Iran is facing a mounting crisis, one that is driving their nation to the brink of disaster.
This disaster is not the result of Israel or the United States dropping bombs on Iran, nor the result of crippling sanctions. The catastrophe Iran is facing is an unprecedented drought. The skies are shut up, the clouds are dry, the reservoirs are empty, the land is parched, and catastrophe looms.
Here are some of the sobering facts about this deepening crisis, which constitutes the worst drought in the nation’s recorded history.
Iran has suffered six consecutive years of drought. 10% of the nation’s water supply is totally dry. Thirty-two of their dams have less than 5% capacity, and the reservoirs behind nineteen major dams are bone dry. Water levels for Iran’s second-largest and “holiest” city, Mashhad, are below 3% in the dam reservoirs. Iran has even resorted to cloud seeding as a desperate last-ditch effort to boost rainfall.
This year, Tehran, Iran’s capital city with a population of at least 10 million, has received 1 millimeter of rain, a far cry from its average of 350 millimeters. Tehran’s water supply is at less than 8% capacity.
The President of Iran has said that if the country does not see rain in the next few weeks, the taps are going to run dry and the city of Tehran may need to be evacuated. Consider the magnitude of this calamity. There will be 10 million people with nowhere to go!
What will be the possible fallout from this looming disaster? What ramifications could this have? Will this drought heighten internal instability in Iran? Is there a spiritual cause to what is happening in Iran today?
This extended drought that has the nation in its clutches is unlike anything Iran has faced in recent memory. I believe that there are several ramifications.
Politically, many people fear that this drought, in concert with other factors resulting from the severe sanctions, could give rise to internal instability within Iran. Political upheavals and uprisings are not far-fetched with a nation in the desperate throes of a relentless drought.
Many people in Iran believe this is divine judgment. The Guardian had a fascinating headline which read, “Climate crisis or a warning from God? Iranians desperate for answers as water dries up.” Muslim clerics insist that “Allah” is sending drought because of the “debauchery” in Iran. They believe the drought is judgment on the nation for its unfaithfulness and failure to enforce the strict hijab laws imposed on Iranian women.
I agree with them in some sense, I believe this is judgment, but it’s not coming from “Allah” and certainly not for the reasons they have stated.
God often uses water deprivation to get people’s attention. Think back to the Egyptian plagues, the first of which affected the water supply as the Nile was turned to blood. God is also going to pollute the world’s water supply during the trumpet and bowl judgments of the seven-year tribulation. The plagues will not be confined to a region but will be on a global scale (Revelation 8:10, 16:3-4). God has used a lack of water in the past as a form of judgment to get people’s attention, and He is going to do so in the future.
There is another important angle to this crisis. A recent headline from the Wall Street Journal grabbed my eye: “Hatred of Israel Caused Iranโs Water Crisis โ Engineers from the Jewish state built an efficient infrastructure. Then came the 1979 revolution.”
The article detailed, “Iran is running out of water. ‘If it doesnโt rain in Tehran by late November, weโll have to ration water,’ Presidentย Masoud Pezeshkianย said on Nov. 6. ‘If it still doesnโt rain, weโll have to evacuate Tehran.’ Blame the Islamic Republicโs fanatical hatred of Israel. Decades ago, the Jewish state saved Iran from catastrophic ruin from water mismanagement. Then the countryโs extremist postrevolution leadership wrecked everything.”
According to the article, there was a devastating earthquake in Iran in 1962, and the Shah of Iran asked experts from Israel to come in to advise them on modernizing their water infrastructure. Israel’s assistance was invaluable. All of that ended in 1979, and Iran’s water infrastructure system became antiquated. Iran has spent all its efforts and money over the last decades on nuclear plants rather than desalination plants, which desalinates seawater for domestic use.
The Wall Street Journal makes an excellent point: “hatred of the Jews caused Iran’s water crisis.” That statement is true in more ways than one. It is true in the physical realm as a result of Iran’s expulsion of the Jews who were creating essential water infrastructure in Iran before 1979. It is even more true in the spiritual realm because of the ancient promise in Genesis 12:3. In this verse, God told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you…”
This has been called “the Genesis 12:3 effect.” In this sense, I believe the drought in Iran is truly a disaster of biblical proportions. Tragically, the nations of this world fail to believe God’s Word in Genesis 12:3, even though it’s been played out in history time and time again.
Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, the nation has been the world’s number one sponsor of terror and Israel’s most dangerous enemy. The drought in Iran intensified significantly over the summer, after the 12-day war with Israel. They hit record temperatures, up to 122 degrees in the desert, greatly exacerbating the drought.
We have to ask this question: When will the nations of this world realize that Genesis 12:3 is still in effect after 4,000 years? God has never revoked that promise. I believe that Iran is currently experiencing the curses of Genesis 12:3โand the Bible says that Iran will experience this cursing again.
We know that Iran will one day join and probably be a leader in the Gog-Magog coalition that will invade Israel, as recorded in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Iran will unleash its venomous hatred for Israel for the final time when it joins this invading force. The Genesis 12:3 effect will once again lead to destruction for Iran. Its armies will be annihilated by supernatural judgment from God in the land of Israel. According to Ezekiel 38, those nations will come, including Iran, to bury Israel, but God will bury them!
What Iran is experiencing now is a faint foreshadow of the judgment they will experience in the future for their hatred of the Jewish people.
There is some really good news in all this… Many people in Iran are turning to the true and living God and His Son, Jesus Christ, for salvation. That is wonderful news. God is using all these crises in Iran to draw a remnant of people there to Himself. Some believe that the church in Iran may be the fastest-growing church in the world. The light of the gospel is shining into the darkness as it always does.
We need to pray for the people of Iran. We need to pray that this drought will drive them to seek the true water of life, our Lord Jesus. Remember what He told the woman at the well? “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.โ
