She closed the door to being pampered in her flesh, and she opened the door willingly to a life of sacrifice, and if need be, giving her life for a noble purpose.
She was one person at the right moment making the right choice. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Pastor Skip explains why discovering your purpose in life is so significant, but first... God has revealed Himself and His will through Scripture so that we can know Him and connect with Him in a meaningful way. That's why we share these messages, to help you connect to God through His Word and grow in your relationship with Jesus. And when you support this ministry through your generosity, you keep these teachings you love available to you and to so many others around the world, helping others grow and connect with God. Just call 800-922-1888 to give a gift today. That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate.
That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Thank you. Now, here's more about this month's resource to help you get to know the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. How deep is your understanding of the Holy Spirit and the gifts He gives?
Listen, as Skip Heitzig unpacks his person and power in this teaching clip. The Holy Spirit is a divine person who helps us. How many of you think you need all the help you can get to live your Christian life?
Yeah, I'm with you. We need help. As you grow in your understanding of the Holy Spirit through our Connect with Skip Heitzig monthly resource, you'll learn how He helps believers, that's you, to walk with Christ.
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Call 800-922-1888 or give securely online at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Great. We're going to be in Esther 3 as we join Skip today. Turn in your Bibles to the book of Esther. It's in your Old Testament. If you're unfamiliar with exactly where to find it, find the book of Psalms. Go left to the book of Job. One block left of Job is the little book of Esther. We're going to look at the story of a woman who had both beauty and bravery. It's one of the great stories of the Bible.
We won't be able to cover the entire story. We're going to parachute in at a very strategic time and look at this woman. We're doing a series called Kingdom City, and we talked about men that changed the world. Well, you're about to see a woman who changed the world, and her name was Esther.
Jean Kerr was an American author and playwright, and she wrote rather humorously. She said, I'm tired of all the nonsense about beauty being only skin deep. She said, that's deep enough.
What do you want, an adorable pancreas? Well, beauty might be only skin deep, but it is what attracted the king in the story to a young woman by the name of Esther. She is called in chapter 2, lovely and beautiful, and she won the beauty pageant in Persia. She became Miss Persia, if you will, and she won the king's heart, and she won the favor of the court, but more importantly, she won victory for the Jewish people in this book of Esther. Now, her name is Esther, but her original name in Hebrew was Hadassah. The Persian name was Esther.
It means star. The Spanish word estrella, Esther, comes from her name star, and she is the star of the story. Herbert Lockyer wrote a great book called All the Women of the Bible, and he said, because God is no respecter of persons or sex, he used and still uses women to accomplish his beneficent ministry in a world of need. Men and nations are influenced by the quality of women, and it is still true that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Here's what I like about Esther. She had everything she would ever want, but she closed the door to being pampered in her flesh, and she opened the door willingly to a life of sacrifice, and if need be, giving her life for a noble purpose.
She was one person at the right moment making the right choice, and you got to know that history is filled with people like this. You know, one soldier, one artist, one statesman, one explorer, one preacher, one inventor, so one missionary gives his or her life, and a tribe is evangelized. One statesman stands up, and a nation is saved. One citizen steps forward. A neighborhood is changed. One student speaks up.
School policy is altered. John Salisbury reminds us of the power of just one vote. He writes, in 1645, one vote gave Oliver Cromwell control of England. In 1776, one vote gave America the English language instead of German. In 1845, one vote brought Texas into the Union. In 1876, one vote gave Rutherford B. Hayes the U.S. presidency. In 1923, one vote gave Adolf Hitler control of the Nazi party.
One vote, one person, one choice, so powerful. This woman, this one woman, Esther, coached by her cousin, named in the story here Mordecai, saved the Jewish nation. Now, let me give you a little bit of background. Esther was a Jew. She didn't tell anybody that she was a Jew because her cousin Mordecai said, don't do that.
She will let the cat out of the bag, but at a very strategic moment. She finds herself in the kingdom of Persia. The king of Persia at the time is a guy by the name of Ahasuerus. That's how he's known in this book, Ahasuerus. He is known most typically by his Greek name in literature, Xerxes I. Interestingly, Xerxes or Ahasuerus's dad was a guy by the name of Darius, and his granddad was Cyrus the Great. Cyrus the Great is the one who let the Jews go back after the captivity to the land to rebuild the temple.
The year is about 480 BC. Darius, his dad, had fought battles against the Greeks and was unsuccessful. The son Ahasuerus is having problems on the western front with a growing number of people, the Greeks. A battle had been fought 10 years before this by his father called the Battle of Marathon. It's famous because the Athenians, the Greeks, won that battle, and one runner went from the battle 26 miles back to Athens to tell the Athenians the news that they won.
