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Episode 692: In this episode, we dive into Esther chapter 8, exploring the aftermath of Haman's downfall and the ongoing threats faced by the Jewish people. As we unpack the narrative, we discuss the complexities of the Medes and Persians' laws, which prevent even a king from overturning his own decrees. This sets the stage for a gripping discussion about the nature of courage, character, and the importance of vigilance even after a victory.
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You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. We're back. Yeah, it's good to be back in the studio with you, Wesley. It's good to be here. So today, before we get going, we're in esther Chapter eight and Estherra eight is all about what happens after the enemy falls. But the threat isn't over yet, and so they have to sort out all these details because the law the means and the Persians didn't allow a king to override his own loss, yeah, right to eliminate them or break them, and so this gets really crazy. It's all about the rescue. It's pretty pretty incredible. But before we do that, we're gonna Desiree has a segment for us called Who's most Likely? Okay, and so I have these five questions and we have to try to figure out are you more likely or am I more like? Okay? Are you ready? So number one, who's most likely to trip over? Nothing? Pretty good with walk? You're kind of you're kind of an expert. Not to show. Off, but I'm walking pretty good, So believe or not I do do that in a case I'll trip over nothing and they'll be like, what you do? What's I don't know? Over something? Okay, so I'm going to claim that one. Then, who's most likely to win a hot dog eating contest? Oh, I'm out, you're out. I don't beat person. So yeah, that's right. It's it's why our friendship struggles a little, Leslie is because you're not much of a medi guy. But okay, so I'm the eat hot dog eater anyways, so I love how Now. Would you do the Coney Island hot dog eating contests. Like the Nathan's when they have shot them down and I don't know, man, those dudes eat some hot dogs. But the funny thing is when you see them, they they weigh like a hundred parts. Yes, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what that's about. You're putting those hot dogs? Yeah, so between us, yeah, me eating a hot dog is going to win that cat someone. Okay, here's the third one. Who's most likely to become best friends with a dog at a get together? So I like pets. I don't know. That might be a tough one. Do you like dogs? Yeah? I like dogs. My wife and daughter love dogs, and I like cats better believe it or not. But so I don't know. I don't know. I normally don't go looking for dogs. If there's a dog in the house, do you go looking for the dogs? And I don't go looking for it, but like I'll pet them, and you guys have a dog? No, no, we have two. I didn't want any Yeah, I didn't want I didn't want any more dogs and. Compromised and got to you were gone once when you got one of those. Yeah, boy it was it was rough. So there we go. Okay, here's another one. Number four. Who's most likely to forget why they walked into a room. I've done that. I think that's gona be a tie. Say that's a guy thing. A little bit. I'll get into a room and go what am I here for? Yeah? Or like now I'm at the age now? So I just turned fifty four, I'm at the age now. Like if I've been down to tie my shoes, Yeah, I'll just stay down there and think there is anything else I need to do while I'm. Down here, like there's anything on the floor, because I. Don't want to go down here again. And then the same thing. I'll walk into a room I'm all excited, and then I'm like, I don't know why I'm here, especially if I burst into the room and then I tell a quick story, and then after the story, because I always have a story, Yeah, story. Comes out, and then I'm like, I forgot why am I here? But that's the thing when you're like in a hurry and you quickly go into a room, why did I just go in here? When I travel, you know, i'll be gone for a week or two, and then when I for ministry overseas, and when I get back, my calendar gets really stacked up and like there's no breaks, there's just bang bang bank. So I'll get six meetings or seven meetings in a day, back to back to back. And uh, not long ago, I had a day where I didn't have my phone. I'd left my phone in my truck, and I walked into a meeting, and as soon as that meeting was done, somebody else walks in. I couldn't remember who that person was. I didn't know what the meeting was about, and so I'm just kind of talking around the circles. Like, yeah, so how old is the family? Yeah, exactly, how do we know each other? It was in my head, but you know, I was acting like it's good to see you. And then finally they started kind of unpacking things and I was like, oh, thank goodness. I had looked at my calendar that morning. I knew all my meetings. I knew it. I could not remember who they were or what the meeting was for. So I'm going to own that one. That one I'm going to say is mine. I walk into a room and forget that's often what the next thing is. And then here's one number five who's most likely to laugh at their own joke before finishing it. My wife might say, that's me? Is that you might say that, Yeah, I like laughing at jokes. I would say, let's just vote zar Ball. Yeah, his own Chris. He's not here, he doesn't get to defend himself, and we don't want him to be left out today. So yeah, I've seen that in action before. I like telling jokes, uh that that I think are like super funny and you just can't get it out right. It just makes it funnier when somebody starts to tell a joke and they start laughing through their nose and they spit their pop out or whatever. You know, and there're the other person is just laughing at your reaction. Yeah. Yeah, they don't even know what the punchline is yet, but it's just funny, how that. Yeah, those are always so much fun. So, speaking about fun, you know what wasn't fun? What's