I want to talk to you a little bit about the book of Esther.

King Ahasuerus in the book of Esther is a representation of Christ. So, the story starts out with a feast and the king wants to show off his beautiful bride. Queen Vashti is a representation of the Jewish people. He sent for her, but she wouldn’t come. Why? Well, she probably thought she had too much planning to do. Too many organizations needed to be taken care of. She was too busy working in Ahasuerus’ kingdom to spend time with him. She was too busy trying to fulfill her obligation as a bride that she didn’t have time to be a bride. This is a representation of Jesus coming to His own and His own receiving Him not.

So, King Ahasuerus held a meeting about what he was going to do about his queen. He wanted to do something worse than beheading her or torturing her. They decided upon banishing her from the king’s presence and she would never hear his voice again. There is something worse than death and it’s knowing that the Lord will never speak to you again and you will never come into His presence again.

Thank God for old-fashioned Holy Ghost conviction!

When you go back to the kingdom now, there is a bride missing. So, the king put out a decree for all the young virgins of the land to be brought forth. But before they brought them into the presence of the king, the girls were to be dealt with for a while. The Holy Ghost will deal with you for a long time and prepare you for a visitation from Heaven.

So, they bring in all these young ladies. There are a lot of wealthy and well-known people. There was a little lady who was a representation of the Gentiles, and her name was Esther. She had some things against her. 1: She was an orphan. 2: She was a Jew.

Each of the ladies brought in was assigned a teacher. We are given the Holy Ghost. The teachers were to teach the ladies what the king liked or didn’t like, what he wanted to hear or what he didn’t want to hear. They had a certain oil that they would use and it would pull out any bad smells and purify the skin. They went through six months of purification to stand for one moment before the king.

When you go into the presence of royalty, you can never be higher than them.

If they kneel, you kneel. We ought to never feel like we are better than the Lord. If we would learn the power of worship, there would be services at church where there wouldn’t have to be any preaching. The preaching is to get people to that place where God meets every need. All we need for that is the presence of the Lord. We can usher God’s presence into the church through worship, too.

So, the king was looking for someone that would love him.

They brought the young ladies in and pretty soon Esther was next in line to see the king. She started walking towards him, her past telling her that she would never be picked. Your past can say, “You’ll never preach, or get anointed. You’ll never sing or prophesy.” I want you to know that your past is no match for the blood of Jesus. Esther fought that battle in her mind, and as she walked toward that king, something in her began to relax.

She wasn’t the kind of person he would have chosen, but he looked at her and loved her. She became his queen. She moved from rags to riches. She moved up from oppression into victory, from sickness to health, and from discouragement to peace.

There’s no doubt that she found out why there was an opening for a queen.

When she heard that the other woman didn’t have time for the king, I’m totally assured that Esther made it a priority to make time for him. There should be nothing in our life more important than being available for God.

The relationship and love between the king and queen grew.

While Esther is in the presence of the king, her uncle sits in ashes at the gate of the city. He made up his mind that he would reverence no one but his king. When a certain man named Haman would walk through the streets, people had to bow to him. Mordecai, Esther’s uncle, would not bow to anyone but his king.

Haman is a representation of the devil.

When Mordecai wouldn’t bow, it eat him up inside. Do you want to know why the devil gets so mad at us sometimes? It’s because he can’t stop us. There’s something in you that won’t give up. This eat at Haman so much that he was willing to spend a large percentage of his fortune to destroy a whole nationality of people. He did this all because he hated one man, Mordecai. Remember that no matter how many there are against you, Jesus is for you and has all your haters outnumbered.

So, Haman went to the king and asked for his permission to destroy the people. That king did in his throne room what God did in the Garden of Eden. Haman was given some power.

As they were making preparations to assassinate all the Jews in the land, Mordecai got word of this and started to fast and pray. One day he realized that the Lord had already set everything up. One of the people Haman was trying to kill was in the castle married to the king. So, Mordecai asked Esther to go before the king about the matter.

I believe she hesitated, not knowing what to do.

Finally, she settled on the fact that the king hadn’t sent for her. This is one of the biggest hindrances of prayer in America today. “I just don’t feel led today. I don’t feel a great stir to pray.” If we only prayed when we felt like it, how little would any of us really pray? Sometimes you have to pray when you feel like crying, when you don’t feel like living, and when all you hear is the voice of the enemy. We’ve got to keep praying.

I ask you what Mordecai asked Esther, “Who knows if you came to the kingdom for such a time as this?” God brought you into this place in 2022 for such a time as this. If Esther didn’t go to the king, her and her father’s house would not escape the massacre of the Jews. If you don’t pray for your family, who will? Esther would not only have to fight for herself, but she would also have to fight for her people as well.

Back to the story, Esther fasted for three days and even though she wasn’t called for, she was still going into the king’s presence. I believe the Lord brought to her mind the first time she came into the king’s presence. She found favor with him then, the Lord was going to allow her to find favor with him again. Take a moment and praise God for all the times you’ve found favor with Him!

Prayer has a cost.

The three days were over and she was going to the king without being asked into his presence. If he didn’t hold up his golden scepter to show his favor, then her actions would cost her life. Real, deep prayer has a cost. When you are interceding for a soul, you have to walk up to death’s door sometimes. You have to fight fear, powers, and principalities. But to make it through, you have to keep on walking.

When Esther gets to the king and he holds up the scepter, something flooded over her. All the fear and the worry had been on her mind. She’d been praying and fasting about the situation. When she looked at the king, she must have thought, “Who am I to come into the presence of such royalty with my petitions when my king deserves my praise?”

“Esther,” the king said, “Tell me what you want, even if it’s half of the kingdom. I’ll give it to you.”

All she had to do was to tell him about Haman wanting to destroy her people. We are so quick to go from praise to our needs. I’m not talking about our urgent needs; I’m talking about our daily prayer. We need to realize that we are in the presence of royalty. There’s no king like our King, no rock like our Rock. No one can heal like Jesus.

Esther looked at the king and said, “My king, all I really want is to have a banquet of praise. I’ve got great music and wonderful food lined up for you. I want two or three days to just enjoy you. Oh, and one more thing, can Haman come too?”

Esther asked the king if she could bring her problem with her.

She was going to praise the king, but the thing tormenting her mind would come too. Later, after all her praise, Haman was hanged when she told the king what he intended to do to her people.

I have a request for you. I’m not going to tell you not to pray about your needs. But if you pray about your needs for 5 minutes, praise God for 10. If you are going to tell Him about your needs for 10 minutes, worship Him for 30.

The request is just that we worship God more and ask for less from Him. If we just praise the Lord, He will silence our enemy and make a way for us in our situation. Praise the Lord!

–Pastor Anthony Wynn