Becoming a Star and Overcoming the End-Times | Purim 2024

Jonathan Cahn shares how to become a Star (as Esther was) and overcome the end times. An Esther’s dilemma that every believer experienced from Nazi Germany to Cancel Culture, to the End-times, to the Great Commission – a powerful and important teaching.

The word Ester means star. She became a star. What’s a star?
A light that shines in the darkness.
She wasn’t a star before, but with the moment she’s the moment she says yes to this, she becomes Esther.
She becomes the star. Where she says if I perish, I perish.
You’ll pray for me or fast for me, and I and if I perish, I perish.
That’s the moment she’s free. She’s not living in fear anymore. She’s not living in compromise.
She’s actually living what she was born to be.
They reported Esther’s words to Mordechai.
Then Mordechai told them this reply to Esther. Do not imagine and this is really the crux here.
Do not imagine that you and the king’s palace can escape any more than all the other Jews.
Because if you keep silent at this time, liberation and rescue will come for the Jews from another place.
And you and your father’s house will perish.
And who knows whether you have not attained this royal position for such a time as this?
Ester tells Mordechai if she if I go into the king’s the king’s room without being summoned, I could be put to death.
More to high answers. Don’t think you can save yourself, Esther.
If you keep quiet, if you keep silent, god will raise up others to do what you were to do, and you and your family’s house will perish.
And who knows if all this that has happened to you being lifted up as the queen of Persia was for this very moment if you remain silent.
So this is Esther’s dilemma. She has everything a person could want in natural earthly terms.
She has riches, marriage, fame, power, comfort, she’s the queen of the empire that is the central empire in the world.
If she but if she goes to the king without being summoned to the inner court, she’s risking everything she has.
She’s risking her own life. She could lose everything.
But if she doesn’t go to the king, then her people are gonna be killed.
So her dilemma is do what’s in her own interest or do what’s right.
So which one is right? Well, the answer is already right there.
The first option, do what’s in your own interest, but isn’t right, The second one is what’s right, but it may not be in her own interest in the short run.
Now she could say I’m not sinning. I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m just keeping to myself.
I’m keeping to my own life, but to do nothing in that situation is sin.
To do nothing in the face of evil, to let evil prevail when you could have stopped it is evil.
In the end, there’s no neutral zone. There’s no demilitarized zone in the spirit. Which will you serve?
Which are you serving now? Your own interests or what’s right? In the end, you can’t do both.
In the end, you cannot do both.
You cannot serve what is right and serve what’s in your own natural immediate interests.
You’ll serve 1 in the other, you’ll show the other and not the one. That’s it.
If you keep silent, if you live in a day of evil and you do you do nothing and say nothing to stop it to oppose it, you become guilty of it.
If you could have said something to save somebody and you kept silent, and they perish, you become guilty in what they’re perishing.
There is a time when keeping silent is a sin.
When communism took over Romania, the government, the communist government called for something they called the Congress of Cope, When they say cults, they mean any religion.
All religious leaders were summoned. The leaders got up.
It was it was it was tell it was broadcast on radio.
Across the and one after the other prays the communist government and kept silent about the truth.
And a Romanian pastor who I’ve spoken about who I had the honor of meeting before the end of his life, Richard Wirmran, was there with his wife Sabina.
Turn his wife turned to him and said go up there and wipe this stain from the face of Jesus.
This was Esther’s dilemma. Keep silent and hold on to what you have.
Speak the truth and risk losing it all.
He said to his wife, if I do that, you’ll lose your husband.
She replied to the effect if you don’t do it, I’ll have a coward for a husband.
He got up and spoke the truth, and they cut They cut the mic.
It was all it was going all over Romania.
Not long after that gathering, he’s walking on the streets preparing to do a wedding as a pastor.
A black car pulls up to him, men jump out, pull him in the car, they were taking him away to prison.
He paid a price. He would be there for years years. But he did what was right.
And actually going to prison didn’t end his ministry. It actually began his ministry.
It took him to new heights that would touch the world, but he had to do what was right.
When I first came to the lord, I didn’t tell my family that I was a believer.
As I could imagine, the reaction and when a Jewish family, I kept silent for a few months about it.
And I remember everywhere I go, I went. I kept getting the same scripture, and the same scripture was you are the light of the world.