that after after Haymon died, the King's law was still in place and they were still in danger. So, if you don't know, Wesley, Chris and I have been trying to have the worst possible transition from the opening segment into the into the study part of it. So that was the only bad transition I can think of there. So we're trying to be the kings of terrible transitions. So we are in Esther chapter eight, and Hayman has been executed because the king found out that he was wanting to kill the queen and every other Jew in the kingdom. But there's a problem, and that is that the law of the Meads and Persians could not be overturned by even the king who made the law. So here's what it says. It says on that same day, King Xerxes gave the property of Hayman, the enemy of the Jews, to Queen Esther. Then Mordechai was brought before the king, for Esther had told the king how they were related. And the king took off his signet ring which he had taken back from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai, and Esther appointed Mordechai to be in charge of Hayman's property. Then Esther went again before the king, falling down at his feet and begging him with tears to stop the evil plot devised by Haman the Agagite against the Jews. Again, the king held out the gold sep to Esther, so she rose and stood before him. Esther said, if it pleased the king, and if I've found favor with him, and if he thinks it is right, and if I am pleasing to him, let there be a decree that reverses the orders of Hayman's son of Hamadatha, the Agagite, who ordered the Jew that Jews stout all the King's provinces should be destroyed, for how can I endure to see my people and my family slaughtered and destroyed. Then King Xerxes said to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew, I've given Esther the property of Hayman and he's been impaled on a pole because he tried to destroy the Jews. Now go ahead and send a message to the Jews and the King's name, telling them whatever you want, and seal it with the King's signet ring. But remember that whatever has already been written in the King's name and sealed with the signet ring can never be revoked. So on June twenty fifth, the King's secretaries were summoned and a decree was written exactly as Mordecai dictated. It was sent to the Jews and to the highest officers, the governors, and the nobles of all the one hundred and twenty seven provinces stretching from India to Ethiopia. The decree was written in the scripts and languages of all the peoples of the Empire, including that of the Jews, and the decree was written in the name of King Xerxes, sealed the King's signet ring. Mordecai sent the dispatches by swift messengers who rode fast horses especially bred for the King's service. The King's decree gave the Jews in every city authority to unite to defend their lives. They were allowed to kill slaughter and annihilate anyone of any nationality of province who might attack them or their children and wives, and to take the property of their enemies. The day chosen for this event throughout all the provinces of King Xerxes was March seventh of the next year. A copy of this decree was to be issued as law in every province and proclaimed to all people, so that the Jews would be ready to take revenge on their enemies on the appointed day. So urged on by the King's command, the messengers rode out swiftly on fast horses bread for the King's service, and the same decree was also proclaimed in the fortress of Susa. Then Mordechai left the King's presence, wearing the royal robe of blue and white, the great crown of gold, and an outer cloak of fine linen and purple. The people zeus sell bright to the new decree. The Jews are filled with joy and gladness, and we're honored everywhere in every province and city. Wherever the King's decree arrived, the Jews rejoiced and had a great celebration, declared a public festival and holiday, and many of the people of their land, became of the land, became Jews themselves, for they feared what the Jews might do to them. Yeah, well there you go. Yeah that's good. I just noticed something for the first time I've read through Esther before. But the one line where it says verse eight, now go ahead and send a message to the Jews in the King's name, telling them whatever you want. Yeah, and still it with the king's signet. Right. Yeah. I was like, wait a minute, it seems like I never. Remember seeing that where they could literally write their own script. Yeah, you write, write whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. Boy. Talking about trust. Yeah, you know, a courage in the midst of fear and danger like that gets the intention of powerful people. Yeah, thinking, and he realized, Okay, I've got a man of integrity who tried to save my life. Who I have a woman who's she's very respectful to him, even here, if it pleased the king, if I found favorite love she Yeah, if you think it's right. I'm not telling you what's right, but if you think it's right, and if I please you in any way, then could you solve this for me? So she's not making demands, she's very, very humble, and all these things. And I think when he sees listen, she's polite even in the face of danger. She didn't embarrass me or put me in a bad situation. Haim and rescue her. I mean, Mordecai rescued me, saved my life from an assassination plot, and helped this young woman become a really great lady. I think at that point, all those things that their character caused this king, their previous proven character caused the king to trust them now to say, I don't know how to fix this, but you have been so good at fixing this problem up at this point in my name, use my signet. Just remember I can't overturn my own laws, right. But it's something you just said, the previous proven character. Yeah, yeah, I think about that just in our own lives. Can that be set for all of us? Oh? Can that be set for us on our job? Can that be set for us like in our neighborhood wherever do we have previous proven character in that