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[silence] ...should be the Queen's Banquet. The Queen's Banquet. Our scripture is Esther, the fifth chapter, and the eighth verse. If I have found favor in the sight of the king,

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and if it pleased the king to grant my petition and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I shall prepare for them,

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and I will do tomorrow as the king hath said. These are the words of Esther, the queen's banquet. Esther is queen of Persia. She has climbed to this lofty position

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by following a winding, meandering path that leads upward all the way. The king divorced his wife, Queen Vashti, because she would not appear in the nude

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before the king's guests. She refused to be the main attraction for the wild, rambunctious palace party. Esther was selected in a national beauty contest

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as the next queen. She is Jewish, but her racial identity is not known. She is selected as queen because she is stunningly beautiful.

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Mardikai is among the king's servants. Esther is the daughter of his uncle. But all of this is not known by the members of the king's group of servants. Haman hates Jews. He hates them not because they have done anything to him.

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hates them because they are who they are. He hates them for being themselves. Hate is allied with prejudice. It's irrational. It makes no sense to hate people because of their race, because because they are the way God made them.

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To hate is to prejudge, to make a judgment before you have the facts. Haman's hatred of Jews finds an outlet based on the fact

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Mordecai does not bow before him. As the heat of hate grows in his soul, Haman devises a wicked scheme in which he hoodwinks the king into passing a law

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that the nation would engage in the slaughter of all Jews on a particular day. Mordecai discusses the matter with Esther when he learns about it,

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but Esther prefers to keep her identity unknown. She tells Mordecai that she prefers to remain quiet. And to this Mordecai responds with these words. "If you hold your peace at this time,

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"then shall enlargement and deliverance arise "to the Jews from another place. "but you and your father's house shall be destroyed. "And who knows whether you are come to the kingdom

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"for such a time as this." Esther, this is an important issue. You can be in the middle of it, or you can be left on the sidelines.

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Later, Esther runs the risk of approaching the king who promises to give her whatever she wants, even to half of the kingdom. Esther responds by proposing a banquet

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to which the King and Haman are invited. A royal banquet, an auspicious affair, a banquet given by the Queen.

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A banquet honoring Haman, the enemy. We don't usually think of giving a banquet for those who plan to persecute us. There's a story about Lady Astor

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who said to Sir Winston Churchill, if I were married to you, I would put strychnine in your coffee. To which Sir Winston Churchill replied,

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and if I were married to you, I'd drink it. (audience laughing) So we don't have kind things to do for our enemies as a rule, to those who are numbered in the opposition.

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We are inclined to poison our enemies and not make a banquet for them. Queen Esther's banquet is arranged for persons arrayed against us in a symbolic way,

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for persons who want to persecute us, who speak all manner of evil against us falsely, the Queen's Banquet for those who want to see us dead. Haman has received several promotions.

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Now he receives an invitation to attend the Queen's Banquet. to attend the Queen's banquet. He can hardly wait. He tells his family and friends,

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yet he's not fully satisfied. He's had honor after honor. And he comes home all excited, telling his wife, "Guess what happened, honey?

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"I've got an invitation to the Queen's banquet. "I've received promotion after promotion, and now I'm right next to the king. And to top it all off, I have an engraved invitation

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to attend the queen's banquet. But there's one thing that troubles me, and that's this Jew, Mordecai. Everybody else seems to give me the kind of honor

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and respect that I think I deserve, but Mordecai refuses to bow. He treats me just like I'm anybody else. He refuses to bow in my presence.

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So in spite of all of the honors that Haman has received, he is unhappy because this Jew, Mardikai, refuses to bow. So after discussing this matter with his close circle, The decision is made to build gallows for Mordecai.

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They want to see to it that he receives the death penalty. And Haman is to speak to the king about it on tomorrow. But that night, the king was unable to sleep. He summons his servants and he reads the royal record.

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And as he's reading the royal record, he comes upon a passage there that talks about Mordecai taking some action that resulted in saving the king's life.

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And so as the king makes this discovery, He asks, "What has been done to honor this man who has been instrumental in saving my life?" And so the answer comes back, "Well, King, he's one of the unsung heroes of your

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administration. He has not received the Royal Medal of Honor. Nothing has been done for him. So Haman about that time shows up and the King is making inquiry about what has been done to honor Mordecai, but Haman is unaware of this. And as he shows up, the king says,

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"Haman, what do you think ought to be done for the man who is honored by the king?" Well, Mordecai said, "Well," thinking that he's thinking about himself.

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He said, "Well, your honor, your royal majesty, Let him ride in a royal chariot. Let him dress with the king's clothes and wear the royal crown

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and ride through the streets of the city. And the king replied, "Make haste and do this for Mardikai." And about this time, the king's servants came

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to bring Haman to the queen's banquet. In the meantime, Haman's wife has warned him about building gallows for Mordecai. In other words, she has him to understand

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that he may be arranging his own execution. But he didn't hear this. Lot of time we men don't wanna listen to what our wives have to say.

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We think we know. And Mordecai is on his mind and he is so busy, Haman is,

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arranging for the execution of Mordecai that he does not pay any attention to his wife's advice. He's so busy basking in his own success that he does not see the dismal clouds of defeat that are hovering over him.

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So the king's servants come to bring Haman to the queen's banquet. And the king is captivated by the queen's beauty. And in the midst of the banquet, he says again, he's already told her this once, but he doesn't tire of telling her again, "Honey, I love you so much that I'm willing to give you what

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"I have even to the half of my kingdom." What is it you want? In other words, he has a suspicion that she wants something special.