A city on a hill can’t be hidden, and people don’t light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lamp stand, so it gives light to everyone in the house So your light must shine before people in such a way they may see your good works, glorify your father, and have him.
I remember at that time, going to see a movie called Jesus about Jesus, and and he looks at the disciples and says, no one lights a light.
And I’m, oh, lord, I’m getting it all over.
And finally, I did, and there’s a whole thing without what that had to do it.
That means you cannot be silent about salvation. You wanna see yes or dilemma in your own life?
It’s right there every day. Every day, you have a chance to open your mouth and spread the gospel.
To those who are perishing.
And if you don’t and most people, most believers, even are not doing it, Why?
Well, they might disagree with me. They might reject me. Might get upset. Might judge me. Might cost you.
So you keep silent. Think about that. On one side, you have your own interest.
You might get into an argument. You might get rejected. You might get judged.
On the other side, they might go to hell. They’re perishing without salvation, and you don’t wanna get rejected.
We don’t wanna get rejected, but they’re going to hell.
Now, Esther, at least had a king he had a kingdom to lose, and her life, we don’t have anything near that to lose right now.
You share the gospel. You’re not gonna be killed now yet.
The stakes of Salvation are even greater than it was for Esther.
They were to be saved from their physical life. We’re talking about eternal life.
You don’t want rejection so they go to hell.
What if you lived in a world of people who were terminally ill, wasting away from a deadly disease, And you have the answer, and you don’t give them the medicine.
You don’t tell them about it. You keep silent because they might be upset.
What would a person like that be judged as?
Or someone who would say someone’s bitten by a rattlesnake lying, dying, and you have the antidote, and you don’t tell them about it.
Because they might get upset. Esther, but that’s what it is when we don’t share the gospel.
How did a few sick fanatics end up controlling the nation of Germany.
And then the entire European continent, because they were so powerful.
The fact that they didn’t start out so powerful is because the majority of Germans said, not our business.
We better not say anything. Why get involved? Just keep out of it. You don’t wanna get trouble.
Don’t risk what you have. No one challenges evil because no one wants to be the one to stick their neck out.
And that’s all that evil needs to conquer.
Because nobody wants to stick their neck out, everybody’s neck gets chopped in the end.
There’s a famous quote attributed to a German pastor under Hitler, and it goes like this.
He said, first, they came for the socialist, the Nazis. They came for the socialist.
I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews. I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a jew.
And then they came from me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.
It was nobody’s business until it becomes everybody’s business.
When I was growing up, there was a situation comedy called Hogan’s Heroes.
How many of you will remember that? Okay.
About a bunch of prisoners in a Nazi war camp, and it’s a situation comedy.
I would have loved to have been there in the planning session.
Of the television executives saying, oh, what would be a real funny situation comedy?
A bunch of prisoners in a Nazi prisoner of war camp. It sounds hilarious.
Well, they had the sergeant of the camp, Sergeant Seltzer would always say I see nothing. I see nothing.
That was an echo of Germany after the war when a people claim We saw nothing. We knew nothing.
We didn’t know what was going on. Well, everybody had some idea what was going on.
Hitler made his plan clear from the beginning. But they didn’t wanna get involved. They didn’t wanna be bothered.
They didn’t wanna say anything because it wasn’t their problem. It’s somebody else’s problem.
And if we speak up for the other people, we could risk our own self.
We’re gonna risk our family, risk our lives. We okay. So they kept silent.
And as they kept silent, the evil was able to kill millions of people.
What if what if millions of people stood up and spoke?
What if what if tens of 1000? What if even what tens of thousands did.
That could have ended it.
That, because in the but in the end, in the end, it would have overwhelmed the system if you had so many people coming.
But nobody wanted to be the one to risk it.
No one did, and the evil grew bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
Now, Esther could have stopped the slaughter of Hamin. They could have stopped it too.
Do you know that the, you know, what we mentioned, it was the Nazis who they banned Porham.
Do you know why? Because they knew pretty much they’re in the position of Hammond.
Hitler was a haven, and they were like the henchmen and the and Porham speaks about them getting beaten and and overturned.
A German told this story. He said I lived in Germany during the Holocaust.
I considered myself a Christian. I attended church since I was a small boy.
We had heard the stories of what was happening to the Jews.
But like most people, we tried to distance ourselves from the reality of what was taking place.