area? Yeah? I think that's You know, you help out a lot with HR in our office. You do a lot of things like that, but one of them you do that in the HR thing. And one of the things I like to ask when I'm hiring somebody, especially in an area that I'm expecting growth in. One of the best indicators that somebody can grow their department is have they grown anything else? Yeah? Right? And to what extent and how significant? Yea? When did you ask me that question? When I first came to heritage, it was with groups, and I think that was one of the quest. What have you ever grown before? Yeah? Because I have a predisposition for growth. We want to keep growing. And so you know, a lot of people think they can grow a thing. A lot of people think they have good ideas and good plans, But have you ever actually executed on a plan you created and built something? And so I want to know, man, did you grow a paper route? Did you you know? Did you did you grow a youth group? Did you? Have you ever expanded the department? Have you? Because if you haven't before, I don't know that you can now. Yeah. And there's a difference between having the intellectual capacity on the subject of growth versus actually having grown something. That's two very different. And then the other side, you know, if people clearly show you who they are, believe them. So if they've had some some legal issues in the past, maybe you don't want to put them in charge of things today. Or getting business with them. Right, And I said in the recent past. You know what I'm saying. I think people can change, people can be restored in those kinds of things. But if you got fired at your last job because you sold some stuff, I'm probably not putting you in charge of the answers at this new job, right, that kind of thing. So recent character, how they recently demonstrated their character in the past, you can usually trust that they're going to continue on that path hopefully. Right. You still have to have parameters and all those kinds of things, And that's why he gave her the parameters of Listen, you can't override my law. I can't even overwrap. So he did give her some parameters to stay within. But the recent behavior gave him the reason to trust this current situation to them. And there's something to that. So, for those of you who know about the various Jewish holidays, this June twenty fifth kind of moment. This is the first celebration of what the Jewish community would celebrate pium right, which is the celebration of Esther rescuing the people of Israel, and I had the opportunity, I don't know, in two thousand actually to we did a thing in the White House. It was a briefing on religious freedom around the world. But then also while I was in Washington, d C. I celebrated Piam with a whole group of Jewish rabbis and had the opportunity to kind of sit in on this festival and they gave their speeches, and there were a couple of Jewish leaders from the in DC who came and spoke, and a few others, and it was just a really enjoyable evening to have them rehearse this whole story. They read the book of Esther, and they rehearsed the whole story and celebrated the fact that, hey, we wouldn't be here if it weren't for this young woman having the courage to step up. And I think about that that you think here we are now twenty five hundred years later, because this was four seventy three BC, so we're twenty five hundred years later and people are still celebrating. Thank God, Esther saved my family's life. I wouldn't be here today, you know, I don't know that she could have imagined that this would have mattered twenty five hundred years later, but it did. Yeah. Well it's the same way for us. Our behavior today, whether ethical or unethical, good or bad, can have consequences to subsequent generations. Yeah, just in our own lives. Yeah, it's powerful. So Purim is one of those if you ever if you have Jewish friends and they celebrate Puim, this is what they're celebrating is Esther's things. So here's what we have. The threat isn't over. Let's kind of go back to the beginning of this chapter. The threat's not over. Hayman is dead, right, that's good news. The bad guys out of the way. But his decree is still alive there, still existing because the king had signed that over and so once the law is sealed with the King's ring, it can't be revoked. And so a big thought that I had on that is just because the villain's gone doesn't mean that the danger is Yeah, right, So you still have to be vigilant, You still have to be intentional. Sometimes the impact of evil outlasts the event or outlasts the person behind it. And you know, for some of the people that are listening to You've had evil happen in your life or bad circumstances, and you still walk with the scars of that or the difficulty of that. So God will continue to give you grace, and God will continue to give you the ability to forgive, and He'll keep working in those things in your life. But then also sometimes just because you remove a person from a department, or just because you're able to get the bad guy out of the room, that doesn't mean that the damage hasn't been done or that there's not something already afoot as a result of what they did that you have to still root out those things. I'm working through an issue overseas right now where this is kind of a truth for me, and it became a guy that had been faithful for a long time wound up being released from a role for some integrity issues. But the way that it all went down and the impact kept stirring the pot. Here we are two years later and he's causing a tremendous amount of problems, So you know, I'm having to fix that issue. So sometimes you can remove the bad guy, but then you still have to deal with the fallout and the consequence of that. So being diligent beyond just the one event Hayman's gone. Now we have to be diligent beyond that and go, hey, we got to cross all our teas and out of our eyes or there's still the consequences to fall out from that. Yeah, well, I think of when you