Good morning. Good to see you. We'll be on lesson seven this morning. And talking about morning, but the other kind of morning, from morning to a good day. And of course, all through the lessons so far, except for, you know, last, last week, it was been all bad news. But now we're going off all good news. And Esther 9, 1 through 22 is what the scriptures this lesson is from and we'll read these scriptures as we get to them. Of course, in the book of Esther, now we're to the point, you know, first of all that Haman was going to have all the Jews killed, but now Haman has been hung on the very gallows that he built for Mordecai. And we have seasons of life ourselves sometimes that are very difficult and emotional, but it's God's grace that sees us through, that makes it bearable. And in the end, we know even victorious. Of course, Esther and Mordecai both knew of these times very good. But we know Haman hated the Jews, but there's still people in the world today that hate the Jews. Anti-Semitism is still a very big problem in the world today. And when I say they hate the Jews, I don't mean they just don't like them, not that they're prejudiced to them. They hate them to the point that they're okay with anybody killing the Jew at any time. They're just like Haman, they want to be eradicated. like we would want a virus eradicated. That's about, they don't even give them the level of an animal. They think of them more as a virus that just needs to be taken care of. And because of this, In 1921, they did a study, and American Jews are changing their behavior, limiting their activities, concealing their Jewishness due to concerns about anti-Semitism because they are worried for their life. 39% say they had changed their behavior out of fear. 25% have avoided posting content online that would reveal their Jewishness, or their views on Jewish issues. 22% refrained from publicly wearing, carrying, or displaying items that might enable others to identify them as Jewish. 17% avoided certain places, events, or situations out of concern for their safety or comfort as Jews. 52% of Jews, the age between 18 and 29, say that they conceal their Jewishness. They just don't tell people about it. I put, I give you, handed out, I hope everybody got one, or each family got one, a Jewish calendar. And I did this so, you know, if we can see, because we talked about when, Haman had planned to kill the Jews. And now we're going to talk about the same date as given for when the Jews actually destroyed the people that were against them. And so I thought if you could see how the Jewish calendar worked time-wise with the calendar that we used. Of course, it's completely different. Really takes a lot of studying. Some people have studied it more, and some people sort of know a little bit about it. But just to give you an idea, you can look at the month that we use, and then on the graph, you can see what month it would be in the Jewish calendar. This also may help you if you're reading the Bible. If you're, you know, and it gives you the month in the Bible, then you can look and see what month that would relate to on our calendar. Esther revealed her Jewish heritage and Haman's plot to kill her people. Because she revealed that to the king, she was able to save the Jews. Not only that, but Mordecai was lifted to the position of Haman. Because he had that position, he sent out a new decree that allowed the Jews to defend themselves. Esther 8 and 11. wherein the king granted the Jews, which were in every city, to gather themselves together and to stand for their life, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish all the power of the people and province that would assault them, both little ones and women, and to take the spoils of them for a price." This was granted months ahead of when Haman planned to kill the Jews and when the Jews actually turned on their aggressors. But even though months went by and they knew that the Jews were going to be able to defend themselves and they knew that the king was supporting the Jews, people still hated the Jews. There was many that were still against the Jews. They didn't care. They wanted to kill the Jews if it meant losing their own life. And that's exactly what happened with many of them. But God's hand of protection was once again over His people. When you think about this really turned on a day. the situation, and what we have, maybe we could think of, is World War II, and not just a day, but I know there was a day when the victory was claimed, but when we look at it, I don't know how good you can see this on here, but you see soldiers in battle, getting ready to go into battle, and then the difference in that picture And this picture, which was as many of these pictures taken once we had victory. So, I wasn't living back then, but I read and studied about it. And really, it was just, the country just completely changed once we had victory. And just like the Jews did, they went from mourning and fasting to glad rejoicing once the decree was made that they could defend themselves. Even the non-Jewish leaders in Persia changed. They supported and began to help the Jews. Esther 9 verses 3 and 4. And all the rulers of the provinces and the lieutenants and the deputies and officers of the