When Mordecai perceived all that
was done, Mordecai rent his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes
and went out into the midst of the city and cried with a loud
and a bitter cry. This is Esther chapter four and
verse one. And came even before the king's
gate, for none might enter into the king's gate clothed with
sackcloth. And in every province, whithersoever
the king's commandment and his decree came, there was great
mourning among the Jews and fasting and weeping and wailing, and
many lay in sackcloth and ashes. So Esther's maids and her chamberlains
came and told it her. Then was the queen exceedingly
grieved. And she sent Raymond to clothe
Mordecai and to take away his sackcloth from him, but he received
it not. Then called Esther for Hatah,
one of the king's chamberlains, whom he had appointed to attend
upon her, and gave him a commandment to Mordecai to know what it was
and why it was. So Hatah went forth to Mordecai
unto the street of the city which was before the king's gate. And
Mordecai told him of all that had happened unto him and of
the sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king's
treasuries for the Jews to destroy them. Also he gave him the copy
of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan to
destroy them, to show it unto Esther and to declare it unto
her and to charge her that she should go in unto the king to
make supplication unto him and to make requests before him for
her people. And Hatash came and told Esther
the words of Mordecai. Again, Esther spake unto Hattash
and gave him commandment unto Mordecai. All the king's servants
and the people of the king's provinces do know that whosoever,
whether man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner
court who is not called, there is one law of his to put him
to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden
scepter that he may live. but I have not been called to
come in unto the king these 30 days. And they told to Mordecai
Esther's words, Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, think
not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house more
than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest
thy peace at this time, then shall their enlargement and deliverance
arise to the Jews from another place. But thou and thy father's
house shall be destroyed. And who knoweth whether thou
art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Then Esther bade
them return Mordecai this answer. Go, gather together all the Jews
that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither
eat nor drink three days, night or day. I also and my maidens
will fast likewise, and so will I go in unto the king, which
is not according to the law. And if I perish, I perish. So Mordecai went his way and
did according to all that Esther had commanded him. Amen, may
God bless to us this reading from the Word of God. When Jeremiah the prophet wrote
his prophecy, which we call the Book of Lamentations, He spoke
in it, in the first chapter and the 12th verse of the Lord Jesus,
prophetically. And he put words into the mouth
of the Lord Jesus, which said this, Behold, and see if there
be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. which is done unto me, wherewith
the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. Written many hundreds of years
before the Lord Jesus Christ came, and yet words which spoke
of the sufferings of our Saviour Jesus Christ. And we cannot begin
to conceive of the degree or the nature or the extent of the
suffering and the sorrow that the Lord Jesus Christ endured. It is beyond our comprehension
to have any concept of what the Lord Jesus Christ endured. See if there be any sorrow like
unto my sorrow. as to that day when God afflicted
the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. The Lord is called by
Isaiah, the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And sometimes
when we are grieving, sometimes when we are sad, we speak about
heartache. We speak about heartache to express
a deep sense of loss or of grief. And I was listening to a lady,
she was speaking recently about the loss that had come to her. I think she had lost a young
son. And she said something which
I thought was interesting in the context of the word heartache. She said when she had lost her
child, every organ in my body aches. And I thought that that
was an interesting view on what we often say is heartache. But
every organ in her body ached. She had pains everywhere. She
had pains in her head. She had pains in her stomach.
