Insight for Living

Bill Meyer: Occasionally, but very rarely, life delivers moments that clearly feel monumental, even providential. It's as though God orchestrated all the key elements, like stars lining up in the sky, and something dramatic occurs that changes history forever.

Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll describes one such moment. In his biographical study of Esther, he'll show us how this woman of strength and dignity walked hand in hand with destiny. Chuck is teaching from the first and second chapters of the book that bears her name, and he titles today's message, "There She Goes... Miss Persia!"

Chuck Swindoll: God not only moves in unusual ways, he also moves, I'm convinced, on uneventful days. I think he is just as involved in the mundane events as he is in the miraculous. I believe his hand is in it all. Let me illustrate from the scriptures a perfect example of an unknown young woman whose life had nothing to do with the events we're going to spend our time looking at for the next number of minutes.

And yet in God's tapestry, he was weaving together an unknown orphaned young woman into the life of the most powerful man in the Persian Empire. My Bible is open to one of the most least-read sections of the scriptures, the book of Esther. Like the story begins, now it took place in the days of Ahasuerus, the same one who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces.

He gave a banquet. Now there's nothing new about banquets in nobility. That's common standard operating procedure. He gave a banquet, however, that was like no other banquet. Observe the size of it. It was for all his princes and attendants, army officers of Persia, so there was military brass as well as nobility, the nobles and the princes of his provinces being in his presence.

When he displayed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor of his great majesty for many days, 180 days. We're talking six months of banqueting. He invited, however, another group and a larger group to a second banquet on the heels of the first. When those days were completed, we read in verse 5, the same king gave another banquet, and it lasted seven days.

It was for all the people who were present in Susa the capital, from the greatest to the least, in the court of the garden of the king's palace. So now he opens the doors and lets anybody in, from the least to the greatest, and they must have come by the hundreds, maybe by the thousands. Think of that place, seven days. Drinks were served in golden vessels of various kinds, and the royal wine was plentiful according to the king's bounty. Hold nothing back, bring it on, let them have all they want for seven days. This went on.

The queen wasn't there. Apparently, in the king's orders, there would not be the presence of Queen Vashti and her friends. So verse 9 tells us she gave a banquet for the women in the palace which belonged to King Ahasuerus. So in another part of this palace, she held her banquet. On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, the guy was soused. He was drunk.

And while he was in this drunken, unrestrained mental state, he makes a command to his wise men, or at least listed here the seven eunuchs who served in his presence. And this is what he commanded. They were to bring Queen Vashti before the king, her royal crown, the original says turban. Whatever, she was to wear her royal headpiece in order to display her beauty to the people and the princes, for she was beautiful.

You can count on this: when scripture says she's beautiful, it really means it. It isn't trying to show favor toward her because she's a queen. If she was ugly, it would probably say she was ugly. But when it says she's beautiful, it means she was a knockout. And she was to come wearing her royal headdress and she was to display her beauty for all of his half-drunk friends to see.

Some Jewish scholars wrestle with what this means. Some suggest it simply meant she was to come unveiled, which would have been scandal enough in a Persian court. Others suggest that she was to come wearing only her crown, which would have been another kind of scandal. She said no. Queen Vashti, verse 12, refused to come at the king's command.

Alexander White, a writer of Old Testament and New Testament characters, does a masterful job with the book of Esther. Lifting a little section from what he has written: "Whatever the royal order that came to her out of the banqueting hall exactly was, the brave queen refused to obey it. Her beauty was her own and her husband's. It was not for open show among hundreds of half-drunk men. I shall leave this part of the unsavory story veiled up in all the restrained and dignified language of the sacred writer."

Doesn't that sound like something written in the 19th century? Isn't that beautiful? "I won't let my imaginations run wild." Well, not being Alexander White, I did. And I'll tell you what, I admire Vashti. I admire Queen Vashti. Since when does submission mean that the wife is a sexual pawn in the carnal desires of her husband, no matter what they may be?

It was never God's design that a wife submit to whatever extreme whims a husband may entertain. To carry out evil desires from his mind is to rob a woman of her dignity. And to display her before a public that would have nothing in mind but lust is not submission, it's slavery. And it's still slavery. And it isn't right.

And I applaud Vashti for her courageous decision. Marriage does not give a husband the right or the license to fulfill his basest fantasies by using his wife as a thing. I think I'm about unshockable, having been in ministry, but every once in a while I have to suck in my breath in a bit of shock when I hear what some men demand of their wives, calling it submission. It is really a shame.

