Hi, this is Nikita Kolov from the Q&A with Kolov Podcast, where you, the listener, get to ask me the questions, where you get a personal phone call from the Russian nightmare. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a moment. Sit back, enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. Well, we're glad to be back on Truth Talk Live, and how fun is the question today? When was your, when was your for such a time as this moment, right? We all have our opportunities like Queen Esther did, and I bet you had one, and I would love to hear the story today on Truth Talk Live.
When was your for such a time as this kind of Esther moment? We'd love to hear the number. To call in and share that, by the way, is 866-348-7884, 866-348-7884. And here to help me share these Esther ideas is my good friend, Dr. Duane Carson. And so, welcome, Doc. Ah, thank you, Robbie.
Good to be here with you. I'm looking forward to unpacking some things from Esther. Yeah, so those of you who may not be familiar with Esther, it's quite a book in the Bible.
It's kind of tucked in there, as I recall. Is it Nehemiah and then Esther? No, no. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. There you go.
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. E-M-E-N-E. So then, right after that comes Job. So you go into the sort of— Yeah, the wisdom books.
The wisdom books. And so it's kind of— This is history. It's tucked in there as kind of the last history book, and it's a very fascinating book because you'll find that the name of God is not mentioned in the book.
And there's lots of reasons for that, where I'm told. And historically speaking, it's because we're told that—and I'm not saying that this isn't the Bible that says this—but historically we're told from the Jews who had the history books on it that it was written by Mordecai. And Mordecai knew that there was 127 provinces of the Persian Empire at that point in time, and that this scroll, which is called the Megilloth, and that would be read in all those 127 provinces, and he wanted to make sure that God's name wouldn't be blasphemed. And so he did not purposely put God's name in the scroll. But, fascinatingly, the word Esther means hidden. And so God may be kind of hidden in plain sight throughout the whole book, as is Esther, because you don't know where Esther necessarily came from until later chapters in the book, because she purposely—per Mordecai, who is one of the heroes of the story—so if you meet the characters of Esther, they start out with King Ahasuerus.
Like say that name. Oh yeah, a fun name to—and some people would think that was King Xerxes I, depending on how you want to say it. And nonetheless, he was the king of Persia, 127 provinces, maybe one of the largest empires said of all time that it was huge.
And since it was so huge, they had all kinds of different religions. And this king was so powerful that he wanted to, like all kings, keep his kingdom. And he realized that what had happened to the Babylonians was they lost their kingdom due to a little problem called the Jews. And so much of the book of Esther is kind of also hidden in plain sight, is that Ahasuerus realizes that his, you know, one big downfall could be in, you know, the wrong move for the Jews, one way or the other. And so he starts to throw all these parties. And not unlike Balaam, if you're familiar with that story, where he tried to curse the Jews. And when he couldn't, he suggested, well, get the midnight women, or midnight women to come over, and we'll get them to sin, and then God will turn his back on them. And so interestingly, he had that kind of plan for the Jews, and he threw a huge party, and then he wanted his queen, Vashti, to come and show off for all that.
And that plan went awry for him a little bit, and he ended up— Vashti had some virtue. Yeah. And unfortunately, she kind of lost her head over that deal, and certainly was no longer the wife of the, and so now they needed to find the wife of the king. So they went out and essentially kidnapped women from all 127 provinces, one of which was Esther, which she did not tell anyone, was actually the niece, and she was raised by Mordecai, who was at the time in the Sanhedrin, and he was notably, you know, the head of the Jewish faith at the time in that area, and so like the head rabbi at the time, and the high priest, so to speak.
And so, you know, it was kind of an interesting thing that the king unknowingly marries, right, this person that happened to be also from the tribe of Benjamin. Yeah. And so that all plays into a lot of different things, and I wish I could go into all the details that this means, but essentially, the short version of the next person in the story that shows up is by a guy by the name of Haman. And Haman is— Evil Haman. Even Haman, he was an Agagite.
Yes. Which meant that, unfortunately, there was a King Agog that was supposed to die by the hands of Saul, and you might even remember King Saul was the first king of Israel, and he was supposed to wipe out all these Amalekites, and King Agag was one of these guys. So Haman was a direct— Descendant.
