Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. We are sitting here on Wednesday. We're sitting here on Tuesday, but you're listening to this on Wednesday, midweek. You made it to the hump day, and so good job, you've got you're on the down slope now, after today, and the best day of the week coming up is Sunday, and so hopefully you're already looking forward to being back with your church family. We're looking forward to being with you. That's right. And I wasn't with you this past weekend 'cause I was in California. Yeah. And so I'm back. People were asking about your contributions to the Newsom campaign and how that's going. I heard we'd love to know all about that. I heard somebody made a comment about that. I don't know, I'm not gonna call out names, but somebody was, it's probably to mark on. On Sunday for me here and said something about that. Yeah, no, no contributions to to Gavin Newsome. Dunno who that was unique opportunity though. I got to preach back at our sending church. I was outside for three services, which by the way, made how'd that feel? Three being outside was nice. In fact, they were talking about how the sun was gonna be in my eyes. But I found that the Sunday where everything changed. So I, Saturday night, I preached in the shade. There was no sun in my eyes. So it was great. The weather was good. Sunday was. A little on the cooler side and it rained, but thankfully we had easy ups up. Oh, nice. Yeah, we were able to get through it, but preach it three times in a row. Takes it outta you. It does, yeah. Yeah, but it was good. It was good to be back with our sending church. They love us. Even though you may not know a lot of people out there, especially if you've never been out there, you don't know any of them, but just know that there's a whole church back in California that genuinely loves you and prays for you, and prays for our witness and prays for our impact here locally. And they were excited to hear the updates of what's going on here and how we're doing. And, I often will tell people out there, it's, if you came to visit our church you'd recognize some of the people that came with us when we came to plant, but. The majority of our church are people you wouldn't know. That's great because their Compass Bible Church, as we often say, didn't start in California or Compass Bible Church. North Texas didn't start in California. It started here, and that's who we are. And we love our flock. So I'm happy to be back. It was great to be out there. I was glad to be able to do it, but I'm happy to be back. I heard that they'd liked having you out there too. In fact, somebody sent me a text and said. And I quote, why does PPJ have to be so good? And I didn't know how to answer that. Appreciate it. You didn't. You say you need to come out here then I will, I did. I had to think about it. 'cause I'm like, I don't, how do I answer this? I don't. I don't know the Lord. Bless the guy. I guess so. Eventually I said, because the Lord is encouraging you to move to Texas. There. It's, that's what it's, that's what the Lord is doing. That's what it's clearly. Yeah. And that's undeniable. Yeah. Evidently, that's the word of the Lord right there. Yeah. No, it's it's fun. So you did well. I I'm encouraged by that feedback. I, that's a blessing to hear. Yeah, we saw Bruno and Noni. They're listening. They're listening probably right now. Woo. And Cherie Clark sent back peanut butter balls, finally, which I'm still holding ransom away from you in my ransom, in my in my refrigerator at my house, in your home. Yeah, you do have refrigerator rights though, so technically you can just come over and take them. I just too much out of the way. Anytime. Hey the memorial service that took place on Sunday, all right. Massive, right? Huge and huge. Six hours I think is what the thing was from beginning to end. Wait, I know where this is going. You want yours to be seven hours and in a bigger stadium? No, but it was pretty impressive. I was catching glimpses 'cause I was traveling and getting delayed by storms here, so I wasn't able to watch the whole thing. But I'd love to get some of your thoughts on what you saw from the. From some of the things on there and the impact of it. I saw a lot of really encouraging and positive responses. In fact the longer I look at my feed after the fact the more I realized there were a lot of people there. Yeah. Who, whose names you would know? Obviously there was Frank Turk, the guy who was mentoring Charlie Kirk to some degree, and there were others. That are related to guys like him but some of our friends and brothers, people that are like-minded and like-hearted we're there to support and to observe and to be part of it. And there was of course some of the celebrities. You had President Trump and his vice president and along with Elon Musk, so the who's who of some of the most powerful people in our society were there. Even some of the most, I don't wanna use powerful, but some of the most influential people in our church and within our stripe in particular were also there. So I saw a lot of. Great support, number one. I think that's really sweet and unifying. Number two, I also saw a lot of positive things that were said, surprisingly. It's always hard when you have something like this. There's lots of people talking and lots of things that could be said. But most of what was said I could find no issue with. In fact, I was greatly heartened by the things that I heard. The gospel was presented. Clearly there was a call to salvation, and even though I'm not one for alter calls, it was effective, at least to the degree that people were responsive to the call. Yeah. So lots of good things happened in that, and I think. My hope is that this is the beginning of a new season for America, and that's a lot of people what a lot of people were suggesting that what this portends is that there's positive change on the horizon. If the church does what she's, what she has the opportunity to do, this could be a really fruitful season for us, and I'm inclined to agree. Yeah. Yeah. Even though our. Our theology, our eschatology believes that in the, that ultimately things are gonna get worse before they get better. That, that we're headed for not a better world, but a worse world. That doesn't mean that we don't believe that there could be seasons of revival, in fact, absolutely. We've seen that historically. We've seen that. We pray for that. We've seen that here in the United