Be careful, men, what you command of the woman God has given you. Be certain that it doesn't assault her dignity as a person and turn a lovely human being into a sexual thing for you or for others to watch. Well, Queen Vashti's words enraged the king. He absolutely couldn't stand it. Remember he's drunk, verse 12 tells us the king became very angry and his wrath burned within him.

Naturally, in this condition, he's got men around who want to do nothing more than please him regardless of what it would require. And so he said to the wise men who understood the times, men who were close to him, and they are named in verse 14, not to be confused with the eunuchs mentioned earlier. Those who were close to him, seven princes of Persia and Media who had access to the king's presence and sat in the first place in the kingdom. These would be his cabinet, his advisors, if a king would ever submit to such.

And his question is, according to law, what is to be done with Queen Vashti because she did not obey the command of King Ahasuerus delivered by the eunuchs? What are we going to do? What's our game plan? In the presence of the king and the princes, Memucan said this. By the way, one of my sources, interesting enough, said there's extra-biblical literature to prove that Memucan had trouble at home. And he naturally would use this as an opportunity to give his wife a message indirectly, stamped with the signet of the king's ring.

And so he said, "Queen Vashti has wronged not only the king but all the princes and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus." I would say that's a little overreaction, wouldn't you? But he says it nevertheless. "The queen's conduct will become known to all the women, causing them to look with contempt on their husbands, saying King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought into his presence and she didn't come."

You see the fear, obviously, is that before long all women will be doing what Queen Vashti has done and the men will lose control of their wives. "And this day the ladies of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen's conduct will speak in the same way to all the king's princes, and there will be plenty of contempt and anger." Can't you hear this all-men's gathering as they are all agreeing, "Yeah, that's right man. My wife's like that. She hears about Vashti, she's going to go nuts. She's already a rebel, but she's going to get absolutely out of line," on and on and on.

Finally, he's got the king all ready for his suggestion. "If it pleases the king, let a royal edict be issued by him. And let it be written in the laws of the Medes and the Persians." Remember, that's the law that's never changed. "So that it cannot be repealed, that Vashti should come no more into the presence of King Ahasuerus." Now, that was his right. He certainly had the right to say, "That's it, curtains. You've seen the last of me, lady. You're gone."

So directly this edict had to do with his own home and his own marriage. But he goes further. "Let the king give her royal position to another who is more worthy than she." Right about now you're probably thinking, what in the world does all of this have to do with righteous things? I mean, I am trying to find Esther in this book and I can't find her. All I've got is a banquet and a king and more than six months of drinking and display of carnal appetites.

Wait a minute. Remember what we said? God not only moves in mysterious ways, he moves in mundane days. His hand is not removed from this scene. Did you notice what I just read? "Vashti will be gone and let the king give her position to another more worthy than she." Enter Esther. But what you have to remember is that Esther doesn't have the foggiest idea of this little chamber of men with their little minds working out their little frustrations regarding their own homes.

Esther is about her business, living her life just like your daughter and mine, or your son and mine, or you and I are living our lives today, knowing nothing of a chamber where they are meeting that will have something to do quite possibly with our entire future. This is the beauty of the Christian life. This is the wonder of God's sovereignty.

He works in these remarkable ways, moving and pushing and changing minds until he brings even, let me say it, out of the most carnal and secular of settings, a decision that will set our course anew. We're going to see that all the way through this book and I love it. So little is said of this. We live in such an ultra-Christian mentality that we think God is asleep when it comes to nations.

Or God is out of touch when it comes to carnal banquets. Or God wrings his hands when it comes to godless rulers who make decisions that are so unfair. In fact, so rash and even stupid. Trust me, God is at work, even in an ancient scene like Persia. Look at verse 20. They go a little further in the edict than I think would be practically possible to require. "When the king's edict which he shall make is heard throughout all his kingdom, great as it is, then all women will give honor to their husbands, great and small."

Not sure about that. And this word pleased the king and the princes, and the king did as Memucan proposed. He sent letters to all the king's provinces, to each province according to its script and to every people according to their language. Notice what it says. "Every man shall be the master in his own house and the one who speaks in the language of his own people." He'll be in charge and he will speak for the family.

I want to ask you a question. Since when did a letter from the king make any wife submissive? Okay, I'm all for submission as long as it's biblical kind of submission. I'm all for the husband being the leader of the home as long as it's God's kind of leadership set forth in scripture, not some wild fundamentalistic concept of leadership and submission.

