Who knows, this may be our Esther moment
If you have been observant to any degree, you should have noted by now that the times we are living in are what Scripture would describe as “evil days.”
It is a time of external and internal strife, a time that is unfavorable to the message of the Gospel, a time when people are conducting themselves as fools, and a time when crazed fanatics are securing the allegiance of the masses under the guise of a religion fashioned by culture and not by almighty God.
Christians and the American church are under stress and turmoil of a type that has never before been seen in our great nation.
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In the Old Testament book of Esther, the Hebrew people who had been taken captive into Persia faced similar challenges to their faith. The story reveals a young Jewish woman named Esther who became the Queen of Persia. As the book unfolds, a heinous plot to destroy all the Jews is uncovered by Esther’s uncle, Mordecai.
Knowing that in her role as queen, Esther is in the unique position of influencing the king, Mordecai challenges Esther to intercede on behalf of her people. The dilemma she faces, though, is that to enter the king’s presence without an invitation could be punishable by death, even as queen.
Faced with the choice between life for the Jewish people set against the real possibility of the loss of her own, Esther is understandably reluctant. Mordecai responds: “Who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this.” The Scripture records that Esther asks that Mordecai call all the Jewish people together for fasting and prayer.
Following this request, she makes this daring commitment: “Then I will go to the King … and if I perish, I perish.” Through Esther’s obedience to the call of God on her life, her people not only are spared but also become honored citizens of their country.
In Ephesians 5, Paul, in addressing Christians in his day who were facing persecution, says that followers of Christ should “open our eyes to what is happening around us and act as wise people — as senseful people.” Just like in the days of Esther and Paul, this is the time in our great nation when Christians must choose whether or not we will seek the way of God or turn to some other path that will ultimately lead to our sudden and certain destruction as a nation.
The Church in America has become so preoccupied with the comforts of our culture that our current activity for the Lord has been reduced to nothing more than recalling our memories of how things used to be. We continue to stroke our trophies of long-ago victories encased in the recesses of our minds while we refuse to accept any new challenge from God that would cause us to be about the business of fulfilling our Great Commission.
The story of Queen Esther and the ringing challenge of Paul in his letter to the church at Ephesus smash against the walls of ease that we have so carefully constructed about us as individuals and as Christ’s Church.
Hear me well! The good times are really over for good, and they are not coming back.
We are living in a new paradigm brought on by the infiltration of godless Marxist philosophy hidden behind the curtains of diversity, sexual hedonism and overreaching governmental intrusion into the basic rights of American citizens. They do all this in the name of some idea they call “equity,” which in reality has very little bearing on the concept of equality upon which our nation was built.
Make no mistake, the Church in America is already in the crosshairs of this movement as are the churches in Canada, Europe, Australia and other parts of the globe.
This crowd will not stop with the simple neutering of the Gospel, but rather seek the Gospel’s full and utter destruction along with its remaining influence wiped from the face of the earth. Those of us who choose to remain silent or who seek to compromise with the cancel culture in order to keep jobs, comforts or a perceived preferable position within the mainstream will soon discover that our neutrality has been in vain.
The very inaction through which we seek to preserve a way of life will undoubtedly result in the loss of it. If we as Christ-followers and the Church think that we are saving our lives by staying silent, then we are dead wrong because the world is screaming at us to either join in with their sordid ways or “die” anyway.
The time has long since passed for us as Christians to shake off the shackles of our lethargy, put aside our sluggishness and rise up from our grave of idleness. Then and only then, as Paul also says, will Christ “make day dawn on us.”
The ceiling of our great country is falling in on us right now, and we have yet to awaken to the opportunities God is now placing before us. The challenge of the Christian faith, the call of God and human events have come together in the lives of Christians everywhere. However, many of us, like Jonah of old, are asleep — oblivious to what is going on around us.
While I firmly believe that Christians should be involved in politics (after all, I have spent practically all of my adult life doing so), please do not mistake this as a call to political action. The Democratic Party is not the enemy, nor is the Republican Party our savior. No, America, we are locked in a battle with forces far beyond our comprehension. The stakes are extremely high and the challenges we face call for fasting and prayer before almighty God, along with the true courage born only of the Holy Spirit.
These tactics will enable us to live out with clarity what we believe and in whom we believe. Fanaticism is not the answer, and we simply cannot bear any more fainthearted approaches to the conundrum. But take heart, for ultimately, we cannot lose; the end has already been determined.
Please hear me clearly, though. It is sheer idiocy for us to say that we are going to win this world for Christ when we are unwilling to nurture our own families in true faith and to offer our precious children and grandchildren adequate protection from the darts being thrown at them by the principalities of darkness permeating the culture in which we live.
If we do not awaken now, and as Paul says, “rise from the dead,” we may find ourselves in the same dilemma in which Samson found himself after Delilah cut his hair and robbed him of his strength. For the scriptures record that as the Philistines fell upon him, "he went out to do battle and did not realize that the Lord had departed from him.”
For individual Christians and Christ’s Church in America, this is our “Esther moment.” The choice is clearly delineated now between the Gospel and the gods of this world. It may well be a difficult choice and one that may even cost us our lives in the end. No matter what gyrations we may go through, this cup will not pass from us, and who knows whether we have come into God’s kingdom for such a time as this.
As the grains of sand filter through the hourglass of our lives, they are being weighed in the balance of Heaven’s grand scales. The history that is presently being written about Christ’s Church in America will record whether or not we will be found steadfast in the Truth.
God help us, and God help America, if we choose unwisely.
After a distinguished career as both a lawyer and a judge, Judge Phil Ginn retired as the Senior Resident Superior Court Judge for the 24th Judicial District in North Carolina. Over the course of his 22-year judicial career, he was privileged to hold court in almost 50% of the county seats in North Carolina. Currently, Judge Ginn serves as the president of Southern Evangelical Seminary.
