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to gather together to hear the word of God being preached and to sing praises unto your name. I pray that you would just bless our church family that is struggling with health concerns, that you would please be with them, strengthen them. Please help those that are not able to come this evening to search service. I pray that they'd have us do recovery and they could return back to services quickly. Please just help our extended family and friends that we know have other health concerns or are praying for their salvation. And I pray that you just help use our church to be a bright and shining light into the dark world and to help us to reach this Houston area. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements are concerned. So we can go ahead and go to our third song for the evening, 441, great is thy faithfulness. Again, that's 441, great is thy faithfulness. All together. Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my father, there is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not thy compassions, they fail not, as thou has been, thou forever will be. Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness, morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand hath provided, great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me. Summer and winter and springtime and harvest, sun, moon and stars and their forces above, join with all nature and manifold witness to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love. Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness, morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand hath provided, great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me, pardon for sin and a peace that endure in thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide, strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, blessings all mine with 10,000 beside. Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness, morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand hath provided, great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me. Amen. While the offering plate's being passed around, if you'll take out your Bibles to Esther chapter number nine. As we always do, we'll read the entire chapter before we get to the message. Esther chapter number nine. If you open your Bible right in the middle, you'll find the book of Psalms. Go before Psalms, you'll find Job, then you have the book of Esther. Esther chapter nine, the Bible reads, now in the 12th month, that is the month Adar, on the 13th day of the same, when the king's commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution in the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them, though it was turned to the contrary that the Jews had rule over them that hated them. The Jews gathered themselves together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus to lay hand on such as sought their hurt and no man could withstand them for the fear of them fell upon all people and all the rulers of the provinces and the lieutenants and the deputies and officers of the king helped the Jews because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them for Mordecai was great in the king's house and his fame went out throughout all the provinces for this man Mordecai waxed greater and greater thus the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword and slaughter and destruction and did what they would unto those that hated them and in Shushan the palace the Jews slew and destroyed 500 men and parshandatha and dauphon and asbatha and poratha and adaliah and eridatha and parmeshta and erisai and eridi and vejazatha the ten sons of Haman the son of Hamadatha the enemy of the Jews slew they but on the spoil they laid not their hand on that day the number of those that were slain in Shushan the palace was brought before the king and the king said unto Esther the queen the Jews have slain and destroyed 500 men in Shushan the palace and the 10 sons of Haman what have they done in the rest of the king's provinces now what is thy petition and it shall be granted thee or what is thy request further and it shall be done then said Esther if it pleased the king let it be granted to the Jews which are in Shushan to do tomorrow also according unto this day's decree and let Haman's 10 sons be hanged upon the gallows and the king commanded it so to be done and the decree was given at Shushan and they hanged Haman's 10 sons but the Jews that were in Shushan gathered themselves together on the 14th day also of the month Adar and slew 300 men at Shushan but on the prey they laid not their hand but the other Jews that were in the king's provinces gathered themselves together and stood for their lives and had rest from their enemies and slew of their foes seventy and five thousand but they laid not their hands on the prey on the 13th day of the month Adar and on the 14th day of the same rested day and made it a day of feasting and gladness but the Jews that were at Shushan assembled on the 13th day thereof and on the 14th day thereof and on the 15th day of the same they rested and made it a day of feasting and gladness therefore the Jews of the villages that dwelt in the unwalled towns made the 14th day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting and a good day and of sending portions one to another and Mordecai wrote these things and sent letters unto all the Jews that were in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus both nigh and far to establish this among them that they should keep the 14th day of the month Adar and the 15th day of the same yearly as the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy and from mourning into a good day that they should make them days of feasting and joy and of sending portions one to another and gifts to the poor and the Jews undertook to do as they had begun and as Mordecai had written unto them because Haman the son of Hamadatha the Agagite the enemy of all the Jews had devised against the Jews to destroy them and had cast per that is the lot to consume them and to destroy them but when Esther came before the king he commanded by letters that his wicked device which he devised against the Jews should return upon his own head and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows wherefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur therefore for all the words of this letter and of that which they had seen concerning this matter in which had come unto them the Jews ordained and took upon them and upon their seed and upon all such as join themselves unto them so as it should not fail that they would keep these two days according to their writing and according to their appointed time every year and that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation every family every province and every city and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews nor the memorial of them perish from their seed then Esther the queen the daughter of Abba Hale and Mordecai the Jew wrote with all authority to confirm the second letter of Purim and he sent the letters unto all the Jews to the hundred twenty and seven provinces of the king of Ahasuerus of the kingdom of Ahasuerus with the words of peace and truth to confirm these days of Purim in their names appointed according as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined them and as they had decreed for themselves and for their seed the matters of the fastings and their cry and the decree of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim and it was written in the book and the king of Ahasuerus laid a tribute upon the land and upon the isles of the sea and all the acts of his power and of his might and the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai wherein to the king advanced him are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Medea and Persia for Mordecai the Jew was next unto the king of Ahasuerus and great among the Jews and accepted of the multitude of his brethren seeking the wealth of his people and speaking peace to all his seed bow heads for word of prayer brother Brandon would you pray for us men we're here in Esther chapter number nine and we're continuing with our story kind of our drama about the work that Haman had devised against the Jews and essentially how Esther and Mordecai have devised a counter plan to essentially deal with this particular day of destruction and as chapter nine is interesting because it brings up a lot of uh war and fighting and you know in the new testament war and fighting is supposed to be like a spiritual thing in the sense that the bible talks about how we fight the good fight of faith the bible talks about how we war not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness and high places and of course there's a lot of warfare in the bible that's described as being spiritual and and being not a physical fight there's also talk in the scripture even in the old testament you have angels fighting one another the bible talks about in the book of Daniel Michael and and other angels contending with the devil or we see in the book of revelation too in the future that the devil is passed out and so there's kind of this conflict there's this fighting there's this war that's raging and even though we don't wage a