Insight for Living

Narrator: Down through the ages, many scholars have wondered, why would God allow the Old Testament book of Esther to be included in the Bible? After all, it's a book that never mentions His name. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll assures us that God is present in every detail, even when He appears silent.

This is the first message in a biographical series on Esther. And in this opening study, Chuck will help us understand the historical context that qualifies this book as a powerful display of God's sovereign control. He titled today's message "God's Invisible Providence."

Chuck Swindoll: We live our lives under the careful, loving, gracious, albeit sovereign hand of our God. And the movements of time and history are precisely according to His reckoning, exactly as He ordained it. Remember, all the while, He is invisible. And I think we could call the presence of God His invisible providence.

Providence. I'm intrigued with the word. *Provideo* is the Latin from which we get the word "providence." *Pro* means "before" or "ahead of time." *Video*, we get our word "video" from it, "I see." I see ahead of time. God, seeing ahead of time, the events of life, which we, of course, can never do. We're good at history. We're poor at prophecy. We're good at looking back, 20/20 vision every time, or often. We're blind when it comes to one minute from now. We have no idea.

But God, *provideo*, invisible in His *provideo*, is continually, constantly, and successfully at work. You know what? It drives us crazy. We have highs and we have lows. He blesses and we thank Him. He tests and we squirm. We weep. We grieve. We cry. We shake our heads, and in none of this He changes. Who can say unto Him, "What are you doing?"

We blossom and flourish like leaves on a tree, and wither and perish, but naught changes thee. Of course not. He is God. He is not fickle nor moody. He is having His way, and it will not be frustrated. And my friend, if you think He has met His match with you, you are in for one gigantic surprise.

He will bring you, if necessary, to nothing to get your attention. He will, if necessary, crush you like Nebuchadnezzar the king, because God, and God alone, is calling the shots in this thing called life. Now then, we're ready for Esther. Let me introduce to you the five people who are the main characters of the book.

The first two verses of the book include the name of a man whose name is hard to pronounce. He is the king of the land. He thinks he's ruling, but it's God and God alone who rules. It took place in the days of—here's the name—Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus. It's the same one mentioned elsewhere as Xerxes. A Persian king named Ahasuerus.

He looks like he is powerful. He is reigning from India to Ethiopia, over 127 provinces. In those days, he sat on the throne, which was located in the Washington, D.C. of Persia, a place named Susa. You'll read about Susa through the book of Esther. So, first we have a king named Ahasuerus, or Xerxes, who sits on a throne in the capital city of Susa.

He's married to a woman named Vashti. V-A-S-H-T-I. She's mentioned in verse 9 as the queen. Queen Vashti also gave a banquet. She's mentioned again in verse 11, verse 12, verse 15, 16, 17. She's seen often in the early part of the book. Some of you folks will like her. She is a strong-minded, independent-thinking woman who refuses to cooperate with her husband's request.

Some of you won't like her. Usually, men don't like Vashti. She's a strong-willed woman, independent of mind, who is determined not to be paraded before Ahasuerus' male friends. And this leads to a major conflict. In fact, it leads ultimately to some kind of beauty contest. We'll look at all of that next time. I'm calling next time's sermon "There She Goes, Miss Persia," and we'll introduce that later on.

The third character is a wicked officer in the court of the king named Haman. H-A-M-A-N. Chapter 3, verses 1 and 2. Get acquainted with Haman. You'll hate him. You'll spend a lot of time seeing a lot of people modeled in the life of Haman. He is an anti-Semitic officer, very wealthy, very conceited leader who is given influence and even authority.

Listen: "After these events, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman," the end of the verse, "over all the princes who were with him. And all the king's servants who were at the king's gate bowed and paid homage to Haman, for so the king had commanded concerning him." Verse 10: "The king took his signet ring from his hand."

