Well hey there, hello to you and welcome to 2024. Gonna be a big year for the Kingdom of our God, and I’m so thankful for all He is going to do. Choosing to praise Him even in the midst of things that are not super fun, anybody else want to join me in that? Let’s just thank Him in advance, fully trusting in His unending love and immeasurable faithfulness toward His people. God is so good, and I am so grateful! You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, which can be found via the Edifi app as well as other places you listen to podcasts. A special shout out to those who listen via iHeart Radio - I pray you are blessed abundantly and experience the Lord’s love and favor in the greatest possible measure. This is episode number 171. It’s time for the show to get back to our series, Every Book A Promise, where we have been focusing on going through the entire Bible, one book at a time, and honing in on promises God makes us in each and every book. It’s been a great series so far and I’m excited to get back into it. Today we’re looking at a book that is pretty well known, and that is an interesting portion of the Bible. Like many other books in the Old Testament, it takes place during a time of exile in the history of God’s chosen people, the Israelites. What a great encouragement for us when we face difficult times - and if we are honest, which I will be right now, we do face times when we feel like we are in an exile of some sort. Rejection. Serious health issues, or financial issues. Loneliness. Relationships that fall apart. Transitions that are difficult, like a big move, even for a good reason like a promotion of a post college career opportunity, it can feel like an exile in many ways. Take parenting. They say that for 18 years you see your child pretty much daily. And then, after they leave home, over the duration of your lifetime, you will see your child in total for about one more year. That’s very real, and people can be kind of mocking about the empty nest but this is the truth, so of course it is an adjustment. Of course it feels like an exile in some ways. How could it not? For those who make jokes about not being able to wait until they can kick their kids out and change the locks, well, that’s just strange to me and also, when you say that out loud it reminds me of that line from The Help when Miss Leofolt says about her toddler Mae Mobley, “She’s always hungry.” and everyone laughs…everyone but Skeeter, who replies, “You know she can hear you, Elizabeth.” That’s what comes to mind for me when I hear parents speaking like that with their kids in earshot…You do know they can hear you, right? And that they don’t feel loved, seen, protected, watched over, valuable, important…you do realize that words have consequences, right? That God means it when He says that the power of life and death is in the tongue…that means words count for a whole lot more than we like to believe they do. So when you are in some kind of exile type situation, the Bible, all throughout the Old Testament, holds hope out to you. In bucketfulls, not in teaspoons, not in milliliters. Bushels full of hope. All you have to do is simply receive it. Some of the greatest passages of the Bible were written during times of exile. Some of the brightest beacons of hope were penned during the darkest days of the nation of Israel. And as it tells us in the New Testament, it was all written for our edification, for us to know and understand who God truly is, how He works in the lives of people, and so that we would have ample reason to hold onto Him, the One who not only authors our faith, but also authors all true hope. And that is where we find ourselves for this episode of TBNES. Right in the middle of the book of Esther, in chapter 6, we can find hope that will, if we choose to allow it to, bring us out of any pit we’re in and fill us to overflowing that our God is right now working in the details, on so many different levels, and has not fled the scene. Let’s read from the New Living Translation today, starting at verse 1. That night the king had trouble sleeping, so he ordered an attendant to bring the book of the history of his reign so it could be read to him. In those records he discovered an account of how Mordecai had exposed the plot of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the eunuchs who guarded the door to the king’s private quarters. They had plotted to assassinate King Xerxes. “What reward or recognition did we ever give Mordecai for this?” the king asked. His attendants replied, “Nothing has been done for him.” “Who is that in the outer court?” the king inquired. As it happened, Haman had just arrived in the outer court of the palace to ask the king to impale Mordecai on the pole he had prepared. So the attendants replied to the king, “Haman is out in the court.” “Bring him in,” the king ordered. So Haman came in, and the king said, ...