She had pains in her being. She was just pained because of
the loss that had been inflicted upon her. And yet the Lord Jesus
Christ knew more pain, more suffering than anything which is conceivable
by people on earth because the Lord Jesus suffered in body,
soul and spirit. If it's not perhaps too indelicate
just to try and pause upon that thought for a moment, It is taught
to us in Scripture that hell is going to be a terrible and
horrendous place. It is presented to us in Scripture
as a place to be shunned and avoided at all possible costs. I trust that there is no one
in this room tonight ever opens up their eyes in hell and discovers
the reality of the warnings that scripture gives concerning going
to that place. You've been warned. It's an awful
place. Nobody ever should want or desire
to go there. And those who suggest that they're
going to have a great time with their friends and their mates
and they'll all be wicked together, have no concept as to what the
Bible teaches of the sufferings and the regrets and the loss
and the grief of that place. But hell, is an infinite suffering
because it is endless and there will be a continuing of suffering
throughout endless ages because it is the condemnation and the
sentence of sin against an infinite God. So to the extent that we
sin against an infinite God, so the sufferings for that sin
will be eternally applied. And here's the point that I wanted
to make. The Lord Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross, concentrated
an eternity of hell for every person for whom he died. I trust that we are aware tonight
that the Lord Jesus Christ didn't die for everyone. The Lord Jesus
Christ's death was specifically for those that had been committed
into his hand, into his charge. And every one of those deserved
and eternity in hell, for every one of those was guilty of sinning
against a holy, infinite God. And the Lord Jesus Christ took,
in those three hours on the cross, the eternity of hell for every
individual for whom he died, and he carried it in his own
soul. He carried it in his own soul. And in that death, the Saviour
was first crushed with the weight of sin on a holy body. The Lord Jesus Christ had known
no sin before, never experienced sin. And that sin of his people
was taken and laid upon his shoulders. That sin crushed him there. And then the sword of God's justice
was unsheathed. And that entered into his soul
and he bled under the piercing sword of God's justice as the
rightful condemnation against the sins of his people that he
was carrying there that day. It had begun In the Garden of
Gethsemane, as he anticipated the suffering that he would endure,
we're told that he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood.
Such was the trauma that was beginning to afflict his body.
Then upon the cross, we find that he hung there and he suffered. The Lord Jesus Christ dying,
the just for the unjust, in order to secure our redemption and
bring us to God. And sometime before his death,
the Lord Jesus Christ revealed to his disciples the horror of
the anticipation that was beginning to beset him. because it is the
natural reaction of the physical body to recoil from suffering,
to recoil from pain, and that was what the Lord Jesus Christ
was doing also. And we sometimes need to remind
ourselves that the Lord was a man, a real man, a real man with although
always without sin, of his own deeds and actings and thoughts,
of his own commission, nevertheless the Lord Jesus Christ in his
physical body, in his emotions, in his mind, was a natural man. And he says in John chapter 12
verse 27 My soul is troubled, now is my soul troubled, and
what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour,
but for this cause came I unto this hour. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ knew why he had come into the world. He knew the purpose
of his incarnation. He knew that the cross was always
set before him. And he knew, though his soul
was troubled at the anticipation of all that he must bear, he
knew that he had come to the earth. He had come to this hour
for that which he had to suffer. There was a price to pay. There
was a redemption to be bought. There was a people to be liberated. There was blood to be spilled. And it's not often, perhaps,
that you will hear the Lord Jesus Christ being described as brave. But I think the Lord Jesus Christ
is the bravest man who ever lived because he knew exactly what
he was going to endure and yet he turned his face towards Jerusalem
and he said, now let's go. I have a job to do in that city. I think it's very interesting
for us to be able to look at Scripture, and especially Old
Testament Scriptures, and find little examples in the Old Testament
of situations and circumstances that point to that which the
Lord Jesus Christ endured and suffered. And when we go back
to the Old Testament Scriptures, very often they shine a light
on the way in which we can see the Lord's ministry and work
unfolding. It's sort of an illumination
that comes upon the Lord's work. And I think that's true for the
story of Esther. I've been thinking a little bit
about Esther recently and looking at some of these early chapters. And here we see a beautiful young
girl, a beautiful young girl who is propelled to the highest
position of queen in an empire. She is given a status at court,
in the court of the king of Persia, the court of Ahasuerus, His empire
stretched, if you've got a picture of a map, a world map in your
head, his empire stretched from India down to Ethiopia, from
India to Africa, and all of that area in there was the empire
of what is called the Medes and the Persians. It was centered
around Iran and it was a mighty empire in its day. And here was
a young girl, she was an orphan girl, she had lost her parents,
she was brought up by an uncle, a man called Mordecai. And that
man brought Esther up as a Jew because she was a Jew. Her parents
were Jews, Mordecai was a Jew, she was raised as a Jew. And
she was one of the Jews that had been exiled It was a practice
in days gone by when a country was invaded and it was suppressed
that the people would be displaced. In order to loosen the ties of
patriotism to a particular piece of land and the history and heritage
of that land, the people were en masse moved, just taken away,
just taken away to a completely different part of the empire.