I'm all for those roles and I believe in them and I preach them every chance I get. But the perversion of such or the requirement of such always amazes me. Since when did legislation bring about submission? Certainly from some king no one had ever met or very few of them. Nevertheless, it goes out and the plan begins to unfold.

Back to Alexander White. "Let us take heed to note that the sacred writer's whole point is this: that the divine hand was all the time overruling Ahasuerus's brutality, Vashti's brave womanliness, and Esther's beauty, and her elevation into Vashti's vacant seat. All this and more than all this to work together for the deliverance and the well-being of the remnant of Israel that still lay dispersed in the vast empire of Persia."

Wow, is that great? God's heart is on his people, a remnant in Persia away from Zion. He must preserve them from extinction. That requires decisions from the top and that requires one of his people to be there, namely Esther, who will someday be sitting beside Ahasuerus, whom she doesn't even know today. After these things, the next chapter begins.

That's enough to make you go back to sleep. Having done all of this, we're back to the palace. So what, after what things? When you read your Bibles, pay attention to little particles, to opening lines, to that which the average reader would say, let's get on to what's exciting. Pause and look. I did that. I've been studying this for some time and I found that "after these things" is pregnant with meaning. It is full of truth.

Remember what I told you to put on the back burner in chapter 1? In the third year of his reign. Now when I read "after these things," I thought, well, fourth year of his reign? How about the end of the third year of his reign? And I began to read through the chapter and I didn't find any help until I came to verse 16 of chapter 2, where Esther, who wins the Miss Persia contest, Esther is taken to King Ahasuerus to his royal palace in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.

You're telling me four years have gone by in between chapters 1 and 2? So I thought, what happened during those four years? Learn a little history. Ahasuerus, also known as King Xerxes, reigned, and you count backwards because it's B.C., from 486 to 465 B.C. 486 to 465. The events of chapter 1 must have happened 483 because it's in the third year.

The events of chapter 2 must have occurred 479 since it's seven years from when he begins, right? What happened in 480, 479? That's a great question, I'm glad you asked. History books tell us that this particular king, whom the books call Xerxes, and I quote, "made an ambitious but disastrous attempt to conquer Greece. He returned defeated."

So after these things, he led an expedition to wipe out this growing giant on the surface of the world, Greece, and he was defeated. And like a dog that's been whipped, he tucked his tail between his legs and went yelping back to Susa the capital, lonely. And he opened the doors of the palace and there was no lovely wife to greet him with arms outstretched. No comforting words of understanding. For the first time, he has been defeated on the battlefield. There's nothing good on the stove in the kitchen and he's lonely.

Bill Meyer: Xerxes returned from his greatest defeat to an empty palace, a king that was powerful beyond measure, but he was profoundly alone. It's a reminder that position and possessions never fill the hollow places that only God can reach. You are listening to Insight for Living and the Bible teaching of Chuck Swindoll.

On Monday, we started a biographical study of Esther, a woman of strength and dignity. We hope the first five days of studying Esther has stirred something in you, a hunger to learn more about her remarkable story. If so, our Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook for Esther is an ideal companion to this series. It's designed to move you from simply hearing Chuck's teaching to uncovering truth on your own. It lies completely flat next to your open Bible, so you don't have to wrestle with the pages. And throughout the workbook, there's room to write down what God is personally revealing to you. This is your study, your encounter with scripture. To purchase the Esther Bible study workbook, call 800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/offer.

What makes a leader? Well, it's not a title, not a corner office. Ask Nehemiah. He had neither, just a broken wall, a God-given vision, and the courage to start rebuilding. Chuck Swindoll wrote *Hand Me Another Brick* to capture what made Nehemiah extraordinary and why those same qualities can transform the way you lead today. It's one of Chuck's most enduring books, and for good reason: leadership principles built on scripture don't expire. We want to place this book in your hands as a gift, a sincere thank you for standing with Insight for Living. You can write to us at Insight for Living, Post Office Box 5000, Frisco, Texas, 75034. Thanks for remembering that your gift, no matter the size, empowers us to share Chuck Swindoll's teaching every day on your station and all the other places you can freely access Insight for Living. Call us at 800-772-8888 or visit insight.org/donate.

I'm Bill Meyer. Join us again when Chuck Swindoll continues his study of Queen Esther Monday on Insight for Living.

The preceding message, "There She Goes . . . Miss Persia!" was copyrighted in 1989, 1990, 1997, 2005, 2018, and 2026, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2026 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.