For Such a Time as This

Let's turn tonight to Esther, chapter four, where Esther makes her famous Decision to change the way she lives and to do what is right. This is really a Story a lot of the story of Esther is about Telling the truth and what happens when we don't And the loss of truth can be deadly. I think that may be the The number one takeaway from the story of Esther if there's Takeaways at all The loss of truth can destroy relationships and families communities even whole societies and We are living in a society that many Sociologists and psychologists call culture of lies. Now, there's a a man named Ralph Keese. He's the author of 16 books He's a journalist for a national public radio and a commentator and contributor to various magazines and journals His latest book is entitled the post-truth era dishonesty and deception and contemporary life And he writes as he puts forward his book. I think it is fair to say that honesty is on the ropes and deception has become Commonplace at all levels of contemporary life the borrows what was in 2016 the new word of the year. That's what the Oxford English dictionary does every year they pick a new word for the year and the year for 2016 was the word post-truth He's writes even though there have always been liars Lies have usually been told with some amount of hesitation a Dash of anxiety a bit of guilt and a lot of shame At least some sheepishness now clever people that we are we have come up with Rationals for tampering with truth so we can disemboweled guilt-free Proced truthfulness exists in an ethical twilight zone It allows us to disembow without considering ourselves dishonest When our behavior conflicts with our values. We are more likely To reconsive our values Then to tell the truth Since we do not want to think of ourselves as an ethical we simply devise Alternative approaches to morality There's a lot of ways that we do that This is the age I think of the euphemism rather than call something what it is We simply change the name so it doesn't sound so bad so that the whole LGPT agenda is no longer Sodomy or homosexuality or even lesbianism. It's a gay lifestyle or People are gender challenge or gender confused or Sexually reoriented. We simply change the meaning of things. We don't have Adulterous relationships anymore. We don't fornicate anymore. We have a an affair with a Significant other we explore an alternative marriage pattern or we simply dissolve our marriages and And so it stands to reason that rather than say to people that we lie we simply change the word Now we misspeak or we exaggerate or we Have mental reservations or we nuance the truth. We use poetic euphemisms or creative license or Sermon hyperbole We talk about alternative realities misrepresentations Spin Shading the truth or not wanting to face reality, but we don't lie. In fact, we don't even sin anymore We just make mistakes We exercise poor judgment We make bad decisions Or listen to this one we go against our better judgment I've gone against my better judgment my whole life Now if I put it that way it makes me sound good I Just did something wrong with the speak not because I'm a center. I want to get my better judgment God says nope you send Journalist Helen Kennedy for the New York Daily News Back in 2001 reported about how Bill Clinton lied when he said I did not have sexual relations with that woman When he was talking about Monica Lewinsky She says he admitted to giving misleading answers to Paula Jones's lawyers when they tried to grill him about Lewinsky in the 1998 deposition Clinton denied that he was having sexual relations with the White House intern Figuring that because the affair was long over and because they did not actually engage in intercourse that he was not technically lying The evasions ultimately led to his impeachment by the house on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice I tried to walk a fine line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely But now I recognize the diet not fully accomplished that goal and that certain of my responses to the questions about Miss Lewinsky were false That's what Clinton said But he went on to parse to the very end admitting to giving false answers, but not to lying His lawyer David Kendall told reporters that Clinton did not lie We have not admitted that he ever lied and we don't do so today He has conceded that he tried to conceal the relationship with Miss Lewinsky now did you notice the different words for lying He gave misleading information he spoke false that he tried to conceal the truth. He was less than honest, but he didn't lie

Ralph Kees goes on in the book to say If that's even entered the world of the church an acceptable banner. It's it's called mental reservation He says that it was devised during the time of the Reformation He said that Roman Catholics developed something they called mental reservation as defense for telling an untruth under the threat of persecution When asked about something confessional or creedal that they believed they reserved the truth for themselves even as they misled their interrogator They exercised mental reservation Before long others used this excuse in order to give a parent a sentence to creedal statements while privately Rejecting the very truth articulated in the statement and that they publicly said they agreed with

Mr. Kees points out that this happens all through the different layers of society When Al Molar was reviewing this book He talked about the famous TV personality Martha Stewart Who served time in federal prison for lying to federal judges? about her dealings in the stock market Al Molar says Martha Kees served time in a federal prison for lying to federal authorities And is identified by Kees as one of the quintessential reinvented Americans Unlike Ralph Lauren who openly acknowledges his humble origins Kees accuses Martha Stewart of going to incredible and extreme efforts to hide her humble roots in an article written in an early Issue of Martha Stewart living Stewart wrote an editorial tribute to honesty and she said we must remember And teach our children and perhaps our political figures one essential truth And that is the truth will make you free Nevertheless, Kees presents a very different picture of America's domestic advice Her Martha Stewart routinely misrepresented the type of families she grew up in her father's occupation whom she dated in college who her roommates were From how much money she earned as a model the size of the parties she threw her husband's ability to father children And how much of her own writing she actually did where her home was located in order to avoid paying taxes And why she sold her stock at the time she did and it led to her going to prison

Everyone lies You're a liar micross as a liar Roman says Let God be found true though every person be a liar What is written That none is righteous no not one No one understands no one seeks for God all have turned aside together. They become corrupt No one does good not even one their throat is an open grave They use their tongues to deceive The venom of asks is on their lips. We have a fundamental problem with truth And I'm not here to make Martha Stewart or Bill Clinton or Esther Look any less truthful than you and me The fact of the matter is we have a problem with truth So that Jesus Christ would say if you abide in my word you are truly my disciples And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free He went on to say this You are of your father to devil And you will us do your father's desire He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him Because whenever he speaks he speaks of his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies

Jesus is reminding us that the influence upon us that makes us lie is a demonic influence It's the influence of one who said Has God said that if you eat that fruit of the knowledge of good and evil you will die? They said yes You will not die. God's just jealous of you. He's insecure. He knows if you eat that fruit You'll be like him and he won't be able to bosh you anymore You'll be your own God and that lying That to everything called death We live in a culture of lies, but we're not the only one who's done that In fact, I think you would agree with me that all of the great brothers and sisters of the faith who went before us lived in a culture of lies Esther did She lived in a land where they worship false gods and where her husband was considered a God In fact, he was considered infallible Royal decrees that reported to be From the divine mine could never be revoked or changed She lived in a world of royal intrigue and court politics and government of manipulation and There was even a law that forbid people from Telling the king something that he did not want to hear and that would lead to a decree he made To exterminate an entire group of people To create evil that That in itself is the word we struggle with I don't know if you're old enough to remember Ronald Reagan giving an address to the the national prayer breakfast and Talking about the Soviet Union as an evil empire And how people just went berserk that he would call something evil I Remember one corresponded saying it was evil for Ronald Reagan to call something evil which was rather Nonsensical and One of those men who took exception to that was a guy named Scott Simon Who is a correspondent for national public radio He's blogged about something he calls the meditation unevenly says, you know I have avoided in my career as a Correspondent a journalist an observer a commentator. I've avoided ever calling anything political or national or even Something that involved humanity is evil because I thought it was wrong to use that. We're but he said as a parent Listen to this as a parent. I've grown to feel that it may be important to tell our children about evil as We struggle to explain cruel and incomprehensible behavior that they may see not just in history, but in our own times Then he says this Listen carefully I interviewed a man named Romeo Daliere the former Canadian General who commanded United Nations peacekeeping forces in Rwanda in 1993 and 1994 General Daliere discovered who two soldiers who were getting ready to massacre to see civilians But he was prevented by UN leaders from using his troops to try to stop the murders before they could take place So more than 800,000 Tutsu Rwandans were then slaughtered over a period of three months General Romeo Daliere said that what happened made him believe in evil and Even the force he called the devil He said I Negotiated with him. I've shaken his hand Yes, there is no doubt in my mind the expression of evil to me is through the devil and the devil at work and possessing human beings and turning them into machines of destruction and What are the evenings that I was in my office? I was looking out the window and my senses felt that there was something else there with me something Evil but something shifted in me and I became aware that evil and good are playing themselves out And that God is monitoring and looking at how we respond to it

General Daliere came to the conclusion that God's providence was watching over the affairs Of a dishonest role full of evil and that's the story of Esther chapter 4 Talks about what is beginning to play out When Haman plotted to Destroy the Jews when Zerxes gave his royal decree to do so and it was planned to eliminate the Jews and 474 BC evil Was born out of a culture of lies There are four paragraphs in this chapter and I think each one of them talks about how a lie led to spiritual and eventually Physical problems for the people of Persia First of all the lie about the King only hearing good news When Mordecai learned all that had been done Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes and went out into the midst of the city And he cried out with a loud and bitter cry He went up to the entrance of the King's Gate for no one was allowed to enter the King's Gate clothes and sackcloth And in every province where ever the King's command is decree reached There was a great morning among the Jews with fasting and weeping and lamenting and many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes Here's lie number one that the Persian King could only receive good news that made him happy Because he should always be happy Here's Mordecai who's standing at the gates. He usually goes into the city That's where he worked but because he's in sackcloth and ashes. He's forbidden from coming in because The court of the King was a place of indulgence and pleasure the King had a right to be happy and it was wrong In fact, it was dangerous To tell him anything that he didn't want to hear anything that would make him unhappy We can remember this in the story of Nehemiah When he was dealing with Xerxes this King's son, Arter Xerxes How he heard about all that was happening And he was sad and so one day as the cup bear the King he brought the King's wine to him And Arter Xerxes looked at him probably with a frown and said what is this sad face? I see on you Now the reason why That bothered the King is because the King lived in such opulence and did things that were so outlandish that there were Millions of people in Zemhar that would kill him if they had the chance and he was paranoid About anyone that frowned anyone that wasn't happy When you were in the King's presence It was the law person that he had to see your hands at all times and so Mordek I said I was greatly afraid and one commentator James Boyd said he had a right to be For Persian rulers did not like subordinates to be gloomy in their presence It was against the law To make the King unhappy. Can you imagine? Let's just think for a minute friends. Can you imagine? Donald Trump Trying to make decisions in our government if We only told him the things he liked to hear Only the things that he agreed with only the things that would make him happy That's one of the problems that Zerxes looks so bad on the pages scripture the man's never given the full truth But then again, he really doesn't want it He's always around people who filter the truth from him. So he's terribly He's almost comically out of touch With his people and the situations in their life Imagine what had happened if Mordek I had been able to come in there and sackcloth and ashes and the King said the one of his aides Why is that man mourning him my court and? Imagine if the AIDS were free enough and not afraid enough to tell the truth what he's upset Lord because there's been a decree This past is going to kill him and someone very close to you and a whole group of people who are really good citizens Imagine the lives that would have been spared if he was simply told the truth now we say I'm glad I'm not like that But there's a lesson here for all of us We have to remember that evil is not just out there in the world It's in each one of us as a fallen creature I'm certain it's in me So is my wife and that often perhaps inadvertently We contribute to that evil by accepting only the good news we want to hear for example We love to hear that our daughter is An a student that she she won the student body election that she got a trophy for sports, but We get very upset if someone says that She's failing a class or not doing a homework or bullying someone else. We don't want to hear that I can't be true We want to hear only approval and agreement from our Political candidates positions and if anyone points out a flaw in our candidate or a mistake in policy that they advocate or Position that they hold that is morally wrong We get angry with that person and vilify them. In fact, we usually just cut off a relationship with them We like grace preachers. We don't like those all preachers We want to hear about forgiveness, but not about holiness and I could go on you get the picture and here in Lives of the danger. Listen when we only want to hear what we want to hear We force everybody else to fill to reality to the point where it comes to us as spin We never get the full picture. We never get all the fact we're never told everything We never know the truth and Jesus said you've got to know the truth and The truth will set you free You'll notice when the devil lied to Eve that he just Didn't make her face certain things That she didn't want to hear he would probably say I Didn't lie Look she ate the fruit and she didn't die. You see, but we know that he did lie And his lie became a great murder Jesus said the world is under the evil one One of the Apostles said so here's line number two Lie about false enemies look at verse four when Esther's young women and her uniques came and told her the queen was deeply Distress she sent garments to close morticized so that he might take off his sack cloth But he would not accept them that as they called for hay fact one of the king's uniques Who had been appointed to attend her and ordered him to go to morticide to learn what this was and why it was? Hey, thank what out to morticide in the open square of the city in front of the king's gate and morticide told him all that it happened to him And they exact some of the money that Hayman had promised to pay into the king's treasures for the destruction of the Jews Morticide also gave a copy of the written degree issued in Susa for their destruction that he might show it to Esther and Expanded to her and command her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people This is line number two Hayman's wicked plot if you go back to chapter three Hayman tells the king These several things he says there's a certain people He never names them He leaves them as a vague group of people out there that make them more threatening and ominous and scary to the king Their laws are different from those of every other people and of course that's partially true Their ceremonial laws and their dietary laws and their dress laws were different But they were law keeping citizens in terms of the civil law. They do not kink the king's laws That's not true only morticide broke the king's law not all the rest of the Jews It's not the king's profit to tolerate them In fact the Jews were important and keep people in the royal court and in the government administration and they paid a lot of taxes Listen to this. I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who have charged of the king's business that they may put it into the king's Treasuries 10,000 talents not how much money that is 10,000 talents of silver as what he said Well as a last week when I wrote this sermon Silver was $18.34 cents and ounce and 10,000 talons comes out to be 194 million 431,000 and 40 dollars That's a lot of money Let me do how much it is it's two thirds of What Xerxes would bring in as the annual gross national Income of his entire empire in one year Horatates tells us that he brought in 15,000 talents of silver a year and Heyman says I'm going to pay you two thirds of that on top of that Now he just never told him where he'd get the money and It's because he'd take everything That hundreds of thousands millions of dead Jews would leave and he'd give it to the king Look at the lies. He told Xerxes and contrast that with Mordecai Mordecai presents to Esther the raw truth all that happened to him The reason why this came about and Mordecai's refusal to bow to honor Heyman and how Heyman was upset about this The exact amount of money a Copy of the written decree issued in Susa and he said to show it to Esther explain it to earn commander to go to the king to face Reality and the severity of the situation something that could no longer be ignored

Notice Esther's response when she finds out that something's wrong When Esther's young women and her uniques came and told her the queen was deeply distressed She sent garments to close Mordecai so that he might take off his sackcloth But he would not accept them Then Esther called for Heythic one of the king's uniques and had been appointed to attend her and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what it was and why it was Esther is more concerned That Mordecai take off that sackcloth on the axis before he draws attention to himself and he identifies himself as a Jew And then people know that she's a Jew as well You talk about being out of touch with reality Esther was almost as bad as Xerxes We have to see here in the story that Mordecai's manipulation and Esther's Deception and the web of lies that they have concocted to give them in positions of influence and power Have now combined to endanger all of Israel throughout the Persian Empire We're told in this story that the decree of the holocaust was sent to all the Persian provinces Including the province beyond the river including the city of Jerusalem including the prophet Zechariah who hears about it and preaches a sermon called a flock doomed to slaughter We need to see How great a problem lying can become And how sometimes We tell what appeared to be half-truths and Just a little bit of spin and a white lie here and over time The accumulation of the forms such a web of danger That it's humanly speaking impenetrable. You can't correct the truth. It gets beyond you Lie number three was about the king's safety Look at verse nine and Hey, Thak went and told Esther what Mordecai had said Then Esther spoke to Hey Thak and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say all the king's servants and the people of the king's province Know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called There is but one law to be put to death Except the one to whom the king holds out his golden scepter so that he may live But as for me, I have not been called to come into the king these 30 days and They told Mordecai what Esther had said and Esther was lying. I was not true She was making excuses and making excuses as a subtle form of avoiding the truth the fact is Not just any person could go in to see the king but then again not any person could just walk into the white house But there was a law that no one could come to see the king except a Member of one of seven royal households who had stood with him in a time of rebellion and they could see the king whenever they wanted to including His wives Not only that but anybody in the kingdom including a beggar on the street Could contact a man named who at the time called Kilear? He was the master of arms He was the appointment secretary for the king and they could request and a an audience with the king and that's why the king would sit in court in the very next chapter We see Xerxes sitting in court entertaining people Great dignitaries from other countries and beggars from the street as they come to talk to him about their needs You could get to see the king all Esther had to do was send haythark to the Kilear can say the king wants to see the queen It was done But she says oh no, you see we can't just have anybody go in to see the king Because it's too dangerous for him

Esther's making it sound as if she can't go see the king because for his safety The law prohibits just anybody from coming the proof of the matter is in The very next chapter the opening verse Esther walks right into the court and this man is so smitten with her These smiles and extends the septum says Come in whenever you want up to have my kingdom. What can I do for you? She uses excuses To avoid the responsibility that she knows is it coming upon her and that leads to the fourth lie in this story Esther's lies about her own safety Then Moorlachai told them to reply to Esther do not think for yourself That in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews For if you keep silent at this time relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place But you and your father's house will perish and who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this Then Esther told them to reply to Moorlachai go Gather all the Jews to be found in Susa and hold fast on my behalf and do not eat her drink for three days Night or day and I and my young women will also fast as you do Then I will go to the king though it is against the law and if I perish I perish Moorlachai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him Esther's fourth lie is quite frankly called mellow drama She says If I go see the king I'll perish Moorlachai says Let me tell you four things that are true The palace will offer no safety for you if they discover that you're a Jew because the law that your husband signs says that every Jew in the kingdom anywhere they are found Are to be put to death on this date Secondly, you need to realize that if you don't step up to the plate God will send deliverance from someone else and the third truth is if he does that then you and your father's household that is Esther You and I Moorlachai says you and I will perish and here's the fourth truth and it turns Esther's heart and changes her life. I believe in this particular chapter as to becomes a believer He says Who knows Whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this He says Esther Who knows whether in God's providence

Even through all of our manipulation and deceptions and lies God hasn't allowed you to be here to save us all In such a times this and Esther changes The pretty girl that we met in chapter one all the way up to this point is now gone And the great moment of faith and courage beginning from this point will emerge in the story until she becomes a great heroine of the faith She calls on the Jews to fast and we assume to pray for three days She says that she and her ladies with the same thing and then just with a little bit of melodrama to end the whole event here. She says then I will go to the king though it is against the law and if I perish I perish Well, she won't perish And the very next verse will prove that by the way Vashti had spurned the king and humiliated him in public She was alive And a mistress Had told the king that she never wanted to sleep with him again because of his adultery And she was in another city living opulence and she was alive

So why would Esther be put to death? Was this king so violent and evil That when his bride came to see him He would put her to death. I don't think so

But why wouldn't Esther conclude that? With all that had gone around the king His divine nature The danger of him when he's displeased The intriguing is court the laws that prohibit this and protect him from that It just becomes a whole situation Where lies Had made it very difficult to people to deal with the truth but Esther begins to do that She says to her Her foster father in a sense you're right God has put me here And even if I die That's the right thing to do You and I live in a world where We are surrounded by people that we can't trust We may work at a place where people in our own staff are own department With whole information from us tell us what we need to hear In order to control and to make decisions that they know you would oppose if they brought it over your desk We have friends who flatter us incessantly But really don't love us the way they say they do We live in a world of gossip and slander and innuendo and insinuation That harm our reputations and quite frankly Make it even more difficult to trust anybody else We live with media spin and political machinations The academic license and sports hype I was talking with some men this morning It's just it's unbelievable that we have to spend three days watching young boys Get a contract in the NFL As if that's the most important thing happening in the world

It's spin With sneaky affairs and false advertise Calling evil good and good evil And the overwhelming pressure that upsets

Paul ask the question to the Galatians

It may be the most intriguing question in the whole Bible He writes them have I become your enemy By telling you the truth

Galatians 416 have I become your enemy By telling you the truth And the answer is frankly

Yes In this story there was a man named Mordecai who didn't want to face the truth The even dome Heyman was an amalachite the law And the will of God was that he bowed down And to honor Heyman not for his person but for his position And he didn't want to face that truth

The king didn't want to face the reality That there were unpleasant things he had to deal with But that was the responsibility of being a God among men

That Heyman shouldn't want to wipe out an entire race of people because Some Thousand years earlier Someone had killed his great great great ancestor The king of the amalachites And Esther didn't want to face the reality That a Jewish girl even stunningly beautiful

Had to face difficult things That might make it such That she wasn't going to be queen anymore

But if they didn't face these truths Everyone would perish Telling the truth is always a matter of loyalty to a different kingdom We learned that from Jesus Christ who stood before pilot And said to him that his kingdom was a different kingdom That he had come to earth to bring the truth

And we know pilots Famous question with great cynicism What is truth But the Bible says That God our Savior desires all people to be saved And to come to the knowledge of the truth Jesus said I am the way and the truth and the life No one comes to the Father through me We are told by Jesus Christ that if we abide in his word if we accept the Bible Then we are truly his disciples and his truth will make us free And that is our duty as Christians to simply speak the truth in love Ephesians 4 and 5 says Speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in every way Into him who is the head of the body that is Christ Therefore having put away falsehood Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor For we are members of one another Let no corrupting talk proceed from your mouth But only such as good for edification According to the need of the moment that it may give grace to those who hear If we are going to restore the community of goodness Of graciousness of godliness to our culture We've got to begin By graciously speaking the truth And you know if we perish

We perish But I don't think we will I think because of the hand of providence that was overestor and over us In the end The truth will prevail and we will all be free Let's pray Father it is a dangerous and a difficult a deceptive world we live in One that is You tell us in the scripture under the influence of the evil one who was a murderer and a liar from the beginning It's a scary thought to think that The devil can't tell the truth if he wants to Because he speaks from his nature and he is the father of all lies. He's unable To speak the truth And therefore in his world people are often unable to face the truth until The truth of the gospel breaks through Changes the heart as it did young esters brings them to trust in the providence Of god and his son Jesus Christ and his great work Of truth telling And bringing us to the knowledge of the truth and with eternal life And so it's always good to be reminded as we are tonight Lord That we are a people of truth speaking the truth to one another in love We understand a not to mean that we say in whatever we want to say For that would be false But to speak What is of Christ? What is of the spirit? What is of the word? And to call one another to respond to that and to encourage each other In the truth so that the truth Can give grace to those who hear And we can be Restoring The godfaring community by Restoring a love and elevation of truth in our own midst We ask that you do that deeper work in us And for For Christ As we ask these things for his pleasure And in the truth of his name Amen