Insight for Living

Bill Meyer: Great stories don't just entertain. They tell the truth about how things ought to end. And the book of Esther ends exactly right. Yes, remarkably, the book concludes without mentioning her name. Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll concludes his 12-part series on Esther: A Woman of Strength and Dignity.

He's teaching from the final three verses of Esther, a passage as brief as it is profound. In these three verses, Chuck identifies three timeless principles that reveal what it looks like when God truly wins. Let's pick up the study now in Esther, chapter 10.

Chuck Swindoll: Mordecai has been promoted by the king. We now have a Jew who is second in command. According to verse three, 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. 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. You question that? Look around. As Paul writes to the Corinthians, not many mighty, not many noble, not many bluebloods are chosen. He has chosen the offscouring and, in the world's eyes, I suppose we could say losers, to carry the torch of the cross.

Let's go to a second observation from this same verse. The one who is promoted bears the marks of true humility. He doesn't seem to have a kingly style about him. He doesn't fit well on a throne. He doesn't look good in royal robes. What do you read about Mordecai? You read that he was great among the Jews. He was in favor with the multitude of his kinsmen, and he sought the good of his people.

You see, here's the principle. When God wins, the qualities he upholds are usually unpretentious. The people he uses are humble people. Hold your place here and go back into the New Testament and find Philippians chapter two. Listen to what is said of our Lord Jesus when he came from heaven to earth as a little baby in a manger. This is the theological side of Christmas.

Philippians 2:5: "Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus." Now we're going to go to his first place of existence. The one who was born in a manger earlier existed in the form of God, but did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, a thing to be held on to. But when God said to his son, "It's time to go," he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, being made in the likeness of men.

That's the incarnation. That's when God became man. And being found in appearance as a man—there it is—he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. The worst kind of death. It does say that God also has exalted him and that ultimately at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow. But what I want you to notice is that in order for him to come in obedience, it required humility. When God wins, the qualities that he upholds are usually unpretentious. Here is a humble man.

Remember humility is not how you dress. It is not the money you make. It is not what you drive. It is not even how you look. We're never once told to look humble. I get weary of people trying to look humble, don't you? Humility is an attitude. It is an attitude of the heart, an attitude of the mind. It is knowing your proper place, never talking down or looking down because someone may be of a financial stratum beneath you. It is knowing your role and fulfilling it for God's glory and praise.

It's an attitude. See, that's what he says in verse five. Have this attitude in yourselves. You say, well, I'd like to know how it works out. Look two verses earlier at verse three. You want to know how it works its way out? Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have the attitude Christ had. That's what leads into that kenotic passage of Jesus emptying himself of the voluntary use of his divine attributes.

There is no quality more godlike than humility. Remember that when the next promotion comes. Remember that when God selects you as one of his unique spokespersons and places you in a position where the public listens and looks. Remember the importance of humility of heart and mind. Nothing is more admirable, more godlike, than being willing to live out in one's mind true humility.

I smiled when I read a story recently of a young man named Walter who went to work for the largest corporation in the world. The personnel director told Walter he must start at the bottom and work his way up. So he began work in the mailroom. Walter liked his job but often daydreamed about what it would be like to be an executive, the president, maybe even chairman of the board.

One day, as Walter was dividing the mail, he saw a cockroach in the corner of the room. He walked over to step on it. Walter heard a tiny voice crying out, "Don't kill me! I'm Milton the cockroach, and if you spare me, I'll grant you all your wishes." Walter agreed that was a good arrangement and he spared Milton's life.

Walter's first wish was to leave the mailroom and become a vice president. So Milton granted him the wish. In fact, Milton granted wish after wish until finally, Walter was the chairman of the board of the largest corporation in the whole world, with an office on the top floor of the tallest building in the whole world. Everyone looked up to Walter and he was very happy. Walter often said to himself, "I'm Walter and I'm at the top. No one is bigger or more important than me."

Then one day, Walter heard footsteps on the roof and went out to find a small boy on his knees praying. "Are you praying to Walter?" he asked. After all, he was the chairman of the board of the largest corporation in the world. The boy replied, "Oh no, no. I'm praying to God." Walter was quite disturbed by this turn of events, so he returned to his office and sent for Milton the cockroach. "I have another wish," he told Milton. "I want to be like God." And so Milton granted Walter's wish. The next day, Walter was back in the mailroom.

The way up is down. I can't explain how it works. I just know it does. The place of highest exaltation, as we see in the Lord Jesus Christ, is a place of self-emptying humility. It isn't fake piety. That stinks. It's true humility of mind. It's putting the other person first. It's sharing and sharing alike. It is giving up. It is enjoying the pleasures of another's promotion. It is applauding God's hand in other lives and forgetting one's own clippings. It is as Mordecai, who lived in favor with the multitude of his kinsmen and sought the good of his people. It's being like Christ.