physical battle there are some upcoming physical battles that are similar to the book of Esther and so it's kind of interesting when we we look at the book of Esther and we kind of see the end times and the the apocalyptic type events that are going to follow in the future when we get to the coming of the lord Jesus Christ but the book of Esther has been a consistent theme of not only taking us from the current timeline of events to the gospel into the future I believe that Esther is kind of like a complete book when it comes from its starting point to the end we we talked about vastly being replaced vastly is Israel being replaced Esther is the picture of Christians and how we've taken her spot as queen and in essence and Mordecai is is a picture of the lord Jesus Christ and how he is leading Esther and guiding Esther and is there is kind of like her rock yet we still have king Ahasuerus which is also there to symbolize God the father and his role and how both these men are both leaders and they're kind of both influential and as we've kind of gone through this series we've seen that Haman signifies a lot of evil and wicked people but specifically the antichrist and and we had a section where Haman was destroyed hung on his own gallows and upon which he had made and we even had the destruction of well essentially him we're going to get here in this chapter the destruction of his entire family but he devised the gallows against the Jews and Mordecai specifically and yet he received his own punishment and was destroyed the house was given unto Esther and was given unto Mordecai and because they didn't want their people to be destroyed they had come up with an ulterior plan of well instead of this writing being reversed which is impossible why don't we just fight why don't we just show up on the day that we're supposed to be killed and we will fight ourselves now again from a from kind of a picture of the end times we kind of have Haman as this symbol of the antichrist type figure and then Mordecai coming into power is kind of a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ coming into power but I believe that Esther chapter number nine is kind of also following along with our chronology and kind of our end times picture and so I just wanted to kind of set up that foundation and then we'll kind of explore that again later but look at verse one now it says now in the 12th month that is the month Adar on the 13th day of the same when the king's commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution in the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them though it was turned to the contrary that the Jews had rule over them that hated them now you know it's kind of interesting some of the symbolism here and even just the numbers isn't it is it any coincidence that Haman wanted to destroy the Jews on the 13th day of the last month you know probably symbolic of something satanic for him or something evil 13 is often a number that's kind of associated with something that's evil or wicked but notice that the Bible says the day that they had devised against the Jews ends up being turned contrary and turned upside down and flipped on his head to where the Jews are going to end up ruling over them and destroying those that hated them and I just thought about this verse and I just thought about how dramatic the Bible is you know it's like the it's like God could do whatever he wants and you know the scripture is his for the telling and the the events of the world are for at his disposal but isn't it interesting that God in the Bible always seems to build up the most dramatic scenes imaginable where there's a day and there's two armies coming the Jews and those that the enemies of the Jews and they're coming to a battle royale on a day and winner takes all basically I mean this is this is kind of the build up this is the anticipation to you know a really epic scene in a movie if you know you've ever felt like you've seen a movie where there's this two sides and we're finally getting the battle scene this is kind of what we have here in the book of Esther chapter number nine where we have the the ultimate climax of the story where now it's not just Esther fighting for herself this is every single Jew on the face of the earth fighting against every enemy of the Jews on the face of the earth and and truly according to the scripture thousands and thousands of people are going to be massacred and destroyed on this particular day I mean this is not a small event this is a giant event across the entire globe where many thousands of people are going to be killed verse two it says this the Jews gather themselves together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the king of hasris to lay hand on such as sought their hurt and no man could withstand them for the fear of them fell upon all people and all the rulers of the provinces and the lieutenants and deputies and the officers of the king helped the Jews because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them for Mordecai was great in the king's house and his fame went out throughout all the provinces for this man Mordecai waxed greater and greater thus the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword and slaughter and destruction and did what they would under those that hated them now that's just a really interesting phrasing but it's just that they would do whatever they want it was just basically like the the battle was just theirs for the taking I mean essentially this they were so much more skilled or overpowering of the enemy God gave them the strength whatever way you want to articulate this but essentially what the bible is saying that when the battle came to fruition the Jews just won just a hundred and nothing you know it was just basically it's the complete slaughter the other side had no chance just complete and utter destruction now that to me is significant of when we kind of look at some of these future end times prophecies of what's going to happen as well but we see that you know when you go against God's people at the end of the day they will win you know you might have some setbacks you might lose a few battles here and there but you're going to win the war and when you have God on your side essentially according to the scripture you're going to do what you want unto those that hate you it's kind of to me it's like got to be one of the best days ever like I can't even imagine if there was a day like at the end of December it's like all right we've made a decree all the enemies of Pastor Shelley and then and you know pure words and steadfast are all going to be gathered together and Pastor Shelley and we get to fight you know and you just get to have a heyday and just slaughter and just everything goes your way I mean that would just be epic you know that would be that I would really enjoy that so I can kind of see you know and really it's kind of one of those things where it's it's really intense sir I mean can you imagine the intensity of going to a day where you're going on a battlefield and the only way to walk away from the battlefield is to destroy the enemy I mean there's not there's not another option here you're either kill or be killed you know I can't imagine all the emotion all the different anxiety the stress even perhaps the build up the hope the pressure I mean all the things that are going on and just drama but you know the thing is God is a God of drama in the sense that really find something in the Bible that's just not full of drama and I even looked up the definition of drama because the drama can have a lot of different definitions but one definition of drama is exciting event or a series of events sometimes you might think of the word drama as being a negative word like we think about a you know sometimes we'll talk about a lady and like she's full of drama like that's not what we're talking about okay obviously that's just saying someone that's just got a lot of issues and likes to air them out but really when it comes to a film or something the the genre of a drama is simply just saying that it's it's exciting you know if you said oh it's it wasn't very dramatic what you're kind of thinking was boring it was lame you know it wasn't very exciting whereas it was like man it was really dramatic what you're saying is that it was it was exciting it was eventful it was it was unique you know there was something to be said about it it captured your attention there's anticipation to this and really that is the God of the Bible the God of the Bible is exciting there's a lot of anticipation there's there's something to be said about it is something to look forward to and and while you may even be anxious about it at the same time it's something you want to see something you want to experience some people love to see the drama of everything you know whether it's sports whether it's fighting whether it's war you know no matter what it is people love drama what you know whenever there's a there's a lot of speculation that certain sporting events are rigged and some things like football or basketball or baseball things like that and the reason why they speculate that it's rigged is because when two teams that nobody really cares are going to play in the world series or in the super bowl or in some big event nobody