Insight for Living

Bill Meyer: She arrived quietly. She led with grace rather than force. And in the end, God wrote the final chapter without her. Yet everything he accomplished, he accomplished through her. For 11 studies, we've walked alongside Esther, a woman of strength and restraint. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll brings this remarkable series to a close. In this 12th and final message from the book of Esther, he'll show us why triumphant hope isn't wishful thinking. It's the very heartbeat of the Christian faith. Chuck titled today's message, "In the End, God Wins."

Chuck Swindoll: Have you found it interesting as we have studied the book of Esther and the life of this remarkable woman that while highly significant, Esther does not dominate every scene in her story? It's this elegant touch of restraint I admire. Esther's strength is revealed as much in her restraint as in her responses, and her dignity as much in her humility as in her integrity. Esther's quiet confidence in God, her teachable trust in Mordecai, her gracious respect for her husband, the king, are qualities that impact the story of Esther's life, and we cannot help but be impressed.

As a matter of fact, when we get to this very last chapter of the book, Esther is not even mentioned. However, what joy it must have brought this woman of God to realize deep within her soul that the Lord had used her to accomplish his grand and glorious plan. Let me read the three verses of Esther 10 from the New American Standard in preparation for today's message, which I've titled, "In the End, God Wins."

Listen closely to the last chapter of Esther, just three brief verses. "Now King Ahasuerus laid a tribute on the land and on the coastlands of the sea. And all the accomplishments of his authority and strength, and the full account of the greatness of Mordecai to which the king advanced him, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia? For Mordecai the Jew was second only to King Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and in favor with his many kinsmen, one who sought the good of his people and one who spoke for the welfare of his whole nation."

Bill Meyer: You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into the book of Esther on your own, be sure to purchase our Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today's message, "In the End, God Wins."

Chuck Swindoll: One of the great themes of Christianity is triumphant hope. Not just hope as in a mere distant vague dream, but triumphant hope. The kind of hope where things end right. As the old English poet once wrote, "All's well that ends well." Thanks. Stick around. I may need you later on. All's well that ends well.

I love it that in the end, Christ wins, don't you? If you like stories that end well, you'll love Christianity. In the midst of the struggles and the storms and the battles and the sufferings of life, we always focus beyond us today, and we see a triumph. We see a victory. We see relief. We see the cessation of things that have been earthly almost daily kind of plagues. And we rejoice because in the end, God does win.

Think of it. All earthly woes, all financial pressures, all emotional trauma, all physical disabilities and handicaps, all domestic conflicts, all international wars and rumors of wars, all demonic and satanic oppression, all that ends, and we are with him. And with him comes nothing but harmony and unity and victory and joy and praise and delight. Think of it. All domestic conflict is over. Not another argument with your wife. Not another argument with your husband.

I heard this past week about Helga and Henry, a couple who had been married 60 years. They fought like cats and dogs every day of their married life. It came to their 60th anniversary. They fought all day long. Came time to go to bed. Helga said to Henry, "Tonight, I think that when we pray, we'd better pray for peace. May God give us peace, Henry. So tonight, I think I'll pray the Lord will take you home and I'll go live with my sister Olga."

That's the way we solve conflicts here. Somebody goes home, and we go live with our sister. Not then. Won't even be the beginning of a conflict. You see, we'll be changed down inside. We'll have new natures, we'll have new minds, we'll have new bodies. We'll have the joy of living forever and ever in praise and adoration of our God. You know, that helps when fear comes.

Jesus gathered with his faithful 11 before he was taken under arrest and finally nailed to a cross. They were frightened. They had just heard him say he was leaving by way of a cross. They expected him to stay and establish a crown, a throne, a kingdom. You know what he told them? He said, "Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me." And then he said, "In my Father's house are many dwelling places."