Yeah, descendant of Agag, and so that makes him an Agagite. Well, when he didn't kill him, unfortunately, he went out and had a baby, and the next thing you know, oh my goodness, here comes this whole race of Jew-haters, right? Jew-haters. From a long list of Jew-haters, clear back to Esau. So this is a really, really bad blood that comes into the story that wants the Jews dead, too. And so he goes crosswise with one of Benjamin's descendants, who will not bow down, which, interestingly, Benjamin was the only tribe that did not bow to Esau, because Benjamin hadn't been born yet. However, when he won't bow, then Haman comes up with this plan, that he's going to annihilate all the Jews, because Mordecai won't bow. Kind of really went out there, didn't he?
Not just get one. Let's just go kill all of them. So that's just the backstory for those people who are not familiar with it. Now I'm going to actually read some scripture to you, because they want to make a very, very important point that I did not actually realize until recently, okay? So the king goes along with Haman in this, and so it says in chapter 3, verse 10, So the king took a signet ring from his hand, and he gave it to Haman, the son of Hamalathah, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. And the king said to Haman, The money and the people are given to you.
Do with them as seems good to you. And the king's scribes were called, and here's the important part, Here's the important part. On the thirteenth day of the first month, and a decree was written according to all that Haman commanded. Now the thirteenth day of the first month is Nisan, or Passover, okay? The first month in Hebrew is the month of Nisan. And so we realize that, oh my goodness, this is happening at Passover. Not when all the Jews were going to get killed, but when the edict was written. And so what we're going to talk about coming up is more on what Esther was involved in, so that you can see when was your for such a time as this, because you're going to see how it relies to Christ in a big, big way when we come back.
Stay tuned. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Well, welcome back to Truth Talk Live. When was your for such a time as this? And we're trying to give you the back story of for such a time as this to some extent. And when we left our hero, Esther, she had, well actually Mordecai was the hero that we had left. And he, in chapter four, finds out that this had been called upon to massacre the Jews on actually the fourteenth day of Adar, which is the twelfth month.
But all this happened during Passover week. So he makes this huge plea to Esther, tells her that you've got to come, right? And they go back and forth a little bit, but I'm going to read from chapter four, verses starting with 13. It says, Matt Mordecai told Esther, do you think in your heart that you will escape the king's palace any more than all of the other Jews? Escape in the king's palace. In other words, for if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise from the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this? And then Esther told Mordecai, she replied, go gather all the Jews that are in their present incision and fast for me. Neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise, and so I will go to the king, which is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.
Okay, so now let's go back to what we talked about right before the break. This is happening on Passover, which is the same thing as Holy Week, okay? The Last Supper is the first day of Passover, same thing as the 14th day of Nisan, right? And so she starts this fast on a day where they're not—they're commanded to eat of unleavened bread, they're commanded to eat of the bitter herbs. In other words, what she's saying is, look, you've given me a death sentence, Mordecai, in one of two ways. Either the king accepts my invitation, which means that for the first time I'm literally asking the king to be with me, which makes her, you know, unholy.
It's a sin from their point of view to marry somebody outside of their own faith. She'd been forced up to that point, so if I perish that way, I'm perishing to the law, and if he doesn't, they're going to kill me as soon as I walk into the king. And so she's saying, either way, I lose in this deal, I'm dying. Sound familiar?
This is after three days, right? And when you think about it, she's saying, so what I want you guys to do is I want you to go break the law and fast for these three days of Passover, which again, that means no unleavened bread, no matzah, those kind of things. It's like, if we're all in this to repent, which is the whole idea, by the way, is to repent so that the people will come out from underneath God's judgment, and they eventually will go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, and all that stuff's got to happen so Jesus can come.
And this is a big ushering in of that age right here. And so it's fascinating to me when you get to chapter 5, verse 1, what happens after the fast is it says that now it happened on the third day that she put on her royal—robes is what it'll say in your Bible, but it does not say robes in Hebrew. It says she put on royalty, which means that she put on dominion and power. The Jews themselves teach that she put on the Holy Spirit, and she stood in the owner court of the king's palace. Now, to stand is all over spiritual warfare.
I mean, to take a stand is a big deal, and she stood in the inner court of the king's palace. And when she stood, the Jews teach—and this is historical, not biblical—the Jews teach in their Talmud and Midrash, et cetera, that Esther quoted the 22nd Psalm. Well, what's the 22nd Psalm?
It starts out like this, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And if you hadn't seen the picture of Jesus yet and the idea that Esther is fixing to die here, right, and she's resurrected as the king raises the golden scepter and allows her to come in and eventually, you know, spoiler alert, the Jews are not killed. But the point is, you see, she literally did what Jesus told us to do, was lay down your life, right?
