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Skip Heitzig: It was Dale Carnegie who used to say there’s always three speeches for the one you actually gave. And he described it this way: There’s the speech you practiced, there’s the one you gave, and then there’s the one you wish you gave. But sometimes all those three come together as one, where you actually give the speech you always wanted to give. And when that happens, it can change the world.

There have been speeches that occurred and when they occurred, when they were given, history changed. The Gettysburg Address, 1863, given by President Abraham Lincoln. The speech was only two minutes long. "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." And he ended with the classic phrase, "A government of the people, by the people, for the people." Life-changing speech.

Then there was the speech given by President Roosevelt, FDR. He gave the speech to the joint sessions of Congress, December 8th, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese forces. He began that speech: "Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy." By the end of that speech, it was clear that our involvement in World War II was sealed. It changed the course of events.

Another memorable speech was given by President Ronald Reagan, in Berlin, Germany, at the Brandenburg Gate. Behind him was the wall that separated East and West, and President Reagan gave that classic line. He said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Everything was different after that speech. We could think of the speeches given by Winston Churchill to the Parliament and to his war cabinet when the Nazi incursion was at its height.

Another memorable speech for New Mexicans was given by Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos Laboratory after the bomb had been developed, and he gave a charge to the scientific community to be responsible with the power they had unleashed. We want to look at a speech that was life-changing, given by a man named Mordecai. Mordecai the Jew, given in the book of Esther. It changed the events of history. It saved the Jews from annihilation.

Mordecai is his name. We’re going to discover his background. But the name Mordecai is not a Jewish name. Though he was Jewish, it is a Babylonian name and it is related to the god worshipped in Babylon called Marduk. Listen to that again: Marduk, Mordecai. You can hear the similarities. But he was Jewish. He came from the tribe of Benjamin and he was even related to Israel’s first king, King Saul.

That’s Mordecai. Mordecai’s great-grandfather had been taken into captivity by King Nebuchadnezzar back in 597 BC. So Mordecai grew up in captivity. Now the world is not under the Babylonians, but as we open the book of Esther, it’s the Persians who are dominating the scene. Mordecai the Jew has an enemy, an enemy by the name of Haman. Haman was an Agagite. He was the long-standing enemy of the Jewish people. He finds out that Mordecai is Jewish. He has a hatred and antipathy for not only Mordecai but all the Jews. He wants to see them all destroyed.

Not only is Mordecai Jewish, but Esther, who is the queen by the time we get into the story, is also Jewish and related to Mordecai. She’s the cousin of Mordecai. Mordecai and she are cousins. He’s the older cousin, she is the younger cousin. Though she is Jewish, she is part of a harem, the harem of a pagan king. And as part of the harem, eventually she becomes the new queen. If you know the story, you know that the previous queen was a gal by the name of Vashti. And the reason she is now not the queen is because one day her husband, Ahasuerus the king, calls for her to come. She refuses to come. He solves the problem by kicking her off the throne, and eventually a new queen is put on the throne by the name of Esther.

The story unfolds like a movie script. And I mean that quite literally, like a classic movie script where you have the setup, a conflict, a confrontation, and a result. So we have the setup. I’ve given you the background. We then have a conflict between Haman and Mordecai. There is a confrontation that takes place. We’re not going to read about that. That comes later. But then there is a result as the book comes to a close.

The name Esther, though she is Jewish, is also not a Jewish name. It’s a Persian name. It means "star." If you speak the Spanish language, you’re familiar with the term "estrella." It comes from the Persian word Esther or star. But it is Mordecai’s speech that puts her into action. She may be the headliner. Esther might be the star of this movie. Her name’s at the top of the book. But the real hero is Mordecai.

And the lesson I want you to walk away with is the lesson of inspiration. Mordecai’s life is that he had the ability to inspire. Now let me ask you a question. Who do you inspire? Who is it in life that you can rouse to action, stimulate to do something more than that person is doing? Mordecai had the ability to inspire. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be." For Esther, that was her cousin Mordecai.

Now we’re going to begin in chapter three in a moment, beginning in verse thirteen. But I would like to go through the story chronologically and kind of like a movie in four different scenes. Scene one, scene two, scene three, scene four. The first scene, the opening scene for us, is a national tragedy. An edict has been signed. By the time we get into the book, an edict has been signed by the king Ahasuerus at the behest of Haman the Agagite to exterminate every single Jew in the entire Persian Empire. The king signs it.