king helped the Jews because a fear of Mordecai fell upon them. For Mordecai was great in the king's house and his fame went out throughout all the provinces. For this man Mordecai waxed greater and greater. So when Haman was leading everything up, they were all behind Haman, a large group of them. Now that Mordecai is the leader or second in command, they're back in Mordecai. They saw someone else handing out the cheese. Their lives depended on whoever was in charge. Remember, most of the people that was under the king, Xerxes, were not Persian. He had millions of people that Persia had conquered, and so most of them were at the mercy of whoever was in charge. Well, now Mordecai's in charge. So, number one on your outline, the protection of the Jews. Of course, this is the obvious result of Esther's request, when the king allowed them to defend themselves, but also included the king's favor, not just to Esther and Mordecai, but to all the Jews. In verse 5, it says, Thus the Jews smoked all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and slaughter and destruction, and did to what they would unto those that hated them. And in Shushan, the palace, the Jews slew and destroyed 500 men. The ten sons of Haman, the sons of Hamadetha, the enemy of the Jews, slew they, but on the spoil laid they not their hand. And the king said unto Esther the queen, The Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan the palace, and the ten sons of Haman. What have they done in the rest of the king's provinces? Now what is thy petition? And it shall be granted thee. Or what is thy request further? And it shall be done. He said, listen, you killed these 500 men. At this point, he didn't know how many had been killed in the provinces. He said, what do you want now? He's still in favor of the Jews. He's still supporting the Jews. But he noticed something about the way the Jews fought. Esther 9, 10 says, but on the spoil laid they not their hand. And it's mentioned two more times in verse 15. But on the prey they laid not their hand, in verse 16, but they laid not their hands on the prey. They weren't doing it for money or possessions. They were doing it to protect their families, to preserve the life of their people. And we need to remember that we don't do things as Christians for our benefit. I know sometimes you may say something like, if I'm doing the right thing, it's gain for me. But that's not the reason you do it. You do it to glorify God and for people to be saved. Not only to do the right thing, we need to do it for the right reason. Now, if you're doing it for the right reason and you gain, that's one thing. But if your point is to gain, whatever you gain from, that's it. You don't get nothing, you won't get anything in heaven for it. And then, did I say A? A was the king's favor. The king's favor. And B is the queen's final request. So he asked her what else did she want in verse 12. Now what is our petition and it shall be granted thee. Or what is our request further and it shall be done. So she had two bold request in verses 13 and 14 verse 13 said then said Esther if it please the king let it be granted to the Jews which are in Shushan to do tomorrow also according unto this day's decree and let Haman's sons be hanged upon the gallows and the king commanded it so to be done and decree was given at Shushan and they hanged Haman's ten sons So that was done in a warning to the enemy. And that's often done through the ages. Not done so much today here, but it is still in the world. They do it for that very reason. They want people to see what they have done to people. So it makes them back down. So she also, she asked for an additional day in the palace. So evidently she knew there were some more people still against them. So they needed one more day and eradicated the enemy. And then she also asked for Haman's sons again to be hanged. So that was her two really bold requests when she had already been given everything she had asked for. King just says, do you want anything else? And then C, the Jews preserved. So the danger to the Jews was not just in the palace, but it was all across the Persian empire. And verse 16 says, But the other Jews that were in the king's provinces gathered themselves together and stood for their lives and had rest from their enemies and slew with their foes seventy and five thousand, but they laid not their hands on the prey. So now they could rest throughout the empire. They had a great cause for celebration. Again, the decree was given, but much time passed before this actually happened. This still happened on the 13th day of Adar. So number two is the praise of the Jews. So God had heard the prayers of His people And the Jews responded by praising. And that's the order that it should happen. When we pray and God answers our prayers, we should definitely praise God for it and give Him the glory. But we see from their response two components of praise. Verse 17, On the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the 14th day the same rested day and made it a day of feasting and gladness. So we see first of all that they had rest. Now imagine being in a situation where every day you feared for your life. Not that you feared that you, I mean it's bad, but not that you feared