And with that, let's get into the word, really excited about tonight. If you're not already there,

you can turn there. We'll begin in Esther chapter 5, but I think it would be good if I took just a little bit of time and kind of brought everyone up to speed,

especially for the benefit of those who haven't been with us for the first four chapters of Esther. So the story begins,

and I'm even reluctant to call it a story because it tends to come packaged with this connotation

of not being a true story. It's just a Bible story. And this is also why I shy away from calling

the men and women of God that we are introduced to in the pages of Scripture. I have

difficult to referring to them as characters. Because again, the connotation is that they are

fictional characters and they were not fictional characters and these are not just stories. And it's not

even just based on a true story. This is a true story. This happened. I hope you know that we are going to see Esther and Mordecai in heaven and many of them with them as well. These are real people. And by the way, Esther, at the time that this happened was very young,

probably not quite 20 years old. I mean, there's really no way we're not told in the scriptures

exactly what her age was. We just know that she was very young. And with Christmas coming up, one of the things

we're going to be talking about on Sunday in Luke's gospel, as we revisit the Christmas,

here it is again, story, the Christmas story, Mary, it's believed, was about 17 years old when the angel appeared to her and told her that she was

with child and that she would give birth to the Savior of the world. Think about that. Joseph,

her soon-to-be husband, could not have been that much older as well. And while I'm at it, I might

as well mention that when Jesus called the disciples, many of them were very young. Late teens, perhaps,

very unlikely, but perhaps at the very oldest they were in their 20s.

I think about what the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, who himself as a pastor was very young.

And he says, don't let the people in the church that you pastor look down on you for your age

or try to intimidate you because of how young

you are. And it was very likely that he was younger as the pastor of the church than those

that were in the church that he was the pastor of. And so I guess I say that to say this. You know, God uses young people. He uses old people, too.

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