Esther chapter three, verse thirteen: "And the letters were sent by couriers," that is copies of this extermination edict, "they were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, children and women, in one day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their possessions. A copy of the document was to be issued as law in every province, being published for all people, that they should be ready for that day. The couriers went out, hastened by the king’s command, and the decree was proclaimed in Shushan the citadel."

Shushan, Susa, is the capital of Persia. The citadel is the palace. "So the king," that’s Ahasuerus, "and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Shushan was perplexed." According to this guy, he saw that there was a problem in the empire, the Persian Empire. And to use the terminology of the Nazis, it was a "Jewish problem." What do we do about the Jewish problem? And so he came up with his own final solution: an edict to be signed, a mass extermination.

Okay, let’s pause for a moment. A little bit of background. The Jews are in captivity. They were taken captive by the Babylonians. The Babylonian empire is done. The Persian empire is now in charge. They have assumed all the exiles. King Cyrus, who was the first Persian monarch, allowed the Jews to go back home and rebuild their city and their temple. Though that edict to return was given, not many actually left. Less than 50,000 Jews returned to the land to rebuild. Most of them remained. In fact, there were 15 million Jews still living in the Persian Empire in 127 different provinces.

Guest (Female): You’re listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Every day, friends like you help connect people around the world to the life-changing truth of God’s word through clear, verse-by-verse Bible teaching. And this month, we’d like to thank you with a practical resource designed for the challenges of everyday life. When you give, you’ll receive Biblical Wisdom for Everyday Living, a collection of four lifestyle booklets from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Through "Pray This Way," "Technicolor Joy," "Unforgiveness: Forgiveness vs. Sweet Revenge," and "Standing Firm in Unsettled Times," you’ll discover biblical wisdom for prayer, joy, forgiveness, and finding peace when life feels uncertain. We’ll send this special collection as our thanks when you give $30 or more to support Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com/offer. Now, let’s return to today’s teaching.

So the edict is: We’re going to kill all 15 million of them in one day. Twenty percent of the entire Persian Empire population were Jewish. This law makes anti-Semitism legal. And had he been able to go through with this nefarious plot, there would have been more than twice the amount of Jews killed in World War II at the Holocaust. 15 million. Well, Mordecai didn’t know about this plot yet. Esther didn’t know about it. She’s hidden away in the palace. Mordecai wasn’t there the day that they had this signed. But when he finds out, and when she finds out, and when all the Jews in the empire find out, there’s a massive reaction.

And this reminds me of what happened to America after September 11th, 2001. We woke up to a reality very few of us were aware of. And that is that there is a majority Islamic population in the world that wants nothing more than the absolute destruction of our country. America is called the Great Satan, and Israel is known as the Little Satan. And there has been a long-standing antipathy and hatred that we didn’t know about, but now we did.

So the plot gets hatched. Notice at the end of verse fifteen of chapter three: "The city of Shushan was perplexed." A better translation is: They were confused. Why? Because such a decree had never been issued. And if the king can make a stroke of the pen that kills 15 million Jews, the question is: Which group is next? Nobody’s safe. So they’re confused.

Okay, a quick note, a contemporary note, before we move on to scene two. The setting of this book is ancient Persia. Ancient Persia is modern Iran. Iran today is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, by every single metric we know. It is Iran that has supplied proxy groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, and countless other groups with armament and incentive to incessantly attack the Jewish nation to annihilate them.

And if you’ve been following the news, you know that there’s an outbreak on the streets of Tehran and the other cities in Iran the last month or so, wanting regime change, wanting the Ayatollah out, wanting freedom in their country. And because of that, the hardline government have executed 36,500 people who just want nothing more than freedom. And I just was thinking about this, going through this book this week, of what Solomon wrote. There’s nothing new under the sun. History has a way of repeating itself. And it could be that Israel finds itself in another Esther moment like this.

So that’s the first scene, a national tragedy. Now the camera pans to scene two. And scene two, the camera focuses in on one man, that is Mordecai. He’s really the hero. So we go from a national tragedy to scene two, an expected anxiety. Look at chapter four, verse one: "When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud and bitter cry. He went as far as the front of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. And in every province where the king’s command and decree arrived, there was a great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes."

So Mordecai now enters into a public, loud, visible, audible display of grief. Grief, sackcloth, and ashes. We in the West, we don’t get this emotion. You know, when somebody dies and people cry at funerals, it’s remarkable how if somebody holds it together and doesn’t weep, we applaud that. We say things like, "Oh, he is so strong." Strong? I mean, in the Middle East, you’d never get away with that. If you’ve ever seen on television a Middle East funeral where you have mobs of people clawing at the casket and yelling and throwing dust in the air, that’s the reaction that is taking place.