shows up nobody pays attention and they don't make as much money off of it so what the events that get the most money and the most audience and the most attention is when you have just two really strong teams or two diametrically opposed teams that you don't really know who's going to win for sure and that's what usually generates the most money talk excitement views ads all of the stuff so a lot of times what people will speculate is that the wrasse and the commissioner and all these different people will try to essentially help certain teams make it to that particular stage because they want that event to be as dramatic as possible why because people are interested in the drama if you had the best team playing the worst team for the super bowl nobody was going to pay attention because it's like oh it's already over and in fact a lot of games even uh what sporting event type venues if it's a blowout people will leave at halftime people will leave way before even the end of the game because they're not really interested in watching a slaughter anymore they they kind of like the fourth quarter drama they like it to be all the way down to the bitter end they want to see you know the action and see what's going to happen this happens in fighting people in a fight they want to see all the drama they don't want to just see someone that's going to destroy another person in fact if you think about just fighting in general they have so many different weight classes i mean they have just all these different various weight classes that are so very specific and it's funny because you look on tv and these guys look big but then you you meet fighters in real life and they're tiny you know they're like 150 pounds or they're like 160 pounds and you're like really you know it's but you know they but they have these weight classes because the fighters have to be very similar in weight class otherwise might give the other person a big advantage and then people won't really want to watch because it's not as exciting to just see some guy just beat up on another guy real easy they want it to be really intense they want all that anticipation and excitement everything like that and so you know it's really not any different with the bible that god is often setting up events to make them as dramatic as possible i mean what could be more dramatic than having a singular day set aside where all the enemies are coming together in an epic battle royale destroy or be destroyed you know or daniel the lions being thrown into a lion's den full of lions or being thrown in the fiery furnace or the entire world being flooded with a great flood and those only on the ark will survive i mean david and goliath we have a young shepherd boy who's killed a blind and a bear not afraid of one of the tallest men to ever live who's undefeated you know these epic dramatic scenes that are constantly captured in the scripture you know god likes some drama and what that signifies to me is even though we don't have scripture being written about our lives right now you know it's not like you know scripture for the new testament kind of is capped off with the apostles we don't necessarily have scripture about 300 ad we don't have scripture about 500 ad we don't have scripture about a thousand ad we don't have scripture about 1500 ad you know we don't have scripture telling us about the king james bible being translated you know we don't have scripture telling us about america being formed as a country we don't have scripture about preachers of the past you know we don't have scripture about j frank norris or jack hyles or curtis hudson and we don't read about the leaders of the faith from a scriptural perspective but this is what i know is the same drama that unfolded in the old testament god anticipated happening in the new testament because that's the whole reason he tells us in the bible that these things are written for our admonition he said hey the whole testament was written not for us to just glorify the past but to realize what the future would be like to realize what the new testament would be like full of what drama and you know if you actually know anything about history christianity is nothing short than some of the greatest dramas ever told uh you you even look at this book that you hold in your hand that you take for granted i mean so many men and so many women have been brutally murdered and killed just so you can have this book in your hands you know you think that our times are tough but at the time of the 1500s the catholic church was persecuting christians so hard that a certain group of christians taught their children psalms 23 they just taught them how to memorize it and the parents were burned at the stake for teaching their children psalm 23 you know it's funny to me i have to reward people with ice cream to teach their children a bible memory chapter and yet parents of the past were willing to be burned alive in order to teach their children the scripture to teach them the word of god you know men like william tindale strangled at the stake and then burned for what wanting the bible to be in english for you to not have to read latin i mean the whole reason you don't have to read or go to a church where you don't even speak the language and they just it's like what is that going to do any good for you you know the fact that we can actually speak english and read the bible in english is given to you and look the bible is full of drama because life is full of drama and so if you're going to find christianity in this world today you know what it's not going to be lame it's not going to be where there's no drama there's going to be a lot of drama associated with real christianity you know there's going to be a lot of drama even in your life because jesus christ told us that hey think not that i'm come to give peace on earth but a sword yea rather he brings division he's not bringing people together he's dividing people he's dividing families he's dividing all manner of situation sheep from the goats so you know if i'm going to find real christianity in the new testament in 2022 america or wherever i find myself on this planet you know i guarantee drama is going to be there because if this book is there if this birds being preached if people are actually living a christian life drama all kinds of drama all kinds of issues enemies you know it would be weird to read this book and have zero enemies it wouldn't even make sense you'd be thinking like think about how many psalms that you read of david and it's just talking about how many enemies he has he has more enemies than hairs on his head you know and he's talking about the destruction of his enemies and we're reading about the destruction of enemies and then it's like just think if you live in this world you have no enemies no one does no one everybody loves your church it's joel osteen you know i'm for everybody i don't have any enemies you know we're just so blessed and so prosperous i'm telling you what it's like that's fake that's not real and that's not even exciting anyways everyone loves you that's not even true but generally speaking pretty much nobody cares about joel osteen because anybody that's serious about christianity realizes fake and all the people that are actually against christianity also know these fakes so they don't really care they're like let him just do whatever he wants you know go do his own thing i mean if you're going to find real christianity you better find some drama also here's the thing when drama comes to our church don't let that just discourage you from wanting to go to church don't think like oh well i don't want to go to church with all this drama you know think about this i don't want to go to the church where on some someday i have to bring my sword and literally fight for my life well you could just not be a jew then right i mean you could just not be a christian that's kind of that's an option but you know what i'd rather just go ahead and get a sword and have to fight to the death and be a christian than to do nothing to be i mean nobody all the people that did nothing aren't even mentioned this chapter right it's the jews and their enemies all the 99 or all the 90 some percent of people that are not jews are enemies nobody cares about them nobody remembers their name it doesn't even matter that they existed now of course the only people that truly matter that existed were the jews because those that were not jews the enemies they don't matter either look at verse number six and in shushan the palace the jews slew and destroyed 500 men who are they no one cares and perjoditha and dauphin and aspattha and poretha and adelia and eridatha and parmestha and erisa and erida and vajisatha now who's named any of those names who knows people with those names i've never even heard these people you know it says the 10 sons of hayman the son of hamadatha the enemy of the jews slew they but on the spoil lately not their hand now this is what i thought about and this is why i believe this is in you know you read these passages and have you ever have you ever thought this why are these names mentioned in the bible who's thought that okay just me all right no i'm just kidding who's thinking at all no i'm just kidding i i've thought about this a lot because it's weird