DISCOVER THE PROTOCOL OF THE PALACE Divine secrets of transformation await you in the life-and-death saga from Esther’s pre-Islamic Persia. It is here that God uses the most unlikely of heroes to save His people from genocide. How does this story from ancient Iraq apply to us today? If it were a mere children’s story, it wouldn’t apply at all. But it isn’t. This story has the feel of a fairy tale! Hidden among the secrets of palace protocol is an encoded portrayal of Bible purpose—access to God’s presence. God reveals through Esther’s life just how He worked through one young woman to save the Jewish people from total annihilation by an impossibly powerful leader. Esther’s story reveals eternal wisdom about your own future and destiny! You’ll learn such protocols as: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POTENTIAL OF ONE ENCOUNTER. ——(page 26)—— WORSHIP IS THE PROTOCOL THAT PROTECTS THE KING AND QUALIFIES THE VISITOR. ——(page 42)—— FAVOR CAN RESTORE IN A DAY WHAT WAS STOLEN OVER A LIFETIME. ——(page 196)—— AND MORE. Books by Tommy Tenney GOD CHASERS SERIES The God Chasers God’s Favorite House The God Catchers God’s Eye View Prayers of a God Chaser (Study guides and workbooks are available for many of these books) UNITY SERIES God’s Dream Team Answering God’s Prayer God’s Secret to Greatness COMPASSION SERIES Chasing God, Serving Man Mary’s Prayers and Martha’s Recipes FAMILY SERIES How to Be a God Chaser and a Kid Chaser On Daddy’s Shoulders DEVOTIONAL BOOKS The Daily Chase Experiencing His Presence Up Where You Belong GIFT BOOKS Heart of a God Chaser God Chasers for Kids God Chasers for Teens You Are a God Chaser If . OTHER BOOKS Trust and Tragedy Secret Sources of Power Finding Favor With the King Hadassah: One Night With the King The Hadassah Covenant Finding Favor With the King Copyright © 2003 Tommy Tenney Cover design by Lookout Design, Inc. Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Scripture quotations identified NASB are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE,® Copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. www.lockman.org Scripture quotations identified NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com Scripture quotations identified NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com Ebook edition created 2011 ISBN 978-1-4412-1171-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence. CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Page Dedication 1. From Peasant to Princess What a Difference a Day Makes! 2. The King or the Kingdom? The Palace or His Presence? 3. Protocol of the Palace You Cannot Worship What You Dethrone 4. Intimacy and Influence How Relationship Trumps Protocol 5. Courting a King What Do You Give a Man Who Has Everything? 6. The Secret of the Chamberlain Finding Favor With the King 7. Favor Has an Entourage Purpose and Jealousy Often Accompany Favor 8. Risk Versus Reward Spending Favor to Pursue Purpose 9. Learn to Worship With Your Enemy But Keep Your Eyes on the King 10. Divine Insomnia Indulgent Worship Creates a Sleepless King 11. Right Question, Wrong Time Don’t Ask Him Now 12. Happily Ever After Living in the King’s House and Wearing the King’s Ring Twelve Protocols of the Palace Endnotes Back Ads Backcover CONNECT WITH TOMMY TENNEY Have you ever read a book and wished that you could remember all the things you learned from its pages? Reading a book and applying the knowledge gained from that book are two different things. I want to help you “find favor” by applying the principles found in this book! To assist you in continuing your journey into the King’s palace, I have created a special interactive online Esther experience! It’s like a roadmap of sorts. There is a ... special study guide audio streaming, and printable “Protocols of the Palace” artwork. Also available is an Esther devotional sent to you daily by e-mail. I want you to succeed! If you can’t access the GodChasers.network Web site, we can ship you a free teaching CD or tape, “Lessons From Esther,” for a minimal shipping charge. GodChasers.network The ministry of Tommy Tenney PO Box 3355 Pineville, LA 71361 1-888-433-3355 or 1-318-442-4273 www.godchasers.net To the ones who taught me most. The four queens of my life. I can’t imagine life in my humble “palace” without them. My three daughters and my wife. May I rise to the level of their royalty. CHAPTER 1 FROM PEASANT TO PRINCESS What a Difference a Day Makes! INTRODUCTION Divine secrets of transformation await you in this life-and-death saga from Esther’s pre-Islamic Persia. It is here that God uses the most unlikely of heroes to save His people from genocide at the hands of a powerful and highly placed madman named Haman. Not only did God use unlikely heroes —but He also used unlikely weapons! How does this story from the antiquity of ancient Iraq apply to us today? If it was a mere children’s story, it wouldn’t apply at all. But it isn’t. This story has the feel of a fairy tale! Hidden among the secrets of palace protocol is an encoded portrayal of Bible purpose—access to God’s presence. The book of Esther literally contains a spiritual roadmap to God! We cannot afford to shrug off this story as something we heard about in church decades ago or dismiss it as some “irrelevant Old Testament book.” God reveals through Esther’s life just how He worked through one young woman to save the Jewish people from total annihilation by an impossibly powerful leader. Esther’s story reveals eternal wisdom about your own future and destiny! Most little girls I’ve known have dreamed of becoming a princess (most young boys secretly dream of being a king too). The “princess and king” dream lives on into adulthood for most of us. Why else would the contemporary world be so captivated by the storybook wedding of Princess Diana to Prince Charles years ago? An estimated 750 million people in seventy-four countries dropped what they were doing and crowded around television sets to watch the ceremony of the first English woman to marry an heir to the British throne in over three hundred years. Every eye followed Lady Diana as she walked down the aisle of St. Paul’s Cathedral in a royal procession to meet Prince Charles. In the words of the archbishop of Canterbury, “Here is the stuff of which fairy tales are made.”[1] Otherwise happy and contented women around the globe suddenly felt the familiar pangs of their childhood, longing to be a “princess bride” once again. Very few modern nations or cultures continue to have royalty or princesses, but little girls still dream of one day being a princess bride, and little boys still imagine becoming a king. Is it any accident that the dream of a “princess bride” is so persistent even in contemporary societies, generations after true earthly royalty became rare? Could it be that our Creator planted this dream deep inside our hearts as a hidden seed, an eternal dream waiting to be fulfilled at just the right time? This dream has divine destiny at its core. Authors, playwrights, and poets in virtually every culture since the beginning of human history have dabbled with the theme of commoners morphing into royalty at the whim of a king. Hans Christian Andersen penned his renowned children’s story “The Ugly Duckling,” describing the miraculous transformation of an “ugly duckling” into what it was always intended to be, a beautiful swan. How many of us can still recite the theme and story line of Cinderella’s transformation from lowly youngest sister to queen of the land? Proof of the multigenerational intrigue of the fairy-tale stories is founded on the fact that accounts like this continue to be bestsellers. It is amazing that such an ancient theme would have such enduring interest—whether in the form of Cinderella, King Arthur, or the contemporary Broadway production of The King and I. The sensational elevation of a common person into royalty ignites the dreams of potential in every one of us. OUR FASCINATION WITH ELEVATION IS A GOD THING Perhaps the most intriguing of these fairy-tale transformations is found in the biblical account of Esther.