“For the Jews it was a time of happiness and joy, gladness and honor.”
~ Esther 8:16
Hi James and Ellen,
Your grandmaa and grandpaa had no idea what a ‘deeper life’ speaker was until they heard Don McKaughn speak. Your grandmaa and grandpaa had just started to go regularly to the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church that is in Aberdeen, South Dakota when Don McKaughn arrived to teach a series of ‘deeper life’ messages. The Aberdeen Christian and Missionary Alliance Church had invited Don McKaughn as a guest speaker. Your grandpaa does not remember how many days that Don McKaughn gave ‘deeper life’ messages during this time that he was in Aberdeen. Your grandpaa will never forget though having Don McKaughn point right at him during one of his messages and say ‘if you say that you are a Christian, why aren’t you acting like one’. Your grandpaa knew that he was a Christian but your grandpaa also knew that he was not acting like he was a Christian. How would you say that a Christian should act? What would you say the language of a Christian should be like? Do you think that it is good for guys and gals who have never made a decision of faith to accept what God the Son – Jesus, did on a cross when He sacrificed His life so that His shed blood would cover the sins of God’s specially elected guys, gals and kids and so that the death of His body would defeat death, to be able to know if a guy, gal or kid by the way that he or she always acts is a Christ-follower? Do you think that your outward lives should always testify and witness as to who you are on the inside? When your grandmaa and grandpaa were the Zeiger-Mueller Funeral Home caretakers, they could tell if a corpse had been a Christ-follower just by the kind of look that stayed on the corpse’s face. The face of a corpse who had been a Christ-follower invariably looked peaceful with a hint of a smile. The face of a corpse who had not been a Christ-follower invariably looked cold and lifeless.
The first time that your grandmaa and grandpaa heard Don McKaughn speak, Don McKaughn gave a series of ‘deeper life’ messages from the Esther Book. Your grandmaa and grandpaa really liked listening to Don McKaughn teach. The series of ‘deeper life’ messages that Don McKaughn taught from the Esther Book were nothing like your grandmaa or grandpaa had ever heard before from any speaker in any church they had ever attended or visited. The Esther Book is about the life and death struggle of God’s specially chosen guys and gals against a guy who wanted every single one of God’s specially chosen guys, gals and kids eradicated from planet Earth. The Esther Book’s heroine is an orphan gal. This orphan gal had a Jewish heritage which made her one of God’s specially chosen gals. This gal lived in a city called Shushan. Shushan was located in Persia. The gal was called Esther. Esther’s Jewish name was Hadassah. Hadassah means myrtle. Hadasseh’s non-Jewish name – Esther, means aster or star. A cousin of Hadassah raised her. Hadassah’s cousin’s name was Mordecai. Mordecai was a minor prophet. Mordecai served in the king’s palace. The king’s palace was located in the city of Shushan. Mordecai one day overheard a couple of palace chamberlains – Bigthan and Teresh, making plans to assassinate King Xerxes. Mordecai told his cousin who was by now Queen Esther who in turn told her now husband – King Xerxes, who . . . Esther had become queen after she was chosen by the Persian king – King Xerxes, from a group of maidens to be his next wife – after he divorced the wife who he had had. Esther 8 is the victory chapter. A bad guy – Haman, had been beaten in his own game. Haman had wanted to kill every one of God’s specially chosen guys and gals but instead, Haman had been the one who was killed. Before Haman was hung to death on the seventy-five foot high gallows that he had built at his own house to hang Mordecai, Haman sent out an official edict or a law letter to every one of the 127 provinces that stretched from India to Cush – that King Xerxes ruled over, which ordered that every single one of God’s specially chosen guys, gals and kids who were living in these 127 provinces had to be killed. Haman had his edicts or law letters sealed by King Xerxes signet ring. This made it an official guarantee that this was to absolutely happen.
Even though King Xerxes had given Mordecai everything that Haman owned because . . ., Esther was still very concerned about her own ethnic people group of guys and gals – who were the Jews – who were God’s specially chosen guys and gals. Esther would risk her life by going to her husband – King Xerxes, who – if he did not like what she wanted him to do, could have gotten rid of her or even killed her, to ask him if he would have another edict or law letter sent out – which he would need to make official by sealing the edicts or law letters with his signet ring, to all of the 127 provinces that he ruled over as Persia’s king. On June 25, 474 B.C. – just two months and ten days after Haman’s edict or law letter had been sent out to every single one of the 127 provinces that King Xerxes ruled over as Persia’s king, another edict or law letter was sent out using couriers riding horses. Each edict or law letter was scripted in the language that was spoken in each different province. March 7, 473 B.C. was set as the date when God’s specially chosen guys and gals had the official okay to get together to defend themselves against any enemy who would try to get rid of them from whatever province that they were living in at the time. How do you think that God’s specially chosen guys and gals felt when a second edict or law letter arrived in their province this time with orders that they were not to be killed? Verse 16 says “For the Jews it was a time of happiness and joy, gladness and honor.” Just as Esther was willing to die to try to save the guys and gals in her ethnic people group from being killed, what do you think that Christ-followers should do today to try to save Christ-followers who are vulnerable?
Esther 8 (425)