He calmed their fears by reminding them that in the end, God wins. In the end, we'll be at home with the Lord. In the end, there will be no fears, no worries, no anxieties, no waywardness, no battles with greed and lust and envy. It'll end. If you take the time to look at that great 21st chapter of the Revelation over here at the end of the Bible, you'll see that not only will there be a new heaven—stars won't look like they now look, there won't be such—the sun and moon will not be in place. There will not be the stellar spaces, the atmospheric conditions that surround us. There will be a new heaven and there will be a new earth. The first earth and the first heaven will have passed away. There's no longer any sea.

Verse 4: "He shall wipe away every tear from the eyes. There will no longer be any death. There will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away." If you take the time to read through the rest of the chapter, you'll see there's no more sun or moon or night or sin or insecurity or curse or deceivers or hunger or thirst or heat. There will be no condemnation. There'll be no separation. There won't even be any time. It will all pass away.

The names God gives this place: Paradise, the Father's house, glory, rest, relief, peace, adoration, joy, praise. Due to the absence of sin, there will be only holiness. Due to the absence of pain, there will be only health and perfection. The cripple will dance with glee. The blind will see. Those who have no hearing will hear. Think of it. Some for the first time, and they will hear the antiphonal voice of angelic choirs. Wonderful, wonderful message.

Turn back to 1 Corinthians 15, if you will. That's the greatest chapter in all of scripture on the resurrection. And if you ever want to see what life will be like for you beyond the grave, if you know the Lord Jesus, you'll need to make a study of 1 Corinthians 15. Talk about a triumphant hope. I want to show it to you in just a few words. Look about verse 22 down to 28. 1 Corinthians 15:22: "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive, each in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, after that those who are Christ's at his coming."

The first one to be raised was Jesus Christ. The second ones to be raised are the born-again believers who have been laid to rest, who will be awaiting his arrival. When he comes, the dead in Christ shall rise, and we who are alive shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the Lord. It's enough to give you rapture fever. Always thrilling to think about that. Christ the firstfruits, then those who are Christ's at his coming.

Then comes the end. Now watch closely. "When he delivers up the kingdom to God the Father, when he has abolished all rule, all authority and all power, for he—that's Christ—must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. And the last enemy that'll be destroyed, abolished, is death." Thank God. No death. No one will age any longer. No one will say, "I'm approaching the days of my twilight years." We will be timeless and ageless and deathless.

Verse 28: "When all things are subjected to the Lord Jesus, then the Son himself also will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him—that's God the Father—that God may be all in all." That God may be all in all. He will ultimately win. Skeptics call this pie in the sky by and by. Let them say what they will. I'd dread to give a name to what they face. In the final scenes of existence, I find glory. And the best word heaven gives us, I find peace.

You realize how many times we sing of this in our hymnody? The old songs, "The Sweet By and By." Handel chose one right from scripture, "And He shall reign forever and ever," in the Hallelujah Chorus of the Messiah. There's a gospel song, "It Will Be Worth It All When We See Jesus." The old "Sands of Time" and "Glory, Glory Dwelleth in Emmanuel's Land." Wesley's words right from Romans 8, "No condemnation now I dread, Jesus and all in Him I find." In the end, God wins. In the end, there is ultimate victory. If you like stories that end well, you'll love the story of Jesus.

And that's what makes me love the book of Esther. Not only does it have a great plot that sort of keeps you on the edge of your seat, but when it comes to the final scene, things are right. Things end well. Doesn't it drive you nuts to go to a movie that just stops? You walk out thinking, "Well, I guess this is the intermission. We'll come back a little later and see the end." And it's the end. Or the end of a book, and you keep turning thinking maybe after a few blank pages, there'll be a better ending. It's never there.

You like things that have a wrap around them. They have a final ending. And if you're like me, you like it when truth wins out, when right wins over wrong, when evil is subjected and good reigns. That's what you like about Esther. "Now King Ahasuerus laid a tribute on the land and on the coastlands of the sea," chapter 10 begins. "And all the accomplishments of his authority and strength, as well as the full account of the greatness of Mordecai to which the king advanced him, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles, the Kings of Media and Persia?"

