Risking It for the Kingdom | How Esther Changed History | Esther 7:1-10

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways.

Welcome Back Esther. Chapter seven is all about the showdown.

The Queen risks everything and justice hits hard man. So

it's going to be a wild one. I'm super excited

about today. I'm Jeff and this is Wesley.

Yeah.

Good to be bad and we are so glad to

have you Wesley.

Before we jump into the Bible study part of it today,

Desiree gave us a really interesting moment here in this

first piece, and it's I can't believe that actually happened.

And here's what it says, Welcome back Wesley. To get

to know Wesley a little better, let's have him tell

a story that's so weird or random people think it's

made up.

The weirder the.

Home man, I've got so many of those.

What's going well?

I would imagine just crazy things that have happened. I

remember some years ago we took a trip to.

New York.

It was with a tour company, and literally everything on

that trip was a disaster. The bus looked like am

I get in trouble for this? But you know the

Rosa parks and not sitting on the back of the bus.

That's what the bus looked like.

Old.

This bus was a yeah, and everyone's looking like are

we really getting on that? So we get on this

bus and it's just it's old. Halfway through the trip,

the engine goes out. No, he got it back working,

but now the AC doesn't.

Work, so we've got all the windows. It was one

thing after the net.

We get to we were going to New York. We

get to New York. We're sitting there in front of

the hotel. They have no record of us and the

tour company arranged all this, no record of us being there.

It was a complete disaster.

No, yeah, so it was some kind of discount trip man.

Yeah, we're just guy in the seven eleven parking lot

selling the yp to New York City.

It was not good yet, Like everything was a disaster

about that trip.

Okay, note to self, don't go on trips so Leslie.

Or that tour company unless you like ancient buses.

It's funny. So for those listeners who don't know Wesley

Woods and I we get to work the other long Chris,

he works with us. We all work at the same church,

Heritage Church. And you've been in ministry a long time.

How long have you been?

Yeah?

I first became a minister in ninety eight, wow, nineteen

ninety eight, and then I went from minister to I

think assistant pastor, then to lead pastor, and then I

came over to Heritage.

H Yeah, Well it's been great man. Wesley and I

we have a.

We try to team up against our executive pastor, Chatty

as Man as often as possible, and we tried to

hold Chris about back as much as possible for just

running amoket right. So yeah, that's great, man. We're great

allies together. It's a lot of fun to work together. Okay,

So that was one story. Do you have another story?

Do you have another crazy one? Oh?

Man?

So that was that the New York story. Then also

related to New York, you meet some of the most

random stars.

In New York. Oh. Yeah, So we've.

Met a lot of stars, like in Uh, there's a

guy who's an actor producer.

We met in the elevator.

In the hotel. We met an x NBA guy at

a theater before. I mean just you bump into But

in New York, it's no big deal. You know here,

it's like, oh my goodness, that song.

In New York, it's like whatever, there's another celebrity.

Yeah.

Yeah, it turns out they're just normal people.

Yeah, there's just normal people and.

Just way richer and expect better service.

Yes, well, talking about way richer and expecting better ner,

we're talking today about the king and the queen and

one of the King's advisers, a guy named Hayman. So

to catch everybody up, we've been going through the Book

of Esther and a couple of interesting things. Esther is

the only book in the Bible that never says the

name of God in it, which is interesting. But you

see God's hand through the whole thing. You see people

of faith trusting that God is in control even though

his name is never mentioned, and it's telling the story.

We've been kind of going through that. All of the

Israelites have been in exile for quite some time. God

it said you're going to be in exile for seventy years.

Some of the kings began to allow them after that

seventy year period to go back to Jerusalem if they

wanted to, but some stayed, and Mordecai is one of those.

In his families.

One of those that stayed along with his what was

his adopted daughter esther she was a niece and her

cousin whatever, And then she winds up winning a beauty

pageant because the king gets mad at his queen and

he makes her the queen. She's incredibly powerful. But then

Hayman gets more and more impressive, he gets more and

more elevated in the kingdom and more full of himself,

and at the same time, he hates Mordecai because Mordechai

is and Israelite.

He's a Jew.

He won't bow down, he only bows down to God,

and Hayman hates it. So he finally gets the king

to say, all right, let's just kill all the Jews.

They don't respect us. Let's just kill them all, and

we're gonna have this massive genocide. And then after that,

the king winds up discovering that Mordecai had saved his

life from an assassination plot. So he's talking and he goes,

what did we ever do for Mordecai? He said nothing, Oh,

we should do something fancy. So right then Hayman's walking in.

