Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I'd like you to open your Bibles at the Book of Esther. We're talking about being lights in a dark place. We're talking about shining when it matters, when the sky is dark. And the title of the talk that I have today is "The Darkening Sky." The darkening sky because as we get into the story of Esther, we are going to find today that the storm clouds are gathering. It's sort of been sunshine and roses up to now.

The King of Persia is happy in his palace. He's winning all his wars. But then his wife goes and makes a fool of him in front of his big party, and the plot begins. Remember the story in chapter one? And so he gets rid of Vashti, although not altogether, but he is advised by his advisors that he has to punish her, and that he can depose her and look for another queen.

However, he has things on his mind, like a war against Greece. And so he deposes Vashti, although she continues to hang around his life for a little bit. You don't get rid of a queen mother quite so easily, the mother of his children. In fact, it is thought she was pregnant at this point. The point that he told her to come and expose herself to all the drunken men at his party, she was probably about seven months pregnant, and that could very well have been the reason she declined. One of the reasons she declined.

So she is bearing his child, and children of course are very important to a king. He's looking for sons to follow in the royal train. The Kings of Persia had decided that they were only to marry within seven families. Seven royal families were the fit people to produce the people that kings would choose for their wives. Well, his father had decided this, and his father had already broken his own rule. And Xerxes was about to break his own rule, too, in marrying Esther.

But the idea generally was that the Kings of Persia should look within this tight little royal group for a wife. Vashti had been one of those women that belonged to the tight little, nice little royal group. And in her royal pride, she had blown it. Now she was having a problem with the King. Deposed, she was still there in the background, and still trying to make trouble, as we shall find out.

So the stage is set, but remember God is in the shadows, writing the course of world events across the pages of history. And Esther found herself on a page. When you haven't read the whole book, that's sort of scary. She had no conception about what was to happen in her future. We know because we are looking back on the life of Esther. But in Esther's young life, it must have been a rather dark sky that she was observing coming her way.

Esther found herself in chapter two, married to a man she couldn't have imagined herself marrying. Have you ever met anyone that's found themselves married to a man, and they say something like Esther probably would have said, "How did a nice little Jewish girl get herself in a big mess like this?" Have you ever said that, "How did a little girl like me ever find myself in a mess like this?"

That's probably because what happened was you married a stranger. She married a stranger. In fact, she didn't meet her husband until her wedding night. That was a challenge, I should imagine. Now, sometimes people did things that way in Esther's day and age. Do you remember Jacob? Jacob wanted to marry Rachel. She was beautiful. She probably looked a little bit like Esther looked, just gorgeous. Jacob fell in love with her as soon as he saw her.

But she had an older sister called Leah. And it says in the scriptures that Leah was weak-eyed. Maybe that means cross-eyed, I'm not sure. But Rachel was beautiful in face and form. And so the father of Rachel and Leah looked at Leah and thought, "How am I going to get rid of a cross-eyed daughter? I have to think of something here." And so when Jacob wanted to marry the younger, beautiful girl, the father thought up a nasty little trick.

Now the wives were always veiled until the next day when they had a wedding. And so, remember the story, how Laban tricked Jacob and gave him Leah. It's always puzzled me a little bit how Jacob never knew it was Leah till the morning. But that's what the scripture says. So maybe she kept her veil in place until the appropriate moment, who knows. But anyway, when he lifts the veil, there she is. And of course, it means seven more long years before he gets the girl that he wants to get, which is Rachel.

So there were customs of the day that meant you didn't sometimes meet the person you were going to marry. Perhaps a father would choose for his daughter a man from another village, and the marriage would be arranged. That sounds rather strange to us until you become a mother of teenagers, and then you wish you lived in the Middle East and you could do it like that. Well, we can't do it like that. Our Western culture is quite different. And yet, you know, when you get married, sometimes you really feel you've married a stranger.