There's one other thing I notice in Esther, chapter 10, verse three. I notice that the one who is highly esteemed by others represents vast vision. Look at how the verse ends. Mordecai was one who spoke for the welfare of his whole nation. Literally, the sentence reads, he spoke shalom. You know that to be the ancient word for peace. He spoke peace.

His world was vast, not limited to his immediate neighborhood or his own immediate family. It wasn't limited to Susa where he lived, where the throne room was located. It wasn't limited to 15 or 20 provinces he preferred. It spread over all 127 and he spoke peace to the entire country. Shalom is a word for health and security and material plenty. It is a word of greatest delight among the Jews. He spoke shalom. He spread peace.

Third principle: When God wins, the message he honors is a universal message. Why? Because God has the whole world on his heart. Every tongue and tribe and nation. We don't live in a world that thinks like this, the way I've been describing from this passage. All of this creates sort of a futile struggle with the plan that God employs. At least it does every now and then.

For example, when the world selects its major players, the criteria are much different. We look for the sharp, the capable, the competent. We look for the strong. We look for those who sound sharp and look good and have an excellent education and fit the mold of a leader. We look for what's commonly called the key person on the campus. But God's choices are often the unexpected ones.

Here again is another struggle. When the world looks for qualities that will get a big job done, the externals get the nod. We like people with charisma, people who have pizzazz, who can put up a good front. If I may say so from what I learned from the last couple of presidential nominations, people who look good on television, people who can debate, who can battle back and forth and never miss a trick, who are diplomatic enough to remember the whole group. We like the externals. Character we'll do without if we have to, but not those externals.

God passes up the externals and looks for the humble of heart every time. There isn't an exception. The ones God truly uses, never forget it, are people who aren't stuck on themselves. There's a third struggle. We're in a world where we take care of our own. We look out for number one. But God has a plan that touches people whose vision is vast.

It occurred to me just in the past several days, out of a phrase that appears in the book of Galatians, "when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son." I thought, what a beautiful illustration of all three principles we see in Bethlehem's manger. First of all, think of the surprising players. If you lived in Nazareth and Mary, who lived three doors away from you, turned up pregnant and not married, would you have ever guessed in a millennium that she was carrying Messiah? No, you wouldn't.

Marrying a carpenter? From a background that lacked significance? How surprising, an unwed mother. Aren't you grateful she carried the baby to term? How surprising that God would move on the heart of an unbelieving emperor and an unbelieving governor that required participating in a census down at the county seat, Bethlehem. The prophet wrote that that would happen, but they lived in Nazareth. How surprising that census got them right at term for her down to Bethlehem.

And let me ask you, if you had the birth of the Messiah detail, wouldn't you have included some gold and some silk and some fine linen and satin? Wouldn't you have made it beautiful? You wouldn't have had it in an inn. You wouldn't have put him in a feeding trough on straw. Never in a thousand years. But you see, God not only does the unexpected, God upholds the unpretentious.

No one in Jerusalem even cared. Not even in the little hamlet of Bethlehem. Babies are born all the time. Who cared that a little Jewess had a baby out there in the inn? And that little one who came, he didn't just deliver the neighborhood of Nazareth where he was raised. He wasn't prejudiced toward them. He didn't take his message just to the authorities of Jerusalem. He didn't limit it to the land of Palestine.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. You know what that allows us to do? It allows us to take a universal message wherever we go and it fits. You can step into the streets in an urban ghetto or you can walk before the palace of kings and it fits. You can take a message to English-speaking people or halfway around the globe, you can speak to those in the land of India or the vast regions of Europe and Asia and it fits because God so loved the world that he gave his son to the world. It fits. The message he uses is a universal message. Genius plan.

And in the end, he wins. Whether you believe it or not, God wins. Whether you accept it or not, God wins. Whether you bow before him as Savior and Lord, God still wins. Paul wrote, "I have fought a good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid before me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me. And not to me only, but unto all them also who love his appearing." Right at the end of his life, the great Apostle said that the best is yet to come. Of all things, he not only blessed me with his glorious gospel in life, he waits to crown faithful service after death.

You cannot beat this message of Christianity. If there were a better one, believe me, I'd be proclaiming it. But there is none better. What throws the world a curve is that this Savior we present has never run for some major office and therefore tried to look impressive. He's like Isaiah called him, like a reed shaken in the wind. But in the end, he wins. Now, wouldn't you like to come along? Can you imagine breathing your last breath and not waking up in eternity with God? Can you imagine the horror of that? Let's bow together.

