Hello everybody and welcome to Into the Pray, Breaching the Chaos of the Church with Nick and Mary Franks. We'd like to take a little bit of time this morning, Sunday, the 26th of April, 2026, to look at Esther chapter 4. So if you've got your Bible either in your hand or on your phone, if you could turn to Esther chapter 4, and we'll come to that in a moment. To give you the context though as to why we want to speak from Esther 4 this morning as a discussion, I felt it was important that Mary and I had a discussion on this. We could I could have done something straight to camera and just kind of essentially taught through a passage, but to have a a kind of conversation on this will hopefully help more of you listen. Particularly those in a particular context, I hope, will um I hope this will resonate. And that's the seeker-sensitive church context. Um seeker sensitivity meaning often popular, often fruitful in appearance churches that carry a lot of um carry a lot of influence and weight because of that the appearance of fruitfulness and popularity and that kind of thing, churches that are often um in many ways mirror mirrors of culture at large, pop culture at large, often I think, let's just be honest, a lot of that is through music, how worship is understood and taught and practiced and that kind of thing. And so having spoken into that particular seeker-sensitive church context a lot over the years, and um thinking of one video in particular that I took quite a bit of time to produce uh as a message to the HTB, Alpha Course, Nikki Gumble type context that we're talking about, the seeker sensitive context, which of course is in a way epitomized by the alpha course. Um I'll direct you to that video. If you've not seen it, please, please do take a bit of time to watch it because I've gone through very carefully what the seek-sensitive problem is, how that relates to ecumenicalism, um, and also God's keeping sovereign grace for young people, for any people, for any person, but particularly I think young people who are very impressionable and so on. I've done all that in that video, so please watch that. But the reason that we're going to talk about this now, again, in a more nuanced way, is because I happened just to see something yesterday. I don't know if it would help people listening. Maybe do you want to sweet? Do you want to describe for folk listening what I saw and the effect that it had on me personally? Because it this is often the way that the law does work in me. I see something or whatever, and feel a sense a little bit like Paul of wandering around Athens being provoked in his spirit. That's essentially what what happened.

So Nick had seen on social media just a passing post of a very kind of large conference with lots of young people kind of at a student age, maybe younger. And this place just been filled with the kind of classic secret sensitive style of loud music, a big band, lots of young people, smoke lights, the kind of copy of the worldly way of doing things, which has become very popular through the likes of Bethel and Hillsong, and is replicated in lots of different countries now. And this is seen as a key way of drawing young people into church, quote unquote. And the way that it's described is as these the post describe these young people as going hard after Jesus, and those things are conflated together when you bring all these young people into what essentially is a worldly concert, and then you tart it up to look like something biblical and faithful to the Bible. And Nick, if you've listened to any of our stuff before, he's spoken quite openly about being in a large church in Bradford years ago that did and looked exactly like this, and um the Lord has really spoken to him and to us about these types of things over the years, and the way that this type of music is used in a really wrong way to essentially try to draw in loads of large numbers of people, particularly young people. Um and it's just a false way of bringing people to Christ. There's no other way to say it, but it looks like it's faithful. They try to make it look, you know, lots of people putting their hands up, baptisms, etc. etc. And it looks like it's good, but actually beneath it, these people, these young people are not being taught anything. Biblical, sound are faithful, and it means that there's just a false gospel being put out, and of course, the results speak for themselves, you know. It looks good now, but where are these people in years to come? So that's essentially the context, and nothing changes. We see the same stuff over and over and over again, and it's it is deeply distressing.

