Lesson focus: Esther 7–8 shows God’s providence amid His apparent absence, mirroring times when believers feel abandoned or “in exile” in their own lives (Esther 7–8).
Apparent absence is a normal part of the Christian life, not a sign of abnormal or “bad” faith, but a common experience for followers of Jesus.
Psalms of darkness and confusion (Psalm 88; Psalm 73; Psalm 42; Psalm 44; Psalm 13) are given to normalize and validate believers’ pain, questions, and struggle to keep believing when God feels distant.
Big idea: During God’s inevitable apparent absences, believers need assurances that He is still present, still protecting and providing, and has provided Someone and prescribed helps to sustain their faith (Esther 7–8).
Illustration: the “missing arms” college nap—limbs felt utterly absent yet were still there—parallels how God can feel absent while truly present and active, and the question becomes: how do we gain assurance of that reality?
Assurance One: God Is Present with Us Somehow
Feeling exiled and undeserving:
Like Israel in exile, believers can feel that God is distant, unhappy, or disappointed because of their sinful desires and circumstances (Ezra–Esther context).
Examples include job loss, medical crises such as cancer, chronic pain, financial strain, family issues, or simply a loss of desire for God, leading to the question, “Where are You, God?”
God’s desire to dwell with His people:
Esther 7–8 reveals that, even when God’s name is not mentioned, He is orchestrating everything providentially for His people’s deliverance (Esther 7–8).
From Genesis to Revelation, God’s heart is to dwell with His people; even when they do not desire Him, He continues to desire them and takes initiative to be with them (Genesis 3:8; Revelation 21:3).
Only seeing a sliver of God’s work:
The Max Lucado “sliver” story (horse, wild horses, broken legs, spared from war) illustrates how people wrongly label events as “good” or “bad” based on limited perspective.
Likewise, Esther’s story is a roller coaster of apparent blessings and curses, yet Scripture shows that God is working through the whole sequence, not just the sliver believers can see (Esther 2–8).
Key truth: Even when God seems absent, His desire to be with His people and His providential care remain unchanged.
Believers can have assurance that God is still present and still desires them, even when feelings and circumstances strongly suggest otherwise (Psalm 73:23–26).
Esther 7–8 is given as part of Scripture to assure exiled and struggling believers that God is with them in their darkness and confusion (Psalm 88).
Assurance Two: God Protects Us from Something and Provides Us with Something
Protection and provision embedded in God’s commands:
Throughout Scripture, God’s commandments carry a double purpose: protecting His people from something harmful and providing something good and life-giving (Deuteronomy 10:12–13).
This pattern runs from Genesis to Revelation and continues in Esther’s context, where God is both protecting and providing even in exile.
Examples of God’s protection and provision:
Garden of Eden: Expelling Adam and Eve protects them from eating from the tree of life and living forever in sin, and God provides eternal life later through Christ, the promised offspring (Genesis 3:22–24; Genesis 3:15).
Egypt and the first Exodus: God establishes Israel as His people, protecting them from surrounding nations and providing Himself as their King and a priestly vocation to bless the nations (Exodus 19:4–6).
Sinai and the Law: The law protects from destructive practices and provides a framework for holy living, revealing God’s character while exposing sin (Exodus 20; Romans 7:7–12).
Wilderness: God protects Israel from returning to Egypt and from their own self-sabotage, while providing manna, water, His presence, and a daily lesson in dependence (Exodus 16–17; Deuteronomy 8:2–3).
Protection and provision in Esther’s Second Exodus:
In Esther, God protects His people from their independence streak that led to exile by letting them feel the consequences of sin (exile) and by intervening to prevent their annihilation (Esther 3–8).
He provides them with an impending incarnate Savior foreshadowed in the “second exodus” theme—pointing ahead to Christ’s exodus described at the Transfiguration, where Moses and Elijah speak about His departure (Greek: exodus) that will bring salvation (Luke 9:30–31).
Key truth: During apparent absences, God is still at work protecting His people from unseen dangers and providing deeper blessings than they can yet discern.
Believers are called to trust that God’s commands and providential dealings are guarding them from something destructive and leading them toward something better (Romans 8:28).
Esther 7–8 displays how God turns a path of destruction into a path of life through surprising, sovereign reversals (Esther 7–8).
Assurance Three: God Has Provided Someone – Esther as a Type of Christ
Seeing Jesus in Esther 7–8:
Scripture ultimately points to Christ; Jesus taught that the Old Testament speaks about Him, so readers must look for Him even in Esther (Luke 24:25–27).
In Esther 7–8, Esther functions as a Christ-figure, foreshadowing Jesus as the Messiah who leads His people out of the exile of sin.
Esther’s threefold role:
She willingly identifies with her people, revealing herself as a Jew and tying her fate to theirs (Esther 7:3–4).
She embraces the prospect of death for her people, having already said, “If I perish, I perish,” and risking her life before the king (Esther 4:16; Esther 7:3–4).
She intercedes repeatedly to the king on behalf of her people, pleading for their lives and seeking their deliverance (Esther 7:3–6; Esther 8:3–6).