What could anyone do to stop it? A railroad truck a track ran behind our our small church.
And every Sunday, we’d hear the whistle from the distance and then And then the wheels moving, we became disturbed when one Sunday, we noticed a crisis cries from the train.
As it passed by, we realized it was carrying Jews. Week after week, the train whistle would blow.
We dreaded to hear the sound of the wheels because we knew Jews were beginning to cry as they passed the church It was so disturbing.
We could do nothing to do it, so we knew exactly at the time the whistle would blow.
We decided the only way to keep from being disturbed by it was to sing at the top of our voices.
So we sang louder, the song, the hymn, so we didn’t hear the screams.
Well, we’re not in a situation like that, are we?
Well, there have been over 64,000,000 children who have been killed in this country.
The most offenses in the mother’s womb, and the question is, what have we done about it?
Maybe we sing louder. Have you spoken out about it in all this time? Have you stood up for them?
And all this time, you even opened your mouth against it where it could make a difference.
In Proverbs 14, it says a true witness delivers lives. He’s called us to be a true witness.
The prophets were told they had to open their mouth and speak.
Even though it could cause the king’s wrath. They could get killed.
Jeremiah had his entire country thinking he was a traitor, and they put him in jail. The king hated him.
They could have killed him. Moses was told, go right to the throne of pharaoh. He could not keep silent.
Even though pharaoh could have killed him. But he went there. He said, let my people go. You have Elijah.
He also was called to speak to the king, speak to Ahab.
He could have gotten killed easily, but god says you can’t be silent, Elijah.
The lord said to the prophets open your mouth like a trumpet.
Paul could have lived a quiet life. You know, he didn’t have to He didn’t do what he did.
He spread the gospel to the Roman Empire.
Speaking the gospel, he got opposition, rejection, persecution, beatings, imprisonment, you could get killed.
But if he didn’t do it, people would go to hell.
It was his comfort and his life. Versus the salvation of the lost.
And Paul said, I cannot keep silent. He could have been afraid sometimes the lord encouraged him, actually.
In the book of acts, God says this. It says this.
The lord said to Paul, by a vision at night, do not be afraid any longer.
Go on speaking and do not be silent for I am with you, and no one will attack you.
Or harm you for I have many people in the city. He said, I will honor this poll.
If you open your mouth, I will honor you. God will honor you if you open your mouth.
When Richard Wormrant was finally released from prison, he went right back to preaching in the churches of going to church to church and not compromising.
And there was a communist plan a secret agent waiting for him to say the wrong thing, and he heard it.
He heard the wrong thing. He went out of the the guy goes out of the church says Warren Brand is finished.
He’s finished. He as he goes out, a car goes out of control and strikes him dead.
And the lord said to Richard Wibrand, keep on preaching. I will honor you.
In Isaiah, it says, for Zion’s sake, I will not keep silence.
For Jerusalem, I will not hold my peace that there’s something about we have the we have power in god’s word.
You have the power of life in the word of god.
You have the power of salvation that actually the lives of multitudes could depend on what you say.
You think about Esther, literally, the thousands of lives were depending on her not keeping silent.
But it’s not just Esther. It’s us You’ve got the power to set people free to bring them from death to life.
You can’t hold that back? Open your mouth. Do not keep silent.
Speak to the people you encounter.
And maybe the only time you encounter them and maybe the only hope they have. You don’t know that.
Share the gospel with a person at the checkout counter. Say something. Plan a seed.
Share the per say share with your your doctor, with your dentist. Just a little thing. Just say it.
Esther’s dilemma is especially important for our day because we are increasingly living in a a culture that is a cancel culture.
Where the culture that once said, anything goes, do your own thing, free speech, increasingly is saying, Be quiet.
Do not speak that. Do not say that, or we will cancel you. You can’t say that.
You can’t say this. You must say this. Just this week, the news came out of an agency.
I think it’s a government agency in Britain, and they they put a list of books that they said were dangerous books.
You know what they were?
The book 1984 by George Orwell, which warns of a totalitarian government The books by JRR Token, like the lord of the rings, and the books of CS Lewis, the Christian, the line, the which all that from the same country that once was the center of evangelism.
Street evangelists in Britain have been put in prison for speaking the word of god.
A woman has been brought on charges for praying in public.