how many names are just in the bible but go if you went to proverbs chapter number 10 for a moment go to proverbs chapter number 10 i'm gonna explain to you why this these names are mentioned in the scripture you know why these names are mentioned in the scripture and you've never heard them because god wanted to put names in the scripture that you've never heard of you say well why would why would god give me a whole bunch of names that i've never heard of i've never i don't even know how to pronounce them those are so weird and and nobody's named after them and anything like that it's it's it's to show the example of those that are wicked those that are evil everything about them will fade and rot into existence and it's meaningless notice oh man i was this great person but it ends up nobody likes you and nobody even likes your name everything about you is just turned to trash and look what it says in proverbs chapter 10 verse 7 the memory of the just is blessed but the name of the wicked shall rot think about that how many people are named isaac abraham john andrew peter i mean how many people have names like that you know just go down the list of the bible i mean you just you started with joshua samuel daniel ezekiel i mean james you just gotta just name at the name at the name and look the name of what these people is blessed in fact people that aren't even christian like these names i mean muslims look at these people with awe and reverence i mean how many muslims have you met named moses or named abraham or named and again they're not they don't even believe in abraham they don't believe in moses okay they don't believe the prophets really but they still give them respect it kind of makes me think of the catholic church the catholic church has all these saints yet they wouldn't even want one of those saints to preach for five seconds in their church because if those saints got up and started preaching what they used to preach the catholic church would run away screaming it's funny like john chris's stone you know if you ever read any of this guy's preaching which is crazy how much we have recorded of what this guy actually preached but it's like this guy sounds more hardcore than a new iv preacher and it's like this is where the catholic church venerates you know you you look at some of these guys of antiquity and it's like they were preaching so hardcore about jews about tomos about all these type of topics that are so controversial nowadays and it's funny but they love john i mean they love john chris's dome they love the saints they love thomas they love i mean think about other churches their churches are named after saints saint thomas and saint peter and mary and all these different things how many people are named mary i mean i know john's a common name and i mean my name is jonathan's is kind of a form of that but like if you go to mexico it is like 50 of the women named mary i mean obviously maria but i'm just saying it is it is crazy i mean you you won't even believe it you go and then you'd be like if you're kind of like thinking like it's a joke it's like what's your name is maria and she's like maria i'm like what but you know how many people i've met named parmesan i don't even know how you say it because it doesn't even matter because nobody cares you know what nobody cares about the wicked and eventually their name will just rot to a point where no one knows who they are i mean right now there's some wicked people that we can all think of we could we could remember their names joe biden george soros all these type of people but you know what in a hundred years 200 years biden will be like i don't know what you're talking about and nobody will be named biden you know nobody will be named these weird names and these these silly names because why the memory of these people the name of these people just rot and they'll get to a point where you can't even remember who they are because no one cares about them this is why it's important to serve god and to fall after god because those who follow after god are going to not only have eternal life physically but they're just even the memory of the person will permeate all of eternity whereas those who are unsaved are going to rot and just be worthless and no one's going to remember or care ever again it's just gone their life was just a vapor and of course it also goes to show you you show me the bible the bible names of wicked people that are celebrated even in the world today you know you have you have certain like musicians that are just full of satan that will sometimes take some of these satanic names upon themselves but just generally speaking you know you don't run into just lots of judices you don't run into lots of you know these guys names you know i've never met a hayman you know i i actually have met people named cane this is weird but you know typically you're not even running into a lot of canes you're not running into a lot of these wicked people's names because even just the whole society even just our whole world just realizes that's a bad that's a bad omen you know people are probably going to name their kids anytime soon why because the name of the wicked is going to rot you know and whenever someone really wicked you know people are probably going to name their kids jeffrey dahmer they're probably you know there's certain names that have just got such a bad stigma with them now that people just don't want to even name their child you know who's going to name their child ikabod you know you're not going to name your child these things so we see even if it's like oh the bible is just written by man well then why does everybody just go by what the bible says on everything why is it that everybody names their kids after all the positive people in the bible and doesn't name their kids after all the wicked evil people in the bible i mean if it's just a bunch of fairy tales then why why do you do exactly what it says then why do you follow all the models and the principles and all the behavior of it then why isn't the book of proverbs it describing all the best qualities of people and even all of society agrees with all those principles why because the bible is truth and you can't escape the reality that when you spit in the face of god when you mock god when you go against god you're the one that's going to be destroyed at the end of the day you're the one that's going to be mocked and ridiculed and nobody will care and throughout history we don't really honor and memor you know put in memory wicked people by and large there's some exceptions but i believe that those exceptions are going to have their day and you have things like martin luther king who is still venerated in our society but you know we haven't really come full circle on that one just quite yet but there we come you know if history goes out far enough that memory will rot and martin luther king will not be remembered as this great you know wonderful civil rights leader but ravel you know the truth about that guy will probably be uncovered and people realize what kind of a wicked hypocrite he was and what a what a giant phony that guy was and once he's burning in hell and standing in the judgment seat of christ for sure we're going to realize what kind of a wicked phony that guy was okay go if you would to or back to esther nine if you're not there and let's keep reading it says in verse number 11 on that day the number of those that were slain in shushia in the palace was brought before the king and the king said in esther the queen the jews is slain destroyed 500 men in shushia in the palace and the ten sons of hayman what have they done in the rest of the king's provinces now what is thy petition and it shall be granted thee or what does thy request further and it shall be done then said esther if it please the king let it be granted to the jews which are in shushan to do tomorrow also according unto this day's decree and let hayman's ten sons be hanged upon the gallows so she wants the ten sons to be hung up which is kind of a symbol of a curse because the bible talks about being hung up is you know as cursed as he is put on tree and so you kind of show that the curse that comes on those that are of the devil and and of the sons of the devil and she also though once gets an opportunity for another petition she says in verse 14 or it says in verse 14 the king commanded it to be so to be done and the decree was given at shushan and they hanged hayman's ten sons so she wanted uh for there to be an extra day of slaughter and that's kind of interesting because you know there's a lot of places in the bible that talk about the destruction of enemies and recent last night i was preaching on second samuel 22 and it talked about how they destroyed but then he says it doesn't stop until they were consumed so it's like they got started destroying their enemies but they didn't quite get the job done and instead of just quitting and doing kind of half days work they're like no we need one more day to finish this job and you know what i appreciate that you know it's an ugly job but you know nobody wants half of the trash taken out of the house nobody wants you to clean half of the house nobody wants a half paycheck you know everybody wants that full job to be done nobody wants half the