That's where we get the origins of the marathon race, 26.2 miles, because of that dude who ran back to give the news. So that battle, 10 years before this scene, had been fought. The Persians lost, and this guy Ahasuerus is trying to strengthen that front and win more battles. Eventually, we know what history says he will lose when a young Greek general named Alexander will take over the Persian Empire as well as the rest of the world.
That will be the history they are walking into. So this king Ahasuerus has a wife. His wife's name is Vashti. Vashti is summoned by the king.
She refuses to come in. The king kicks her off the throne and replaces her with a young, beautiful woman from his harem, and her name is Esther. She probably woke up every day like, how did this happen?
How did a girl like me get to a place like this? I'm the queen of the world. She's about to find out why she is in that position, and we along with her. So what I want to do is kind of, as I said, parachute into a very strategic moment, not go through the whole book, but just tell you the salient points of this story. And I want to give you four traits, four traits that made Esther a kingdom-minded woman.
Here's the first. She lived during a national tragedy. Things got really bad in the empire. I'm going to take you to chapter three of the book of Esther, and I'm going to take you right into the midst of a law that was just passed in the Persian Empire, verse 13 of Esther chapter three. And the letters were sent by couriers into all the king's provinces, and here's the letter, here's the decree, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews. Genocide for all the Jews in the Persian Empire. Both young and old, little children and women, in one day on the 13th day of the 12th month, which is the month of Adar, to plunder their possession. So about a year from the date the edict is signed, this was to happen. Verse 14, a copy of the document was to be issued as law in every province being published for all people that they should be ready for that day. The couriers went out, hastened by the king's command, and the decree was proclaimed in Shushan the Citadel.
It's the capital city of Persia. So the king, now mark this next name, the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Shushan was perplexed. A plot has been hatched. A nefarious idea came into the mind of a guy by the name of Haman. Now, you know, Jews to this day, when the name Haman is mentioned, will go, or boo, and they'll stomp their feet and they'll make noise.
In the synagogue services, every Purim have these little ratchets that they use to make noise, and they'll boo them. So when you hear the name Haman, boo. Come on, come on, come on.
Haman. Yeah, yeah, that's it, that's it. So you can do that now the rest of the service. So a plot was hatched by Haman to kill all the Jews, or to to use Adolf Hitler's language, what do I do about the Jewish problem? And the solution was to exterminate them.
A little bit of history on this. The Jews had been exiled to Babylon. Babylon is now gone. There is no Babylonian empire. The Babylonian empire was succeeded by the Medo-Persian empire.
The Persian empire, this empire of Ahasuerus, extended from Libya all the way to Pakistan. It was huge. It covered most of the geographic regions of the populated world at that time. It is estimated that under 50,000 Jews had returned back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Remember I said Cyrus said they could go back after the captivity. Only less than 50,000 Jews went back to rebuild their country. Most of the Jews stayed. Want to know how many? 15 million 15 million Jews.
The population, the Jewish population of Persia, scattered through 127 different provinces at the time, some estimate to be 15 million Jews. Now anti-semitism is legal. If Haman succeeds, very good, class. If this guy succeeds, I didn't even say his name, Sima Down.
If he succeeds, twice the amount of the Holocaust in terms of Jewish population would have been destroyed. A horrible law was passed. Well, Mordecai and Esther, again they're related.
Mordecai works in the court. Esther is the queen. They didn't even know about that. They're not in the place when that edict was signed. They are unaware of it. They learn about the plot afterwards and they learn that there's a hatred for the Jewish people that they were unaware of. And let me say this reminds me of the United States of America before 9-11. Before 9-11, we didn't know that there were a lot of people out in the world who actually hated America and wanted us destroyed. We knew there were people here and there who didn't really like Americans, but we were unaware that a whole growing number of people referred to America as the Great Satan and wanted America destroyed because of our allegiance to Israel whom they also called the Little Satan. We were unaware.
After September 11th, we got schooled and we became very, very aware. And so I read the book of Esther and I got to say this sounds very contemporary because we're dealing with ancient Persia. Ancient Persia is modern day what? Iran.
Iran today, according to the United States State Department, is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. And they work through proxy groups all scattered through the Middle East. North of Israel, they work through Hezbollah up in Lebanon and Syria and down south. As we now know, everybody knows, they work and are funded by Iran and that is the group Hamas. So whenever I hear, whether it's at a university or at some political gathering, some protesters shouting out, from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free I shake my head and I say, I wonder if they even know what they're saying. What they're asking for is what we're reading about in this book. They're asking for total annihilation of Jews in Israel.
The elimination, the extermination of the Jewish state of Israel in modern times. Now the leader back then was Ahasuerus. Not anymore. I think if we had Ahasuerus, we'd be better off than the leader of Iran presently. His name is Ibrahim Raisi. He's a cleric, a radical cleric. His nickname, the Butcher of Tehran.
