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    Esther: A Date With Destiny: Search For Truth Bible Series
    Esther: A Date With Destiny: Search For Truth Bible Series
    Esther: A Date With Destiny: Search For Truth Bible Series
    Ebook72 pages1 hour

    Esther: A Date With Destiny: Search For Truth Bible Series

    By Brian Johnston

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    About this ebook

    The story of Esther is one of the most remarkable in the Bible. It has all the intrigue and as many twists as a modern thriller. Dark forces of evil, in opposition to the good, swirl around the lead character – who's a girl some Jewish sources have claimed as being one of the four most beautiful women in the Bible. The drama has been styled as a rags-to-riches or even a peasant-to-princess type of adventure. One thing's for sure: the Jewish girl Hadassah (Esther) has more than a date with the king: it's a date with destiny - the stakes are high - the future of an entire nation hangs in the balance!

     

    But it gets even more exciting than that.. Bible teacher Brian Johnston guides you to sense the hand of God in your own life - for Esther inspires us to discover the purpose God is working towards in our own lives – right now!

     

    This ebook also contains a bonus book - Joseph: Overcoming Life's Hurdles.  Joseph, like Esther, is an example of someone who God was working with, even though it was often behind the scenes.  If you are struggling with circumstances in life, this will be an encouraging read!

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHayes Press
    Release dateNov 15, 2018
    ISBN9781386322528
    Esther: A Date With Destiny: Search For Truth Bible Series
    Author

    Brian Johnston

    Born and educated in Scotland, Brian worked as a government scientist until God called him into full-time Christian ministry on behalf of the Churches of God (www.churchesofgod.info). His voice has been heard on Search For Truth radio broadcasts for over 30 years (visit www.searchfortruth.podbean.com) during which time he has been an itinerant Bible teacher throughout the UK and Canada. His evangelical and missionary work outside the UK is primarily in Belgium and The Philippines. He is married to Rosemary, with a son and daughter.

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      Book preview

      Esther - Brian Johnston

      CHAPTER ONE - PREPARING TO MEET THE KING

      The story of Esther is probably one of the most remarkable stories in the whole Bible.  It has all the intrigue and as many twists as a modern thriller.  Dark forces of evil, in opposition to the good, swirl around the lead character.  She’s a girl who is claimed by some Jewish sources to have been one of the four most beautiful women in the Bible.  Others have classified the whole drama as a rags-to-riches, or even a peasant-to-princess, type of adventure.  One thing’s for sure: the Jewish girl Hadassah has more than a date with the king: it’s a date with destiny.  The stakes are high: the future of an entire nation hangs in the balance! A curious feature of the book, which is often commented upon, is that it lacks any direct mention of God.  In the original Hebrew, the word for God can be found in acrostic form in the text; but in reality we hardly need to go to such lengths to find clear evidence of God’s hand in the story that unfolds in this Bible book.  We’re left with every reason to believe that everything that happened was the design of divine Providence, or to put it another way, that God was behind everything that happened.

      Although this book is a fascinating read for all ages, as well as being a favourite in Sunday Schools, I’d like to encourage us to read between the lines of the book of Esther.  You certainly get the unmistakable impression that a sense of destiny is interwoven throughout all the varied circumstances by which Esther progresses.  At first she’s orphaned, then adopted, then she’s selected for – and finally chosen by – the king of Persia to be his new queen.  There may have been a thousand other contestants!  Why was Esther chosen from an ethnic minority grouping across the vast Persian Empire?  Was it simply mere chance?  Was it simply because she was the most beautiful?  Or was this her date with destiny?  We’re told that this last idea was her cousin’s understanding of what was happening.

      It’s my hope that as we explore this together, we’ll be encouraged to reflect on how the hand of God is at work in the circumstances of our own lives.  That’s something even more thrilling than the book of Esther itself!

      The story, as we’ll see it unfold, is one in which Esther is enabled to find favour with the king (she pleases him) and then goes on to use that favour to achieve God’s purpose for her people.  Every believer on the Lord Jesus is in a position to recognize the grace (favour) God has already shown them and then, like the boy Jesus, to go on to increase in favour with God – the God who is the ‘king eternal’ (Luke 2:52; see 2 Peter 3:18; 1 Timothy 1:17).  Was that promotion at work or that successful relocation purely down to our own efforts – or do we begin to sense the hand of God behind which there’s a smiling Providence?  If so, then the lesson of Esther is that we must prepare our hearts to discover the purpose towards which God is working in our lives.  (None of this denies the fact that things may appear to go wrong in lives that please the Lord.  Think of the extreme case of Job in the Bible.  But that’s beyond the scope of this book).

      Without any further comment, let’s launch ourselves into the story of Esther.  We’ll break in at chapter two – pausing only to say that chapter one has been a scene-setter explaining how the Persian king’s queen, Vashti, had fallen into disfavour.  The king has now had time to reflect...

      ...when the anger of King Xerxes had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what he had decreed about her.  Then the king’s personal attendants proposed ...Let the king appoint commissioners in every province of his realm to bring ...beautiful girls into the harem at the citadel of Susa.  Let them be placed under the care of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women; and let beauty treatments be given to them.  Then let the girl who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti."  This advice appealed to the king, and he followed it. Now there was in the citadel of Susa a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, named Mordecai...who had been carried into exile from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon...Mordecai had a cousin name Hadassah, whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother. 

      This girl, who was also known as Esther, was lovely in form and features, and Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter when her father and mother died. When the king’s order and edict had been proclaimed, many girls were brought to the citadel of Susa and put under the care of Hegai.  Esther also was taken to the king’s palace and entrusted to Hegai, who had charged of the harem.  The girl pleased him and won his favour.  Immediately he provided her with her beauty treatments and special food.  He assigned to her seven maids selected from the king’s palace and moved her and her maids into the best place in the harem...Before a girl’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with

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