Yeah, and we'll we'll come to that deep distress that Esther experienced and what that meant exactly, and actually how it wasn't as deep as Mordecai's distress that we're about to see from Esther chapter four. But yeah, to make the point that again, I've done this video um a number of years, just two or three years back now, about HTB and the Alpha Course or the Alpha Curse as we uh call it. Um when I saw this post that Mary referred to yesterday, I could have seen that 15 years ago. I in it, you know, the kind of post where a nice wide-angled lens has been used in an auditorium to capture maybe a couple of thousand young people, lots of lights, lots of smoke, lots of um, you know, and that and that again, as Mary's saying, is conflated with going hard after after God, being faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, we don't know exactly what's being taught week in, week out. We can make, I think, completely sound judgment from the point of view of, you know, an assessment that if they're doing conferences with Nikki Gumble, then then they're they're in agreement with the ecumenical, false gospel of ecumenicalism, egalitarianism, these things that we've written, a very concise confession to help you to go to the scripture and think, is this actually what the Bible teaches? So we don't know in and out what they teach, but there'll be enough truth and faithfulness, there'll be enough correct doctrine for it not to be an obvious Um an obvious red alarm because the the devil's not stupid. And so and anyway, listen, that's the context, and we're gonna look now at chapter four of Esther, and the reason for that is because as we read this morning, the Lord spoke to me. I sit here, I was sitting here earlier and and and experiencing something of the distress. If you just cast your eye onto Esther chapter four, and you see that in Esther's um response in verse four of chapter four, when Esther's young women and so on, Esther's deeply, you can see that her deep distress. I was experiencing some form of deep distress because I see these kinds of posts, these kinds of quote-unquote flourishing churches, and I feel distressed on one hand because I know that that's not biblically true, it's not biblically faithful, what's what's going on there? And yeah, it looks popular, it looks fruitful, and then on the other side of that, there's a distress because taking a stand against that and saying, hey, no, listen, regardless of the number of people, regardless of the cash coming in, regardless of the social media growth, regardless of the back-to-back meetings that are now needing to take place, that does not mean to say that it is faithful. And there's a distress that comes with that because when you challenge that, you become alienated from that. You become isolated in a way from that, and that's not easy. And of course, just for your notes, if you are making notes, mental or otherwise, Luke 14, 33 is the standard for Christian discipleship. Jesus says, as clear as the sun in the sky, that unless a man renounces everything he has, he cannot be my disciple. So Esther chapter 4, there's a verse in this chapter that's one of the cherry-picked verses, kind of consistent with these seeker-sensitive churches that are essentially wanting to be psychologically encouraging, um, uplifting in a world. And again, we're not saying that none of that is from a good place. We know the people that run these churches, or at least in times gone by, um, you know, I I know these people well, have lived with them in the same house, that kind of thing. These were close friends that I did life with. So I'm not saying that these are these are this is the devil incarnate. What I'm saying is that it's a it's a fruit of a wider apostate landscape, and we have to be able to pray and speak, and the scripture alone helps us to do that. So the verse that caught my attention and our attention as we looked at that this morning was Um in chapter four in chapter four that we're in and verse fourteen, Mordecai, who is the great uncle of Queen Esther, Queen Esther at this point, the Jewish people, and Mordecai as her great uncle, says these words in the second half of the verse, and who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this. This verse is is used regularly to essentially encourage, I think, particularly younger people, that this is their time, this is their time to be to have impact, to be s fruitful, to you know, it's it's used as an encouraging verse essentially to kind of appeal to this more nebulous sense of what it would mean to be a Christian and quote unquote going hard after God. And as we read the chapter this morning, it got my attention because I hadn't realized that those very words actually were part of a rebuke of Mordecai to Esther, his great niece. Rather than it just being this the way that the verse is used, and this is again a kind of trait of seeker-sensitive churches, that tend to cherry-pick verses of script biblical scripture out of context and then use them for their own means. One classic example would be Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 11. We all know it for uh for a lot for God speaking, for I know the plans that I have for plans to bless you and to prosper you, plans for good, etc. etc. And apart from the fact that that was in a very different context of exile and the kind of punishment, the the punitive effects and consequences of sin and unfaithfulness, that that doesn't come into it for seeker-sensitive churches. It's just a cherry-picked. So that's what I mean by cherry-picked. And so here we are in Esther chapter 4, verse 14, and this same verse is used in exactly the same way. It's never taught in context. And if you're going to teach this verse in context, you need to understand that the the popular famous phrase, you were born for such a time as this, was part of a rebuke from a man of a spiritual maturity in the face of the temptation toward cowardice. That's it. And we'll read the chapter and you can see what we're saying. Um, how do you want to do you want to read the whole chapter? Do you want to read that? Mario will read the whole chapter and then we'll jump back in. Won't we won't keep you here for that long because it won't take that long to make the point that we're that would that we're eager this morning to help you. And by the way, if you're listening to this podcast and you're thinking of people that you know who are caught up in this seeker-sensitive acumenical falseness, please do share it along to them.