you didn't have money for rent or didn't have money for a light bill or didn't have money for food, but you actually feared that somebody was gonna come in your house and kill you every day. So they had calls for protection and they praised God for that and God gave them rest. Just imagine the rest of that. Just think about something that has really been a struggle for you in your life, and God answers your prayer, and that struggle is gone. You have rest from that. And that's a great thing to know, and it's a great thing for God that we realize and praise God for that. The Israelites went from trouble, distress, and fear to rest and peace, because they defeated the evil. When you defeat evil, it brings peace. Proverbs 11, 10, 11. When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth, and when the wicked perish, there is shouting. By the blessing of the upright city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. So, when evil is overcome, it's always a good thing. But the Bible talks about two kinds of rest. One is spiritual rest in Christ. Hebrews 4, 9 and 10, There remaineth therefore rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also ceased from his own works as God did from his. And when we're saved, now I know some, I was saved at a young age. My wife was saved at a young age. Some of you were older. But you can remember times that you were trying to get right. You were trying to do something to allow God to let you into heaven. And you were working at it and you were trying, but when you allowed Christ to do the work, it was a great rest. Just imagine a day, I don't care who you are, that day that you got saved, you had a spiritual rest. You knew that you no longer would have any struggle. That Christ had saved you. And we should praise God every day for that. And then there's physical rest. I mean, we're not just spirit, we have a body also, so our body has a need for rest. Mark 6, 31, and he said to them, So Christ realized his disciples needed rest, and he said, listen, you've got to come apart. I've heard many times, you've got to use your come apart or you fall apart. You have to have physical rest. You cannot go 24-7. It's impossible. You have to have rest. And then the next thing that they had was feast. Feasting. Esther in chapter 9, 2021 and Mordecai wrote these things and sent letters into all the Jews that were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus both nigh and far to establish this among them that they should keep the 14th day of the month of Adar and the 15th day of the same yearly. John Butler wrote The word translated feasting appears 20 times in Esther. Some of the feasting is evil and some is good. The feasting here is good feasting. It is feasting that is celebrating victory over evil. The celebration was indeed a good day, as verse 19 says. Therefore the feasting was not a drunken free-for-all, but a wholesome celebration. It is fitting to celebrate the victory of good over evil. Anytime God gives us victory over the oppressor, we should celebrate that, we should recognize that, and we should praise God for that. So then number three is the pondering of the Jews. And I'm not gonna read all these verses, 9, 22 through 30. Verse 22 says, As the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day, that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor. Verse 26, Wherefore, they called these days Purim, after the name of Pur, therefore, for all the words of this letter, and of that which they had seen concerning this matter, and which had come unto them. The Jews ordained and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them, so as it should not fail that they would keep these two days according to their writing and according to their appointed time every year, and that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city, and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews, for the memorial of them perish from their seed. So that's what the celebration is still kept today, and it's called the Purim. And of course, it was taken from the name of Pur, they cast Pur, or lots, to see what day that the Jews would be destroyed on. And so they turned that around, and so now Purim is a good thing, not a bad thing. So that's what they named the holiday after. It's still celebrated at the end of the day. Celebrate the 14th day of the Jewish month Adar, usually in February or March. And you can see that on your little chart there. The Jews begin their celebration at the synagogue. And this is what they do. They listen to the entire book of Esther read aloud twice. Every time Haman's name is mentioned, They will rattle noisemakers or stamp their feet to dishonor his evil name. Purim is also a time for giving to the needy, sending food gifts to friends, and feasting with friends and family. On this day of remembering the time the Jews needed to band together, the Jews celebrate by thinking of others and enjoying the company of close friends. So they had a good day. A, the next A is good day. They're arresting from their enemies in verse 22 and says that they should make feasting and that's what they did and that's what they still do. And this is really a celebration that gives us a pattern for celebrating the goodness of God. Four