Making the Last First - Audio
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
We're picking up today in the book of Esther. We've been going through the story for the last several weeks. And to get you up to date, if you've missed a little bit, we're at a crucial point in really the survival and the history of the Jewish people. They have an enemy. His name is Haman. He is the Prime Minister of the Grand Vizier of the Persian Empire. He is an anti-Semite. He's a vanglorious man. And he cannot abide the continued existence of the Jewish people, God's people. And so he comes up with a plan after having been offended by one of the Jewish leaders, Mordecai, to murder the Jews, to commit genocide. He picks a day at the end of the year, what we might think of as something like December 31st, and on that day he has declared that all the people of the empire will rise up in arms and slaughter their neighbors who are Jews. But what Haman does not know is that in the midst of this, meanwhile, a young Jewish girl named Esther has become the queen of the empire through what appears by all accounts to be a trick of fate. But her great beauty and winning charm have somehow gained favor. And we learned a few weeks ago, even Hesse, God's faithful commitment from King Xerxes or King Ahasuras. Her position of power, however, is nothing compared to the kings. And when Mordecai has found out what is going to happen to the Jews when the announcement has gone out and he has mourned and he is fasted, he calls on Esther who happens to be his niece and his adopted daughter, he calls on her to do something, to save the people, to go before the king and to plead the case of the Jews. But there are problems. In the Persian empire, once the king has placed his signet ring on a command, it cannot be revoked. Moreover the king seems to have lost interest in Esther and hasn't summoned her, called her for 30 days, and even worse, when she goes before him, if she does so unsummoned, if he doesn't call her, she is under penalty of death. And as he got rid of his first wife, Vashti, he could easily have her executed. And yet, Esther plans to do it. Last week we heard Mordecai telling her, "Esther, maybe you have been called for just a time as this, just this kind of time. Maybe all of the things that have happened in your life, your victory in the beauty contest, your winning of the king. Maybe it's somehow, this has all been organized so that you can do wonderful things to save our people." Today's sermon is titled Making the Last First. And that may bring up to your mind a saying of Jesus, "You may remember the first shall be last and the last shall be first." As we read the text and as we go through our sermon, let that sit in the back of your mind. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. If you wouldn't mind standing, let's read together Esther 5, 1 through 14. Now it happened on the third day that Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king's palace across from the king's house while the king sat on his royal throne in the royal house facing the entrance of the house. So it was when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court that she found favor in his
Transcription truncated.
Teaching through Esther 5:1-14, Pastor Tom shows how God, in His economy of joy, self-giving and generosity without expectation, preserves a small subset of His people, making "the last first" and the "first last".