's like what don't be an adam fanon you know don't be greg lock don't be one of these guys that just has to be pastor or just has to be whatever the boss or anything you know what you just have to be godly that's what you should that's what you should desire i just want to be godly because godliness with contentment is great game you know if you're not godly then you should be dissatisfied with yourself and get godly you know once you're godly everything else shouldn't even matter who cares how much stuff i have because i'll have all this stuff all this stuff here is going to burn up and all this stuff in heaven is the only thing that's worth anything that's the only thing that you should be laying up treasure for and where your treasure is there will be also i think that uh the big takeaway here is just is that contentment because we're going to learn in the next chapter how that's going to be the downfall of hayman and pride will bring you very low as the bible says it's closing prayer thank you heavenly father for this chapter thank you for this advice that you've given us i pray that we would desire to have contentment in our lives and not covetousness jesus told us to beware of covetousness we see so many men fall due to envy due to pride doing to lust to just coveting things that they shouldn't covet i pray that we would just be happy and satisfied with the things that we have that would be joyful with what we have that whether we were based or were we bound or no matter what state we find ourselves and that would be irrelevant we can still praise the lord for our salvation we can praise the lord for things that we do have and i pray that you just help us to be a humble church to accept what we do have and to not always be looking to the next thing but rather be good stewards of what we already have and in jesus name we pray amen and without a second take one more song before we start disposing the trash you'll take out your hymnals it's going to be 228 i love to tell the story it's a good song for soul winners telling the story about jesus 228 i love to tell the story so all together i love to tell the story of unseen things above of jesus and his glory of jesus and his love i love to tell the story because i know it is true it satisfies my longings as nothing else can do i love to tell the story it will be my theme in glory to tell the old old story of jesus and his love i love to tell the story more wonderful it seems than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams i love to tell the story it did so much for me and that is just the reason i tell it now to thee me i love to tell the story twill be my theme in glory to tell the old old story of jesus and his love i love to tell the story tis pleasant to repeat what seems each time i tell it more wonderfully sweet i love to tell the story for some have never heard the message of salvation from god's own holy word i love to tell the story so it'll be my theme in glory to tell the old old story of jesus and his love i love to tell the story for those who know it best same hungering and thirsty to hear it like the rest and when in scenes of glory i sing the new new song it'll be the old old story that i have lost so long i love to tell the story to be my theme in glory glory to tell the old old story of jesus and his love amen thank you all for coming god bless you are dismissed let's stick around because we do got the the fire show fireworks