Just as Israel was laser-focused on getting back every last hostage held captive in Gaza, now we’re determined to see the people of Iran, captives under violent oppression by their own government, see free.
“It’s not a war, it’s a rescue operation,” insisted Iranian lawyer, Elica Lebon.1 She emphasized that Israel and the US are not just rescuing 90 million Iranians from their despotic regime, but the entire planet. “It is a freedom mission for humanity and democracy.”
The Islamic regime of Iran has been terrorizing Israel and the world through its many tentacles for 47 years. Now its days are numbered. Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz promised that they would not stop until the US and Israel had achieved their goals, so that “the Iranian people will be able to remove this regime for themselves, for us, and for the whole world.”
It’s getting biblical
God holds all time in His hands, and the Feasts of the Lord are called “moedim” in Hebrew, which means appointed or destined times. It is no accident that these events are falling around the Feast of Purim.
The Iranian plot to surround Israel with a “ring of fire” attacking from every side has turned right around. Iran and these proxies expected to annihilate Israel, but now it is Khomeini and his wicked entourage who have been eliminated instead in Operation Lion’s Roar.
The regime’s calculation that attacking US bases around the Middle East would push the Gulf states to force an end to the fighting has also backfired. We are watching an almost supernaturally flipped script, just as in the story of Esther, with multiple Muslim nations now joining the US-Israel alliance against the increasingly desperate Iranian regime lashing out at the US in any way it can in its death throes. Any hope that Hezbollah would come to the rescue is fading as the president of Lebanon has just banned the terror group and declared that attacks on Israel were illegal.
The tables are dramatically turning.
The evil Ayatollah Khameini, responsible for the slaughter of tens of thousands of his own people as well as exporting terrorism all over the world, has been dispatched from this life. Hamas said in a statement that they “mourned his passing,” and said, “He provided all forms of political, diplomatic and military support to our people, our cause, and our resistance,”2 leaving little doubt who was behind the October 7 attack and two-year war with Israel.
“This murderous terrorist regime must not be allowed to arm itself with nuclear weapons that would enable it to threaten all of humanity,” said Netanyahu.3
Terrorists like Hamas may be mourning but the people of Iran are celebrating. It’s reminiscent of the rejoicing that broke out in ancient Persia when Haman was killed.
“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,
to whom belong wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons;
he removes kings and sets up kings;
he gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding.”
(Daniel 2:20-21)
Free the captives
While Israeli captives were languishing in the terror tunnels of Gaza, Isaiah 61 struck a chord. Now our attention is on the people of Iran, held captive by their own tyrannical leaders for almost five decades. In the previous incursion in Iran last June, the IDF blew the doors off the notorious Evin prison in an effort to free the many innocent political prisoners and Christians held captive inside. Now a greater level of deliverance is on the way.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”
(Isaiah 61:1)
Isaiah speaks of a great turnaround in this chapter: beauty for ashes, joy instead of mourning, and praise instead of despair. As the Islamic regime was planning the most diabolical destruction for Israel and its allies, imprisoning its own people for protesting or believing in Jesus, God is now flipping the script and bringing down the regime instead.
God will not stand idly by when His people call out to him from their suffering. There are millions who love the Lord in Iran, captives of the Iranian Regime, who have been praying persistently for freedom. God has heard them.
The Purim picture is not just for the people of Israel. The military intervention of Israel and the US is now giving the people of Persia a chance to rise up and take back their land, just as the Jewish people were permitted by King Ahasuerus to defend themselves against their enemies in the Persian Empire thousands of years ago.
But what if, like the jailers guarding Paul and Silas in the New Testament, God also rescues and saves some of those who have been part of the IRGC apparatus, oppressing their own people? What if God does such a great work of redemption that they also ask, “What must I do to be saved?”
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Genocidal aspirations for breakfast
Ayatollah Khamenei invited former Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar, to breakfast in Tehran back in 2001.
Seeking to make conversation, Aznar asked the late Supreme Leader how he would describe his job. ‘My job’, came the reply, ‘is to set Israel on fire.’
