TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)
In this book of the Bible, King Ahasuerus of Persia searches far and wide across his empire for a queen, finally picking a young Jewish lady named Esther. Because of her beauty, intelligence and character, he loved her over all the other women of his kingdom. Haman, an evil high official in the court of the king, hated the Jews, and was engaged in a genocidal plan to kill them all. Esther’s uncle Mordecai becomes aware of this plot and reports it to Esther.
To speak to the king without permission was to sign your own death warrant, but Mordecai, in a speech recorded in chapter four of Esther, challenges Esther to be brave and to try. His speech crescendos to the climactic fourteenth verse, which is our focal passage for today. “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)
In an amazing twist of events, the people of God are saved, and evil Haman ends up being hanged upon the gallows he had built to kill Mordecai and the other Jews. Even though God is not explicitly mentioned by name in the entire book of Esther, we see His hand at work in every verse. Today, we sometimes experience persecution and threats to our safety, even as Esther did. But like the situation so long ago, our sovereign God is always at work around us. The riveting story of Esther in the Bible drives this point home in a powerful way. So be expectant and optimistic as you wait upon the Lord, and always be ready to serve Him without hesitation as he leads. Who knows? You may be the person God uses, “for such at time as this!”
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