Reversal in Esther 7: exposure and execution of the enemy:
Through Esther’s identification, willingness to die, and intercession, Haman’s hidden plot to destroy the Jews is exposed before the king (Esther 7:3–6).
Haman is revealed as the true enemy of both the king and God’s people, and is executed on the very gallows he prepared for Mordecai (Esther 7:7–10).
The vulnerable people of God, who seemed condemned, are exonerated, while the apparently secure Haman is condemned.
Christ’s greater threefold role and the deeper reversal:
Jesus identifies with humanity by taking on flesh and dwelling among us (John 1:14).
He embraces and undergoes death for us, suffering once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18).
He intercedes for believers at the right hand of God, continually representing them before the Father (Romans 8:34).
Through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, the true enemy—human sin and the sinful heart—is exposed and judged, not merely external power structures (Matthew 5–7; Romans 1:21–25).
Jesus, who knew no sin, becomes sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, effecting a far greater reversal from guilt to righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).
From expiation to imputation: more than forgiveness:
Expiation describes how Christ’s sacrifice removes sin, guilt, and shame from believers (Hebrews 9:14).
Imputation means God credits believers with Christ’s righteousness, treating them as if they had always perfectly obeyed, so they move not just from guilt to innocence, but from guilt to perfect righteousness (Philippians 3:9; Romans 5:19).
Because of this imputed righteousness, believers can be assured that God is not perpetually disappointed and will not abandon them, even amid ongoing struggles with sin (Romans 8:1).
New position and identity:
Because of Esther’s actions, Mordecai is elevated to Haman’s position, gaining a new role and identity, moving from certain death to honor and life (Esther 8:1–2, Esther 8:15).
In Christ, believers are raised with Him, given a new position, purpose, and identity as those united to the exalted Lord (Philippians 2:9–11; Ephesians 2:4–6).
Key truth: God has provided Someone—Jesus—who secures believers’ standing from guilt to perfect righteousness, giving deep assurance even when God feels absent.
Because righteousness is Christ’s gift, not the believer’s achievement, ongoing sin struggles do not overturn their justified status (Romans 5:1).
This reality frees consciences and strengthens assurance that God will not leave or forsake His people (Hebrews 9:14; Hebrews 13:5).
Assurance Four: God Has Given a New Decree and Prescribed Helps for Our Assurance
From old decree to new decree in Esther 8:
Esther again intercedes in chapter 8, pleading with the king to avert the disaster planned against her people (Esther 8:3–6).
The first genocidal decree cannot be revoked, but a new decree is written allowing the Jews to defend themselves and destroy those who attack them (Esther 8:8–13).
The outcome is a movement from despair under the old decree to joy, feasting, celebration, and honor under the new decree (Esther 8:15–17).
Law and gospel: Christ as the new decree:
In Scripture, the law functions like the first decree—it is good and stands, but reveals sin and brings death, not salvation (Romans 3:19–20; Romans 7:10–12).
God does not abolish His law, but adds a new “decree”: the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which sets believers free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).
Jesus fulfills the law perfectly and brings life and delight to those who trust Him, turning their despair under the law’s condemnation into joy under the gospel (Matthew 5:17; Romans 8:1–4).
From despair to delight in Christ:
As Esther’s new decree leads to joy and feasting, Christ’s work leads believers from the despair of condemnation to the delight of justified, adopted life with God (Esther 8:16–17; Romans 8:14–17).
Because Jesus has “done everything for us,” the believer’s status before God is secure, free, and permanent by faith in Christ alone (John 19:30; Romans 5:1–2).
God’s prescribed helps to strengthen assurance in apparent absence:
God’s people, the church: regular gathering in corporate worship keeps believers tethered to God and His promises, especially when emotions are low (Hebrews 10:24–25).
God’s promises in Scripture: immersing in God’s Word, including Psalms of lament and hope, feeds assurance and reorients perspective (Psalm 42:5–8; Romans 8:31–39).
God’s presence in prayer: praying the Psalms and honestly bringing emotions to God cultivates experiential awareness of His nearness (Psalm 62:8; Philippians 4:6–7).
God’s person—Jesus and the Spirit: focusing on Christ’s finished work and the indwelling Holy Spirit reinforces identity and security (Romans 8:9–11; Galatians 2:20).
God’s plan—loving God and neighbor: living into God’s mission of love keeps believers engaged in His purposes rather than spiraling inward (Matthew 22:37–40).
Contemporary illustration of providence and reversal:
The “Captain America shed” story: public humiliation and exposure of a man’s addiction became the doorway through which a believing friend reached out, shared Christ, and walked with him into sobriety and ministry to others.
What seemed like the worst day of his life becomes, in Christ, the best day, as he sees beyond the sliver of his experience to God’s larger redemptive work, mirroring Esther’s pattern of providential reversal (Esther 7–8).
Final assurance: Nothing can separate believers from the love of God in Christ.
Because Jesus identifies with His people, dies for them, and intercedes for them, no sin, failure, darkness, or circumstance can sever them from God’s love (Romans 8:31–39).
Esther 7–8, read through the lens of Christ, assures believers that even in apparent absence and exile, God is present, protecting, providing, and working all things toward a joyful, Christ-centered outcome.