And somebody else was given your land and you were given somebody
else's. And that was a practice to make
people not have close ties to a piece of land. We've seen it
happening in days gone by in this country. Perhaps you'll
remember how some of the Native Americans were moved away from
their lands and we talk even today about the Trail of Tears,
for example, when the Cherokee Indians were moved away and all
the suffering that was part of that. It's not a new phenomena. It was something that was practiced
hundreds, thousands of years ago as well. And Ahasuerus fulfilled
this pattern, followed this pattern, and the Jews were in Shushan,
in that area which is now Iran. There was another man there.
We've thought about Esther, we've thought about Mordecai. There
was another man here also in Shushan, where the palace was
at that time. And his name was Haman. And Haman,
if you're familiar at all with the story of Esther, was an extremely
wicked man. He was ambitious and he was wicked. He had an enemy at court. and Mordecai was his enemy. Mordecai refused to give Haman
the acknowledgement that Haman felt he deserved. Haman had been
promoted, perhaps rapidly. He was now prime minister, effectively,
in the court of Ahasuerus. And Mordecai, for whatever reason,
and we don't exactly know why, Mordecai refused to bow down
to him and give him the respect that he might have deserved in
this high position that he possessed. There is a suggestion that Haman
was an Agagite. Well, it's not a suggestion,
it's a fact. That's what scripture tells us, he was an Agagite.
And that might mean that he was a member of a family that had
come from the nation of the Amalekites. And the Amalekites and the Jews
had always been enemies. And indeed, the word of God tells
us that there would be a continual battle between the Amalekites
and the Jews. And the Lord, in fact, it was
the Lord who says he would take up the battle with Amalek all
the days of this world. And so the Amalekites were enemies
of the Jews, and it may well be that Mordecai, as a Jew, held
this grudge against Haman. Whatever it was, these men contended
one against the other. And Haman decided that he was
going to, in his elated position now, he was going to get Mordecai. But he thought it too good for
Mordecai, just too We're told in chapter 3 verse
5, I'll just read it, you don't need to look it up. And Haman
saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence. Then was
Haman full of wrath. And thought, verse 6, and thought
scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone. He wasn't going to simply
get Mordecai. He was going to get Mordecai,
but it was too good for Mordecai just to be gotten himself. No,
Haman had a plan that was much more extreme than that. Haman
schemed genocide. And Haman decided that because
Mordecai would not bow to him, that he would kill every Jew
in the empire. He thought Scorn to lay hands
on Mordecai alone, for they had showed him the people of Mordecai,
whereof Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout
the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even the people of Mordecai. Now, I think it's interesting
that we reflect upon this for a moment because here was this
man Haman deciding that he was going to kill every Jew in the
empire. That means he was going to completely
obliterate the race of the Jews. That was his plan. There wouldn't
be one left. The Jews had been conquered and
displaced. They were spread out around the
whole country. It was hundreds, probably over
a thousand miles between the top end and the bottom end of
where all these Jews were spread out. And in all of the cities
and in all of the towns and villages, they had made their homes and
they had built their businesses. And Haman sent out a letter which
said that on a certain day of a certain month, that all the
neighbors of the Jews were to take their swords and they were
to go into the homes of the Jews and they were to kill men, women,
and children, and they were to take their property. And that
decree went out. It went out as a decree from
the court of Ahasuerus from the palace in Shushan, and it carried
the weight of the law of the Medes and the Persians, an unchangeable
decree. When the Persians wrote their
laws, they had a legal structure which said that this law is not
to be rescinded. This law cannot be changed. The
law, we sometimes use it, even today, you might see it or read
it sometime, where it says the law of the Medes and the Persians,
and the idea behind it is that it's fixed. And this is the decree
that went out. And that is the reason why we
read of Mordecai wailing, shouting, crying, and the Jews covering
themselves in sackcloths and ashes. Haman was going to completely
destroy the Jews. There's a devilishness at work
in this plan which Haman concocted. Long before there was a Hitler,
there was a Haman. I read a little thing which I
thought was interesting and I thought I'd mention it to you. There
is a feast that the Jews still celebrate today called the Feast
