So much has changed over the course of one week. Israel moved into Southern Lebanon with a ground invasion determined to eliminate Hezbollah’s terror and tunnel network. Iran has once again launched a couple hundred ballistic missiles into Israel, with the majority of them thankfully being intercepted. Israel has also vowed to respond despite pressure from the United States not to do so.
Last Friday, Israel sent F-15 fighter jets to eliminate Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. In a series of precision strikes using over 82,000 lb bunker-busting bombs, the Israeli Air Force blew up Hezbollah’s headquarters in a suburb of Beirut—which was hiding deep underground below residential homes.
The successful operation came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in New York giving his speech at the United Nations General Assembly. His trip to the US portrayed a message to Hezbollah’s leader—that Israel probably wouldn’t carry out any dramatic actions while the Prime Minister was away. This illusion lured Nasrallah to the headquarters, where he was likely listening in on Netanyahu’s speech.
Then all of a sudden… boom! A series of massive explosions utterly destroyed Hezbollah’s headquarters, killing their leader.
Israel did the world a favor. Nasrallah was a terrorist who had an enormous amount of blood on his hands—killing scores of Americans, Israelis, and other civilians across the Middle East. Unfortunately, much of the media doesn’t report it that way. They only report that Israel killed Hezbollah’s leader. Shame on them! This man was a brutal terrorist. Israel, and the world as a whole, is a much better place without him.
Since then, Israel has continued to pound Hezbollah’s arsenal and launch sites. The Jewish State has been warning civilians to leave selected areas so they can eliminate the terror group’s assets, which are intended to be used against Israeli citizens.
A ground invasion to destroy Hezbollah’s tunnel network has commenced. As a result, the world is calling on Israel for a ceasefire, neglecting to recognize that Israel didn’t start this war with Hezbollah. Beginning on October 8th of last year, the Iranian terror proxy has launched to date nearly 10,000 rockets toward Israel, displacing some 80,000 Israeli residents in the north. Israel has had enough and is fighting back—and the world needs to let them eliminate this demonic death cult of Iran.
Myself, like many others, thought that Hezbollah’s threat against Israel, with its huge arsenal of 150,000 rockets all pointed at the Jewish state, would create a dire situation should an all-out war begin. To our surprise, the opposite happened.
It began with the exploding pagers and radios injuring thousands of Hezbollah’s top commanders. The Israeli operation created chaos and enabled Israel to begin pounding Hezbollah, wiping out their storehouses of rockets and launch sites and, to date, eliminating their entire chain of command. Following the pager incident, while Hezbollah has launched barges of rockets into Israel, virtually none of them has had much of an impact at all. We praise God for that.
What we are witnessing thus far is nothing short of miraculous. However, we need to remember that Israel has a long way to go to eliminate Hezbollah altogether and also has the rest of Iran’s proxies to deal with in Syria, Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen—which Israel also targeted with massive strikes this past weekend.
Then, of course, Israel is going to have to deal with Iran itself. We know that Iran is racing towards a nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the face of the map. Now, as Bible-believing Christians, we know that Iran will never accomplish this goal because of what God’s word says in Jeremiah 31: 35-36: “Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for a light by day, The ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, Who disturbs the sea, And its waves roar (The Lord of hosts is His name): ‘If those ordinances depart From before Me, says the Lord, Then the seed of Israel shall also cease From being a nation before Me forever.'”
As long as the sun, moon, and stars are shining in the sky, Israel will not cease from being a nation before God forever. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is better off taking his nuclear weapons and aiming them towards the sun, moon, and stars. As long as they’re intact, God’s word is clear that Israel will never cease from being a nation.
In the meantime, let’s keep praying for Israel to be wise to their enemies who plot to destroy them.
Let’s pray the prayer of Asaph that we read in Psalm 83:1-5: “Do not keep silent, O God! Do not hold Your peace, And do not be still, O God! For behold, Your enemies make a tumult; And those who hate You have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against Your people, And consulted together against Your sheltered ones. They have said, ‘Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, That the name of Israel may be remembered no more.’ For they have consulted together with one consent; They form a confederacy against You…”
In verses 13 onward, Asaph continues, saying: “O my God, make them like the whirling dust, Like the chaff before the wind! As the fire burns the woods, And as the flame sets the mountains on fire, So pursue them with Your tempest, And frighten them with Your storm. Fill their faces with shame, That they may seek Your name, O Lord. Let them be confounded and dismayed forever; Yes, let them be put to shame and perish, That they may know that You, whose name alone is the Lord, Are the Most High over all the earth.”
Let’s continue to lift up our prayers to the God of Israel—to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to protect His people. We know that “He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4). And let’s continue to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6).