"For Mordecai the Jew was second only to King Ahasuerus and great among the Jews and in favor with the multitude of his kinsmen, one who sought the good of his people and one who spoke for the welfare of his whole nation." End of the book. And it's right. It ends like it ought to end. What do we have here? Well, to begin with, we have the same king that we started with. If you will remember over in chapter 1, verse 1, all of it took place in the days of the same king, King Ahasuerus. We have the same kingdom where he reigns from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces.

That doesn't change. We have the same country, Persia. The same city, Susa. We've looked at it a long time now. We have the same realm of authority. We have the same manner of ruling. But unlike at the beginning of the story, we have evil fully dealt with. Haman is gone forever. Mordecai is alive and well. The presence of evil and corruption and wicked plans, all those things are out, and the embodiment of a wholesome kind of peaceful reign is in. As the prime ministership has been passed from Haman to Mordecai.

We're told of the economy of the kingdom in verse 1. I take it that the tribute has reference to taxes. So there was a fresh set of taxes. That continues to be true to this present day, doesn't it? Verse 2, we're informed of the leadership, and Mordecai has been promoted by the king. He is second in command. But it is verse 3 that yields such helpful information. It explains why Mordecai is described as great in verse 2. We're told four things about this man here in the last verse of the book of Esther.

First, we're told he was great among the Jews. Second, we're told he was in favor with the multitude of his kinsmen. Third, we're told that he sought the good of his people. And fourth, we read that he spoke for the welfare of his whole nation. If all is well that ends well, this is well. You've got to remember, this is a Gentile country. This is where Gentiles rule and where Gentiles live, and there's a small remnant of Jews who are there only by the permission of the government. They could have all been killed. But they were allowed to come in as captives. And now they live in this land of Persia. And to our amazement, we now have a Jew who is second in command according to verse 3, second only to King Ahasuerus.

That brings me to the first of three observations which yield three principles that I want to focus most of our attention on today. The first observation is this: The one who is exalted to the place of authority in Persia is surprising. He's surprising. Who would have ever guessed? I mean, after all, these are Jews away from homeland. Who would have ever expected a Jew would be a prime minister in a Gentile land? It would have made the headlines of the Susa Daily Sun, which would probably read: "Gentile King Chooses New Prime Minister: A Jew."

That's the surprising part. It doesn't say in verse 1, "King Ahasuerus, a Gentile, promoted Mordecai, the Jew, verse 3." Why, of course not. Because being a Gentile didn't make news. Being a Jew did. That's surprising. Who would have ever guessed that a one-time Jewish anonymous gatekeeper would now be nobility? That leads us to the first principle. When God wins, the people he uses are often unexpected. They're often unexpected. Reminds me of one of my all-time favorite psalms, Psalm 78, which concludes with this comment about David.

Listen. God chose David his servant and took him from the sheep with suckling lambs. He brought David to feed Jacob his people and Israel his inheritance. So David fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and he guided them with skillful hands. What a surprise. For 40 years almost, they had enjoyed the reign of a king who was tall, dark, and handsome. King Saul, who at least looked like regal authority. He failed in his character. And God slipped his hand into the ranks of the Jews, and he picked a teenage Jewish shepherd who kept his father's sheep.

After killing a giant, the people began to realize, "This boy is worth watching." And God chose him to lead the people in character. Surprising choice. Let's go even further. If you were to lead an exodus out of Egypt and you were to lead two million people in this process, would you have picked a Jew to face Pharaoh, an Egyptian? Here's another: Would that Jew that you would have chosen been a man with a criminal record who killed an Egyptian 40 years ago and never went to trial? How about this: Would he have been 80 years old?