The substance of joy and the vitality of action. That's our future home, men and women. Those of you who know Christ, that's where we will know shalom in its fullest significance. That's where all arguments, suffering, disabilities, handicaps, brokenness will cease. That's where God will reign all in all in the place of glory and majesty. It isn't automatic that by being born you will spend eternity with God. It requires a decision somewhere between birth and death. And that decision has to do with what will you do with Christ who came?

Not just sing a few carols at Christmastime, not just celebrate his resurrection at Eastertime, but deep within the recesses of your heart and life, giving him the right to rule first place, taking his gift and in return giving him your sin. It's a transaction called conversion. It brings tears to some people's eyes. Others are able to experience conversion without shedding a tear. But it's changing one's mind concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. It's believing he died for you personally and he rose from the dead for you. If it's your decision today to come to know the Lord Jesus, don't delay. Don't put that off. God has the greatest gift you'll ever receive.

Lord our God, during a time when there is such a maddening pursuit of one's own wishes and desires, bring us back to the ancient message of Jesus Christ not only declared but modeled. Bring us back to the one who is indeed our Victor. Show us the importance of a humble spirit, true character. Give us a sense of satisfaction in being in your plan regardless of what that may be on this earth and fill us with hope as we anticipate the end that is sure to come. In the meantime, our Father, make us responsible people who carry a message to a whole world. Give us courage and strength. And in that process, Lord, keep us from relying on our own strength, but may our strength come from you, from your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Bill Meyer: Unexpected people, unpretentious character, a universal message. Those are the marks of God's handiwork and they haven't changed. The same God who lifted a no-name gatekeeper to the second-highest throne in Persia is still at work today. If the book of Esther has stirred something in you, well, now's the time to request some excellent Bible study tools from Insight for Living.

This is the final time we'll mention a special bundle for the Esther series. The bundle includes the *Searching the Scriptures* Bible study workbook, the full-length biography of Esther that's written by Chuck, and the complete collection of 12 sermons on CD. To purchase these resources right now, go to insight.org/offer. While if you've been online in recent days and seen clips of Chuck's video series called *Living with Insight*, you'd probably agree that while Chuck is aging, his passion for proclaiming the good news isn't fading but growing stronger.

Chuck Swindoll: I've never been good at pretending. The calendar doesn't lie. I'm in my 90s now. And so my eyes don't function as they once did. My legs remind me every single day that I've logged a lot of miles. There are mornings when everything in me would rather sit quietly and let somebody younger carry the load. But then something happens. I picture myself standing behind a pulpit, my hands on that sacred lectern, my Bible open in front of me next to my notes, and something stirs deep down where age doesn't reach.

And I remember. I remember what this is. I remember what's at stake. And I feel it all over again—the thrill, the privilege, the sheer staggering wonder that God would allow a weathered preacher to open his mouth and declare the most radical news ever to reach human ears: the cross of Jesus Christ. Friend, I look at this world—the chaos, the sorrow, the anger, the pain—and I don't see a world that needs better arguments. I see a world that needs what we have: the message that God has stepped into our mess and offered redemption to every last soul who will believe.

That's not wishful thinking. That's the gospel, and it's just as powerful today as it was 2,000 years ago. My days behind the pulpit week in, week out, are now behind me. I know that, I'm at peace with it, but we still proclaim the cross. As we close out this fiscal year on June 30th, I want to invite you to link arms with me for whatever miles remain. Your gift to Insight for Living is your voice in this proclamation. Through radio, the internet, social media, and resources reaching every corner of this world, you and I together get to tell them. Come with me. Let's boldly tell the world what they're longing to hear.

Bill Meyer: Thanks for responding to Chuck Swindoll today. Your gifts truly make an impact. Recently, we heard from one of your fellow listeners who said, "Dear Insight for Living, yours is the voice I run to when life in this world becomes too much. Thank you for grounding me and pointing me back to the cross." These moments are made possible through the generous gifts from friends just like you.

Today we'd like to say thanks for your contribution by providing a brand-new booklet from Chuck. It's called *The Cross We Proclaim*. You know, there are probably mornings when you wonder if you have anything left to give. In *The Cross We Proclaim*, you'll be reminded that you were never meant to do it in your own strength. Let us send you a copy today.

Here's our mailing address: Insight for Living, Post Office Box 5000, Frisco, Texas 75034. You can also call 800-772-8888 or give online at insight.org/donate. I'm Bill Meyer. Join us tomorrow when Chuck Swindoll begins our next study about the attributes of God, right here 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.