of Purim and it has its origins in this book of Esther. because
the pur, p-u-r, was the dice, the lot that Haman threw to decide
on which day the Jews were to be killed. And they have this
feast called Purim. And you know that in the feast
celebrations that the children take off their shoes and they
draw a big H on the soles of their shoes. One H on the right
shoe and one H on the left shoe. And then they walk about in their
shoes with these two letter H's drawn on the bottom. One H stands
for Hitler. and the other H stands for Haman. That is the degree to which the
Jews still remember the terrible things that Haman endeavoured
to do to them as a race. But this was devilish, this was
satanic. Satan had motivated Haman. And I'll tell you why I'm saying
that. Because when we look at the history of Israel, when we
look at the history of the Jews, we discover that always the nations
of the world have been against the Jews. The Lord Jesus Christ
spoke of the devil as being a murderer from the beginning, and Satan
always was a murderer. He always endeavored to destroy,
not just individuals, but the Jews in particular, because he
knew that the kingdom of God would be accomplished through
the line of the Jews. That's why Cain slew Abel. That's
why the Egyptian pharaoh tried to destroy the Jews in Egypt. That is why Assyria came and
dispossessed Jerusalem and Samaria of their cities. That is why
the Philistines were always fighting against the Jews. That's why
Babylon tried. There always has been a nation
trying to kill the Jews because Satan wanted them wiped off the
face of the earth so that he could be assured that the line
of David and the birth of Christ would not take place. If he could
destroy the nation, then he could destroy the plan and the purpose
of God. And now Haman, The Agagite had
been elevated to the position where he could employ the law
of the Medes and the Persians to destroy the Jews once and
for all. Mordecai learns of the plot,
the decree is published, and he mourns at what is about to
happen. We're told that he cried loud
and bitterly. You know, it's just perhaps worth
remembering that just because we believe in God, just because
we're followers of God, doesn't mean to say that we won't have
occasion for crying bitterly and loudly. That is the reality
of this world. Sin in this world is grievous
and it comes upon believers just as much if not more than it does
upon unbelievers. Believers are not immune to suffering
and sin's effect touches us all in our flesh. We mourn too But
we do not mourn as those who have no hope, because the believers
have a trust and a hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and what he
has accomplished. Verses 13 and 14 of chapter four,
which we read together, are perhaps the best known verses in the
whole of the book of Esther. And these, let me just repeat
them again. Then Mordecai commanded to Esther. So Esther had been
given this place of prominence. She had been made queen in the
court of Ahasuerus. And Mordecai commands, sends
a message to Esther. Think not with thyself that thou
shalt escape in the king's house, being a Jew more than any other
Jews. For if thou altogether holdest
thy peace at this time, if you don't speak out, if you don't
say something, if you don't try to help, then there shall enlargement
and deliverance arise from the Jews from another place, but
thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed. And who knoweth
whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? There's three things here that
I want to mention just quickly on these verses. The first one
is this, that we can tell from these verses that Esther was
afraid. Esther was anxious and concerned
about what she was being asked to do. Mordecai was suggesting
to her that she should go into the king and she should plead
the case for her people, but she'd never told anyone that
she was a Jew. She'd never made it known. Mordecai,
in fact, had been advising her not to tell people that she was
a Jew. And now she was being asked by
the same man to go in and stand up for her faith and for her
people. And I wonder if we sometimes
find ourselves in a similar situation to Esther. Maybe we've not been
too quick at telling people that we're believers. Maybe we haven't
been too ready to take a stand for our faith or to live in a
way which makes it clear that we don't hold the values of the
world. Maybe we've found it easier to
compromise in the situations that we are in socially or at
school or at college or at work. And we haven't let on that we
are people who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are nervous
to identify for the Lord in this world and in this environment
in which we are a part. Because we know that there is
a personal cost to witnessing for the Lord. We know that there
is a price to pay and we know that we will end up being marginalised
and ostracised and maybe mocked, maybe even worse, maybe persecuted
in some way if we claim to belong to the Lord. And like Everyone who has to suffer, we