States historically. And so there's nothing to say that God couldn't bring revival again before he sends Christ back for the bride and for the church. That's right. And so it's not wrong for us to look at something like this and to say, man, we hope this does have the positive impact that it should have. We're not pessimists as far as that's concerned. We just are looking at scripture saying we wanna understand things from a bigger picture on that. That's right. Let's jump into our, hold on. Do you have any input on that? Anything that you wanna say on the memorial? Yeah. Yeah. Again I saw bits and pieces of it. I thought, I was encouraged that Frank Turk stood up and said what he said about Charlie's in heaven because of his faith in God. Period, end of story. That was really cool. It was cool to see a stadium full of all of those thousands and thousands of people worshiping the Lord. That's cool. Yeah. My wife brought up a, she was watching it. As some of these leading dignitaries were walking into the stadium and taking their seats. Chris Tomlin was singing, your name is the greatest, your name is the highest. Your name stands above them all. Oh yeah. And so she just said, so cool. It was a poetic moment. So cool. Where you're looking at the most powerful people in the world coming in as Tomlin is shouting out and singing about the most powerful God whose name exists above. Elon and Vance and all these, it's not you guys. Yeah. King Jesus. Yeah. It's you just pray for genuine. Those that did stand up in response to that. You pray that there's now. People, believers that are involved in their lives that are gonna be able to continue the process of discipleship with them. I think the sobering reality, anytime we see something like that, it's true When you think of Billy Graham, and it's true when you think the harvest crusades and everything else, tho there's all different types of the soils that are represented in that crowd and the seed is sewn and some of it's gonna be the rich soil and the good soil. And that's what we're praying for. We're praying God make the majority of those people that stood up. Those that are of the good soil, right? Because there are others that will have stood up that are gonna show that immediate signs of life, but the persecutions of the world or the pleasures of the world are gonna end up choking out that, that initial sign of life there. So we ultimately wanted to transcend. And last, let's get to Esther. We are finishing Esther today and this is really Esther six and. Yeah. Six seven is not the six seven. There it is. Yeah. I can't believe that. That's the first time and only time I'll ever do that. We'll see. Yeah. Chapter six. Through eight at least is really demonstrating that God has a, an ironic sense of humor about him. And it's not that we take pleasure in the downfall of Haman or anything else like that, but in, in chapter six there's this kind of break as in between the parties that Esther is throwing here and God in again, his sovereignty, even though the name of God is not gonna be mentioned, God's sovereignty. All over the pages of ster, including here, where God causes the king not to be able to sleep. And so he calls for the records to be brought to him. And in the records, according to God's sovereignty, he comes across Mordecai and what Mordecai did on behalf of the king and in God's sovereignty. In walks Haman and Haman. Misunderstands the king thinking the king wants to honor him and says, this is what you should do, king to the guy that you wanna honor. And then the king says to Haman, great, go get Mordecai and do that. Go get the person that you hate the most and go do that. Show him honor. And it, it just reminded me of the the idea that whoever humbles himself will be exalted and whoever exalts himself will be humbled. And I think cer certainly with the, whoever exalts himself, will be humbled. You see that with. With Haman in this story. No doubt. Yeah. Such a cool turn of events. And this is only the beginning, right? I find it fascinating that his own wife and the wise men that he knew said, man, if Mordecai before whom you've begun to fall is of the Jewish people, you will not overcome him, but will surely fall before him. That's the point where you say, Hey, thanks for your encouragement, guys. Appreciate that. What am I supposed to do with that? Granted, he's not the good guy, so I'm not rooting for him by any stretch, but it's such a weird, okay, why would they say that? Why is that necessary? And it's really cool that it's preserved in scripture. It's like Job's wife. Exactly. Chris got that. That's exactly who I thought of. Yeah. Chapter seven. Then we get back to the dinner scene because the next or that evening or whenever it was later on that day dinner part two happens, and at this, the king again looks at Esther and says, okay, Esther what do you want of all up to half my kingdom? What do you want? And then this is where the great reveal happens. Esther says, I want you to save my people. And the kink says okay, who are your people and what do I need to save them from? And then she pulls the curtain back on Haman, who he is and what he's plotted and what his plan is. Now Haman doesn't understand who Esther is or what her lineage is or her connection to all of this. Yeah. Because he turns. Ghost white at this, and the king rushes out in a rage once he finds out. And Haman goes to plead with Esther for his life. And the king walks in and miss takes that for Haman, trying to make a physical advance on his wife. And it becomes even more furious and enraged and orders that Haman should be executed and not only executed, but hung on the very gallows that he made for Mordecai. And there's where I bring up God's ironic sense of humor there that. M Haman ended up building the gallows for Mordecai that he himself would end up being executed on instead of Mordecai. Yeah. You never wanna be on God's bad side. No, because anyone who's on God's side, that's the majority, one plus God is always a majority. None. Plus God is still a majority. Yes. God wins no matter what. Yes. So if you're gonna find yourself on the opposite side of anyone, let it be those who are God's enemies and not God himself. That's what you see here. God will not be thwarted. His plans, his purposes will always prevail. Yeah, they will in chapter eight then the twist of irony continues because Haman's house is given to Esther and she in turn gives it over to Mordecai. So now