Others have been brought to trial in Europe, Once the center of the Christian faith for speaking the word of god or for posting a scripture, they facing jail time.
Right now, it happened in I think that way, I I chair in Malta.
Recently, a guy is on a television.
He tells how he got was saved and he was saved from an alternate lifestyle of sexuality.
He’s on trial now to go to prison for that. What is this?
And don’t think it can’t happen in America. It’s already happening.
It’s another form of totalitarianism, and some people call it the soft total there. It’s growing.
People have been expelled from school for saying the truth.
Say, for instance, so so so radical things like a man exists. Men and women actually exist. That’s radical now.
Was kicked out of school or simply saying the truth or saying god’s word.
People in America have been boycotted. People have been told they must undergo reeducation class. It sounds like communism.
People have been sued, people have lost their jobs, all across America, many, many pastors are keeping quiet.
They’re not talking about the issues that affect everybody, but that the Bible is very clear on because they don’t wanna get in trouble.
They don’t wanna offend people. They don’t wanna risk the consequences.
But if you don’t offend people, if you only say what the or wants you to say, what good are you?
I preach in a place.
It was like a stadium, I preach, and and I didn’t realize what the the quo well, the choir was it was kind of like a woke, uh, quote Christian thing.
They walked out. Uh, these were supposed to be Christians. They walked out when I said the word of god.
Seek all these things, and you’ll you won’t get the righteous of god, and you’ll lose all those things anyway in the end.
You have to make a decision as Esther did.
Morduhai told Esther, don’t think you’re gonna save your life. By keeping silent. If you keep silent, you’re gonna perish.
In the same way, don’t think you can avoid this challenge.
Don’t think you can avoid this choice, and don’t think you can avoid this fight.
If you don’t fight the darkness in the culture or in the public square, You’re gonna be dealing with it at your doorstep and in your home and in your children’s rooms.
You’ll end up fighting there. If you don’t speak against the darkness, you’re no better than the Germans.
We’re no better than the Germans who did not speak about Hitler and the Nazis and the holocaust.
Or the Russians who went along with the lies of the state because they didn’t want a problem.
It’s easy to condemn them. We condemn it. Oh, yeah. Look at the who did that. Yeah.
But now we’re beginning to start seeing some of the same dynamics. And what are we doing?
Days such as the, you know, these days are not to nullify your witness there to actually magnify your witness.
See, the darkness gives a chance to the light to light up the night.
You have to fight. You have to take a stand. You gotta speak up.
Those who stand when it costs, when it’s not easy, those are the ones who get stronger and greater and brighter.
That’s how it works. You know what the word ester means?
The word this is not a quiz here now. You know what the word estra means?
The word estra means star. She became a star. What’s a star?
A light that shines in the darkness.
She was in the star before, but with the moment she’s the moment she says, yes, to this, she becomes Esther.
She becomes the star, where she says, if I perish, I perish.
You know, pray for me or fast for me. And I and if I perish, I perish.
That’s the moment she’s free. She’s not living in fear anymore. She’s not living in compromise.
She’s living what she was born to be.
The lord said, don’t be like as the pagans who go after everything, what we should eat, drink, you know, Well, we do all that.
They live to survive. You’re not to live to survive.
If you live to survive, what’s the point of your life?
You’re to live for the will and the glory of god. Then your life is something great.
It’s when Esther got beyond trying to survive and herself and protecting herself, that’s when she became great.
Your life is not about surviving. It’s not about self interest.
Your life is to be a great life, a life of greatness.
You gotta get beyond yourself to be great, which you can only do in messiah.
That you get to the point where you say, you know what? I don’t care anymore.
I’m not gonna live in fear my whole life.
I’m not gonna be worrying about people think of me my whole life. That’s a waste of life.
I’m not gonna live in anxiety. I’m not gonna worry about everything. I can’t live like that.
I’m not gonna focus on me and me.
I I’m not here to survive or to live in fear over my life. I’m finished with that.
That’s the point of blessing. That’s the point god wants to get us. That’s when we can become great people.
I’m here not to live for that. I’m here to live for god and his glory.
I’m here to do what’s right and to advance the kingdom of god.
Let the chips fall where they may fall. As for me and my house, we will serve the lord.
This is Jonathan Khan. Thanks for watching.
The return of the goth is available literally everywhere, Amazon, wherever books are sold, and god bless you.