find that we recoil from the prospect of being the centre
of attention and being brought to, ourselves being brought to
that place of feeling pain or feeling embarrassment. In such
a situation, if we find ourselves as Esther did, perhaps it is
good for us to remember that the Lord Jesus Christ suffered
for us, that the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross for us, and
he endured for us and gave everything for us. We find the Apostle Paul
often saying in scripture that he was called to suffer for the
cause of Christ. And it may well be that the church
of Jesus Christ in these days and in the coming days will be
called to carry a burden which has been more even than in the
past. And we will be called to take
a stand for the truth and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Second
thing that we can tell from these verses is this, that deliverance
of the Lord's people was certain. I find it interesting to see
these words from Mordecai in verse 14. He says, I don't know
what that other place was. I don't know that Mordecai could
have envisioned what that other place
was. But I do believe that Mordecai
understood the prophecies of Scripture and that the Messiah
would come. And I do believe that Mordecai
thought to himself, I don't know how God is going to prevent this
terrible crime being perpetrated on the Jews, but he will preserve
the line of the Messiah. But he says, Esther, you need
to take a stand. You need to let your voice be
heard, because deliverance will come. But if you don't make a
stand, then you and your father's house shall be destroyed. and
who knows whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time
as this. I have heard it said, it's not
original, but I have heard it said that it is better to lose
in a cause that will ultimately succeed than to succeed in a
cause that will ultimately fail. And it was this for Esther. It was important that she made
a stand because the Messiah would come. The Messiah was promised
to come. Mordecai believed he would come.
And yet here was Esther in that place of taking a stand for what
was right and what was true. In Philippians chapter four,
verse 13, the apostle Paul writes, I can do all things through Christ
which strengtheneth me. And perhaps there's someone here
who has not been taking a stand. Perhaps there's someone here
who's facing a challenge in their life about what they should be
doing, how they should be living, what they should be saying. there
comes a time, and perhaps the Lord places us in a particular
place, at a particular time, in a particular moment in history,
with a voice that we can make heard in order that he will accomplish
his purposes. And that leads us on to the third
point, that God uses means. God uses means to accomplish
his purpose. And sometimes that means is you. And sometimes that means is me. That's how God works. This is
an amazing story, this book of Esther. And if you're not familiar
with it, it's only 10 short chapters. I think you should read it again
and familiarize yourself with it. It's a lovely story. It's
a precious story. It's an amazing story because
it shows us how God accomplished the deliverance of his people
without using any miraculous means. It's just common little
things, commonplace little things that happened one after another
and yet happened in just the right order at the right time
with the right people to bring to the conclusion of the deliverance
of the Jews. I hope I haven't spoiled the
ending for anybody by telling you that they all get away. But that's God's way of accomplishing
things. Taken together, it's an extraordinary
deliverance that is effected. But each event in the story is
in itself perfectly ordinary, straightforward, And that's what happens in the
way God accomplishes his purposes in this world too. It's just
unconnected believers and unconnected unbelievers doing what they think
is right, what they think is best, what they think is good
for them. But out of it all, God accomplishes his purpose.
I can't understand how that works. That's too much for me. It's
too big for me. It's too grand for me. that I can do what I want and
you can do what you want and someone else can do what they
want and Haman can do what he wants. And out of it all, in
almost a random and an unconnected way, all those circumstances
come together to accomplish the will and the purpose of our God. And we are living in that right
now. We are part of the unfolding of God's plan right now. And perhaps it is for you and
me that we need to take some of these challenges that come
to us and take a stand for the things that are true and the
things that are right. and be like Esther. Once she
was committed to her task, once she had realised that, as Mordecai
had said, who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom
for such a time as this. Once she had realised that this
was indeed her obligation, this was her responsibility, she had
to take a stand. She had to put herself out there.