And actually you have. When I speak to the young preparation class here for getting married, I often say to them, "You know, however well you think you know the person you're going to marry, you really are marrying a stranger. You really are. There are things about that person you will never discover until you're married." We have a saying in the North of England where I come from, "You never know what you've got till you've got them home and the door's shut." Well, it's sort of true. You do never know what you've got until you've got them home and the door's shut.

And the things that attracted you before marriage begin to irritate you afterwards. Have you noticed that? Because you really don't know each other. You're marrying a stranger. And this is often a darkening sky for some people. And I have women often that come to me and say, "I didn't really know him."

Now, in Esther's case, she surely did marry a stranger, but secondly, she married a strange stranger. I mean, it wasn't just discovering nasty little habits like not putting the toothpaste cap on, and, you know, wanting the toilet roll the other side instead of pulling it down, you pull it up, or whatever those sort of things, those momentous things we find out about the stranger we've married. It wasn't little things like that. I mean, she married this wild man, this horrible man, this lecherous man. And we are told by a historian of the times that he was very, very sexually lecherous.

And I suppose that must be a terrible thing to get married to someone and find that in your sexual life things are really wild. And you had no conception until you married him that he would demand such bizarre behavior and performance from you. And that's not the way out. I can assure you, in this day and age. What a shock it must have been for Esther, most difficult men to live with.

And then he was such a proud man. Somebody has said, "The man exalted to the pedestal of a god is made dizzy by his own altitude." And to marry a man who is so proud he can never say he's sorry, and so consumed with his own importance, like the man that Esther married, must have been very difficult for her. "That's not going to be an easy marriage," she must have said to herself. "Oh, how did a poor little Jewish girl like me ever get into a mess like this?"

And you know, when you're proud, when you're lecherous, that's one thing. But when you add to that an immaturity, a childishness that is very hard to cope with, how are you going to cope? King Xerxes had a childish concept of his own supreme sense of his own importance, like children do. Children have a supreme sense of their own importance. I, me, my, mine, that's child's language. And if you look at the life of this king, that was the sort of thing he ran around his world saying, "I, me, my, and mine." There was no one else.

He was his own god and he worshipped his creator. And you know, he really wasn't fit to be let out of the nursery, let alone mature enough to get married. I often have women saying to me, "My husband is so childish. I mean, he's just so childish." And that can wreck a marriage. But the biggest thing for Esther was that he was unbelieving, that he was lost.

By and large, this message is to do with those of us that find ourselves married to a stranger, married to a strange stranger, married to an immature man perhaps, but above all, or maybe none of those things, and this is the biggie, lost, an unbelieving man.

Esther believed in the one true God. Xerxes believed in his gods, but he also believed in himself, and certainly not in Jehovah, the one true God. Can I apply this right at the beginning of the message, my introduction to you? Have you experienced a darkening sky in your life? Or do you know somebody that has? Perhaps you are not in this case, but God is going to give this message to you so you can go away from this place and be a star in their lives, sharing some of the principles we're going to learn about being married to an unbeliever with a friend, with a neighbor, with somebody perhaps you've just led to the Lord.

Even a dark sky, as we've mentioned before, can be beautiful when it's speckled with stars and stardust. God's creation is exquisite. The sun, moon, and stars were hung in space on a day of creation and were stunningly beautiful. And the little star, Esther, was stunningly beautiful. For a moment, I want to talk about beauty, and what makes it so beautiful.

When you think of the stars, the physical stars in the sky, we're told by the scientists that each one is different, and there is a beauty in diversity. And in the story of Esther, we read that there were women from every province in the land, everyone stunningly beautiful. It was the greatest beauty pageant, remember, of all times. Some would be dark and sultry. Some would be blonde. Some would be olive-skinned. There would be different colors and forms and shapes according to their tribe and nation and where they had been gathered from, just like a big, big beauty parade.