And she told the Jews to lay down their life in repentance. And so what is that story like when you think about it in your own mind? What does that relate to, like, in your world? So you might not be shocked to know I have a story. And so I was a car dealer, actually, at Mocksville, North Carolina, and God called me to do the Christian Car Guy show, which scared me to—I mean, I was not a radio person, and that's a whole story in and of itself I won't go into, but I was laying down my life, believe me, to get behind the microphone for the first time, because I was not a public speaker in my own mind.
Nonetheless, I did that, and interestingly, I became full-time at Truth Radio in the year of 2007 for such a time as this. Well, this happened to be the time when all of the car companies were going bankrupt. And in 2008, in the spring of 2008, is when Barack Obama issued a decree to the president of General Motors that he resign.
In other words, you know, it was unheard of in the history of the world, you know, of the United States anyway, for a standing president to tell a corporate chief that he has to stand down. It was just, you know, Rick Wagner at the time was the president of General Motors. And so, you know, interestingly, all of a sudden, this publicist came to me and General Motors needed to be saved, and they said, Robby, do you know how to save General Motors? And I said, well, it just so happens I do. And he said, well, you write an article on how to save General Motors.
I said, I'd be glad to. And so I wrote that article, and within hours of that being published at my website, Fox News got ahold of that, and then they called me for such a time as this to go on Fox and Friends on a Saturday—might have been a Sunday morning—Saturday, Sunday morning, you know, right at that time, which by the way, it's still at the Christian Car Guy website, you can see that interview, right? The fascinating thing to me is, I really related this to the Book of Esther, is you only have about nine minutes, and now you're on national television, right? And you are the Christian Car Guy. And so what do you want to talk about, Jesus? What do you want to talk about, God? I had it all set at what I was going to say in my mind, but you see, when you're the host like me, right the second, I control the conversation. I can answer questions, or I can, you know, I can, you know, so interestingly, I had my moment in the sun with the people at Fox, and I did give them an explanation on how to save General Motors, which by the way, I'll give you real quick. Here it is.
It's the same today as it would have been there, and whatever car company decides to take this on, they will do what Ford did, and become a leader in the auto industry overnight, and it will be such a huge success, it'd be unbelievable. Here's the question. Here's the way to do it. Build a car that Americans can afford without going into debt. Wow. Genius. Okay. I mean, that's what Ford. Build a car that people can afford without going into debt. I love it. Yeah, yeah.
That's all it takes, and they all looked at me like I was a nut, right, and I said, wait a minute. It's exactly what Henry Ford did. If you go back and you study what he did, he wanted to build a car that his own people could buy with three months of his wages, and what did he do? He figured out how to make the floorboards the same size of the shipping grades, and he did all these ingenious things because his whole motive was to make a car that people could afford. So my reasoning was sound, and it's still sound, and it's fascinating to me that the way Hyundai came into the market and rose to the top was they built a really inexpensive car. How did Honda come into the market and raise to the top? They built a real inexpensive car. You want to come into the automotive market right now and raise to the top?
Guess all you got to do is build the least expensive car. It's pretty simple, but for such a time as this. Now with all that said, when was your Esther moment? When did you come for such a time as this?
866-348-7884. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. Today's question is when was your for such a time as this moment? We would love to hear your story 866-348-7884, 866-34 truth. Once again, we have Dr. Carson with us, and so I know I went through a whole lot, a whole lot. A whole lot. Real quick, but.
Great background. I just, your thoughts, my friend. Well, I had not thought about the fact that it was Passover and that they were supposed to be eating, and for her to say we're going to fast. It's like saying we're going to fast this year for Thanksgiving, right?
A day of fasting. You got to be kidding me, but there's a seriousness here. She knows, yeah, she's going to die, and to take the stand that we're supposed to take for the Lord at times does put our life in danger. And the great Christians through the years who have stood for sola fida, faith alone, believing that the only way you get saved is by trusting the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. No works, just faith has cost a lot of them their lives. As we think about the Anabaptists and we think about the Reformers down through the years, and now in our time we're supposed to take a stand for righteousness, and it can cost you. We can easily find ourselves being no longer in the workplace. We, I'm losing my word, Robbie. Relevant?
No, it's the left's number one thing to do to a person now. They cast them out. It's another word. Cancel. Cancel, that's it. You can get canceled so quick and no more influence, and that's what they want.