aspects that verse 22 mentions. gladness from morning until a good day feasting that they should make them days of feasting and joy gifts and of sending portions one to another benevolence and gifts to the poor it was certainly a day of celebration now we have different holidays that we celebrate and people's Everybody's got an opinion on how you celebrate it. But we celebrate Christmas and we can apply these same things to celebrating Christmas from morning until a good day. But we're celebrating the birth of Christ. And that certainly brought on a good day because without Christ coming, we were all doomed for hell. But once he came and finished his work, we all have a way to heaven. And in feasting, that we should make them days of feasting joy, I believe we pretty well have that covered for most of our holidays. We don't need any instructing. I don't need to stand up here and say, I don't think y'all ate enough this past Christmas. And this next one, I think we got it covered. But gifts and ascending portions one to another. There are some people that says, you shouldn't give gifts to each other at Christmas time. Well, it's biblical. That's what they did here. I mean, there's people that say you shouldn't celebrate Christmas because you don't know what day Christ was born on. Well, you don't. That's right. We don't know what day He was born on. But I know He was born. And then benevolence and gifts to the poor. Now, we may fall a little short on this point when we're celebrating what Christ has done for us. Maybe we could take a little bit of the feasting and put it on the benevolence. We probably all could do that a little bit better. So these four actions make a holiday a way of praising the Lord. And then B, oh, I had that on there and all that. You don't have a blank for this. I think you had that on your outline. A purposeful day, B. The purpose of the holiday was to take time to remember. The purpose of establishing Purim was not to create a day of praise, but it was so the Jews would not forget the special deliverance of God. We should never forget the deliverance of God. We should never forget the day that the Lord saved us. You might not remember what day it was, but certainly you remember that it happened. They remembered the trial. We'll go back to that. They remembered the trial. The Lord had used this trial for His glory and for their good. Now, different things can make you better. People can do things to help make you better. You can do stuff to help make yourself better. God can do things to make you better. You cannot do anything to make God better. So when you're doing things for God, you're not helping Him. When He does things for you, you're helping Him. But you're not helping Him. You don't need help. You can't make Him better because God is good. I mean, He's just good. God cannot get better. You can't, not only can you not make God better, He can't get better. He's not the best God, He's the only God. So when we're doing things, we're doing things to honor Him, to praise Him, and to glorify Him. That's what the Lord does for our trials is to make us better. When we're going through difficult times, You may not want to think about it. When you're going through hard times, you try your best to think about something else, but you fall back on what's going on. You're human. You try to go on. You try to think about other things. You don't really want to think about what's happening, but you do. After God has brought you through it, you don't want to dwell on the bad time either, but we must remember what God has brought us through. And it will help us to see how much he deserves our praise. And that's what they did. They still do that. They remember the day that he saved them from Haman. We'll try to get through here. Let's see. Well, didn't quite get done. What's next? I'm just going to finish this up. We don't have that much more. Oh, I got a little bit more than less, but we'll just finish up. I just wanted to show you some slides of how that today they still celebrate this holiday. This is like a greeting card that we would send a Christmas card to somebody. And I don't remember which one of them is Eddie. I don't know which one it is. Not that Eddie. Y'all thought I was talking about him. No, it's not him. And this one here seems to be a, I forgot the word for it now, orthodox celebration. And it may all be celebration. He may not dress that way normally, but it's orthodox. So there are Jews that dress like that every day. Dress up different ways. He sort of stands out. I don't know exactly how he got in there, but they let him in. Different things at this parade. And children dressing up, much like we would have a Christmas play, it looks like. Other things. But anyway, they still celebrate it. run across those pictures and wanted to show you that so we will do lesson 8 next week and don't know if we'll finish or not we may try to finish up next week and then when we do finish we'll be studying about Peter let's pray Lord we thank you for the stage you've given us we thank you for your many blessings we thank you for all that you do for us Lord help us Lord to remember when you bring us through our difficult times Lord and always give you praise and glory in Jesus name we pray