As the celebration of Purim began Sunday night at sunset, it was time again to read the book of Esther one more time. Most of you know the story behind the holiday and how even today there are Hamans in the world trying to “wipe Israel off the face of the earth” The motives and objectives have never changed; only the name of the Haman’s of the world has changed.

In light of the fifty, yes I said fifty; mortars fired from Gaza terrorists Saturday morning and the two Katyusha rockets fired on Sunday you would think the emphasis of this story would be about the Haman’s we are living with but its not.

There are many things to be learned from the Book of Esther, but these two things stood out with this years reading of the Book of Esther.

“In the course of the story, when Mordecai, Esther’s uncle is confronted with Haman’s wicked plan he tells his niece to go to the king and to make this plan know. Esther’s first response to her uncle is, All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that any man or woman who goes into the inner court to the king, who has not been called, he has but one law: put all to death.

Mordecai then sends Esther the message “For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish.”

Mordecai’s words “if you remain completely silent at this time”, is our first stopping place.
Maybe it will hit home to us if we were to say it this way… If not YOU then who, if NOW then when? Could it be that G-D has called all of us to be an Esther and could it be that He has something for each of us to accomplish for Him? “Who knows whether YOU have come to the kingdom for such a time as this”?

What is it that has been placed on your heart, what have you been putting off for so long because you lack that courage to step out, to put you life on the line for? Put your faith shoes on and take that step of faith! Esther, knowing that she may loose her life by going before the king uninvited, answers the call this way… “And if I perish, I perish!” She put her life on the line for her people.

The second and last stopping place in the Purim story for this year is this; the events that lead to this story did not start on page one of the Book of Esther but rather five hundred years earlier with a single act of disobedience.

The Purim story began in 1 Samuel 15:1 when G-D through the prophet Samuel said to King Saul, “Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey”.

You know the story, King Saul disobeyed the commandment of G-D and he spared the life of King Agag and some of the best live stock. King Agag fathered children after his life was spared and Haman was a descendant of King Agag, those children, that ancestry, that family tree, that act of disobedience on Saul’s part.