He goes, hey, man, what should we do for a

guy that I'm just think is the best guy in

the world. He goes, Man, you should give him a

fancy robe, put him on your own horse. You should

send somebody through town in front, saying this is what

the king does for the people he likes. And he says, great,

then I want you to call that out while you're

walking Mordecai through the town. So this is just like

the greatest humiliation. He's so mad and it makes Hayman

even more angry. Well, during that time, Mordecai found out

that Hayman was trying to kill all the Jews, and

he goes to esther and says, hey, don't think that

because you're the queen, you're gonna be able to hide.

You know, nobody knew she was Jewish, but she was

trying to hide that. But he said, eventually they're going

to find out. They're going to catch you.

Yeah.

So he said, maybe God put you in this position

for just such a time as this, And she said,

all right, let's praying fast about this for a few days,

and then I'll go see what I can do for the.

King with the king. And then she said, hey, King,

we're going to have a party. And he said, great,

the party sounds great. So that's where we kind of ended.

Last time, which was great wisdom of her approach of

how she tried to do. You couldn't just go before

the king and different things like that.

So yeah, so.

We just caught everybody up and just like three minutes

caught him up a whole week's with it. You know what,

if if you haven't listened to the other ones, I

just caught you up on everything we talked about the

last all last week.

I saved you. I saved you five days worth of

listening to the Bible guys in three minutes.

Or they can just watch the veggietail version.

Yeah, rot, that's what I said that last week. Yeah,

I kept talking about the vegetail version.

So here we are now in Esther chapter seven. So

so the King and Hayman went to Queen Esther's banquet

and on the second occasion, remember she threw two parties.

While they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther,

tell me what you want. Queen Esther, what is your request?

I will give it to you, even if it's half

the kingdom. Queen Esther replied, if I have found favor

with the King, and if it pleases the King to

grant my request. I asked that my life and the

lives of my people will be spared for my people

and I have been sold to those who would kill, slaughter,

and annihilate us. If we had merely been sold as slaves,

I could remain quiet, for that would be too trivial

a matter to warrant disturbing the king. Who would do

such a thing? King Xerxes demanded, who would be so

presumptuous as to touch you? Esther replied, this wicked Hayman

is our adversary and our enemy. Hayman grew pale with

fright before the King and queen, and then the King

jumped to his feet in a rage and went out

into the palace garden. Hayman, however, stayed behind, de plete

for his life with Queen Esther, for he knew that

the king intended to kill him. In despair, he fell

on the couch where Queen Esther was reclining. Just as

the King was returning from the palace garden. The King exclaimed,

will he even assault the queen right here in the

palace before my very eyes? And as soon as the

King spoke, his attendants covered Hayman's face, signaling his doom.

Then Harbono, one of the king's eunuchs, said, Hayman has

set up a sharpened pole that stands seventy five feet

tall in his own courtyard. He intended to use it

to impale Mordecai, the man who saved the king from assassination,

then impale Hayman on it. The king ordered, so the

impaled Hayman on the pole he set up for Mordecai,

and the king's anger subsided.

Yeah, well there you go, Wesley.

Yeah, that's good. People tell me man. Sometimes I have

a hard time reading the Bible. I can't track along.

It's not very interesting.

This is very interesting. We've got ups and downs and yeah.

One of the things that just comes to mind just

as we get to the end of verse ten is

the fact of how God can make all things work

out for your good.

Yeah.

And in the case of Mordecai, this looked bleak. I mean,

Haman is after him, wants to take him out. But

the very what does it say that Haman has set

up a sharpened pull that stands seventy five feet tall

in his courtyard. He intended to use it to impale Mordecai.

So essentially, God took that situation and turned it upside

down and worked it out for his good. And all

the times it won't make sense. A lot of times

we try to make sense out of how or why

God will do what he will do. But we have

to just have faith and trust that God will do

what he said and stop trying to figure out God

and how God's going to work it out.

Sometimes I think we're just nosy. We just need to

stay out of God's business. Let God be God. You

have the faith, let him be God, and let him

do what he needs to do.

Yeah.

I have found myself praying this often in my life.

In the last I think the.

Older you get, the more maybe mature you get with

regard to how you view things hopefully and in things

that in the past perhaps I would have been nervous

or worried about. Now I just find myself saying, God,

I'm going to do what I can do, and You're

God and I'm not. Yeah, and that phrase God your

God and I'm not I'm going to trust you.

Jesus said it, your will.

Be done right, not my will, but your will be

done And that's really that idea is when I recognize, listen,

I'm doing the best I can, and God expects me

to do the best I can. But ultimately he's in charge,

and so he's God and I'm not. And then there

really is interesting. God's sense of justice is pretty phenomenal.

Here Hayman is planning to impale Mordecai on a seventy

five foot pole in his own courtyard, and instead guy goes, no,

I think that's how I'm going to dispose of Aimen

right for wanting to wipe out his people.

So there's that. So there's a few things here.

One Esther has tremendous courage, and we saw this last

week when she went into the king without being invited.