When Mordecai learned all that he that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry. He went up to the entrance of the king's gate, for no one was allowed to enter the king's gate closed in sackcloth. And in every province, wherever the king's command and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes. When Esther's young woman and her eunuchs came and told her the queen was deeply distressed, she sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sacloth, but he would not accept them. Then Esther called for Hathak, one of the king's eunuchs who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what this was and why it was. Hathak went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king's gate, and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king's treasury for the destruction of the Jews. Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her, and command her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people. And Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say, All the king's servants and the people of the provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter, so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come into the king these thirty days. And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish, and who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this. Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, Go gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young woman will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish. Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

So if we're going to teach Esther 4 chapter Esther 4 verse 14 to anybody, but especially in a in a way that it is to young people, we have to the first thing we need to say is that the famous refrain for having been brought to such for such a time as this comes after the conditional rebuke of Mordecai. Esther, let's give you a bit of context. Mordecai was, as I say, the great uncle of Esther, who'd been brought to this prominent position as the king, the king's queen in replacement of Queen Vashti, who had basically been rebellious, that's in chapter one. Esther had been brought in and a decree had gone out to essentially annihilate the Jews, the Jewish people, via this figure, this character called Haman, who we'll see later in the book, and you'll see if you read the rest of it, we won't deal with that today. But the thing that's important to realise is that where these words that are often quoted to Esther and about Esther, where they come in the book and what has gone on. So if you jumped, I'm just going to skim over this. In chapter four at the beginning, where it says, When Mordecai learned all that had been done, look at the response of Mordecai. So this is the great again, the great uncle of Esther in light of this threat of genocide to annihilate the Jews. There's nothing new under the sun. Mordecai tore his clothes in verse 1, put on sackcloth and ashes and went out into the midst of the city, and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry. That is very difficult to skim over because it's so important to what we're about to say about verse 14 in just a moment, in response to the something as serious as the annihilation of any people, the Jewish people. Mordecai's response was to adopt a posture that could have got him killed. He adopted a posture that was despised and rejected. That's the point. But he went out into the midst of the public space. That's what we see in that first kind of beginning of chapter four. He went into the entrance of the King's Gate where he wasn't allowed to go beyond. And so he went to the very point at which his personal repentance, an essential call for public repentance, would be most effective and impactful. Esther, his great niece, as we've learned, then hears about this, and the verse 14, it's important to see this before we come to verse 14. What happened is that Esther's distress at her great uncle adopting that radical posture of repentance in a very public place, crying out bitterly as he was in the middle of the town square. And verse 4 look, when Esther's young women and her eunuchs came to her and told that the Queen was deeply distressed. This is maybe a little bit difficult to quantify exactly, but look at what she first does. She tries to placate her uncle, her great uncle. She sends him garments to clothe him and to essentially dis persuade him to stop what he was doing, take the sackcloth off. But Mordecai at the end of verse 4, but would not accept. Mordecai was having none of it. He was distressed. He was the one that was really distressed by this revelation of what was going on with the Jews. He wouldn't accept them. It's actually a picture of disorder that the end of chapter one it finishes with. The first decree that went out into all of the provinces of King Ashehuaris' control was for that every man would be master of his own house. There's a picture of godly order there, but this was a picture of godly disorder, I think. That Esther was