So there is beauty in diversity. Is this why God has painted the giraffes, each one a different pattern? Yes, because he believes that diversity is beautiful. And the snowflakes that flutter down to the ground, and even the noses on our face, just look at the person next to you. There isn't one nose alike. Now, we've all got two eyes and a nose and a mouth, and they're all sort of more or less arranged in the same way, but some are more beautiful than others.

And Esther found herself gathered with the most strikingly, stunningly beautiful little stars. But there was a difference because she was the only one that was lit up from the inside. The spiritual beauty of Esther, the inner quality of reality that lights up the lighthouse and demands attention, that warns people of a presence that intends to save folks that are headed for the rocks. It's this spiritual beauty that makes a beautiful woman different from other beautiful women, that makes an ugly woman different from other ugly women.

I believe that everybody that knows Christ is beautiful, whatever their form or feature. But she had something going for her. She had beauty of face and form as well as spiritual beauty. That was hard to beat. And when you think about it, knowing God and knowing Christ brings the beauty outwardly as well as inwardly, for the obvious reasons. The peace of God that passes understanding that rules in our hearts, deals with the wrinkled brows. The joy that Jesus brings, softens the frown and curves the lips in an inviting way.

God confidence expressed in a firm step and a straight back draws eyes and attention. And a purity that comes through the windows of the soul, which are our eyes, attracts people. I always remember working on the streets of Europe with a gang of young people. It was tough and it was difficult, and we weren't doing very well. And we gathered with the people that we had managed to bring into the little coffee bar that we got set up for them. And there were a lot of rough, tough kids there.

And my youngsters were just like them on the outside. They looked alike, they dressed alike. You couldn't really tell the difference. Some were pretty and some were ugly. Some were handsome, and some were just ordinary. But there was a difference. And you know who alerted me to it? The unbelieving young people we'd brought in. And one of them came to me and said, "All these kids and you too, all these kids and you too, are you all high or something?"

And I said, "No, we're not high." He said, "You must have been taking something." I said, "No, what makes you think that, just because we're happy?" He said, "No, no, no." He said, "It's your eyes, your eyes." He said, "Look at your eyes. They've all got something about their eyes. He says, 'You have to be on something.'" I said, "No, no, we're not." And you know, it alerted me to just look at the eyes of the young people. And there was that sparkle, I don't know, you know, however beautiful the eyes of the other young people were, if the eyes are the windows of the soul, then Jesus was shining out of them. And there was a quality of sparkle and life and vivaciousness about those spiritual young people. Amazing. The difference even in our physical frame when Christ is within.

And Esther certainly had this quality about her. One of my favorite poems, and I've used it here before, I'll use it again is this: "Not only by the words you say, not only in your deeds confessed, but in the most unconscious way, is Christ expressed. Is it a beatific smile, a holy light upon your brow? Oh, no, I felt his presence when you laughed just now. For me 'twas not the truth you taught, to you so clear, to me so dim, but when you came to me, you brought a sense of Him. And from your eyes, He beckons me, and from your lips, His love is shed, 'til I lose sight of you and see the Christ instead."

And that's beautiful. That's beautiful. And I believe without a shadow of a doubt, Esther shone with an inner beauty, but also with an outer beauty. Now, I just been somewhere where there was a ladies' conference and the lady got up and said, "Some are fat and some are thin, and this is the body that I'm in." And that's how it is. Some of us have more help than others outwardly. Right. We were just talking about that behind here. It's interesting to me. Let's read 12 through 17 again of chapter two.

"Before a girl's turn came to go into King Xerxes, she had to complete 12 months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women: six months with oil of myrrh, six with perfumes and cosmetics. And this is how she would go to the King. Anything she wanted was given her to take with her from the harem to the King's palace. In the evening she would go, and in the morning she would return to the other part of the harem, to the care of another of the King's eunuchs who was in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the King unless he was pleased with her, summoned her by name. When the time came for Esther, the girl Mordecai had adopted, the daughter of her uncle Abihail, to go to the King, she asked for nothing other than what Hegai, the King's eunuch who was in charge of the harem, suggested. And Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her."