They want to shut the Christian up, and for such a time as this, sometimes a student has their moment when everybody's making fun of Christianity and is, hold on, I just want you to know I am one, and you're talking about me and my Savior. And there's your moment right there to shine. Right, and so I bet you had one of those, and we would love your story. 866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH. Of course, wonderfully we have Bucksman with us, so Bucksman, you're on Truth Talk Live. You got a story? Oh, well, after hearing yours, Robbie, if mine really, really pales, I am going to the Christian car guy tonight, and I would love to see that interview.
I did not know that about you, brother. That's incredible. And also, you're teaching on Esther. Brother, I've read Esther a bunch of times, and just like Dr. Carson there, I did not know that about the timing was when they were supposed to be eating, but she denied to stay true to her vow, and Ecclesiastes 5 tells us, don't make a vow unless you're going to keep it, and dear Esther did. And just as you saw, she saved the Jews of that time from being murdered by, what was his name, Haman? Yeah. Wow, Robbie.
I want to go back and listen to this podcast. I can't wait till Saint Nick posts this, because I was actually talking to Saint Nick while you were giving the pre. No, really, and I'm a Bible nut like you guys, so I did not know that about the book of Esther. I knew about God not being mentioned, but I did not know that it's because of the providences, and Mordecai wanted to, that, brother, Truth Talk Live, this is why you send them money.
Thank you for this network. I just learned a bunch just in the last 30 minutes, I guess, so awesome, but for my story, guys, all I can say is, you know, to come up close, is I remember my wife saying her grandmother was sick in the hospital, and we knew grandma to be Catholic, a devout Catholic, but she would have her days, my wife would say, and the family knew this, she didn't always go, you know, to confession, she just, you know, but anyway, so she's basically on her deathbed, guys, and I perk up in one of the family meetings as they're talking about what we're going to do when grandma passes, and I piped in thinking eternally, even in those days, I said, do we know if grandma's saved or not? And all of the family was like, no, we really don't, to be honest. I said, is anybody going up to grandma's room to share the gospel with her?
And they all just kind of look at, no, that's not what Catholics do. So I said, for crying out loud, guys, I'll go. So I got in the car and drove to Miami Valley Hospital in downtown Dayton, and I shared the gospel with grandma. And she looked at me, you two and said, I love my Jesus, is what dear grandma said.
And I gently gave her a hug. And the next thing I got you guys was this, one of the cousins of my wife said, hey, we just went up and visited grandma. And you know what she told us? And we're all like, what she goes, she was all perked up. And she says, I'm going to dance on Sunday, everybody. This is grandma talking, dancing on Sunday. And they're like, grandma, I don't think you'll be dancing.
You're you're in the house. No, no, no, I'm going to be dancing on Sunday. Guess what day she died? The cousin left her.
She died on Sunday. And you're telling us there's dancing in heaven. Oh, yeah. And then Pastor Carson, I mean, even just telling you guys that story right now, there's goosebumps inside the busmobile.
Oh, yeah. You know, speaking of goosebumps, I didn't tell the what I wanted to tell about my story was that during that interview, I did get to explain how to save General Motors, but they would not let me go anywhere. Or, you know, I felt like they didn't let me go. And I didn't have a way to share God or Jesus or anything in the eight or nine minutes that I was given in the thing. And so when I got off the air, my wife was there with me in New York, they put me in a really nice hotel. And I got off the air, I literally broke broke down bawling thinking I totally here I had a chance with whatever the audience was 8 million or whatever.
And I failed to mention God, Jesus or anything. And I just broke down. I was just bawling at what a horrible thing that I had done, you know, like, and I, if I could have felt any lower, I don't know how I couldn't.
I mean, I just felt like I totally had the chance for a lifetime, and blown it unlike, I didn't get a chance. So we go back to the hotel. And when I get there, I have an email. And by the way, my email had blown up, my Facebook had blown up, everything had blown up. And, and my email that I did come through, said Robbie, you know, I'm one of your listeners, whatever city I don't remember. And they said, I had told my girlfriend in California to watch, because the Christian car guy was going to be on Fox and Friends.
And she said she watched, and she could see Jesus in your face. Wow. There you go. Wow, Robbie.
And talk about chill bumps. I just wept. And I weep inside just thinking about how God had that email for me that day, you know? Yeah. Amen.