So even though she was a queen, he had you know,

many many many many many concubines, all those things. He

did whatever he wanted. She was a queen, she was

the most favored woman in his life, but she still

had to have permission. As a matter of fact, she

was supposed to be summoned by the king, but if

she needed to meet with him, she'd have to apply

for a meeting, and then he would grant this meeting

with her, but she didn't do that. Instead, she prayed him,

fasted for three days, and then she just walked into

the king's.

Hall, which could have been very dangerous.

Yeah, if he raised his if he refused to lower

his scepter, she would have been executed. So the courage

of that was phenomenal. But then here she throws two parties.

The first party, they throw it and the king says,

I'll give you half my kingdom and she goes, you

know what, the only thing I want is for you

to come back for another party, both of you, you know,

and he goes, oh, okay, parties are great. So then

in the second party, it says that they had you know,

drunk well, and then she had the courage to now

admit who she was for real, Hey, my people are

about to be executed by this guy. Meaning now, if

the king preferred Hayman over her, or if the king

felt like he couldn't reverse his ruling on this, she

was going to die with her people and maybe she

would have been able to preserve it.

So this courage, right, she.

Risks everything in front of an extraordinarily powerful and then

I think we've seen an outrageously unpredictable King, what this

guy does just spur the moment. Stuff is very unpredictable.

And so she shows a tremendous amount of courage in that.

It's inspiring to me.

Yet one of the themes here with that is the

courage to do what's right when no one else is

with you. And I think about that, how just in

our personal lives, it can be in a job situation,

it could be anywhere. The courage to do what's right

when everyone could be doing the opposite.

Or when no one is with you.

You got to make the decision that, you know what,

I'm going to have the courage to do what I

know is right, no matter the cost.

And that's exactly where Esther was.

You know, you know, she didn't wait for the perfect moment.

She created it. She created it with prayer and fasting

and with the tools in her hands. Right, she was

the favorite of the king. She was a beautiful woman.

She threw a party as she would have done as

a courtier. Anyways, Yeah, she used what she had and

then guts. Right, So prayer, fasting, what she has in

her hands, and guts, and she didn't wait for the

perfect moment. She she created it well. She was trusting God.

And I love that kind of initiative.

And I love the point that you just made. There's

no perfect moment, No.

I think oftentimes we like to wait for the ideal circumstance,

and that circumstance will never come along.

There never is an ideal circumstance for anything. You got

to just do it right.

Yeah.

Yeah, And I love the fact that she had the

guts when he says, who would do something like this

to you? And she goes that wicked Hayman. She called

him out there, right, She called a spade of spade

in that moment. And you know, here's Hayman. He's playing

political chess, maneuvering and trying to, you know, be slick.

And sometimes we can get way too clever for our

own selves. Yeah, and then we get trapped in our

own traps. Do you ever play chess?

Did you? Did you grow up playing chess at all?

No, it wasn't. I was a checkers guy.

With chess.

Well, checkers. You can do the same thing in checkers,

but in chess. I love, I loved chess, and I

still do.

I like to play.

Sometimes it's the strategy, but yeah, and you have to

be way out ahead, right, and you're always planning ahead.

And there have been many times where in my plan.

I thought I was out ahead, and and then I

find out my opponent knows where I'm going. Yeah, they

see my plane, and then they back me into a corner,

and my own plan gets me in trouble and defeats me.

Right, And this is what happens.

He's playing political chess, uh, and and he forgot who's

really in control. God was many steps ahead of him,

backed him in his own corner and impaled him on

his own pole. Right, And that's uh, that's pretty amazing.

So he goes from being honored to hunted literally one conversation.

And then how weak of a man is he? When

the King gets mad and he goes out into the

courtyard just to think about cool off a little bit,

and Hayman falls down on her couch.

Dude, he shouldn't be that close to the.

King's but I can just picture and have mercy on me, please.

Yeah.

Yeah, but he's on her couch, he's on her bed,

begging her.

When the king comes and goes.

You're gonna assault her in front of me? It's literally checkmate.

At that point.

Yeah, but what's funny about that? Esther didn't even correct it,

She just let the king go and oh my, yeah,

that's the funny part.

And so I think a lesson to be learned from Hayman,

quite honestly, is pride always overplays its hand. Yeah, And

you know, Chris and I have talked about this several

times in talking with our staff. We've been on this

run over the last and you know this, it's been

a decade rocket ship, just riding a rocket ship at

Heritage Church. And then we've seen thousands of people come

to faith, and we've baptized thousands of people, and we

don't have any room on Sunday mornings, and we've had

to launch new locations. Our new location we launched like

five how many how many months ago? Six months ago,

seven months ago? September is yeah, yeah, had over seven

hundred people this past weekend. Right. It's just it's phenomenal

and so on a regular basis, And you've been in

many of these meetings when we're with our staff reminding

them listen, God to doing something special. And we have

to stay holy, we have to stay humble, we have

to stay helpful, right, over and over and over again.