That's like reaching into your wallet and pulling out your charge card and giving it to someone under your authority and saying, "You may spend as you please. As you guide this kingdom, you have the treasury of Persia in your hand." He gave him the signet ring from his hand. He gave it to Haman. So Haman is a wicked officer in the king's court.

So we've got Ahasuerus the king, Vashti the queen, Haman the wicked ruler serving under the king. Fourth is a man named Mordecai. Go back to chapter 2, verse 5. He is not a Persian. He is a Jew living in Persia. Oh, wait. We read in verse 5, "There was a Jew in Susa, Susa the capital, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjamite."

Why is he there? Look at the next verse: "...who had been taken into exile." Now, the "who" is a reference to Kish. Mordecai wasn't taken into exile back in his genealogy. Kish was. He had been taken into exile from Jerusalem with the captives who had been exiled with Jeconiah, king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had exiled.

Now, I remember when I was a kid, about eight or nine, and a preacher read a verse like this, I checked into Never-Never Land. I thought, "Who cares?" And I always wondered, why didn't the preacher stop and explain what all that rigmarole is about? Now that I'm a preacher, for the sake of nine-year-olds who may wonder, let me pause and give you a little background because it sounds like a tongue twister.

Years before, years before, the Jews had a civil war. Now, track this with me. They had a civil war, and like America in its Civil War, they broke between the North and the South. Neither one of the groups walked with God, not consistently. And finally, God judged the North and sent Assyria in and brought them under bondage.

The South continued on for over 100 years, and then God brought judgment because of their disobedience, and their king was a man named Jeconiah. The Northern Kingdom, the Southern Kingdom were called different names. The Northern Kingdom was called Israel. The Southern Kingdom was called Judah. Jeconiah is mentioned in the verse we just read.

Nebuchadnezzar was the commanding king of Babylon that overthrew the Southern Kingdom. And he brought with him into exile the Jews who were still living in the Southern Kingdom. Babylon finally fell into the hands of Persia. You've heard of the Medes and the Persians. And the Medo-Persian Empire.

Ahasuerus reigned over that vast kingdom, as we just read in the first part of it, from India to Ethiopia, and it consumed the land of Palestine. So the Jews were forced out of Zion, and they moved in exile to live in the land of Persia. Ultimately, in the land of Persia. Now, before too many years, they were given the freedom to go back to Jerusalem.

Some went back under the leadership of a man named Zerubbabel. Others went back under the leadership of a man named Ezra. And a third group went back under the leadership of Nehemiah. Some stayed in Persia. Ah, that's what Esther's all about. It's a slice of history from the life of a few Jews, or really many Jews, who remained in Persia under Persian rule and did not go back to their homeland.

Lest you think God forgot them, the book of Esther is given as a reminder He did not. Mordecai was among the Jews who remained in Persia during the reign of Ahasuerus. He is a godly man, but his most significant role has not been mentioned. It appears in verse 7. Look: "He was bringing up Hadassah."

You don't know much about her until you read on. That is, Esther. Her Persian name means "star," like a star in the night. She's the star of the story. She's the heroine. She actually becomes the queen. He was bringing up Esther, his uncle's daughter, for she had neither father nor mother. We're not told why. We're not told when she lost them.

This young lady was beautiful of form and face, and I might add, strong of character. And when her father and mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter. If Persian law allowed for adoption, she became adopted. If not, she became a part of his foster home. Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes.

Who would have ever thought God would have His hand on some forgotten orphan? A little girl who had lost her mother and dad. Who would ever expect that a Mordecai, a Jew, a no-name in the great land of Persia where Ahasuerus and Haman ruled in evil, who would ever expect that Mordecai, as his hands and arms would touch this lovely young woman and rear her to be a woman of God, who would ever expect that she would be the link to the survival of the Jews?

She is, of course, the fifth and main character of the book. And let me say to you, you who have experienced such brokenness and crushings in your life, you who may feel that your past is so colored, so disjointed, so fractured that there is no way in the world God can make reason and meaning out of where you have come from, you have not learned yet some lessons from Esther.