Now, I've wondered about that, and I've read a little bit about it, and found out what that means. What it means was that Esther dressed according to her own personality and her own beauty. She made the best of what she was. She went without the trappings of beauty of the day. And that really interested me, and I think it has a word for us Christian women.

I believe that we ought to make the best of ourselves as we are. Tell me a beautiful thing. Find out what does make you the very best that God has made you and given you. How can you make the best of yourself? And then forget it. Go without the trappings of beauty that are being thrown at us from the television, and thrown at us from left, right, and center. The extremes of the day.

I thought a little bit about that. The trippings of trappings, I thought. How we can get tripped up with the trappings. That's not a very good idea. And it's easy to do, especially when some of us, as I say, have a little bit further to go than an Esther. Some of us have that advantage right from the beginning. The simplicity, in other words, she went with the things that Hegai gave her, and he was astute enough to know to send her as Esther, to send her enhanced with the thing that would best suit her, and without the trappings of the day.

So beauty of the Christian woman is simplicity. Beauty is spirituality. And beauty is a submissive spirit, without the sense of competition. You know, I do believe that Esther went without a sense of competition, or the other girls would not have been so kind, and gasped with delight, and wished her well. Now, this could have been for various reasons. Maybe she didn't want the job. That's probably one reason that she wasn't trying too hard, maybe.

But on the other hand, she did come and please the King, and I think she went and did the best job she could in the circumstances. And I do believe that she had a compliant, submissive spirit. In verse 19 and 20 it says, "She continued to follow Mordecai's instructions." She did what Hegai told her because she'd made a habit of submitting to the authority that God had given over her life, her uncle who had brought her up. And this was Esther. You read it here, you read it there. I believe it was part of her character, a quiet and submissive spirit. The beauty of a quiet, submissive spirit. I believe attracted the King. Why? Because I believe it was a contrast to Vashti.

Vashti was beautiful. There was no question about that. But she had that hard, metallic beauty, and no inner beauty. And the problem with Vashti was, she was cruel, and I believe that would show too in her face. Now, how do we know that Vashti was cruel? Again, this Greek historian, whose greatest work was about this time, Esther's time, has given us all sorts of insights. He lived around this time, and he wrote about this time. Vashti was, we believe, the same as Amestris that we read about in his books. Most people say the two were the same.

And I told you at the beginning of this talk that the King had deposed her, but he hadn't got rid of her altogether. And most people believe, and this historian says, "He took her, Vashti, even though he'd deposed her, with him on his campaign to Greece." He also took other women. Couldn't go on any little journey without his women. He took his brother with him, and he took his brother's wife and his brother's daughter with him. And began to have an affair with both of them, just for fun on the way.

It was almost like a Herod situation in the New Testament. And apparently, at one point, Vashti, trying to get back into his good books perhaps, made him a beautiful robe and gave it him. Wove it herself. Nothing to do at night on the way to Greece, so maybe she took her loom along, I don't know, but she made this robe, she gave it him. And at a place called Sardis, Xerxes wanted to please the mother and the daughter that he was messing around with. So he asked the mother what the daughter would like. And the mother said, "The robe Vashti made you." And so the King gave it her.

Vashti didn't like that. Oh, no, she didn't. So she had it arranged that she would have the mother, who she blamed for this, mutilated. She had her nose and her ears cut off, and tore her tongue out, just for fun. The King didn't like that. And so when he came back, he decided he would replace her. That's the story, documented.

Now, you can be as beautiful as you like on the outside, but if you're going to do things like that, it'll show, even in your face. And we would never do that, but don't you know women who have mutilated people's characters? And that's not a very beautiful thing to do. Why do they do that? Because they're jealous, because they're competitive, because there is no inner submissive spirit. And it shows.