car to be cleaned you want to get everything done and what i appreciate is even though it's an ugly job even though it might even be scary it's pretty risky she's like you know what we need to do this until we've consumed them we've got it all you know what if the doctor said hey i was i did surgery on you today and i was in there getting the cancer i got about half out and then i just quit you'd be like why didn't you just finish you know you don't want someone to get all the way in there and have that opportunity to get all the cancer out or whatever it is and then just not finish the job you'd want them to say like i got a hundred percent we got it all we finish it all just like in america if we said hey we put half of the rapist to death it's like why did we stop you know like let's let's go ahead and get all 100 of them you know in america it's like we got a lot of wicked people in here if we ever got the opportunity to destroy the wicked people in our society we don't want to get 50 of them or 75 we want to get a hundred percent of them you know asa had to finish daddy's job and remove the rest of the sodomyces remain in the land it's like hey good job starting as a kaia well let's go ahead and finish the job right we don't want to just stop and just get some of these people let's get all of them let's destroy them let's consume them let's not stop until we're done and it's like hey we gave the gospel to half of houston well let's get the other half you know it's like hey i got i got the dad saved we'll get the mom saved why i got the brother saved we'll get the sister saved well we went to this mexico town then go to the next mexico town you know it's not just we did something it's don't stop until it's done you know it's a good philosophy and everything is that when you start a project finish it when you get something going you don't want to just leave it hanging or say well at least i did something you know you got to finish it i don't want to have the marathon and then quit you got to finish the rest of the marathon for it to even really count and if you're going to destroy the enemies you don't want to just let them linger because they might multiply again and grow you don't want the cockroaches to come back you don't want the hornets to come back you want to get just all of it out all the cancer all the bugs all the trash all the evil of your society you want to rid a hundred percent of it you know a little leaven leaven at the whole lump and when you have an opportunity when the floodgates are open it's like we need another day to finish this and i like that esther is willing to do this so king said let's do it verse 15 for the jews that were in shushan gathered themselves together on the 14th they also of the main adar and slew 300 men at shushan but on the prey they laid not on their hand so the first day they got 500 they got the biggest victory but then there's still like there was still a big number i mean 300 enemies who wants to live around 300 enemies it's like let's get those guys too right so we got the first 500 now we got the rest of it we got the other 300 in our area we slew them the bible keeps on saying that they didn't put their their hand on the prey they didn't lay their hands on the prey kind of evidencing the fact that they're not doing this out of a greedy selfish motive they simply just want to destroy their enemies so they can have peace now it's not like they're just looking at the greed aspect of this whereas i believe hayman and these other men the enemies they're looking for the greed they're like oh i get to kill them to get their money but they don't you know they're not interested in the money they just simply want to be at peace they want to be pleasing unto the lord they don't want to be harassed they don't want all this evil to happen to them anymore so they just want to destroy essentially the wicked against them verse 16 but the other jews that were in the king's provinces gathered themselves together and stood for their lives and at rest from their enemies and slew of their foes seventy and five thousand but they laid not their hands on the prey on the 13th day of the month adar and on the 14th day of the same rested day and made it a day of feasting and gladness so on the 13th and 14th day 75 000 enemies were destroyed that's a lot of wicked people that's a lot of probably they're probably all reprobates and i mean you have to realize you say like oh there's a lot of reprobates today that was a lot of people then you know 75 000 people that came to destroy the jews and that's a lot of hatred but i love this phrase in verse 16 it says and stood for their lives you know sometimes you have to take a stand for your life otherwise if you just lay down or sit down and do nothing they will destroy your life you know if we don't fight for church we won't have a church if we don't fight for men to be men we won't have any men anymore if we don't fight for women to be women we won't have any women anymore if we don't fight for families that have children we won't have any children anymore you know if we don't fight for christianity if we don't fight for the king james bible we won't have a king james bible we won't have christianity we won't have a church you know if you don't fight for the first amendment you won't have a First Amendment. Some people get really mad at us for saying certain things. But it's like, OK, well, if you don't say anything, what's the point of even having a First Amendment? What is the point in you believing in the First Amendment if no one's allowed to ever exercise it? You know, the whole point of the First Amendment is to be able to say unpopular things. It wasn't designed to just say, I agree with the official narrative of the government on everything. What would be the point of having the First Amendment if all you do is just agree with whatever the king decrees every single time? The whole point of the First Amendment is that you can question, you can be skeptical, you can even speak against anyone and everyone for any reason. That was the purpose of the First Amendment. Why? Because they knew that what evil, wicked people do is they try to shut down people telling the truth about them. And they always label it as misinformation or lies or slander. They always project what they do on their enemies. They say, oh, this guy's a malefactor. And that's what they said about Jesus. Everything that Jesus did, I mean, Jesus is healing people of sickness. He's taking people that are crippled and making them walk, and then they're calling Jesus a malefactor. Why? Because he got up and said that the Pharisees were hypocrites. Because he said that they were destroying widow's houses. He was exposing them. It was like an exclusive interview. Jesus is going to tell you everything that the Pharisees is doing. This just in, Pharisees are hypocrites. This just in, Jesus said, hey, the Jews are controlling everything. I mean, it sounds like Jesus could just write all the headlines of today. I mean, this just in, the religious leaders all fake. This just in, the Jews aren't God's chosen people. This just in, the Jews are the synagogue of Satan. Hey, this just in, not the Jews kill Jesus. It's not really any shock. Hey, this just in, the Jews are willing to pay money and bribes to destroy Christianity. Oh, man, I wonder if that happens today, where Jews are willing to shell out money in order to shut down Christianity, shut down the gospel, shut down churches, shut down people preaching. You know, it's no new thing under the sun. All the same events. And we have to sometimes stand for our lives. We have to stand up and fight for our lives, because if you don't, no one's going to fight for you. They're all fighting against you. And this church is not one that's just going to lay down and just let the whole world go to hell in a handbasket. We're going to stand for our lives. We're going to stand for Christianity. And you know what? More important than just standing for my life is standing for my children's life and standing for my wife's life. I don't want to just live in a society and go out of the woods like Lot and for my daughters to say, who are we going to marry? Just think about it. I could go live in the woods by myself, and I could read the Bible every single day. I could teach my children the Bible every single day. And we could just serve God happily ever after out in the woods by ourselves. But here's the problem. Who are my kids going to marry? Me educating and preaching the gospel and having other churches also helps my children to have friends and have someone to potentially marry some day. Because I look out of the world, and I'm like, no. And look, there's exceptions. But generally speaking, I mean, you look out in this world, and you're just like, it gets worse and worse. And you're just thinking, I've told other people like this that don't necessarily go to our church, but they kind of became a hermit crab, as I would describe them. They just kind of hide from the world. And I say, who are your kids going to marry? I don't know. And I'm like, yeah. That's why God wants us to still be social. God wants us to have church. And God wants us to have community that is the local church. And God wants us to reach other people and not even just have that