Mordecai is dwelling in the house of the one that was trying to snuff out his life and kill him. And so then Esther has the problem that the king's order that was given about the death of the Jews was an order according to the law of the Meads and the Persians, which meant that it. Could not be undone. So the king couldn't issue an order that said, Hey, just kidding, nevermind. And so what Esther asks him to do is issue an order that allows the Jews to defend themselves. And that's what he does. He issues an order and it says that he sends out the steeds from the royal basically the royal stables, the fastest horses. He has to spread the news throughout the land that the Jews have the right to defend themselves and to retaliate against anyone who should attempt to harm them in accordance with the original set of orders. And again, the king can't step down or step back and say, Hey. I'm undoing what I said, but he does this to enable the Jews to really have the opportunity to defend themselves, which if people are paying attention and reading between the lines, anyone who was about to attack the Jews should have seen, wait a minute, this is him. Basically undoing what he did before and they would've. Let up and relented at least, but clearly some did not take it that way. Because some people app apparently do attempt to do something to the Jewish people. And you're again, about to see a reversal of those people. And that's in, in chapter nine in, in chapter nine there's. 500 men plus haman's, 10 sons that are all killed in Susa alone. So just in that capital city. Later on we're gonna read that there's 75,000 people that are killed who try to go after the Jewish people. And so to your point, they didn't get it. They didn't understand or they did, they just didn't care. Or they did. And they didn't care yet. They thought, oh, we can still. Get the upper hand here. And again, this is, I think God's sovereignty. He's protecting his people through this. Yeah, 75,000 people were killed and we might look at that and say the Jews were just really skilled at fighting. Or we could look at that and say, no, God delivered the victory. God gave them into the hands of their enemies, the ones that came after them and tried to to hurt them, try to carry out. Haman's originally. Original desire there. Yeah. Important that as you read this, you see this as a defensive posture. This is not them going on the attack trying to hurt people. They're they didn't take any of the plunder. The texts made that clear multiple times, right? They're not in this for the money. They're not trying to get one up on top of people because they're looking to get rich or find some nefarious means of advancing themselves. This is them defending them their lives. They were on the precipice of extermination, and I use that word on purpose because this is exactly what that was like, right? And so they defend themselves against their enemies, and that's what happens here. This is a reversal by God's hand. This is not them trying to do something. Funny. There's no funny business here. This is God's handiwork. Yeah. Yeah. In the rest of chapter nine, we have the Institution of the Feast of Purim, and that's in verses 20 through 32. And this is gonna be inaugurated as a way to, to celebrate God's faithfulness to his people and to preserve them from destruction during this time. So the fact that this even becomes a repeated feast of the Jews and part of their religious feast system shows us that they understood that God was behind this. And that goes back to, and I don't. Know that I made note of it in the last time that we were in Esther, where Mordecai said to Esther, if you're not gonna do this, if you're not gonna go into the king to intercede on the behalf of the people, then God will deliver us, or we will be delivered by some other means is basically what he said. He doesn't say God, but he says We'll be delivered by some other means. And there again is. Evidence of the fact that God's fingerprints are all over this book. I think Mordecai was basically saying, Yahweh, God our God will deliver us by some other means. So I think Esther undoubtedly belongs in the canon. I don't think we need to look at it and question its canonicity, just because it doesn't mention God. There's no miracles recorded. At least not gt ones, not first level miracles. And then the book ends in chapter 10 with a just a. A resume of Mordecai's success and honor from that time forward, God honored Mordecai for being faithful to him as well. Yeah. What an exciting book. You see a lot of God's fingerprints, but you never see God's hand. He's never mentioned, and he's never noted as being particularly effective doing this or that. But you see all of his hand handiwork, his fingerprints are all over this book, even if his name is not, yeah. Yeah. So there you go. There's the book investor. Let's pray and then we'll be done with another episode. God we're grateful for your sovereignty and we trust in it. And even as we were talking about the memorial earlier for this life that that. Ended and was perhaps cut short. I was listening even to somebody talk about it this morning, who said, we often talk about there, he has so much life left to live in front of him. And yet, Lord, we know in Psalm 1 39 that he didn't die early. He died on time. He died in accordance with your plan. And that's true for all of us. Every single one of us, you, our days are written down in your book and you are sovereign over our lives. Just like you were sovereign over the lives of Esther and Mordecai, sovereign over Haman's life, even as one who reject. Rejected you as God. You still ordained the circumstances of his life, sovereign over the kings that we've been reading about as well, these pagan kings, you are the God that is sovereign over all creations. So we trust you and we pray that you'd increase our faith in you. If we can trust you on the big scale things, help us to trust you in the small things of every single day that we live as well. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Keep in your Bibles tuning again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Come back tomorrow please. Bye.

Well, thank you for listening to another rip-roarin' rootin' tootin' episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, folks! We're honored to have you join us. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, and we hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said