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I will bend Judah as I bend my bow and fill it with Ephraim. I will rouse your sons, Zion, against your sons, Greece, and make you like a warrior’s sword.
This is day 63 of the Hamas-Israel War, and it’s the second day of Hanukkah. Hanukkah is a time when we remember and celebrate an amazing feat when a very outnumbered small group of Zionists, full of zeal for the word of God, ever God’s covenant and God’s word for Israel, rose up to throw off the shackles of Greek domination over them. And it was an amazing miracle.
Rousing Zion’s Sons Against Pagan Worldviews
And we will not go into all of the details of that. But I think it’s very important if we look at the larger view of what is going on right now to see that this is a time, during the Hamas-Israel war when God is once again using Zion to come against a pagan Greek worldview.
The pagan Greek worldview is very much what is being promoted in the globalist agenda worldwide. And it’s interesting that in Daniel 10, Daniel said after God would deal with the Prince of Persia, God would deal with the Prince of Greece.
So there’s something of those two that are tied together into the very end-time battles. And I believe we’re in the midst of a part of those end-time battles right now.
Meditating on Zechariah 9:13
And I would encourage you to meditate upon Zechariah 9:13, which says,” I will rouse your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and make you like a warrior’s sword.”
It even says in that same chapter, I will march out in the whirlwinds or in the storms of the south. And it’s interesting that the current conflict is centered upon Gaza and the south and west of Israel.
And I think there are two or three things that are important for us to pray into the longer range view. Often, in prayer, we only pray in reaction to daily events, and we need to see where God is going with all of this. What is the third heaven perspective?
Not the first heaven, which is what we see, the circumstances, what we hear in news feeds, whether they are true or false. Not the second heaven, where the battles are going on between demonic powers and angelic powers.
But we need to rise above that all in worship to the third heaven perspective, where we say, Lord, what is your long-term perspective? What are you after in what you are doing right now?
God’s Kingdom is Eternal
I remember at the very beginning of all the news about ISIS and the caliphate they were establishing in the Middle East. They suddenly seemed to rise out of nowhere and be rolling over one city after another, one area after another.
And it looked like they would soon take over the whole Middle East. One of our young leaders in Succat Hallel said, “We must remember that ISIS is temporary, but the Kingdom of God is eternal. And God has said, I will shake all things that can be shaken, that is the temporary things, so that the things which cannot be shaken, the eternal, will come to pass.”
So, if we’re looking at the long range of what God is doing right now, I would say one of the first things that he is allowing to happen is that he is bringing forth good from what Satan meant for evil. This present war and season is a call to his Jewish people to come home to Israel.
A Call to Return to The Homeland
There are over 700 scriptures where God prophesied that the Jewish people would come home to their ancient homeland, which they had ruled more than 3,000 years ago already, with Jerusalem as their capital.
Even though there’s been a small Jewish presence all through the centuries, what has happened since 1948 and the building of a major power in the world is remarkable. And yet God is allowing somehow a humbling of this power at this time.
Part of what he is doing is turning the circumstances of what is happening to help his Jewish people realize that anti-Semitism and the demonic plans to kill them are always just barely under the surface. It can suddenly come up.
And we’ve been shocked in the last day or two with recordings of the leaders of major universities like Harvard in the United States that are trying to say that threats of genocide against the Jewish people are not anti-Semitism, saying that depends on the context. It’s just unbelievable.
But it shows that this anti-Semitism is ever present and that it’s rising very, very quickly by huge, huge numbers, especially in the West, in the United States, in Europe, and in some of South America.
So we need to pray, first of all, that the Jewish people will hear the call of the Lord and that they will come home to Israel. He promised their spiritual restoration would come upon those dry bones only after they were back in the land, as recorded in Ezekiel Chapter 37.
So we need to pray that the Jewish people will return home and that they will hear the call of God, that it is God himself who has allowed the establishment, finally, of a modern Jewish nation that can defend their homeland, which is thousands of years old.
Prayers for Protection
And I believe right now God wants us to pray that God will begin to raise up underground railroads, houses of refuge. I believe the whole House of Prayer movement will play a great role in this, providing houses of refuge for Jews in the West who are fleeing a sudden surge of anti-Semitism that will get to the point where they will very much need to come back to Israel.
And the Lord spoke to them in Jeremiah, saying, I would allow first the fishermen to come after you. I would send the fishermen. But then he said, If you don’t listen to the fishermen, I will allow the hunters to arise.
So, I believe we’re at the beginning of this season of the hunters, and we need to pray for the Jewish people to be internationally awakened to the importance of returning to their homeland of Israel. And we need to pray that the Gentile church will be a Ruth Church that will love Naomi and stand with her.
People like Cori Ten Boom and her family who will stand with the Jewish people, whatever the cost.
Prayers for a Secure Border
But then there’s a second part to this, and that is that the nation-state of Israel must have secure borders for these Jewish people to feel safe to return home.
And I believe right now, God is turning around and redeeming what Satan meant for evil to allow the Jewish people of Israel to secure their borders. And it’s interesting for those of us who live in Israel; we see that there are lots and lots of Israeli Arabs who are just as strong about defending the borders of Israel. Many of them are risking their lives in battle.