To strengthen you up, to shore up those legs that need shored up there, brother. So you know, it was it was an Esther moment in some sort of way, I don't know. But I do know that it's really, it's really amazing how God, you know, we were talking about it before the show, Dr. Carson, I that, you know, apart from me, you can do nothing. But with him, you know, Grandma can be dancing with Jesus. And you know, that's the beautiful thing.
With him, he does exceedingly abundantly above anything we ask or think. That's the amazing thing. Yeah. So what do you know, you got a story out there. You had a moment. What was it? 866-348-7884. You take care, my friend. Good to talk to you again, boxman.
866-348-7884. We need your stories. We would love to hear it.
But Dr. Carson, we haven't heard yours. Oh, there's, there's several, you know, there are times when you get put in situations where, for me, I found myself like Nathan, revealing their sin. Yeah, it's got to be dealt with. And you have to confront and, and, and, and I can't go into the details, but having to deal with something that was so difficult to confront someone and the person that said, Pastor Carson, you've come to the kingdom for such a time as this. And, um, and, and, and realizing what Esther had done, and now with more insight of what she had done, knowing that I was going to have to say something, I had to speak up. I had to call the person out and it was going to be one of the most difficult things.
And it had lingering impact of impact of people who are very much upset that I called them out. What's your story? We need to hear it.
866-348-7884. So you're saying you could die. We'll be back. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com.
Oh, welcome back to Truth Talk Live today. When was your for such a time as this moment? When was your Esther moment? We would love to hear your story.
The number to call in and share is 866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH. And, you know, I certainly love, I'd love to hear how God comes through in all sorts of different circumstances. You know, you heard Buxman's story about sharing Christ. I certainly have stories along those lines where, you know, God's given me that honor to do that and be part of that for such a time as this, but then also to confront somebody with their sin. And as Dr. Carson was explaining over the break, that interestingly, you know, due to that, there was a three-day interval in that as well that, you know, it's interesting that God would give you that same kind of three days.
Three days, you got to get this resolved in three days. Wow, a lot of prayer. And, you know, for each of us, I do think we need to be looking at Esther as one of God's great examples. Dr. Falwell called her one of God's great champions. You know, his deal was raise up champions for Christ. So he did a sermon on Esther where he talked about her being one of God's great champions, and she met the moment. And you think about like an athlete.
They have to do so much preparation so that at the right moment they can perform at their highest level. And I think about our good friend Stu Epperson's constantly challenged us to witness and to be ready to. That's that Esther moment. There's somebody close to you.
Why? Philippians 1 says that Paul says the things that happened to me have happened for the furtherance of the gospel. And all of a sudden I've got a flat tire. I wonder if that's so I can share the gospel.
I'm at the hospital. I wonder if that's for me to share the gospel. I've got this friendly waitress here just exuding life and joy. Is it an open door to share the gospel with them? They're friendly. How do I?
Hey, can I just ask you a question? Esther moments where you're now helping to rescue somebody who is dying spiritually. Right. She rescued a whole nation from dying physically.
They were going to be annihilated. And yet she stood one of those Ezekiel verses. She stood in the gap and stood. She stands. She did.
She stood. So we got Mike is in Dayton as well. And we got Mike. You're on True Talk Live. Uh, how you doing, sir? Um, yeah, what he does with Dr. Carson. Is that right? Yes. Um, yeah, yeah. Uh, what he just said is what I was on my mind.
Um, I'll give a story. Um, a guy, guy was running down the road past my, uh, uh, past my, um, camera shop. And, and I stopped him. I said, how are you doing? He stopped. He looked at me and I says, I looked at him and I says, you know what?
I think, you know, Christ. And he goes, man, that is a great compliment. And then he goes, and he goes, how do you know? I says, because you have a smile on your face.
Most people around here don't have a smile on your face and you do. And that edified him. That was him. And I said, keep sharing the gospel, keep sharing God. He says, I needed to hear that.
Thank you, sir. And, and he moved on, you know, I mean, he, he, he, he got back in his running stance and he ran away and I didn't really get to share too much with him, but that's our, that's the moments that God wants you to do is obedience to him and understanding that he's wanting you to share him with other people, even with other Christians. They want, you want to sharpen other Christians. Esther sharpened other, other Israelites.
They were, he was, they were, she was telling them to fast, telling them to get ready for God. Let's do this with God. We need to do the same thing with other Christians, you know, as well as non-Christians. We need to sharpen each other. You know what I mean?