And I really believe that when the King met Esther, it was this quality that he couldn't put his finger on. He didn't understand. "From your eyes, He beckons me. From your heart, His love is shed, 'til I lose sight of you and see the Christ instead." I believe that's what he fell in love with. In a hungering way, this was a lost man, and there was a quality that he had never seen before, just as the eunuch had seen it as soon as he saw Esther, and fell in love with it in his own way.

Esther was beautiful. God hung his beautiful little Jewish star against a darkening sky and said, "Shine, little girl." But you know, you can't shine in a blue sky. But shine in the dark, and they'll light up your eye. God can't dry your tears if you never weep. God can't straighten you out if you're not in a heap. The blacker the background, the greater the chance to draw folks' attention. The Lord to enhance. You can't shine in a blue sky. When morning's broken and the sun is high, but wait till the shadows of life lay you low. Then Jesus will light you and set you to glow. You can't shine in a blue sky.

Many of you women have been hung up with an unbeliever, and sometimes it's a darkening sky. God allows the shadows to lengthen, and the daylight to flee away, in order to have the perfect backdrop to set off the jewel, that the man in your life, or the person in your life, will despite themselves, be attracted to the inner beauty that shows by your spirit, and shows even physically as you make the best of yourself for His sake.

I remember the girl that led me to Christ, that's what attracted me to her. She was pretty, but ask me why and I couldn't tell you why. And as I looked at her in that hospital bed, I saw she had two eyes, a nose, a mouth, black, curly hair arranged a nice way, very pleasant face. But the face wasn't a mask. There was a liveliness about it, a spark, a light, an added dimension that attracted me, and I couldn't look away, and she pointed me to Christ. "From her eyes, He beckoned me. From her heart, His love was shed, till I lost sight of her and saw the Christ instead."

Before that, I'd been at college, and I remember going up to a room one day with a note in my hand, flinging open the door rather rudely, and finding a girl that I didn't like very much, didn't know why, but her life convicted me. A beautiful girl on her knees with a Bible open on the bed. And as she looked up, her face reflected the glory of God. And I threw the note on the bed and rushed outside and slammed the door, and leant against the wall and cried with anger and frustration. "How dare she make me feel like that?" Nothing she'd done. She was beautiful, and I was reduced.

God in the shadows hangs stars in the skies. He cleans up our souls. He lights up our eyes. So that people who grope through the dusk of despair, begin to have hope, and ask if he's there. He uses his stars to show forth his glory, to drive away doubt, to shout out his story, to grapple with sin, and travel this earth, to shine out for Jesus with the joy of new birth. You can gather I've been in a poetic frame of mind as I've prepared this today.

Have you ever wondered why stars only come out at night? Don't wonder anymore. God wants you to shine especially brightly. Esther was about to shine. She had a problem. And you do when you're married to an unbeliever. God divides the light from the darkness. He hangs the stars in the sky, and it's sort of all dark up there. The darkness doesn't overcome it. But how does the light and the darkness live together? How do you live in darkness in light, if you like? Isn't it a sort of divided way to live? Isn't the conflict when the light comes in touch with the darkness?

Yes, there is a division, no question about it. You cannot share certain things when you're married to an unbeliever. I've just come back from a real neat time in Stony Brook School. That's on Long Island. And it's a private school, a Christian school. And the young people are really neat. They're all Christian young people. I had a marvelous time in the dorm for three hours answering their questions. Many of them are not believers, and some are. And they wanted to know why Christians say that they shouldn't date unbelievers.

And I was trying to explain to them and take them beyond the wedding day. And say, "What would you feel like if you had your kids, and the little boy ran up to your husband and said, 'Is there a God, Daddy?' And Daddy said, 'No.'" What would you feel like? And what would happen when they were teenagers and they came and said, "Mommy says that I shouldn't let a boy mess around with me after a date. What do you think, Daddy?" And Daddy said, "Oh, it's all right. Mommy's just old-fashioned. That's all right. And I hope you do sleep with your boyfriend before you get married because that's the way to really find out if you suit each other." What would you feel like then?