And we need to realize that this is an amazing time that we are living in, where God does not want one more pruning of terrorist, Isis-like groups like Hamas and His beloved. But he wants an uprooting of these groups that are menacing the border of Israel.
Prayers for a Full Uprooting
And so I would encourage us to pray in this way that God will allow and stir the leadership of Israel to stand against the pagan Greek worldview that would try to say, Oh, if you’ll just give us a ceasefire, the nature of man, the heart of man is good.
But we see from the history of Nazi Germany that education is not the answer to this demonic activity.
There must be a full uprooting, even as there was of the Nazis and even as there was later on, in great measure, of ISIS. So we need to pray for secure borders so that these demonic terrorist groups will be seen for who they are.
The mask that has already been taken off on October 7 will be recognized by many, many nations who will stand with Israel to deal with these terror groups.
Now, we need to realize that God himself has a good long-term plan for the people of Gaza and for the people of Lebanon. Israel is not in a war against Gaza, but against Hamas, a terror group that is at least as bad as ISIS was.
Prayers for The People of Gaza
So we need to realize if we’re looking at God’s long-range plans, God has amazing plans for the people of Gaza. He has amazing plans for the people of Lebanon and not just amazing plans for the people of Israel. In Zechariah 9:5-7, we’ve been praying and proclaiming these scriptures that Gaza will lose her king.
I believe it’s referring to the spiritual, demonic principality, but also the personalities through whom that principality works, the demonic-inspired leadership of Hamas. And we need to pray that they will repent or that they will be removed from their place of power.
The Lord says I will put an end to the pride of the Philistines. I will take the blood from their mouths, the forbidden food from between their teeth. Those who are left will belong to our God and become a clan in Judah. Judah was the tribe of praise, and they were the ones who were originally to occupy the area that is now occupied by Hamas.
And it says they will become a clan in Judah. They will be like the Jebusites.
The Jebusites were those who were not Jews but who joined themselves to the Jewish people in the time of King David, recognizing the covenantal promise of God and the covenantal blessing of God upon King David’s life.
So, we need to pray that there will be those in Gaza who will have such a spiritual encounter. We’ve heard amazing stories of large numbers of Muslim people in Gaza having the same dream on the same night.
Let’s pray for dreams and visions and visitations to the people of Gaza that they would be set free from the oppression of Hamas and the demonic spirits working through them.
Prayers for The People of Lebanon
The next area to look at in the long term is Lebanon. God has a wonderful plan for Lebanon. He says in Isaiah 29:17-20, In a very or in a very quick time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field, and the fertile field seemed like a forest?
On that day, the deaf will hear the words of the scroll. Those who have been spiritually deaf will hear. Out of the gloom and the darkness, the eyes of the blind, the spiritually blind will see.
Once more, the humble will rejoice in the Lord. The needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
Lebanon’s people right now are overall very needy people. Their economy has crashed under the heavy weight of Hezbollah terror groups. But he says, those needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel, that the ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down.
Now, in order for these promises for Gaza and Lebanon to be fulfilled, Israel must not cave into the pressure of the nations, just as in the time of the Maccabees, they were not to cave into the pressure of the pagan Greek influence that was seeking to take away their identity and the word of God from the center of their lives.
This is a time, I believe, where we are to believe God that there will be a true uprooting of the demonic oppression of Hamas over the people of Gaza and over Israel and of the demonic oppression in Lebanon of Hezbollah over the people of Lebanon and over the people of Israel.
Throwing Off The Pagan Mindset, Embracing Christ
But in order for this to happen, Israel must throw off the pagan Greek thought that says man is just basically good in his nature, and If they just have more education, somehow they will suddenly become very good.
They need to realize there’s only one cure for the evil that lies in the heart of men, and that is through the salvation that comes from the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I would encourage you as well to pray for the leadership of Israel at this time, that they will be sons of Zion and not sons of Greece.
I would encourage you to proclaim over them, Jeremiah 30:8, In that day, declares the Lord, I will break the yoke off of their necks and will tear off their bonds. Speaking of Israel, it says, no longer will foreigners enslave them.
So we need to pray that the globalist Islamic agendas against Israel and against the Jewish people will be broken as a yoke off of them and that the sons of Zion will rise up against the sons of Greece to bring forth and establish the covenant promises of God to his people, the Jewish people, to regather them, to breathe upon them, to not only restore them physically but also that they may become a light to the nations of the ways of God.
God has tremendous promises in Isaiah 19 and other places for not only Israel but for all of the Middle East. And we need to pray for these long-term purposes of God at this time.
Be Blessed This Holiday Season
Please pray for all of these things.
We wish you a very, very blessed Hanukah season for those who celebrate that, a blessed Christmas season for those who celebrate that, and may we all celebrate the truth and the life of the light of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, Yeshua, who has come as the light of the world into this darkness to give us hope and to give us light.
God bless you, and we pray his grace upon you as we finish out this December. May we see the Lord doing some great Hanukkah miracles during this week of Hanukkah.
We bless you in the name of Yeshua. Amen.
BARUCH HA BA BA SHEM ADONAI