The Moment | Paul Rigby

Zeo Church

In this talk, we’ll look at how Esther recognises the call of God on her life in a crisis moment in Israel’s history.

We’ll briefly remind people of the story so far:

• God created us to thrive in a healthy and whole relationship with Him, with each other, with ourselves and with creation. We rejected God and choose our own way and as a result, all those four relationships are broken - and we cannot fix it.
  
• God began His rescue plan through characters like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and last time we looked at Samuel who led the transition of Israel from the period of Judges to the period of Kings.
  
• Sadly, despite repeated warnings over 100s of years from God’s prophets, most of the Kings of Israel rejected God and so became more and more vulnerable to attacks from enemies.
  
• In the end, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was attacked and destroyed by the Assyrian empire.
  
• Some years later the Southern Kingdom was attacked by the Babylonian empire. Jerusalem was destroyed, and most of the people in the Southern Kingdom were exiled to Babylon where they remained for at least 70 years.
  
• During this time, Babylon was invaded, and defeated, by the Persians which is where we pick up the story today.

God is never directly mentioned in the book of Esther BUT his fingerprints are all over the story. Esther finds herself in exile and part of the Persian Kings harem as his favourite queen. When her people, the Jews, are threatened with extinction she is faced with a choice. Will she do that right thing and turn to God, and take action to try to prevent this genocide at risk to her life?

Key Scriptures: Esther 4:1-17

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