Here is a little girl who cries her heart out at the death of her parents, who feels the warmth and love of a home, and moves in and lives and grows and becomes a beauty within and without, and becomes the link of survival for the entire nation of the Jews. Take heart. God and God alone can do such things.

And it's all so wonderfully invisible as He works in the silence of events. Let me show you just a few. May I do that as we uncover the plot of this great book? Look at chapter 2 and the end of the chapter. Now, I'm going to have you put something on the back burner and just kind of let it simmer like you would a good soup, okay?

I'm going to read you something that sounds innocuous, insignificant, but it becomes, in God's unfathomable plan, the link to survival. Listen to the minutes that later found their way into the chronicles. "In those days," verse 21, chapter 2, "while Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate, Bigthan and Teresh," they sound like bad guys, don't they?

They are. They're wearing dark hats. Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king's officials from those who guarded the door, became angry and sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. It's another way of saying there was a conspiracy to assassinate him. But the plot became known to—there's our guy—Mordecai.

And Mordecai told, of course, his adoptive daughter, Esther. And Esther informed the king in Mordecai's name. Now, when the plot was investigated and found to be so, they were both hanged on gallows. Who? Well, Bigthan and Teresh. And it was written in the book of the chronicles in the king's presence.

Who cares? I mean, honest to Pete. Who cares about Bigthan and Teresh? Nobody. Only a secretary writing down in the chronicles: Bigthan and Teresh got hanged today, thanks to Mordecai, period. You put that on a back burner, okay? Because what you would call an insignificant day as a secretary—not for Bigthan and Teresh, but for a secretary—what you would say is insignificant, who really cares, becomes vital in the plan of God.

I love this about God. Why? Because He is unfathomable and unsearchable. Albeit invisible, He is nevertheless invincible. Then as well as now. Haman hates Mordecai because Mordecai will not bow to him. So Haman talks the king into a game plan. If you follow my rules, I will pour money into your treasury.

All I ask is that you give me the right to rid the land of all these Jews. Fifty and more times the word "Jew" appears in Esther. I think it's the key word of the book. And so the King Ahasuerus, believing in Haman and ignoring such simple things as anti-Semitism from a Gentile ruler, Ahasuerus passes it off with a passing of his hand.

"Go ahead. Do whatever you need to do." Sure as a world, Mordecai gets the word and becomes worried. Pacing back and forth, he decides Esther has to know the plan. See, nobody knows Esther's a Jew, a Jewess. He told her not to tell anybody, and she didn't. Even though she becomes queen, no one knows she's Jewish.

So Mordecai comes near the court of the king and says, "I need to get a message to Esther." End of chapter 4, turn there. Now, remember what I told you to keep in your mind. Just let it linger there, minutes from the chronicles. Look at chapter 4, verse 13. Mordecai told them to tell Esther: "Do not imagine that you in the king's palace can escape any more than all the Jews.

For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise from the Jews from another place." You think he didn't believe in the preservation of the Jews? It may not be you, Esther. We'll be killed, but someone else will deliver, and you and your father's house will perish. And I love this: "And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?"

Esther, listen. Who knows but that God's hand was on that beauty contest? God's hand was on your being appointed queen. God's hand was on your knowing me and my getting the message from Haman that the Jews will be killed, and you were appointed for such a time as this. Don't be silent. Speak. Plead with the king. Stop it.

I've heard some people say the reason they can't believe in the sovereignty of God is that it makes you passive. I see no passivity in Esther. If anything, the sovereignty of God makes me active. It drives me before Him and says to Him, "Lord, put me in the process. Get me involved in Your action plan. Speak through me. Use my model. Use my message. Use my actions."

He said to her in verse 16, "Go"—look at the action—"assemble all the Jews who are found in Susa and fast for me." This is what Esther told Mordecai. "Fast for me. Don't eat or drink for three days, day or night, and my maidens will fast in the same way. And thus I will go into the king, which is not according to the law. And if I perish, I perish."