fellowship with other churches. One of the great benefits of being a New Testament church is that other like-minded New Testament churches should all work together and be of one accord and help one another and have that brotherly love and that spirit. It's so great that today we have a group of churches that are willing to fellowship and have conferences and preach for each other. And young people can meet one another. And people are getting married. And children are being born. And it's great to me when I look at Pure Words Baptist Church and I think about people that exist because of this church existing, it's like there's certain babies that I look at. And I'm like, you might not have even existed if our church never happened. Because your parents probably wouldn't have met. Or they may not have hooked up. And then they wouldn't have had you. And so it's like, you're like looking at literal fruit. There's couples that go to some of my other churches. There's one in the Dallas-Ford area. And they came up to me and they said, hey, we got pregnant because of your preaching. And I was just like, that's weird. And they said, well, we were on birth control. And then we heard a bunch of preaching about that. We decided to get off of it. And now we're pregnant. And that was a long time ago. So now they actually have the child. So I can actually look at a human living, breathing person that's a result of the King James Bible being preached. Myself included and other families, they may have decided to have more children because of the preaching of God's word than they already had. And so you have to realize that there's a huge impact to preaching for the Bible, preaching the word of God. And I'm not just standing for my life. I'm standing for that unborn baby's life. And by us being so vocal and us being so dogmatic and us just getting up and thundering forth and being bombastic about the Bible, maybe that encourages other Christians to speak up. And then look, in America, I mean, Roe v. Wade was literally overturned. And in the state of Texas and in other states, you can't even get an abortion like you could not that long ago. Someone needed to stand up for those lives. Someone needed to stand up for those children. And I've even seen a lot of testimonies. Some of these pro-lifers, they get up and they say, you know what, my parents wanted to have an abortion or whatever, and they got talked out of it. And I'm a result of not being aborted, and I'm so glad. Or a failed abortion or all kinds of weird scenarios where people get up and they say, I'm so glad that my parents didn't, they gave me at least an adoption or whatever, and then I'm alive. You know, it's funny to me, all these people that are so pro-abortion, why don't they start with themselves? It's because they're a giant hypocrite. Of course they love their life. Why don't they love the life of other people? Oh, but you're ruining mom's lives. No, she ruined her life by being a whore. Being a whore is the problem for her life, not having a child. The child was the blessing. You know, people look at children as a curse. Children are a blessing, okay? And obviously a bastard child is not ideal. It's not the best blessing that you could have. You know what, the child itself is not a curse. The curse was the STD that you got. The curse was being with a guy that didn't really care about you and left you high and dry when he found out that you're pregnant. You know, the curse is the fact that you got a child out of wedlock. But the child itself is not the curse. And people wanna end that child's life thinking, well, that's gonna stop me from having a job or having a career or having fun or doing all these things. But they're not gonna have fun anyways. You know, all these people committing abortion, they don't look like they're having fun. They're always miserable. It's funny to me that in the 1990s compared to right now, laws have changed so dramatically that you would think that the liberals would be so happy because they've gotten so much of what they wanted, right? I mean, you have gay marriage, which it's not really gay marriage. It's really just disgusting, filthy marriage. It's not marriage. It's just really just filth and perversion called marriage or whatever. But I mean, to be a sodomite is 100 times easier than it was in the 90s. It's so much better. But they complain and cry as if it was worse now than it was back then. Why, because they're not happy people. You know, all these evil satanic leftists and all these people that hate the Lord, they're never gonna be happy, it doesn't matter what. And in fact, in their mind, they would only be happy if all Christians died. But even when we died, then they'd be sad because they'd miss us. They would have no purpose in their life and they'd probably just kill themselves. You know, there's all these people that watch my preaching that hate me. And I think that they personally love listening to my preaching. I think it's like the highlight of their day. Like they probably are just like so excited to listen to the preaching. And if they didn't have like us to listen to or the word of God being preached, they'd probably be so bored, they'd probably just kill themselves. It's like we're literally keeping these atheists and phagnostics and everything like that alive. Now they talk about how we're increasing suicide, but we're probably causing them not to. Because all these countries, like Scandinavian countries, where it's totally accepted and there's no preachers like me, they're killing themselves way more than here. Because they have something to do, they actually have a real fight in their mind. Even though they're gonna lose and they're just losers in general, just the fact that they have something to do keeps them busy and distracted from just killing themselves for how much they hate themselves and how disgusting and filthy they are. But in these Scandinavian countries where they have no fight and they've already won and conquered, they just are committing mass suicide because it's like there's nothing to do. And they just hate everything, so they just might as well just kill themselves, abort themselves or whatever they want to do. And it's a misnomer that people like me are causing all these sodomites and stuff to be upset and mad. I make them happy. I give them purpose. I give them community. They all link up and they're buddies and they get to chat and they get to share my sermon clips. And I get to listen to all the best parts of my sermon that I forgot. Because they'll share it and I'll go listen and I'll be like, wow, that was a good point. I'm surprised I sound so coherent. You know, it's funny because when they do highlights of Biden, it's just laughable. It's like a gaffe and he doesn't even know what he's saying and he's like, two words, made in America. Like, what? You know, then they put a clip of Duncan preaching and it's just like awesome. He's like telling women to burn their pants and how wicked feminism is and I'm just like, preach. I wish there was a longer clip. Put up longer clips, you know? And it's just so funny to me. It's like we give these people some kind of a purpose, some kind of a life, but at the end of the day, you know, we still have to stand for our lives. We have to stand up and we have to fight and you know, our fight is gonna eventually come where all of these people are gonna be destroyed. Now, go forward to Revelation 19. I wanna kinda get into a little bit of symbolism before I kinda just finish this chapter quickly. It's kind of like this main one theme of fighting but there is a physical battle that's coming. Now, we don't have to necessarily, we won't really be part of it in the sense that we won't actually have to do the physical battling but there is gonna be a physical battle and it's gonna be a slaughter. Just like this one was a slaughter where the Jews got to do whatever they want, this battle's gonna be a slaughter. It's the Battle of Armageddon. Now, the Battle of Armageddon is one in which all of the Antichrists and his frenemies are essentially gonna go against the Lord. I don't know how they think they're gonna win this battle but they're somehow gonna think they're gonna fight the Lord and the Lord is gonna come out of heaven. We're gonna be riding with them into this physical battle and the Lord is gonna destroy them with a sword that proceeds out of his mouth. Now, look what it says in Revelation 19, verse number 14. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses clothed in fine linen, white and clean. That's us. We're in the battle physically. You're gonna be a literal soldier in a real battle. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword that with it he should smite the nations and he shall rule them with a rod of iron and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of a mighty God and he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. And I saw an angel standing in the sun and he cried with a loud voice saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves together into the supper of the great God. They may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of them that sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beasts and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse and against his army. And the beast was taken and with them the false prophet that wrought miracles before him with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and then that worship his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone and the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse which sword proceeded out of his mouth and all the fowls were filled with the flesh. So kind of at the very end of Daniel's 70th week, that seven year period of time, we've gone through all seven seals. And really if you kind of understand how the seals work, the first four are kind of like these apocalyptic seals talking about world war, famine and death. And then the fifth seal is this great tribulation seal kind of probably signifying when the Antichrist declares himself God and you have that great tribulation period. Short space when Christians are being massacred on a wide scale. But then the sixth seal is Christ coming. Then there's silence for half an hour and then we get the seventh seal. Now the seventh seal is different than all the others because it's the seven of sevens. So it's like the seventh seal and then another seven packed into it. Seven vile trumpets and seven trumpets and seven vile judgments that are poured out. And at the end of the conclusion of this is essentially Christ coming from heaven on a white horse with us. Now some people mistake this as the rapture. But here's the problem with that theory, which is real easy, is we're all with him on horses in heaven. How did we get there if we're still on earth and haven't been raptured yet? So that's not the rapture. The rapture was seal six. Seal six is when you have half of or some portion of Christianity in heaven coming with Christ and then you have a large portion from the earth coming and we're all just meeting together in the air. And then we're with Christ in heaven for approximately 42 months, whatever that, less, however much time the great tribulation is. So we're there in heaven and then as we're getting prepared for this battle, we're getting all our armor on, we're picking out our horse. I want like a giant white stallion. Just get on there. We're gonna get our horses and we're gonna get on there and then Christ is gonna lead the charge and then he just, we don't even have to do anything, it's just over. It's just like he comes down and just the sword proceeds out of his mouth and he just literally destroys all of these armies. But it's a physical destruction. There is gonna be a giant army of man that's just gonna be killed. And then all of the birds of the earth are gonna come and they're all gonna eat all of these dead people. And then I believe if you study Ezekiel, we're gonna be burying bodies for like seven months or something like that, some people will. So we'll have to bury their bodies for about seven months but then the Bible says that we're gonna turn all of our weapons into just like tools because there's no more war again for a thousand years. Look at Revelation chapter 20 and we're gonna kind of skip ahead a little bit but it says in verse number three, and cast him in the bottomless pit and shut him up, set a seal upon him, so it's talking about the devil, that he should deceive the nations no more till a thousand years should be fulfilled and after that he must be loosed a little season. So not only is Christ ruling, think about this, not only is the Lord Jesus Christ literally on earth physically ruling, the devil's not even allowed to be on the earth anymore. So the devil's not going around whispering in people's ear or wrecking havoc, I mean there's no false prophet, there's no beast, all the reprobates have been killed, every evil wicked person is punished immediately. It's really hard for there to be any kind of rebellion, it's really hard for there to be any kind of evil because all the evil's been snuffed out immediately and then any new evil will be shut down so quick it won't have time to spread. So you're gonna have a thousand year time of peace with Christ literally ruling and us ruling with him over this earth, okay? Now we'll be glorified at this point but I don't, in the descriptions of the word it seems like not everybody will be yet. So there'll still be that remnant of people that survived all this wrath somehow and we're ruling and reigning on the earth with Christ over them. And it's gonna be the Gentiles. It says in verse number four, and I saw thrones and they sat upon them and judgment was given unto them and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands and they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. So we have, in essence, a description of those who are ruling and reigning with Christ in a resurrected state. So not only is Christ resurrected but we will be resurrected too. And again, those who were raptured I guess they get qualified in this resurrection class or whatever. But essentially there's this first resurrection. We're ruling and reigning with Christ and especially those who withstood all of that drama of the antichrist and the mark of the beast and everything like that. They're ruling and reigning with Christ. Verse number six, blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. On such the second death hath no power. They shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years. So if you are saved, you cannot ever go to hell. Notice the second death hath no power. And again, the first death doesn't either, technically speaking, if you understand the first death as being hell. Because the first death is hell. The second death is also the lake of fire. But at this point, people aren't really going to hell. They're going to go to the lake of fire after the next judgment cycle. Because of course people that are dying, I don't know exactly how all this works, but notice that some people are already thrown in the lake of fire. You have the beast and the false prophet thrown in the lake of fire, which is the second death. And those of us that have been resurrected, there's no way for us to go to hell or the lake of fire because we're saved and internally redeemed and it has no power over us. There's no option of us to ever experience the second death. It says in verse number eight also, that we're priests, but I like this, and shall reign with him. Notice, it doesn't say we'll live with him. It doesn't say we'll watch him reign. It says that we'll reign with him. So notice, it's like, oh, why serve God? Because it's going to determine how you reign. It's going to determine how you rule in the future. I don't want to just be the doorkeeper in heaven and on the new heaven and new earth. I want to reign with Christ. But you know what? Reigning with Christ comes with a price. It's not free. He doesn't just hand it out. It's for those that are willing to sacrifice now and serve him now, and then you get to serve him in a greater capacity in the future. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle. The number of whom is as the sand of the sea. So what's interesting is how Christ comes to literally rule for a thousand years. But for whatever reason, that doesn't mean that everyone gets saved still. You know, some people think that like, oh, why doesn't Jesus just come down from heaven and then tell me to believe in him? Well, you know what? Even if he did that, many people would still not believe in him. Most people would still not. Because if you believe Moses, you'd believe me, for he wrote of me, is what he told the Jews. He didn't say like, oh, well now that you've seen me, you have a way better chance of getting saved. He kind of is insinuating that whether you get saved or not has really no impact than if you see Christ or not. Seeing Christ isn't gonna be the determining factor because we're saved by faith, we're not saved by sight anyways. We're saved by putting trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so there's still gonna be a large percentage of the population that is not gonna wanna believe in Jesus. And I think the reason why God did this is he really wants to drive home the impact of free will. Free will is really existent in the millennial reign because if you don't choose to believe in Jesus when he's ruling and reigning on the earth in physical form and there's no more hidden, like nothing's hidden, the knowledge of the Lord is everywhere, there's no opportunity to miss it, there's no confusion about it, and then you still don't believe in Jesus, what does that really illustrate? It illustrates you had free will because the only way to resist that is that you had the willingness and choice to do so, okay? And so what he's trying to do is he's trying to show Calvinists, it's not Calvinism, bro. Through hath resisted his will. That's a misunderstanding of that verse, buddy, okay? What the Bible teaches from cover to cover is that we have free will and that no matter what you give mankind, the vast majority will not believe in Jesus. For all of sin, all sin no matter what because of free will, but then even beyond the free will of just choosing to sin, most people will not even choose to believe in Jesus. And you say why, I don't know why. I guess just inherently free will is a very selfish thing. And only a remnant chooses to humble themselves and willing to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, trust him for salvation. But God