In mid-March this year, Jews and many Christians alike will be celebrating Purim, the events in Jewish history where Queen Esther put her life on the line to save her people from certain death.
Briefly, in the story, which can be found in The Book of Esther, an exalted adviser to King Xerxes of Persia named Haman set an evil plot in motion to have all the Jews in the kingdom murdered. Esther, secretly a Jew, had a cousin named Mordecai who caught wind of the scheme and advised Esther to approach King Xerxes and beg for the life of their people. However, Esther was well aware of the protocol: a person could not approach the king unless officially summoned, because if the king did not find favor with a royal subject, that person could immediately be dragged out and executed.
Queen Esther asked her cousin to round up all the Jews and have them fast, repent of their sins, and pray for three days before she made her risky approach into the king’s chambers. At the end of the three days of fervently seeking the Lord’s face and favor, Esther felt confident to approach the king. Through a series of thoughtful, wise and timely events that followed, Esther was able to turn the tables on Haman. Haman was not only ready to wipe out the entire Jewish population, but he had ordered gallows constructed to hang Mordecai, since Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman.
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However, because Mordecai had previously saved the king’s life by exposing an assassination plot, the king felt compelled to honor him. And Haman was the person assigned to dress Mordecai in royal robes and parade him on the king’s own horse through the streets of the kingdom so that everyone could cheer and honor him!
Well, the story ends with Haman himself being hanged from the very gallows he had built for Mordecai — and all of his wealth and power was given to Queen Esther and her cousin Mordecai.
Does any of this story have significance for us today in America? Could the example of Queen Esther be used by those of us in the Church to benefit our own nation?
On Ash Wednesday, the Lenten season begins for Christians throughout the world. During the 40 days, believers are encouraged to humble themselves, fast and pray, and to focus on personally drawing closer to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
This period of reflection and repentance can lead to a renewed spirit and focus on what God desires from our lives. And with lives that are changed and attuned correctly on the things of God, the lives of others, even an entire nation, can be affected for the good.
One of the key verses and ideas that come from Queen Esther’s heroic life is a word of encouragement spoken to her by her cousin Mordecai:
“Who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14, NKJV).
God did not make a mistake in Esther’s life, nor in the words spoken to her by her cousin, her wise adviser.
From this story we must all be assured that each and every one of us was born for such a time as our own. Why? Because we know that God does not make mistakes, and we in our time are not an exception. God doesn’t look down on a person and say, “Oops! Bill has not used his life properly. I should have had him born in the mid-1880s in America and he could have stopped Abraham Lincoln from being assassinated! Ugh! My bad!”
Whether we use our life, the gifts God has given us and the time he has given us in which to use them, to honor our Creator, is up to us.
And what a time and place in which we find ourselves today!
There is a window of opportunity for each one of us to be used to take America from its state of “fundamental transformation” that has played out over the past 16 years and participate — in great and small ways — to “foundationally restore” it to what our Founding Fathers envisioned.
Pastor Jonathan Cahn recently delivered a powerful, prophetic message at the National Prayer Breakfast attended by members of Congress in Washington, D.C. In that message he challenged Christians to use this window of opportunity to heed the plea of 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV):
“If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Many Scriptures encourage us in this journey to restoration. For example, in Galatians 5 St. Paul provides two verses that work together to help point the way:
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
Followed by, “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”
And when it comes to dealing with “the sin that so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1) Paul says:
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV).
Casting Crowns, a Christian rock group, has a wonderful song that helps focus the lives of Christians on the true purpose and focus of life. In their song, “Only Jesus,” are these lyrics:
And I, I don’t want to leave a legacy
I don’t care if they remember me
Only Jesus
And I, I’ve only got one life to liveI’ll let every second point to Him
Only Jesus.
Dovetailing from this, the popular daily devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, from the February 24th entry, exhorts us with these words: “Many of us are after our own ends, and Jesus Christ cannot help Himself to our lives. If we are abandoned to Jesus, we have no ends of our own to serve.”
When we have our personal goals aligned with that of the Almighty who created us “for such a time as this,” we, like Queen Esther, can participate in what God is doing in our lives today, with an eye on the eternal Kingdom one to come, as well.
Albin Sadar is author of Obvious: Seeing the Evil That’s in Plain Sight and Doing Something About It, as well as the children’s book collection Hamster Holmes: Box of Mysteries. Albin is also the former producer of “The Eric Metaxas Show” on the Salem Radio Network.