trying to placate a much maturer, spiritual, maturer man's public repentance in light of things that were so eternally grievous. And so Mordecai rejected that. End of verse 4. Then Esther essentially tried to point out that Mordecai was in harm's way and that he wasn't in doing that, he was going to come in, come to harm. So then skip down to the other detail there we haven't got time for. But if you go down to chapter, sorry, verse 12, you see what Mordecai's response to his beloved Esther, and she was his beloved Esther, what his response to her was, and this is this is the message for us today. Anybody that's up to their neck in seeker-sensitive, false gospel, false church cultures squandering their life and refusing the true gospel and the true invitation of the Lord Jesus Christ who's coming again. This is what we need to see in verse 12. Then sorry, verse 13, then Mordecai told them these messengers of his great niece, who was in the throne room effectively. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. Esther herself was Jewish, unless you're not clear on that. It's a little bit like Frodo, isn't it? And Samwise. You wanting to remain in the Shire. And we've we've alluded to this wonderful kind of story before. But the thought of being in the shop, if you just keep your head down and keep going with your perfect idyllic life, Mordor isn't going, but that's that wasn't that wasn't the reality in that fiction. And it wasn't it wasn't the reality in this fact, this historical fact. And Mordecai is saying, For if you keep silent, Esther, if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place. In other words, God is providentially sovereign over all things. God is not controlled by man's unfaithfulness. If man is unfaithful, God remains faithful. And again, I've alluded to that in the longer video about HTB and God's sovereign providential keeping of people, protection and preservation of people who are in these false cultures. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and that will God will have his way. But then look, comma, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? It's a question. But it comes after a rebuke, it's part of a rebuke. Esther, if you if you choose to put your head in the sand about this and make your decision to do that sound virtuous because you're concerned about my physical safety. This is Mordecai in paraphrasing, then firstly, God will have his way anyway. But secondly, you, your lineage, your whole family will perish. That's what got my attention this morning as I sat stewing in my chair in a place of prayer about what I'm seeing year in, decade in and out, with these seeker-sensitive churches that I myself was once part of, captured to, by, enchanted by. So I hope you can see that the way that the verse is often used just to essentially rubber stamp the hopes and dreams of a young generation, it's actually a comf a very confronting challenge that if you aren't willing to join me in the public square, and again, forgive me, but this is me trying to um help you to see what's so what's so obvious, unless unless Esther was essentially willing to join Mordecai, her great uncle, in that place of repentance that was an affront and an offence and a direct challenge to the king and to every other principality and power, unless she was willing herself to forego everything that she was privileged to be experiencing, then she would perish. And what's so wonderful, and I'll just say this, and then sweet, maybe you could just say something in closing. This is the place that every single Christian, in order to be, according to the Bible, in co uh in order to be a Christian, has to come to. This is bate, this is an elementary, it's viewed today as being radical, but it's not. It's elementary. Just look at the wonderful response of Esther in verse 15 to this rebuke from her great uncle. Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, excuse me, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day, I and my young women will also fast as you do, then I will go to the king, and though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish. In other words, as Paul wrote, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. This is the mentality, this is the heart of a true disciple who says, If in order to be faithful and not put my head in the sand and not try and blend in with the ways of the world and the cultures of the world, if I perish, I perish. This is a woman who's experiencing such a 180-degree turn change of mind. This is this is a repentant, a radically repentant moment where one moment she's trying to appease her uncle, calm him down, let's not be so hasty, let's just she's rebuked and she responds as a godly woman, and she then recognises the need first of all not to rely on her own. She repents, she she recognises the need to fast, and she adopts, I think, the posture that is so so important, and it I just don't know if these young people are being if I perish, I perish. What a wonderful example of godly sorrow.