Are you raising a daughter like this? Are you influencing her so that someday, when she is in that epochal place of significance and decision, she will say, "If necessary, if I have to perish, I perish." Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious. Give of thy wealth to speed them on their way. Pour out thy soul for them in prayer victorious, and all thou spendest Jesus will repay.

You stand beside their bedside some nights and say, "Lord, raise her up to be an Esther. Raise him up to be a Mordecai. Speak Your message through them. Make decisions for state and for nation through this precious child of mine. If I perish, I perish."

Now, in the meantime, nobody knows about this. It's whispered among the Jews, just as in the depths of Europe in the late '30s and early '40s, in the whole underground work of preserving Jews. There was a Holocaust at hand. It wasn't the first, and it will not be the last. There's a replay of the same kind of events.

Esther plans a meeting with the king. Haman thinks she wants to honor him because she asks him to come along. Esther gets the two of them together and says, "I've got a plan. I want to have a banquet, and I want to announce my plan when we get together."

She says in verse 8 of chapter 5: "If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it please the king to grant my petition to do whatever I request, may the king and Haman come to the banquet which I shall prepare for them tomorrow. I will do as the king says." Haman was thrilled. He thought, "Ah, I have been invited with King Ahasuerus. Xerxes and I are going to have a time with the queen. I mean, she really thinks I'm something."

On the way back home, he runs into Mordecai, who will not stand up or tremble before him, and he's infuriated. So when he gets home, he says to his wife—she's quite a lady, Zeresh—he says to her, "That Mordecai drives me nuts." Kind of a Swindoll paraphrase. Verse 14, Zeresh and all of his friends said, "Build some gallows. Build them 75 feet high," called here 50 cubits, and ask the king to have Mordecai hanged on the gallows, and go joyfully with the king to the banquet."

The advice pleased Haman, and he got all of his guys together, and they brought all these two-by-fours, and they started building seven and a half stories of gallows.

Narrator: Haman's men are swinging hammers in the dark, building gallows that were 75 feet high. And across town, the king can't sleep. That's not coincidence. That's providence. You won't want to miss what happens next in this gripping story when Chuck Swindoll continues his study about Esther, a woman of strength and dignity.

As a complement to this daily program, Insight for Living has created some practical tools that will help you study every twist and turn for yourself. Esther's story is one you don't want to rush past. Every chapter holds something worth sitting with, a question worth wrestling through, a truth worth writing down.

Our *Searching the Scriptures* Bible study workbook gives you the tools to do exactly that. It's an in-depth companion to this series, designed to take you beyond Chuck's teaching into your own personal discovery of the Bible. Because what God says to you in His word matters. To purchase your Bible study workbook for Esther, go to insight.org/offer.

This program is on the air because of generous friends like you, who believe that God's word contains timeless wisdom for today. And when you give, you're reaching people who discover, some for the very first time, that God is good and He can be trusted.

As a way of expressing our gratitude for your gift today, we'd like to send you a copy of Chuck's hallmark book on leadership, *Hand Me Another Brick*. It's drawn from the life of Nehemiah, a man who faced opposition, discouragement, and impossible odds, and rebuilt an entire city wall through faith and focused leadership.

Whether you lead a family, a classroom, a congregation, or a company, Nehemiah's example will inspire you. Again, Chuck's book on Nehemiah is called *Hand Me Another Brick*, and it's yours when you call right now at 800-772-8888. You can also send your donation and request the book in the mail by writing to us at Insight for Living, Post Office Box 5000, Frisco, Texas, 75034. Or go online to insight.org/donate.

I'm Bill Meyer, inviting you to hear Chuck Swindoll describe what he calls God's invisible providence, tomorrow on Insight for Living.

The preceding message, "God's Invisible Providence," 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.