God opposes the prout, but he gives grace and favor

to the humble, and I think a lot about I

remember one time Rick Warren talked about this. I was

in a meeting out in California with him and a

few other guys, and he mentioned and then later on

I heard him teach this on video. He mentioned he

tried to learn how to surf, and he said there's

this big lesson in surfing that he just feels like

it began to consume his life when he realized it.

He said, I can go get training. I can practice.

I can learn how to stand up and have my balance,

and I can strengthen my muscles. I can learn how

to swim really well. I can buy the right equipment.

I can get on a good wet suit. I can

learn how to swim way way out. I can learn

how to ride larger and larger and larger waves.

He said.

I can buy the best board and I can polish

it and prepare it. I can swim out until I'm

ready to get on the largest possible wave. I can ride,

but only God sends the wave right, so even then

I can do all I can do but humility says,

I'm not the one that's actually creating the opportunity.

God is yeah, right, And.

So I do all I can do, And I see,

this is what you're doing with what you see with

Esther versus what you see with Hayman. Yeah, Hayman's playing

political chess, and he gets burned. He's so prideful, and

pride pride always outplays its hand. But Esther uses all

the skills and tools she has, but she's still fasted

and prayed before this day, relying on God. I'm going

to need you to send the wave. I'm going to

need you to send the things. And that kind of

humility God always responds to.

And it's something about timing, like you mentioned, with catching

the wave at the right time, she had the wisdom

to know kind of like the party situation, Yeah, we're

going to do another party. She was able to navigate

the timing correctly so that the situation could come out

to her benefit. Sometimes we do things and we have

the wrong timing. So it can be a good idea,

a good concept, but if you have the wrong timing,

it just won't work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, timing is incredibly important. And Zaraba and

I have talked about this a few times about the

importance of diplomacy, and a big part of diplomacy is

timing right, that you do the right thing at the

right time, the right way.

Yeah.

And it's possible to do the right thing at the

wrong time and get the wrong results. It's possible to

do the right thing the wrong way and get the

wrong results. But if you can do the right thing

the right time, the right way, then you're gonna get

good results. And that's what she did. So there's so

much wisdom in this. You know, Mordecai should be proud

as a stepdad, as a you know, I think they're cousins.

He's an older yeah, and she's a young woman, but

he helped raise her. He should be proud. And then how

he challenges her through this book. He's encouraging her to

do the right thing, he's encouraging her to be courageous.

He's encouraging her all the time, and then he challenges

her at the right moment to say, Hey, maybe God

put you in this position just for such a time

as this, And I think about that, you know, you

might feel like, you know, the reality is this is

a forced relationship. The king just went around and said,

I'm going to pick the prettiest girl in the kingdom.

All the girls have to come.

She didn't have a choice. And then whether she wanted

to be his wife or not, it didn't matter. He

just took her.

Right, So this is a pretty somewhat demeaning circumstance she

finds herself in. Well, very demeaning circumstance she finds herself in.

She's powerless, you know, she has the opportunity for the

pearls and the silks and all those kinds of things.

But hey, who wants to be just taken by some man, right,

even the king. So there's this this situation that she

could have been bitter about every moment in this. But

Hayman said, maybe God allowed this in your life just

so you could save all of us. Right, what if

you weren't the one there, and what if somebody else

was there who didn't care about us at all?

If it would this queen?

Yeah, yeah, right, you know what I mean, you would

die too. Yeah, So so maybe God put you there.

And I think about it that that she could have

sat in the corner, resentful of everything that happened in

her life up to that point, feeling like it was

all a waste, like there was no purpose and angry

at everybody, or she could take this challenge and step in.

And I think there's there's a lot of people who say, well,

you know, I don't know how I can serve God.

I'm I'm an engineer, or I'm a business owner, or

I'm a I'm a mom, or I'm a teacher, and

I really don't see how my life is ministry. I

don't know how I can serve. And and the reality is,

what if God put you in that classroom for for

these kids right now.

So they could know Jesus? What if?

What what if God's whole plan was that you, as

a parent are raising the next Billy Graham?

What what? What if? What if?

Right?

What if you're where you're at for just this time?

And if we would look at our life that way,

it would give.

Purpose to so much more of what we're doing and

then also have to do is I think we need

the timing that you mentioned, We need boldness and courage

and then trust that God's going to do what God's

going to do.

Yeah, and we can ask God for the courage. If

you don't have the courage.

Ask God, God, give me the courage, give me the

strength to keep persevering and moving on, and he'll give

it to you.

That's fantastic.

Well, I hope that this was interesting to you. We're

going to keep going tomorrow on the Bible guys, but

thank you for joining us today.

We'll see you tomorrow