Just one missionary invests his full life in a remote area, and a whole clan is at last evangelized. Just one legislator stands for right, and a country is saved. Only 1 strong-willed and determined voter announces, “I stand against this evil,” and a community ramps up morally and changes its direction. And only 1 girl decided it was worth the chance to smash with custom and talk her mind, and a country was saved.

The Jews have been threatened with extermination. Evil Haman has influenced King Ahasuerus with his guarantees : “Because of this plan I have set up, it is possible for me to pour cash into your treasuries and for us to rid the land of these folks who won’t bow down and worship you as the king.” Though it pandered to the king’s pride, that plan had the makings of the worst sort of holocaust. In case you wonder what impact it had on the community, return to the last phrase in chapter three : “the town of Susa was in confusion.” That needed to be a major understatement.

While Haman and Ahasuerus sat over their drinks in the palace, the public rambled in confusion and puzzlement, particularly the Jews, not unlike those in the ghetto at Warsaw and other Western european scenes of horror in the latter ’30s and early ’40s. “What’s going on here?” “Why have those in authority ordered this?” “How much worse can things get?”.

What apprehension this struck in their hearts, what fear in their minds. “How are we able to continue?” “How are we able to fight this?” This was the law of the Medes and the Persians. When an edict was issued in that time, it was final.

No-one could change this plan, even the king, but definitely no Jew. Yet, in the middle of all this, God wasn’t sleeping.

In His sovereign plan, He determined that one individual would make the difference.