He got that name back in the 1980s. He superintended the slaughter of thousands of people, including women and children who were opposed to his regime. He has vowed to liberate the Middle East of the Jews and deal with the Jewish problem once and for all. Amazing how history repeats itself. Israel today finds itself in another Esther moment where people are calling for annihilation. But pause and pivot for just a moment. I want to think about something else.
I'm going to be very delicate how I say what I'm about to say. It's easy for us as we sit in our church in the west to condemn Hamas and condemn the genocide or the gasp at the death sentence that a group of people wanted to perpetrate on Kibbutzim and unsuspecting children and et cetera what happened on October 7. And yet, around us are billions of lost people who are under a sentence of eternal death. And as we enter the holiday season and we enjoy our feasts and festivities and our gathering together, celebrations at church and decorate our trees, we need to ask ourselves, what am I doing to get the gospel out? To deal with the billions of people who are under that sentence of eternal death, we need to ask ourselves, what am I doing to get the gospel out?
To deal with the billions of people who are under that sentence of eternal death if they don't change and continue in their lifestyle what they're going to face for all of eternity. And I'll tell you that being restless about this is a good thing, not a bad thing, not a guilt thing. Well, don't get me all guilty because back in 1865, there was a man by the name of a group of friends to a resort, a seaside resort in England. He went.
They wanted to have some fun. He really wasn't having much fun because he was just burdened about the future, his future. And he was very aware of the facts, suddenly aware of the fact that there's lost people, like everywhere. And he was specifically concerned about where God might have his life fit into that. And he went to church one Sunday in that seaside resort town and he said in his words, I was unable to bear the sight of the rejoicing multitudes in the house of God.
Yeah, they were happy and they were singing and that's good, but he wasn't. So after church, he took a walk on the beach and it was there that God spoke to him about starting China Inland Mission and giving his life as a missionary to China. That angst that was building up was based on this issue of what do I do about that?
And I am so thankful for the example of Hudson Taylor because several years ago, I was able to meet the great grandson of Hudson Taylor who was serving and working still to this day in China following his great grandfather's example. So that's Esther. She lived right smack in the middle of a national tragedy.
Second trait, she responded to a widespread anxiety. Now you can imagine that once the Jews found out about this edict, there was a lot of anxiety going down. So look at verse one of chapter four. Chapter four verse one. When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, went out into the midst of the city, cried out with a loud and bitter cry.
He went as far as the front of the king's gate, for no one might enter the king's gate clothed with sackcloth. And in every province where the king's command and decree arrived, it was great morning among the Jews with fasting, weeping, and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. This guy is grieved, and his grief is loud, and it's demonstrative. He tears his clothes and wails, and that is a Middle Eastern, an ancient, but even modern Middle Eastern response in a grief situation. Some of you have seen television reels of funerals in the Middle East. If you've ever seen a Middle Eastern funeral, you will never forget it. There's wailing and tearing of clothes and throwing dirt in the air and people clawing the casket as it goes through the streets. It's very, very vocal and demonstrative, whereas we in the West were very reserved about the way we grieve, not over there. So Mordecai hears it and immediately he tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth. It's like gunny sack.
It's black goat's hair, very uncomfortable. And ashes, to add to the desperate look, ashes and sackcloth speak of desolation in ruin. And according to verse 15, this sentiment spreads throughout the land. Jews grieve everywhere. It's always amazing how tragedy brings people together and provides a unity like nothing else. Again, my mind goes back to September 11th. Remember September 11th? If you were around, remember how the public treated each other? Remember the the tearful crowds and the reporters with shaky voices? Remember how Democrats and Republicans sang on the steps of the Capitol together?
God bless America. Churches were filled. We came together over this tragedy, over this grief. But in this case, the tragedy and the anxiety produce activity. Something is stirred in Mordecai.
Something has to be done about this, he thinks. And he wants to get that message to Esther to think the same thing. That's Skip encouraging you to discover the purpose for which God made you.
It's a message from the series Kingdom City. Find the full message as well as books, booklets and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. We love to partner with friends like you to share God's life-changing truth with people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Through your generous gift to support this ministry and keep this program reaching you and others around our nation and all across the globe, you can take part in this life-changing work today. To make a gift to help grow this ministry and continue to share God's love with more people, visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate or call 800-922-1888.
800-922-1888. Thank you for helping change lives. Join us again tomorrow as Skip shares how God works behind the scenes to provide a way. It's all about God. Behind the scenes, you know, I often like to say, and I've said it for years, John Nelson Darby's famous quote, God's ways are behind the scenes, but he moves all the scenes that he is behind.
So providence simply means that God supernaturally arranges natural events and he arranges natural events so that a supernatural outcome comes to pass. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on his word. Make a connection. Connect with Skip Hyten is a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.