And I said, "Do you only want to get married for now? Don't you want to be with each other forever in heaven?" For all these reasons, kids, project, project, project. You can't share the very deepest things. And that's the thing that hurts when you're married to an unbeliever. But you can care. Look at Esther. Verse 19. "When the virgins were assembled a second time, Mordecai was sitting at the King's gate. But Esther kept secret her family background and nationality, just as Mordecai had told her to, for she continued to follow Mordecai's instructions, as she had done when he was bringing her up. During the time Mordecai was sitting at the King's gate, Bigthana and Teresh, two of the King's officers who guarded the doorway, became angry and conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. But Mordecai found out the plot and told Queen Esther, who in turn reported it to the King, giving credit to Mordecai. And when the report was investigated and found to be true, the two officials were hanged on a gallows. All this was recorded in the Book of the Annals in the presence of the King." And now we get the story underway.

When they could care, they did. When they could love, they would. When they could be loyal without compromising, they took action. Both Mordecai, a star in his own right, and Esther. Mordecai was now in a position of influence he had not held in chapter one. In chapter one, he was outside the courtyard, so he was in the King's employ. But it is thought as soon as Esther became queen, she spoke to the King and got Mordecai in a very important position indeed. A very high up position indeed. He was indeed in a position to find out the inner workings of the palace, and to uncover a plot to assassinate the King.

Now then, if you'd been Esther, if you'd been Mordecai, would you have told the King? I mean, I'd have been very tempted, to tell you the truth, to let the two guys get on with it. And I think Mordecai must have been tempted, after all, it was his little girl that was in this position, and if they could get rid of Xerxes, the son wasn't quite so bad. Maybe Esther would then be queen mother and still have her position and influence and be safe. And so Mordecai must have been tempted, and so must Esther have been, to let history take its course. Just let it happen. But they didn't. They cared.

And what we have to do when we're married to unbelieving people is to care enough to do what we can when we can, and to go the extra mile and to love, not expecting anything in return. Let's do the thing we can do to show that person how much we love them. The protective thing, the practical thing. And there are many things, even though we cannot share at the deepest level yet. We can share, and we can care at every other level we can find, so that we can win that person to the Lord.

And I believe that in the story later on, Esther would never have had her life spared if she had not been a superb wife, a superb queen. If she had not done it right. Now, I do not believe she would have had a chance to survive then. So when we are in a situation, yoked up or living in a home, maybe it doesn't our husband, but unbelievers are all around, then even though we cannot share, we can care, and we must. And that's what's going to do it. And you need to read 1 Peter chapter 3, and find out without the word how you can win that man of yours with that meek and submissive spirit, and that caring, and that loving, and that doing. All the things that a Christian wife has the power to do, and is lent the ability to do by the Holy Spirit.

And yet you know, here, there is a little side picture as well when I mention the Holy Spirit. Mordecai, if you like, is a picture of the Holy Spirit, telling Esther, "Be quiet here, do not be quiet there. Speak now, do not speak now." Mordecai said, "Don't tell the King that you're a Jewess. Don't tell him yet. He doesn't need to know yet. There might come a time." This was not telling her to be a coward, it was being prudent. Concentrate on being a queen.

"Let's save his life." This is what we must do. God would want us to save life, and to uncover this plot, this terrible murder. That's what people should do that know the Lord. "Let's be the queen that you should be, Esther. Don't tell him now who you are. There will come a time." And you see, Mordecai was acting like the Holy Spirit. There is a time to keep quiet. There is a time to speak. And Esther was submissive to the Holy Spirit, if you like, doing what she was told. Concentrate on being a good queen.

Those of you married to unbelievers, above all the rest of us, need to be in touch so closely with God that you know when the time to speak and the time to keep silence is. It's very important. It isn't being a coward, it's being prudent, and listening very quietly to your Mordecai, the Holy Spirit. But there will be a time. Well, in Esther's case, it wasn't time yet. It was time to be a good queen.

