Esther's Beauty Pageant Invite

3 years after the incident with Queen Vashti
Esther is probably 12 years old at the time.
She is an orphan under her cousin's care. Mordecai is her "legal guardian."
70 years after being taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar in 2 Kings 24:8-16, Cyrus sent the Jews back to the Promised Land
• The Jews in the book of Esther are those Jews who chose to stay dispersed rather than return to Jerusalem.
• They may be born as Jews but not Israelites by practice. Secular, unbelieving Jews
• With the opportunity to go back under Cyrus' decree, they chose to stay under Gentile rule.
Ahasuerus was a despotic ruler with absolute power. He had control over every aspect of his constituents' lives.

In Esther chapter, the king decides to find a new wife, so he sends his soldiers throughout the land to gather together the "young virgins." They are put in the meat market or beauty pageant and degraded in having to put on a show to be chosen for a better life. A tryout for the king.
This is not just a historical event. It happens today in Persia (which is modern-day Iran).
Fortunately, we know the end of this story. God is going to use Esther by His grace in a mightly way to deliver His people. This does infer that God condones the spectacle that we read in Esther.
God never excuses sin, and He never makes light of sin. He knows how much sin hurts people. It hurts your family; it hurts your community; it hurts you.
The people have abandoned God's ways to follow the ways of the ungodly but God still used Esther.
• The point we should get from all this is that God is more concerned with your present than your past.

1. God used Esther…but she is not the only woman with a tarnished past or