The Hebrews talks about stirring one another up to good works and love. Yeah. Good word, Mike. You reminded me that just this weekend we were sitting in a subway. We'd taken one of the ladies in our church to lunch and, and this girl, actually lady went by and she had a t-shirt on that said, God is my friend, you know? And I just said, hey man, I love your shirt. Oh, that began a conversation.
It was a cool shirt. It had a picture of what looked like, you know, a friend of God on the front of it. She goes, well, this is my daughter's book. My daughter wrote this book. And I said, wow, I just happened to do a radio show called Kingdom Pursuits where we talked to authors. And so, you know, next thing I know, I found out that she's, I invited her to her church.
This is funny. My wife got a big kick out of it. And I said, you know, if I don't know where you worship, but you know, I'm the pastor of West Ashboro Church, we'd love to have you come join us. And she says, I can't. And Tammy was like, my wife, she says, what do you mean you can't? And she goes, well, my husband's a pastor. What would her answer be?
That's a good reason. And then her husband walked up and we just had the best time. You know, we just, it was, it was really a wonderful moment of edifying, just like you said, Mike, it was, you know, just a moment, but it was a good moment for them. It was a good moment for us.
You know, again, you see that smile and she had it just like you're talking about, Mike. And I think that it's very edifying when people recognize you and your faith, but also as an opportunity, well, you know, to share if they weren't prepared, right? Right.
And I really believe that we need to do more edification. And then that's why I love the show. That's your, you're, you're making me put on the full armor of God. You know what I mean? It's like, get, you know, get, get to know God, get to pray with God, walk with God, do everything with God, you know what I mean? And, you know, and it's just, I just love listening to you guys. I listen to all the broadcasts and it's just really helping me to, to be strong with God.
You know what I mean? It's just awesome. And you help us too, Mike, believe me, your, your seatbelt story is alone if, you know, just continue to wow me. But, you know, I was thinking about what you were saying a second ago, Dr. Carson, about that during those three days you had, you prayed and you prayed and you prayed. And I had a similar story.
I won't go into the story, but it was, it was over work and I had a chance. I would have lost my job easily because I was raising the God flag, but God was pretty same thing. I prayed and I prayed and I prayed.
I don't remember how many days it was, but I do know that God ended up showing me favor, but it's a big part of it. When you're in that time where you're up against something, it's like, prayer is a big part of what, Esther did it for three days and fasting is a big way to enter into a battle like that. And then we go to Jesus is ask about how to deal with difficult situations that God's got demons. This only comes by prayer and fasting. And part of that preparation for dealing with difficult situation is that we have the discipline. We have that spiritual discipline of prayer and fasting in our lives. And then we're prepared for those opportunities and all of a sudden it shows up and you've got to be the Esther and you're God's spokesman at that very moment to represent what God says.
And I still go back. You and I are ambassadors. We're not supposed to be afraid of saying what God's kingdom is all about.
We're representing him. Which the fast is a big part of that when you think about it because you're denying yourself. And so you're more prepared in the moment that Esther was to deny herself. Look, I may die, but I'm gonna do what I can do to save my family. I may die, but I'm gonna do what I do because God says is him.
And eventually I win. I don't know exactly how it may look to the world, but you know if you're following what God asked you to do, whether that's in your occupation or wherever it is, and fasting really helps you prepare to deny yourself. You know, Robby, even in the fasting, as for people listening, just give up your coffee in the morning and said, instead of giving, you know, drinking your coffee... Well now you've gone to Medlin Mike.
That just hurt my toes. Oh yes, I'm sure. I'm sure.
Believe me, I do it, and it's hard. Wouldn't it be a sacrifice to get close to God? I mean, that's the whole idea, you know. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Yeah, and the whole idea is to deny yourself and get into his presence, you know. And you know, you may know that Nikita Kolofu often does this show. I mean, he's one of the most disciplined fasters that I know, period.
I mean, I've never met anybody, and he really helped teach it to me and my wife as well, and that is an amazing thing when you begin to practice it regularly on all sorts of levels. But Nikita, man, if you can imagine, you know, being on a fast with Nikita Kolofu, because he is the Russian nightmare, and he can give you a look like you're not going to have any coffee, Robby. He gave me that look over the very issue you're talking about, the coffee. Like, I was freaking out because I couldn't have my coffee, and Nikita does the look. I'm just saying. It's just like, you do not want to go in the ring with this guy. I would love to meet him sometime, though. I love this speech or sermon the other day about worship, and the other day I've been listening to the dark-skinned blacks worship, and they know how to worship another program powered by the Truth Network.