Now, on the stage of history comes the synthetic star. Across the sky comes bursting like a shooting star, Haman, the greatest Jew-hater of all history. Let's get into the story. "After these events, King Xerxes honored Haman, the Agagite, elevating him and giving him a seat of honor higher than all of the other nobles. All the royal officials at the King's gate knelt down and paid honor to him, for the King had commanded this concerning him. But Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor. Then the royal officials at the King's gate asked Mordecai, 'Why do you disobey the King's command?' Day after day they spoke to him, but he refused to comply. Therefore, they told Haman about it to see whether Mordecai's behavior would be tolerated, for he had told them he was a Jew.

"When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged. Yet having learned who Mordecai's people were, he scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Instead, Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai's people, the Jews throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes. In the 12th year of King Xerxes, in the first month, the month of Nisan, they cast lots in the presence of Haman to select a day and a month, and the lot fell on the 12th month, the month of Adar. Then Haman said to King Xerxes, 'There's a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom, whose customs are different from those of all the other people, and who do not obey the King's laws. It's not in the King's best interest to tolerate them. If it pleases the King, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will put 10,000 talents of silver into the royal treasury for the men who carry out this business.' So the King took his signet ring from his finger, and he gave it to Haman, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. 'Keep the money,' the King said to Haman, 'Do with the people as you please.'

"On the 13th day of the first month, the royal secretaries were summoned. They wrote out in the script of each province and in the language of each people all Haman's orders to the King's governors of the various provinces and the nobles of the various peoples. These were written in the name of King Xerxes himself and sealed with his own ring. And remember, any law made by a King of Persia could not be reversed, impossible. Dispatches were sent out, couriers, with the order to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, women and little children, on a single day, the 13th day of the 12th month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. A copy of the text of the edict was to be issued as law in every province and nationality, so they would be ready for that day. Spurred on by the King's command, the couriers went out, and the edict was issued in the citadel of Susa. And the King and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was bewildered.

So now we have Esther, Mordecai, hanging high in a darkening sky, shining brighter the darker the night becomes, shining brightly with truth, and integrity, and honesty. But now this other light has appeared, fueled by a different element, endeavoring to outshine God's star. Haman, the devil's substitute, bursts on the stage like a gaudy thing hanging there in the sky, seeking to obliterate all the competition along the way. And the King declares him the brightest star in the sky, next to himself, of course, and makes him his right-hand man. Haman is about to make his presence felt. And the devil has his substitutes. He apes God. He appears as an angel of light. And as the Jewish people sat down to eat supper, they were oblivious that that night had fallen, and that diabolical plans for their extinction were about to become a hideous reality. And Queen Esther, sleeping soundly in her bed, was likewise unaware that the time was coming when she would need to arise and shine, for her time had come.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this story. We see in so many lives an Esther, a beautiful woman, seeking to love, and to care, to protect, to be a queen for you. Married to men they really didn't know, or finding themselves having come to Christ after their marriage, married to a stranger, some to strange strangers. And God, we pray for our sisters in Christ who are married to men that are hard to love, perhaps, or that are easy to love, but that are lost, and who need so badly the Christ we know and love. And we pray for them. That they may listen quietly to their Holy Spirit, their Mordecai, that he may tell them not yet, not now, now, whatever, and that they may obey. That they may be the queen they are meant to be, that they may save their King's life in more way than a physical sense, but in a spiritual sense, too. And that the husbands that are represented here may find in Jesus salvation.

In our minds, we think of names of some of those people, and we bring them to you now, and we pray for them, these men that we love. These men that we long to share our faith with. Lord, when we experience a darkening sky, help us to allow you to hang us up just anywhere you want, and shine through us. So that from our eyes you beckon people, and from our hearts your love is shed, till they lose sight of us and see the Christ instead. For Jesus' sake, amen.