It gets even more surprising the further you look. The resume in Moses' life is remarkable. Worked for father-in-law as shepherd for past 40 years. He isn't strong. He isn't eloquent. He doesn't have a lot of creativity and charisma. He's a Bedouin viewed by Egyptians as over the hill and ignorant. Would you have chosen a harlot to hide the spies? Would you have chosen a defecting rebellious prophet to lead the Nineveh evangelistic crusade?

Would you have chosen a once Christian-hating former Pharisee to write most of the New Testament? Would you have chosen the man who the night Jesus was arrested announced to the people around him, "I don't even know him"? Would you have let him be the major spokesman for your early church that you just began, namely the apostle Peter? No. But you see, God does surprising things. Just as he at the end of a book that ends well has lifted a no-name from the gate of the king and made him a prime minister, so God still lifts no-names and uses them as significant folks.

Bill Meyer: Rahab, Moses, Paul, Peter, Mordecai. The pattern never changes. When God wins, the people he uses are almost never the ones the world would have chosen. And that should give every one of us reason for hope. This is Insight for Living. To dig deeper into this remarkable story, Chuck Swindoll and his creative team have prepared Bible study resources that will guide you through the book of Esther. Chuck's 12-part series on Esther concludes tomorrow. So while it's fresh on your mind, take advantage of the Bible study tools we've prepared for you, including the Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook for Esther and the audio CDs. All the details can be found at insight.org/offer.

And then beginning on Wednesday, our attention will turn to another powerful series. This time, Chuck's focus is on the amazing attributes of God. A key theme in this next study is the power of the cross of Jesus Christ. Chuck?

Chuck Swindoll: You know, for almost 20 years, a colleague of mine did the same thing every single Sunday. Right before I stepped up to preach, he would lean over and whisper a few words into my ear. The same words every time. "Preach grace, Chuck. Preach the cross." Oh my, I can still hear his voice. And here's what I've learned after more than 60-plus years of standing behind a pulpit. Those four words are the whole ballgame. Everything else is just noise.

The cross isn't a decoration. It isn't the introduction to a better topic. It is the topic. Always has been, always will be. The apostle Paul said it plainly, "I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." That's not a modest man underselling himself. That's a brilliant man who finally understood what actually changes people. Not cleverness, not rhetoric, not a carefully crafted performance. The cross. Just the cross.

That's why Insight for Living exists. Not to put on a good broadcast, not to win awards or grow an audience, but to make sure that somewhere in a car, in a kitchen, on a phone, on a computer screen halfway around the world, someone has a genuine life-altering encounter with the cross we proclaim. Now, June 30th marks the end of our fiscal year. And I want to invite you personally to become part of what happens next. When you send a gift to Insight for Living, you're not just supporting a ministry, you actually have one.

Your generosity is what casts the seed of God's word into places I will never go and reach people I will never meet. That's not small. That's extraordinary. Would you give today generously, sacrificially, joyfully? Join me in giving the cross our very best.

Bill Meyer: As a tangible expression of our gratitude for your gift, we'd like to send you a brand new booklet from Chuck. It's called "The Cross We Proclaim." We published this booklet to coincide with Chuck's series that begins on Wednesday. When you give a gift to Insight for Living, we'd be pleased to send you a copy. In a world that's obsessed with image, credentials, and making impressions, in his booklet, Chuck says there's a better way to live, and it begins at the foot of the cross, where all the ground is level.

By reading "The Cross We Proclaim," you'll find the freedom that comes when you stop managing your reputation and start resting in what Christ accomplished. To give a donation and request a copy of "The Cross We Proclaim," call us at 800-772-8888. Or to send a check in the mail along with your request for the booklet, just address the envelope to: Insight for Living, Post Office Box 5000, Frisco, Texas 75034. You can also go to insight.org/donate.

I'm Bill Meyer. Don't miss Chuck Swindoll's conclusion to his classic biographical study on Esther, Tuesday on Insight for Living.

The preceding message, "In the End, God Wins," was copyrighted in 1989, 1990, 1997, 2005, 2018, and 2026, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2026 by Charles R. Swindoll Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.