Aznar later explained, “Israel to him was a kind of historical cancer and anomaly, a country … condemned to disappear. At some point he said very clearly, though softly as he spoke, that an open confrontation against the US and Israel was inevitable, and that he was working for Iran to prevail in such a confrontation. It was his duty as the ultimate stalwart of the Islamic global revolution.”4
God warns in His word over and over that to fight against Israel is to fight against God Himself, and the regime has forced generations to chant for the murder of Americans and Israelis for decades. Each morning children have been required to shout “Death to Israel! Death to America!” in school at the start of their day, and a “doomsday clock” was supposedly counting down to Israel’s destruction — something the IDF took out in the last round of military action in Iran.
But as an Arab friend here in Israel would say, you might as well shoot down the moon because unless you are able to destroy the celestial bodies you will not manage to erase Israel no matter how hard you try. God has decreed that as long as the sun, moon and stars are in place, the people of Israel aren’t going anywhere.
Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord of hosts is his name:
“If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.”
(Jeremiah 31:35-36)
Interestingly there will be a blood moon this Purim — a sign of the imminent downfall of a king in ancient Mesopotamia.
God’s purposes for the Persian people
You can’t fight God and win. God has His purposes with Israel but also with the people of Persia, and no one can thwart them. It’s important to remember that Iran was conquered by Islam as was Egypt, Lebanon, and many other nations. Iranians are not Arabs but predominantly Persians. It’s time to “cast off the yoke of tyranny and bring about a free and peace-seeking Iran,” said Israel’s Prime Minister, addressing the various ethnic groups of the Iran: Kurds, Azeris, Baloch, and Ahwazi, as well as the Persian majority.
Throughout Israel’s war with Hamas and regime proxies when the world turned against Israel, it’s been Iranians, along with evangelical Christians, left standing with the Jewish people.
Similarly, Israel has been supporting the people of Iran and their quest for freedom this entire time. Our stories are bound together like a book.
Unbelievably, there are voices coming from the West that are trying to paint the Islamic Regime who have held Iran captive for 47 years as the victims of US and Israeli aggression, but it’s not a war against Iran, it’s a war for Iran, as someone patiently explained. It’s a fight for freedom from oppression which will allow the Gospel to spread and grow not just in Iran but throughout the entire region. There is a huge underground church there — what will happen when millions are suddenly able to worship freely? A billboard with a picture of the Last Supper, honoring the Messiah Yeshua has been spotted out in pubic already! 5
Perhaps the Persian people were scattered to every single country on earth (according to the prophecy in Jeremiah 49:36) so they can testify to the whole world the truth of what’s happening in Iran right now. Their dancing in the streets at the fall of their regime is a real fly in the ointment for those committed to a certain narrative, blowing it out of the water. Now some will wake up, while others will become even more hardened in their self-deception and hatred of Israel. Regardless, God’s plans continue, the Gospel will go free, and the exiled people of Iran can finally go home.
“I don’t care where you have stood up until now. I don’t care how many times you believe the lies. I don’t care how many times you ignored our cries. I don’t care how many times you ignored humanity. All is forgiven. All I ask is that, you stand on the right side of history today, because this is our moment,” pleaded Elica Lebon. “This is our liberation movement. This is the Iranian Independence Day. So stand with us now.”
“But it shall come to pass in the latter days: I will bring back the captives of Elam,” says the LORD. (Jeremiah 49:39)
- Elica Lebon, https://www.instagram.com/reels/DVUaJl1k4Vk/
- Asharq Al-Aswat, Hamas Mourns Iran’s Khamenei, Condemns ‘Heinous’ US-Israel Attack, 1 March, 2026
- All Israel News, Trump & Israeli PM Netanyahu declare war on ayatollah regime, tell Iranian people: ‘Take over your gov’t!’, 28 February, 2026
- Times of Israel, Khameini told me Iran will win ‘inevitable’ conflict with Israel and US, says Spain’s ex-PM, 16 May, 2012
- https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=4377040689182977&set=gm.816417191486266&idorvanity=434782062983116
