Israel Under Fire: What This Means for the Church

Greetings!

The prayers we offered on Sunday for God’s protection over Israel seemed all the more prescient in light of Tuesday’s devastating news. On October 1, 2024, Iran unleashed Operation True Promise 2, a large-scale missile assault against Israel in retaliation for the recent assassinations of top leaders from Hamas and Hezbollah. The attack, involving some 200 missiles fired in two waves, struck multiple locations across the country. Israel’s air defenses intercepted many of the rockets, averting greater devastation and loss of life—though one Palestinian was killed by a fragment in Jericho. Iran’s audacious response followed Israel’s targeted elimination of Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh in Beirut and Tehran.

This barrage unfolded amid Israel’s partial ground invasion into Lebanon—an operation the IDF cautiously calls “limited,” aimed at neutralizing Hezbollah’s entrenched rocket bases along the border. The incursion has escalated the conflict to a precarious new level, prompting Tehran’s leadership to issue stern warnings of further reprisals should Israel press its advance into southern Lebanon.

However, on Tuesday evening, tragedy struck again. Seven people were murdered and dozens more were wounded in a terrorist shooting at a light rail station in Jaffa. The sudden, vicious assault at the heart of a bustling civilian area reminded the world once more that, beyond rockets and airstrikes, Israel’s enemies are willing to strike at anyone, anywhere, to instill fear and terror.

In this swirl of crisis, the U.S. administration has shifted tone with dizzying speed—from demands for “de-escalation” and pleas for peace to now standing “100% behind Israel’s right to defend itself.” Such sudden reversals underscore the stunning naiveté that persists in American perceptions of the conflict—a perception that insists on casting this as an unfortunate but ultimately symmetrical struggle between two parties of equal merit. Yet this blindness fails to grasp the festering irrationality and spiritual hatred driving Israel’s foes. There’s a fantasy—deeply rooted in American thinking—that with just a few more concessions, a few more diplomatic maneuvers, the enemies of Israel will wake up as enlightened participants in some imagined democratic dream world, breathe in the fresh air of freedom, and voilà: centuries of bloodshed will evaporate, leaving nothing but handshakes and olive branches. But then—another bomb goes off. A kidnapping occurs.

And so it goes. Less than a year after October 7, the West has already slipped back into the dreamy utopian demands for dialogue, once again berating Israel for failing to deliver tranquility in the midst of chaos. Now, with today’s missile strikes, Iran’s direct engagement, and a horrific terrorist attack in Jaffa, the utopia falters and hiccups a time or two before the same weary chorus rises: restraint, dialogue, ceasefire—calls that ring hollow as fresh shrapnel falls. Oh, we want and pray for peace—but not as the world gives—because it’s no peace at all.

Why this stubborn refusal to name evil for what it is? Why must we persist in explaining away raw, irrational malice in terms of economic grievance, past wounds, or perceived injustice? Is it fear that, if true, unmitigated evil exists in the world—in the hearts and cultures of men—then the tidy toolbox of enlightened solutions we so cherish might prove useless? Are we unnerved by a reality where not every conflict bows to pragmatic solutions or diplomatic entreaties? A world where the annihilation of others is sought not through logic but through a spiritual fervor we can neither fathom nor control?

The world will never be safe for democracy. No war will end all wars. There is no environmental or sociological formula that can dissolve the evil coiled in human hearts. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers—forces that incarnate their dark designs in the hapless souls of men, driving them to play their parts in dramas and tempests beyond their comprehension. And so we cry out to the Lord, who spoke to the wind and waves, disarming the powers that rage against His purpose. We ask Him to speak once more, to bring forth His design out of these ashes and this chaos. And in response, we seek to embody His grace, His power, and His purpose in a world thrashing at the strings of invisible spiritual masters.

“Your will be done!”

Grant us the faith, God, to yield to Your love and truth as steadfastly as others yield to the vile forces of hatred, falsehood, and destruction. May Your eternal purpose emerge through Your people—a purpose of wholeness, harmony, and beauty in human relationships, even amidst the swirling chaos of these perilous times.

Our hearts and prayers go out for all the land of Israel, but especially for our dear brothers and sisters, many of whom have experienced the terror of these assaults firsthand, yet remain, by God’s grace, safe. And our prayers extend for all those caught on both sides—Christians, Arabs, and Jews—caught in dynamics beyond their control or comprehension. May they hear the still, small voice in the storm. May the One who stood up in the storm-tossed boat reveal Himself again as the Lord of both authority and grace!

Pray with us—engage in spiritual warfare against all the schemes of the enemy. Pray for Israel. Pray for the Israel of God—the body of Christ, the faithful remnant—that they may prove as focused, determined, and zealous as natural Israel in waging spiritual war against the powers arrayed against Christ and His people, from within and without.

May God bless you all. May His power be displayed unmistakably in the shooting down of spiritual rockets—those missiles of fear and destruction—that instead explode in the heavens before they ever reach their targets.

“No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me,” says the Lord. (Isaiah 54:17)

In Christ’s love,

Asi