Um it's also a wonderful picture of the way that Mordecai has a just a great understanding of who God is. He knows the way that God has promised to care for his people, and he he's just absolutely assured of that. So when he gives his response to Esther, he knows that God has made promises, he's made a covenant with the Jewish people, and that regardless of what this man tries to do, that God will always protect and keep his people. It's his responsibility to teach her these things so that she knows that and that she has a decision here to make about how she will respond to that, and her response is exactly as it should be. She hears what he says, and then she does the only thing that can be done in light of the rebuke and the challenge to her. And are the leaders taking their rule seriously? Because Mordecai wasn't fluffing anything. He wasn't trying to protect her. Well, he was trying to protect her, but not in the way he was being honest and real with her, and the result is that she was then able to act in an obedient and faithful way because Mordecai took his his role of responsibility seriously. And we know we know the verse in James that talks about leaders, teachers being held more responsible because of the role that they've been given. And you know, that makes me think of this: that these people, are they taking their role seriously enough? Are they teaching young people what the Bible truly says and the consequences of not being faithful to scripture? Do they know that? Are they sharing it? Are these things being expressed and taught? And that's the concern that young people are not being given the opportunity to respond faithfully because these leaders are not are not serious about what they should be doing.

And I think what strikes me as a great irony here is where Mordecai's response, a rebuke to Esther before she repents he he talks about if you keep silent at this time. So so Esther was tempted to be silent. And what strikes me as ironic is that so often, as we said, these pictures of 2,000 young people jumping around in a mosh pit with lights and bands, and you know, this is this is a loud, this is this is a loud scene, isn't it? And yet, a great silence, I think, from the leaders being rap replicated in those who are under their influence and following their false teaching to not actually be living loud at all. You can you can jump around in a mosh pit and and you know shove a microphone in someone's face and be you can be as silent as a silent thing. So Esther was being encouraged if you're if you choose the this this easier path of silence, please we mustn't mistake volume in the worldly sense as living loud for God. And it's it's finally, this is all I want to say in terms of my honest grief when I see decade in, decade decade out young people being told that these types of worldly loudness and volume equate to living going hard after Jesus, it is a deception. And if I remain silent about this, then I become complicit, or at least I become responsible in a different way for failing to say what needs to be said, and that is if you're conflating these types of large gathering with a form of silence, you're sorry, you're conflating it with a with a going hard after God, all the while facilitating a generational silence on abortion or on transgenderism or on homosexuality or any other socio-cultural ill that is an anti-the-person of the coming Lord Jesus Christ, then you are rebukeworthy. And I say that in love, in the way that Mordecai said what he said to Esther in love, but we must not continue to cherry-pick these Bible verses just to support our preferred cultures, all the while we ourselves as leaders, and I'm speaking to the people that I know and love and have lived with, even though I've not seen or spoken to in over a decade, you are failing in your responsibility to teach the Bible and to model repentance as Mordecai did. And rather than then knee-jerking and lashing out at these types of harsher or harder, that's the right word, the harder message, listen, appreciate, look at Esther's appreciation of Mordecai, her her great uncle, not just her uncle, that would have been enough to listen and respect, wouldn't it? But her great uncle, listen to the blessing of those who are bringing the harder word in order to bring us to our senses. If you're leading thousands of young people to think that this, in these pictures on Instagram and so on, is living loud and living and going hard after Jesus, you need to get on your knees, you need to get your sackcloth on, and tell you what, you need to go into the public square and cry out bitterly before God for mercy. Lord, we do pray now and thank you that your word comes in such a glorious way to our weak, trembling, imperfect minds. Thank you for the way that you have brought light to Marion to me just today on this issue, and that your word is eternal and flawless and will never return without accomplishing the purpose for which it was sent. And I pray that even today, this day, Sunday, the 26th of April, 2026, that someone, someone, maybe more, who are caught in this deception of uh maybe parents who have children who feel like it's better for their children to be in that type of than in nothing. Lord, I pray that you would bring your people to repentance, like you brought the wonderful Esther to repentance at the blessing of hearing the harder word from her great uncle. I pray that turning, that 180-degree turn of repentance from your people, and that the true gospel to follow you, Lord Jesus, with all of our heart, eve if I perish, then so if I perish, then I perish. That that would be the heartbeat driven by eternity, for I consider that our present suffering is not worth comparing to the future glory to be revealed to us. In the precious name of Jesus. Amen.