{"id":14214,"date":"2026-05-03T14:12:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T18:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/?post_type=message&#038;p=14214"},"modified":"2026-05-14T14:21:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T18:21:53","slug":"the-god-who-calls-us-to-speak-up","status":"publish","type":"message","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/message\/the-god-who-calls-us-to-speak-up","title":{"rendered":"The God Who Calls Us to Speak Up"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are moments in life when following God will cost us something. Moments when standing for what is right puts us at risk. Moments when silence feels safer than speaking, and compromise feels easier than conviction. And in those moments, God often feels hidden. We wonder: Where is God when evil is advancing? Where is God when the pressure is on? What we need is the courage to trust that even when God seems silent, He is still sovereign and He is calling us to act.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s exactly what we see in Esther chapters 3 and 4. God is not named, but He is not absent. He is working behind the scenes, pressing His people into moments where silence is no longer an option. He is calling them to speak up in faith when fear says to stay quiet.<\/p>\n<p>In Esther chapters 3 and 4, the narrator recorded how God, though never named, sovereignly worked to call His people to courageously speak up in response to Haman\u2019s evil genocidal decree against the Jews of Persia. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14215,"template":"","tags":[],"series":[2998],"scripture-book":[1284],"scripture-chapter":[1336,1337],"speaker":[2007],"class_list":["post-14214","message","type-message","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","series-the-hidden-hand-of-god-a-study-of-esther","scripture-book-esther","scripture-chapter-1336","scripture-chapter-1337","speaker-gary-combs"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/14214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/message"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/14214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14216,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/14214\/revisions\/14216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14214"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=14214"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-book","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-book?post=14214"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-chapter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-chapter?post=14214"},{"taxonomy":"speaker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speaker?post=14214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}