The Christian church is now under violent physical attack in many nations around the world, and it takes little imagination to see the same tendencies gathering force in western democracies, including Britain. Against such developments the spiritually-feeble, grievously-fragmented church in the UK cannot stand unless it wakes up to and confronts the gathering forces of darkness. The book of "Esther" speaks incisively into our present situation: it is a wake-up call, a trumpet blast of God, to a church that stands almost defenceless before a ruthless enemy intent upon her destruction. In this sense, "Esther" is a book whose time has come.