She had to go, as it were, into the presence of the king. She
knew that the law said if she goes into the presence of the
king unannounced, uninvited, then the law says, the law of
the Medes and the Persians, she has to die. And the only way
that that death would not take place would be if the king stretched
out the scepter which he held in his hand and allowed her to
come forward and touch it. Otherwise, she was dead. So her
life was in the hands of the king at that moment. but she
knew that she had to take a stand for the well-being of her people.
And once she was committed to that task, Esther asks Mordecai
to gather the people of God together, to fellowship together, to fast
together, to set their predicament before God together. And that
teaches us something of the value of fellowship, something of the
blessedness of being able to gather together and bring our
problems, bring our needs before the Lord. I want to say that
it is a joy for me to see this little fellowship and to know
this little fellowship here in Alaska, here in the valley. And to know that you come together
to worship together, you come together to lift up the Lord
together, that week by week you value the scriptures, you value
the company of the Lord's people, you value hearing the gospel
preached, because that, believe me, is your strength. That is
where you will draw your help. The Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ, what Christ has done, what He has accomplished, how
that comes into your heart, into your life, into your mind, into
your soul and enables and energises you in order to go out into this
world and live your lives and serve Him. And perhaps take these
stands which the Lord is going to use in order to uphold and
maintain his testimony in this place at this time. That's what
Esther did. She called on Mordecai to get
the people together, that they might pray, that they might fast,
that they might worship the Lord, to commit together in the gospel
and to find in that joint commitment the strength that the gospel
provides. The preservation of the church
was never in doubt. Haman schemed, he employed the
laws of Ahasuerus, the laws of the Medes and the Persians. He
got all of the people excited that they were going to be legally
entitled to kill a Jew and then take their property. And as the
Jews mourned and lamented, and as the rest of the empire got
all excited about this, It was never in doubt that the Lord
would preserve his people. Why? Because Christ had to come. Because Christ had to suffer.
There was a time appointed and that accomplishment would be
the source of the fulfilment of God's purpose of gathering
his people, gathering his elect, gathering his church, and bringing
us into the knowledge of Jesus Christ by the work of our Saviour
and Deliverer. And yet, and yet, here was one
woman in one single situation that still had to take responsibility
for acting in the need of the moment. And that's what we're
called to do, because we don't see the end from the beginning. We don't know how God is going
to accomplish all these things, but we do know that there are
challenges and there are problems and there are issues that are
set before us every day. The plan of salvation is certain
and sure, and God is accomplishing his purpose. Yet day by day,
the accomplishments that make up that plan, that include and
involve people like us, are just ordinary things that are all
working together to accomplish the extraordinary. One person
stands up for the truth. One person preaches the gospel. One person says a word in season
to one who perhaps is searching in their life for meaning and
for the Lord and for forgiveness. And we live for the Lord, we
serve him and we seek to serve him and we minister together.
And out of these things, the gospel is sent forth to accomplish
that purpose where to it is sent. So the Lord places us in situations
and he calls us to service and he preserves his church and his
people for his own glory and for our blessing. And these are
the lessons that we learn from Esther. Esther does secure the deliverance
of her people. And here too, she is a lovely
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, because he secured the deliverance
of his people. He went in and he represented
us. He stood alone, as it were before
the king, and he represented us. He took our place and he
approached God on our behalf. First Chronicles chapter 29 and
verse 11, there's a lovely verse which I just want to leave with
you and then we'll be pulling our thoughts to a conclusion.
It says this, Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that
is in the heaven and in the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom,
O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. The Lord Jesus
Christ said to his disciples in the early part of his ministry,
Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save
me from this hour. but for this hour came I into
the world. For this cause came I unto this
hour. Perhaps the Lord puts you in
a place, or me in a place, where our witness will be used to help
and continue the gathering in of his people and the accomplishment
of his purpose. For the Lord Jesus Christ has
all the greatness, all the power and the glory and the victory.
We are on the victory side. And as the Lord is pleased to
give us grace to serve him, he will accomplish his purpose.
He will bring all things to pass in accordance with his will,
and he will do his people good, and he will bless us in these
days. May he do so, and may the testimony
of Esther be an encouragement to us all this evening. Amen.