Well, he puts on sackcloth. Sackcloth is goat’s hair. It’s very rough, it’s very uncomfortable. Think of a potato sack with three holes, one for the head, two for the arms. You wear that over, it itches. And then there are ashes that are applied that add to the look, to make a person appear ghastly, ghostly, unclean, grimy, purposely distressed. So these are all symbols of debasement, mourning, to show intense, deep grief. He enters into that kind of grief.

Now on one hand, I get it. Who wouldn’t mourn knowing that many people are slated for death on one day? But for Mordecai, he may be feeling responsible. We haven’t read it, but early on in the book, he makes no attempt to hide the fact that he is Jewish. He sort of advertises that he’s Jewish. And this antagonist Haman, that he is working with in the workplace, because he hates Mordecai so much and therefore wants to kill all of the Jews, maybe Mordecai feels a sense of personal culpability and responsibility.

And then in verse three, this deep sorrow spreads through all the land. So Jews everywhere are in grief. By the way, have you noticed how grief, national grief, a national tragedy, brings people together? Some of you remember September 11th and what that did for people, kind of bonding us in a new and a different way. This happens after every disaster like an earthquake, a flood, a fire, mass shootings, an assassination. It just brings people together.

I was reading this week a study from the University of Freiburg, Germany. One sentence stuck out: "Acute stress may actually lead to greater cooperative, social, and friendly behavior." The article went on to say that people become more trusting during times like this, willing to cooperate with others. That’s happening throughout the empire. Whatever differences Jewish neighbors had was gone because they’re all going to die.

Now, back to verse two. I mentioned that I want to get back to it. "He went as far as the front of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth." You need to know the Persian kings kind of lived in a la-la land. They lived in an artificial paradise, a walled paradise, carefully kept. They were sheltered from the realities, the harsh realities of life. They were to be pampered, they were to enjoy life. No bad news was to reach their ears, if possible.

I’m going to jog your memory a little bit. Back in Nehemiah chapter two, Nehemiah was serving a different Persian king and one day he shows up for work and the king notices that he is sad, and the king brings it up and Nehemiah is petrified. Because he said, "I had never before been sad in the king’s presence." It wasn’t allowed. So if you’re in mourning, wearing sackcloth, you are certainly not allowed to come into the gate. So he can’t just pop in and say, "Esther, cousin, we got a problem." He can’t go in. He is publicly mourning, he is grieving. Even though he works at the palace, he doesn’t have access to the king, doesn’t have access even to his cousin Queen Esther.

So he gets a guy by the name of Hathach. I’m telling you this because you’re about to read his name. Hathach is a go-between, an emissary, probably a eunuch that worked in the palace. And Mordecai’s going to give him a message, and he’s going to give that message to Queen Esther. Then Queen Esther’s going to give a reply back to Hathach, who will take it to Mordecai. Mordecai will then—you see how it goes. They’re going to use somebody as a go-between. But they’re going to communicate and essentially this takes us to scene three, and that is the speech that is given by Mordecai.

Scene three is a strategic opportunity. It’s the speech that saved the nation. So this is what happens, without reading all of this. Mordecai sends a copy of the death edict to Esther. "Look at what the king just put into law." Tells her what’s going on and says, "Please go to the king and make supplication, plead with the king to change his decision."

Verse ten of chapter four, we begin there. "Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a command for Mordecai." So she’s replying back. "All the king’s servants," she says, "all the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that any man or woman who goes into the inner court to the king, who has not been called, he has but one law: put all to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter." The scepter was the symbol of authority for a king, and an outstretched scepter means you are accepted into my presence that he may live.

Guest (Female): Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we go, remember your generosity helps share God’s word with people around the world, bringing biblical truth, encouragement, and hope to those who need it most. And this month, we’d love to thank you for your gift of $30 or more by sending you Biblical Wisdom for Everyday Living, a collection of four lifestyle booklets from Pastor Skip Heitzig: "Pray This Way," "Technicolor Joy," "Unforgiveness: Forgiveness vs. Sweet Revenge," and "Standing Firm in Unsettled Times."

These practical resources will help you apply God’s truth to everyday challenges and grow deeper in your walk with Christ. Give today at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. See you next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig.