I am not sure how many of you know this, but I am the only boy in my family.  I am the oldest, and I have three younger sisters. Like so many fathers, my Dad was often out of the house working two jobs to help make ends meet.  So that meant I was home with my mother and my three sisters.

It was four females against me.  Growing up, when we played cards, Queens were higher than Kings.  Boy, did that get me in some trouble in college and I played cards with some buddies.  Of course there were times when my sisters got on my nerves, but probably no more than I got on theirs.  At times I was accused of being Mom’s favorite, and I would say, “Yes, I am her favorite son, but I am also her least favorite son.”

Now you are probably wondering why I am sharing all this.  Well it is because we are coming to something different in our message series, “Liars, Cheaters, Cowards & Other Bible Heroes.”  This is our next to last message in this series in which we have been looking at epic men in the Old Testament, who were great leaders, men that we revere, and looked at throughout our faith with great awe.  But we have discovered that they, even through they were great leaders, they also had their flaws and failures. Hopefully through this series we have learned that it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are from, God can use you to do great things.

Today’s message is a little different, because we are not going to be talking about a great man from the Old Testament.  No, today we are going to talk about a great woman. Her name is Esther, and you can learn all about her by reading the Book of Esther.

Last week we learned about Daniel, who lived during the Babylonian Exile.  Well, the Babylonian empire sort of became the Persian empire. If you want to learn how, you will need to Google it.  Esther lived during the Exile, but at the time that the Persians were in charge. If you saw the movie “300” about the battle of Thermopylae, you might remember that the Spartans were fighting the Persians, and the Persian king was named Xerxes.  Well, Xerxes was also known as King Ahasuerus, and he was ruthless.

The Book of Esther begins with the King having a party, and during the party he wants his Queen, Vashti, to come in to entertain the guests.  She refuses, and that makes King Ahasuerus very angry. The short of it, after consulting with his advisors, the King has Queen Vashti put to death.

So there is a problem.  The King needs a new queen.  So he tells his servants to gather all the beautiful young virgins from all the provinces of the empire into a harem.  Then the king will pick a new queen.

One of the young women that is gathered into the harem is Esther.  She was an orphan who was raised by her elder cousin, Mordecai. Now, the Israelites were not very well liked by the Persians, so Esther decides to keep her nationality a secret.  King Ahasuerus comes to inspect the harem, and he loved Esther more than all the other women, so he makes her Queen. This is great news for the Israelites, because now they have someone in a position of influence, and it turns out that they were going to need it.

One of the King’s officials was named Haman, and he was really quite full of himself.  He became the King’s chief official, and he decides that all the other officials will not have to bow down to him when he graces their presence.  However, one guy doesn’t -- Mordecai, Queen Esther’s cousin, although no one in the court knows that they are cousins. Mordecai knows that there is only one God, and Haman is not him.

Haman becomes enraged, but he knows that he does not have the power to do what he wants on his own.  So he makes up a story to get the King to want to punish this “people who live apart” with their own customs.  King Ahasuerus falls for it, and tells Haman to do what he wants to this group of people, and what Haman wants to do is genocide -- he is going to have all the Israelites killed on a single day.

Mordecai gets a copy of the royal decree, and he goes to Queen Esther and begs her to go to the King to plead for their people.  Of course Esther wants to help, but she is also very afraid. The law said that anyone who went into the King’s presence, without being summoned was to be killed immediately, unless the King extended his scepter to them.  The King had not asked to see Queen Esther for over a month.

Mordecai has big faith in God.  He trusts that God has a plan to bring freedom for the Israelites, and he tells Esther that it was probably just for this reason that God permitted her to become Queen.  Esther tells Mordecai to have all the Israelites fast and pray for three days, she will do the same, and then she will go see the King.

After three days, Queen Esther goes to see the King, and he extends his scepter to her.  She then invites him and Haman to dinner. At the dinner she tells the King that she is an Israelite, and that Haman is going to have her and all her people killed.  Long story short, the King cancels the order, and has Haman put to death.

What can we learn from Queen Esther?  What is the situation that you currently find yourself in?  Maybe there is problems going on in your family. Maybe someone is very ill.  Perhaps you are in a difficult position at work. Maybe you are facing something really big in your life and you are feeling overwhelmed.  You are asking God, “God, can’t you find someone else to take care of this situation?”

Maybe God has put you in the situation with those people, at this time, for a reason.  God might be inviting you to be His instrument because He wants to do something great, and if we accept His invitation we will be blessed.  

We are called to love God and love others and loving others doesn’t mean loving people who are easy to love.  It means loving people who are far and different from us. It doesn’t mean just telling people what they want to hear, it is telling them what they NEED to hear.  Loving God and loving others means changes, it means challenges, and it means difficult situations.

But if we accept God’s invitation, as Queen Esther did, it does mean that we will be blessed.  If you follow through with God’s invitation, and trust Him, God will bless you.

So this week, think about the situation that you find yourself in.  Take it to your prayer. Ask a few trusted friends to also take it to their prayer.  Then trust in the Lord.