By Dr. Jürgen Bühler

Last Shabbat morning at 8:15 AM, we awoke here in Israel to the eerily familiar alarm tone of the Home Front Command app. We were instructed to stay close to a safe room, as missiles from Iran were expected at any moment. By that time, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and 40 other top leaders surrounding him were already history, and the war to finally topple the rest of the Iranian terror regime had begun. Although many anticipated that early March could bring an escalation, none of us quite expected it on that quiet Shabbat.

In the first minutes, the military spokesman announced that the operation was named Magen Yehuda — “Shield of Judah”. It sounded fitting. I was reminded of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 15: “Fear not, I am your shield.”

Yet less than an hour later, in an unprecedented move, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a new message: the campaign would instead be called Sha’agat HaAryeh — “The Roar of the Lion”.

I was amazed. That name could not have been closer to the theme of this year’s Feast of Tabernacles: “The Lord Roars from Zion,” taken from Joel 3:16. I sensed that God Himself was speaking through this moment — that 2026 would be a year when His roar would be heard clearly. Amos said it equally as well:

“A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:8)

The prophetic image of the roaring Lion is not the gentle whisper of love but the voice of judgment and divine intervention. Joel 3 warns of God’s response to nations that “divided My land” (v 2).

Likewise, Jeremiah declares: “The Lord will roar from on high… for He has a controversy with the nations.” (Jeremiah 25:30)

My colleague David Parsons recently wrote about Isaiah 34:8, where God’s judgment rises because of the “controversy of Zion.” Scripture makes it unmistakably clear: a day comes when God will judge nations according to how they related to Israel. No other nation provokes such persistent, irrational disdain. Israel stands as a constant reminder that the God of the Bible — the God of Israel — still directs history.

The IDF’s campaign “Roaring Lion” announces judgment on a regime that, for 47 years, called out “Death to Israel,” enriched uranium to eliminate the Jewish state, and forced its citizens to trample the Israeli flag on the streets. Today, that regime is collapsing into the dustbin of history.

It is no coincidence that the joint strike by Israel and the United States took place only days before Purim. The Book of Esther tells of Haman, an Amalekite prince who served as a senior official in ancient Persia — modern‑day Iran — who plotted to annihilate the Jewish people. Interestingly, Israelis pronounce “Khamenei” in a way strikingly similar to “Haman,” and not only their names but also their hatreds align. Just as Haman urged the king to decree the destruction of the Jews (Esther 3:9), the Iranian regime repeatedly declared its intention to wipe Israel off the map. Their proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Houthis — share the same ambition. Hamas states explicitly in its charter that it will fight until every inch of “Palestine” is cleansed of Jews. These groups embody the “perpetual enmity”, the hatred of Amalek, condemned in Ezekiel 35.

Purim, however, is the festival of reversal.

“On the very day the enemies of the Jews hoped to overpower them, the opposite occurred.” (Esther 9:1)

Sorrow turned to joy, mourning to celebration (Esther 9:21–22). Mordechai, who was destined for execution, became the king’s chief minister, and being Jewish became an honour in the Persian empire (Esther 8:17).

When we look at the past two and a half years, the parallels are remarkable. On October 7, 2023, Israel feared for its very existence. Top generals admitted that if Hezbollah and the terror networks in Judea and Samaria had joined the attack, Israel’s survival would have been in real danger.

Yet two and a half years later, we are witnessing a near‑total reversal. Hamas and its stronghold in Gaza are in rubble. Hezbollah is weakened and under renewed pressure to give up the fight. The hostile Assad dynasty in Syria is now languishing in exile. And the head of the terrorist octopus — Iran — is facing what may be its final blows.

The Hamans of our time are falling. Israel is being delivered from its enemies, and the entire Middle East may see more stable and peaceful times ahead as a result.

Many analysts agree that Iran’s reckless attacks on fellow Muslim nations — Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and others — have achieved the opposite of what Iran intended. Behind the scenes, the Abraham Accords are strengthening. Even more historic, Saudi Arabia publicly supported America’s mission against Iran — a mission carried out together with Israel. For the first time in history, Muslim nations have effectively joined an alliance with Israel in a strike against another Muslim nation.

Meanwhile, millions of Iranians rejoiced in the streets at Khamenei’s death, expressing their hope for freedom. One of our Iranian friends just told us, “We will be the first nation in the Middle East to free ourselves from the shackles of Islam.” Our ministry friend Christine Darg also noted that Iran could even become the first Muslim nation turned Christian in the region. The change we see in Iran today is undoubtedly also the result of decades of prayer of the suffering church in Iran and around the world, Iran witnesses for the past decades one of the fastest church growth rates in the world with the number of Iranian followers of Jesus is being anywhere between one to three million. The Lion of the tribe of Judah is roaring already for decades over the land of Cyrus and Darius.

In short, Purim is about reversals — and what reversals we have witnessed in just 30 months. At the same time, the events unfolding in the Middle East are also a warning to all nations: The time is coming when the Lord will roar against any nation that harbours a controversy with Zion. Joel 3 speaks of “multitudes in the valley of decision.” There is still time to choose. Some nations have already chosen to stand with Zion. At the Feast of Tabernacles last October, we honoured the seven nations that have opened embassies in Jerusalem — and more will follow.

For church leaders, political leaders, and believers everywhere, the message is clear:
We are all in the valley of decision. God is calling His people and the nations to stand on the right side of history, for this is the time when the Lord roars from Zion.