mentioned that, as far as removing, I just think of a personal situation with my grandfather, my wife's dad in how. And you've talked about your story before. My wife's dad was very abusive to my dad, and my dad ended up getting away from him, But those scars still remain, and you still have to deal with those scars and the pain and everything that comes along with that. Now my dad today, I mean he's gone through therapy, he's done all types of things. He's great and wonderful. Today, but for a long time he carried those scars with him as a result of what my granddad did to him. So and there was reconciliation at the end of that. So at the very end, they were able to reconcile. So you have with esther this courage. But she doesn't relax after the win, you know, and I love that she falls at the King's feet. Again, she doesn't have permission to come and see him, but she she's leveraging the fact that she's had his favorite this moment, she risks her life one more time. She falls at her at his feet, pleads for her people, and her courage wasn't just a one time act, right, which is I think so powerful. This wasn't a one time thing. This is a pattern. Yeah. And so when we're talking about character, you know, we talked about that earlier, talking about character, character is a pattern. It's habitually choosing to do the right thing, even when it's hard. Yeah. And in this situation, she risked her life one more time. She had the courage. Again. She didn't just take the win and go how we're done. She didn't relax after it. And so one bold moment is powerful. Congratulations, proud of you for that one bold moment. But consistent courage I think changes history. And here we are, twenty five hundred years later, still celebrate Piraum, you know, among the Jews, And so I think there's a lot of power and consistency over time, continually doing that. That's when characters formed, as opposed to a one time event. So here's the question Jeff through a grenade in the grade. But what happens when making the right choice is going to cost you a lot? Yeah? So you know it sounds and it's kind of what Esther was dealing with. I think we get it on like with minor things. But what happens when I know this is the right way to go. I know this is the thing that I should be doing. This is the way. North is the way I should be going. But North is going to cost me a lot? Yeah, then what do I do? So if you're doing it for God's cause and for God's purpose, you know that you're going to uphold righteousness and you're going to do the right thing, and you're going to go God's way. It may be difficult in the short term. There might be some difficulties that you're going to face. It might cost you. But here's what I know. God will never be in debt to you. You will never do better for God than God will do for you right and so God rewards those who do the right thing, even if there's a price to pay between here and there. It might be difficult for a while, but I do know this. God will reward you for doing the right thing, whether it's here on earth or in heaven. Either way, Hey, the book of Hebrews gives that whole list of all these great people of Hebrews, Chapter eleven. All these people did all these amazing things. Abraham packed up and went to a promised land. Moses led the people all these things. But then it pauses and it goes, and then some died, some were killed for the gospel right all these things, and so it doesn't always turn out perfectly. But God will always reward us, and so in the end it'll always be good. But in my experience, in my personal experience, I don't know that I've ever had a time that I wound up doing the right thing knowing it was going to cost me suffer through that process, and on the backside of that, God didn't step in and reward beyond what I could have anticipated. I didn't do it for the reward. I did it with confidence that God was going to work things out. But on the other side, it wound up being better, even though there was some pain and struggle. And what happens is that pain and struggle makes you stronger. Right, You only get stronger muscles by lifting heavier weight. And so sometimes it's not about what God what I want God. God isn't always working for my comfort. God's working on my character. So I can't pray God and make the rest of my life easy every. Day, Well, you're going to be completely ineffective, right, And so I think that's important. And then I love this too, that Mordecai gets raised up to leadership. Yeah, he gets Hayman's property. Yeah, and Hayman's job. Yeah, he's got the robe, he's got the ring, he's got Yeah. And God doesn't just remove the wicked leaders. He raises up righteous ones to take their place. That's what happened there, right, So when when godly people have the courage to step in and intervene and to do what they can do and trust God, God steps in and many many times removes the wicked one and puts in a righteous one. And so yeah, you know, we see that. So God flip the script. Only God can turn the hunted into the honored. Yeah, right, And I love that. That's good. So what else do we have anything else in there? Wesley? Do you have any other one final thought? I would just say, kind of like what we touched on before is just trust God. Trust God. Just trust God. I know it may be rough. I know it may be tough. I know you may not understand how the circumstance is going to unfold. But just trust God through the process. And like Jeff said, that God will work everything out for you on the back end. Yeah, but you just got to trust him. Yeah. Here's my last thought on this. Esther and Mordecai didn't just settle for survival. Yeah, they pushed to victory. Yeah, trusting God right, Yeah, they did what they could do while they were trusting God to do what only God could do. So they didn't just settle for survival. They pushed for victory. So I think somebody's listening today needed to hear that. No, it's good. Well, hey, thanks for joining us today. Tomorrow we're going to pick back up on the Bible. Guys,