is only going to live for all of eternity with those who humbled themselves and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. So after this thousand year experiment of having Jesus Christ ruling and reigning, you still have a large swath of people that won't believe in him, but you gotta do something with them. It's the last cleaning the barrage. Think about it in our story of Esther. Hey, on the first day we got 500, but there was still 300 left. And you know what? He's gonna consume them too. So just like we had the two days, we had the 13th and the 14th, we have the battle of Armageddon, but then we have Gog and Magog. So we have that second day of coming in and destroying that remnant and cleaning everything up. And then finally we have the peace. Finally we have just everyone saved and everyone's redeemed. And so you kind of have that picture foreshadowed in the book of Esther where you get that two days. You know, it always confuses me like, why do you have another day? But then it made perfect sense when I thought of it. I was like, well you have Armageddon and then you have the battle of Gog and Magog so you have those two days. Also you have other symbols in the fact that Christ was dead and you kind of have him rising on what? The third day and they have the two days of battle and then the third day they had a feast and they rejoiced and they kind of celebrated on the third day. Go back to our story. It said in verse number 20, and Mordecai wrote these things and sent letters into all the Jews that were in all the provinces of the King of Hazres, both Nigh and Far, to establish this among them, that they should keep the 14th day of the month and the 15th day of the same yearly, as the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy and from mourning into a good day. That they should make them days of feasting and joy and of sending portions one to another and gifts to the poor and the Jews undertook to do as they had begun and as Mordecai had written unto them. Because Haman the son of Amaditha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had devised against the Jews to destroy them and a kasper, that is the lot, to consume them and to destroy them. But when Esther came before the king, he commanded by letters that this wicked device which he devised against the Jews should return upon his own head and he and his son should be hanged on the gallows. Wherefore they call these days Purim after the name of Pur. Therefore, for all the words of this letter and of that which they have seen concerning this matter and which had come unto them, the Jews ordained and took upon them and upon their seed and upon all such as joined themselves unto them. So as it should not fail that they would keep these two days according to their writing and according to their appointed time every year and that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province and every city and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews nor the memorial of them perish from their seed. Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abba Hale and Mordecai the Jew wrote with all authority to confirm this second letter of Purim and he sent the letters unto all the Jews to the 120 and seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus with words of peace and truth to confirm these days of Purim and their times appointed according as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined them and as they decreed for themselves and for their seed, the matters of the fastings and their cry and the decree of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim and it was written in the book. So it talks about how they had the 13th day, they had the 14th day and then the 15th day, the third day as it were, they made it a day of rejoicing and gladness and they basically rejoiced and I think there's a little bit of symbolism there because you got the three days kind of makes you think of the gospel, right? And of course they killed Jesus on Thursday but you kind of have Friday and Saturday and then you have the third day, he's risen and you kind of have that rejoicing, that celebration and they're saying hey, we gotta remember these days. We gotta put it as a memorial. We gotta send it out. The whole world needs to hear about it and it's gonna be the same way when Christ is ruling and reigning that the word of God's gonna go out through the whole world. We have the gospel where the whole world goes out to every single person and it's important that we have memorials to remember certain events. We celebrate certain events even at this church. We'll celebrate Easter. We'll celebrate Christmas, just the birth of Christ. We'll celebrate different events to, we'll celebrate the Lord's Supper, to remember certain things about Christ and what he's done for us and it's good to have certain memorials, it's good to have certain days where you think about the things of the Lord and it reminds you of why you're here. God's really big on memorials because often when he would perform some kind of an action, he would give them a sign. Think about Noah's Ark. What was the sign that he was never gonna do that again? The rainbow and of course, that's why the Sodomites love to use that as their symbol but they're gonna burn in hell for all eternity so it's not gonna save them in there. It's funny, they're like, I'm never gonna get drowned. Well, you're gonna burn. And okay, you're going to a lake of fire. You're gonna drown in fire, buddy. You might not drown in water. That would've been better than drowning in fire for all of eternity and your little rainbow flag is not gonna be what you thought it was. It's not gonna be your savior. The children of Israel, they go across the Red Sea. They're supposed to lay up stones as kind of an altar, as kind of a memorial, kind of signify things. God gave them the tables of stones, kind of a memorial of the law being passed down and given to them. So we have lots of different memorials kind of found in scripture and while we don't necessarily have physical memorials that we celebrate in the New Testament, we can still at least take the symbolism of having a special holiday or a special Memorial Day to think about things of the Lord. I think just Sunday. Why do we even have church on Sunday? It's the day that Jesus Christ rose again. It's the first day of the week. That's what we have in scripture, recorded as disciples coming together but specifically that's when Jesus rose again and so we're setting day, one day every week to say hey, let's celebrate Jesus today. Let's think about God. Let's think about what he did for us to remind ourselves of why we even are here. Like what are we even doing here? You know, we're here because of Jesus. We're here because of the gospel. We're here because eventually we're going to rule and reign with Christ in all of eternity and why would I want to give all my effort and energy to the vanity, to the vanity of this world? You know, we need to set time apart to worship and honor the Lord Jesus Christ and what he's done for us and so as we read, as we kind of finish the book of Esther, you have to realize that you're gonna be on the winning side but how you live your life is gonna determine where you are in the ranks of that winning side and that's why it's important to keep serving him. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father for giving us the victory. Thank you for allowing us to come alongside your son to be heirs, to rule and reign with your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to have victory over our enemies and realize that we don't even have to lift a finger but rather we just simply put our trust in you and your son and that you will destroy them for us. You will avenge us of our enemies. I pray that we wouldn't envy our enemies, we wouldn't envy the temporary fleetingness of the vanity of this world, the stuff that doesn't even matter but rather we would find joy and peace and the things of God that we would set apart days like Sunday or special holidays to remind ourselves of the Lord Jesus Christ and what's coming in the future and that if we find ourselves in a dramatic situation instead of running away or being scared that we would just look at as an exciting opportunity for you to show yourself strong on our behalf. I pray that you would just help us to keep serving you and be better Christians. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Turn to our last song for the evening, 82. Song 82 in the hymnal. It's gonna be 82, When He Cometh. All together. When he cometh, when he cometh to make up his jewels, all his jewels, precious jewels, his love and his own. Like the stars of the morning, his bright crown adorning, they shall shine in their beauty, bright gems for his crown. He will gather, he will gather the gems for his kingdom. All the pure ones, all the bright ones, his love and his own. Like the stars of the morning, his bright crown adorning, they shall shine in their beauty, bright gems for his crown. Little children, little children, who love their redeemer are the jewels, precious jewels, his love and his own. Like the stars of the morning, his bright crown adorning, they shall shine in their beauty, bright gems for his crown. Amen, thank y'all for coming. God bless, you are dismissed.