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That's why she's given the banquet. You know, when we wanna do something real special, many times, the way we do it is with a banquet. Dr. Chapman, who is an outstanding doctor in Lubbock,

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in working with many of the problems out there in the city the years ago, he would call the people together, the leaders of the city, who were for the most part white, and he would call, arrange a banquet.

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And in the banquet, he would tell them what he wanted them to know. A banquet, banquet. Brother Friendly Rice told me that

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principal of Blackshear and he wanted to get some air conditioning in there. None of our schools were air conditioned at the time. He was the principal, so he gave a banquet. They came out, the superintendent came and all that, and it was hot.

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There were the fans that were there blowing and the noise, and when they spoke you couldn't hear what they were saying because of the noise of the fans. He said, "Go right on, go right on. "We put up with this all the time.

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"I don't need to tell you "that the school became air-conditioned." (audience laughing) And it was the first school on this side of town,

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I understand, to get air-conditioned. Well, a banquet can do many things. - Yes, Lord. - The Queen has arranged a banquet

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for a man who is determined not only to exercise his power in a detrimental way For one person, he wants to kill all of the Jews in the land. And the queen is a Jew.

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And the queen has arranged for him a banquet. Well, it'd be a wonderful thing if we could understand how to give in our hearts a banquet for our enemy. Most of the time we wanna cuss them out.

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We want to put an end to them. We'd like to see them dead. But the queen here arranges a banquet. But there's something about Haman's action.

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You know, he wants to put an end to Mardikai because Mardikai refuses to bow. And he builds gallows on which he is to be executed. You know, whenever you dig a ditch

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for a person, dig two. Because the first one is for you. Queen's banquet, queen's banquet. The king

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is told by Esther during this banquet, while he's feeling good, he said, well there is one who has taken action against my people. They're to be killed.

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And I'm one of them. And the king listens, he said, who is this person? And the queen points the finger of condemnation to Haman.

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And the king is so angry, he gets up, leaves the table, walks into the palace garden. He's so filled with anger. And Haman recognizes that his life is in jeopardy.

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And he falls on his knees at the feet of the queen, begging for his life. And when the king comes back, he finds Haman there near the bed where his queen is.

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And the queen said, "Not only are you planning "to destroy these people, "but here you want to assault my wife. "Take this man out."

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And he's taken out and he's hanged from the queen's banquet. Well, for people who love God, there is another type of banquet.

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You see, the name of God is mentioned in this book. It's the one book in the Bible where you don't have God's name mentioned in it at all. But all along the way, God is hidden in the situation.

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That's why it's included in the books of the Bible, because all along the way God is at work. We don't see his name. He doesn't have to show up in ways that we can see him.

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He's the invisible one. Who's always present. He always shows up. Even when we don't know he's around, he's there.

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And so he shows up. Shows up and he acts in the situation So that the king issues an edict that makes it possible for Esther and her people to be delivered.

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I like to call it, I like to call it a freedom banquet. It was a banquet of freedom. And so there is a banquet that is prepared for the people of God.

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No matter how powerful we may be, there is a banquet. And it's expressed in the language of the psalmist when he says, "Thou preparest the table for me

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"in the presence of my enemies." God prepares a banquet. No matter how strong may be the forces of evil, no matter how strong may be the opposition

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we may encounter, our shepherd. Our shepherd loves the sheep so much so that he prepares a banquet in the midst of our enemies. Midst of all of the contradictions of our history,

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our Lord prepares the banquet. Doesn't matter about how fierce the wolves may be, he prepares the banquet. No matter how strong the lions may be,

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he prepares a banquet. no matter how large may be the bears. He prepares a banquet in the presence of our enemies. Winds may blow, rains may come,

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floods may rush and beat against us, but he prepares a banquet even in our wilderness experience. He prepares a banquet for us in the presence of our enemies.

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Well, our ancestors understood this fully. They understood it, even though they were forced to eat what was left from the master's table. Many times, they were consigned to just receiving the scraps,

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but they could look forward to a better day. And so they expressed it in the language of a song. I'm gonna sit at the welcome table some of these days. I'm gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days.

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Sometimes we may be sent to the kitchen to eat, but one of these days, there's a grand banquet that is prepared for the people of God and the king himself will come in and greet the guests.

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And we will rejoice because we are privileged to be at the banquet of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. - Amen.

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- As we sing the hymn of invitation, we extend the privilege of the church. As the hymn is sung, the door is open. We invite you to unite with this family,

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the family of God, and make the decision to come by letter, by Christian experience or on profession of faith, the door of the church is open.

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Come. Come. (soft piano music) ♪ Oh, I hear ♪

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♪ Of shallow rest it is ♪ ♪ Now our breath ♪ ♪ Is full and free ♪ ♪ Shall some day ♪

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♪ Its salt ♪ ♪ Refresh me ♪ ♪ Heirs of trust ♪ ♪ Now fall on me ♪

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♪ Even me ♪ ♪ Even me ♪ ♪ Even me Lord ♪ ♪ Even me ♪

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♪ There's some clouds ♪ ♪ That follow me ♪ ♪ Let me not ♪ ♪ Hold yet thou, Savior ♪

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♪ Sinful Lord ♪ ♪ I am wailing ♪ ♪ I am longing ♪ ♪ O Canada ♪

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♪ God's our blessing ♪ ♪ O, bless me ♪ ♪ Given me ♪ ♪ Your heart ♪

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♪ Even me ♪ ♪ Even me, Lord ♪ ♪ Even me ♪ ♪ That's a blessing, Lord ♪

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♪ Bless me ♪ ♪ Heal and heal ♪ ♪ Heal and heal ♪ ♪ Heal and heal ♪

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♪ He can be ♪ ♪ Less than just ♪ ♪ The hope ♪ ♪ Of being ♪

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- God's love above all, we praise your name. [BLANK_AUDIO]