Iranians attend an anti-Israel rally in Tehran, Iran, April 19, 2024. (Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA via REUTERS)
Visiting Israel for the first time a year ago was not only a spiritual pilgrimage and fulfillment of a dream, but an experience that allowed me to look at my own experiences as a persecuted Christian in Iran, arrested, and sentenced to death because of my faith, through a different prism. I went to Israel to impart a message to the Israeli and Jewish people that Iran is not your enemy, that Iranians support Israel and the Jewish people, and that the Iranian and Israeli (and Jewish) people have a common enemy in the terrorist Islamic regime.
On my first day in Israel I visited the Ella Valley, the Biblical site at which David fought and defeated the giant Philistine Goliath. It was a life-changing experience. I learned that the people referred to today as Palestinian are not descendants of the Philistines, and I appreciated King David even more, not just as a Psalmist, but as a smart warrior as well.
I understood clearly that today, Israel represents David, and those in the greater Arab and Moslem world who threaten Israel are the modern Goliath. I learned that David’s successful military strategy then, even as the underdog, is one which can and ought to be employed by Israel today to defeat its enemies, including the terrorist Islamic regime of the country of my birth.
Following the Islamic regime firing hundreds of ballistic and cruise missiles and suicide drones at Israel this week, the savage Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7, and what’s being reported as an Israeli attack on Iranian sites, I see the urgency in Israel and the world responding to achieve a complete victory to defeat the ayatollahs, and their proxies, just as David defeated Goliath.
King David’s battle against Goliath is recounted in 1Samuel 16. David was a brave, handsome shepherd. Among his brothers, he was the unlikely warrior who spoke well, and the Lord was with him fighting for Israel. God anointed him for a specific time to defeat Goliath. However, David was a shepherd, an ordinary man, not a military expert. Just as Israel is mocked and challenged today, even David’s brothers, mocked him. David had strong faith and knew that God would deliver Goliath in his hands. His faith and trust were not in the sword or spear, but in the power of the God of Israel who promised to fight for his people.
While not an experienced warrior, David’s faith was key to his practical military tactic. He saw how the Lord who rescued him from the paw of the lion and the bear would rescue him from the hand of Goliath. He knew that God had prepared him. David entered the battle rather than wearing a coat of armor and helmet, he knew that the God of Israel was his true armor.
David entered battle armed with five stones and he knew exactly where to aim. He struck Goliath in the head. He did not waste his stones aiming at the hands, legs, or the other parts of Goliath’s body. He knew he should only target the head. With David’s first stone, Goliath fell face down.
The example is the same today. Israel is much smaller than its enemies which threaten it. However, just like David, it has the intelligence and ability to be as focused in taking down the evil giants that threaten it today, the head of which is the Islamic regime.
Adopting David’s five-stone strategy, Israel should be no less laser focused on how to defeat its modern enemies. Israel and the West should target.
Stone #1 – The “Supreme Leader” and ayatollahs
Stone #2 – Iran’s Nuclear facilities and scientists
Stone #3 – IRGC leaders, its military installations, and putting its business subsidiaries on global terror lists
Stone #4 – Harsh economic sanctions on the failing Iranian economy
Stone #5 – the grave of Ayatollah Khomeini, to remove all symbols of the evil Islamic regime from its beginning
In the epic 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, after defeating the Wicked Witch of the West, Dorothy and her friends were fearful that they would be detained or killed by the Witch’s soldiers, the Winkie Guards. When the Wicked Witch was killed, and the Winkie Guards were freed from her tyranny, they cheered, “Hail to Dorothy, the Wicked Witch is dead.” By defeating the Islamic regime this way, the Iranian people will also rise up, cheer those who have helped to remove the wicked rulers, and take control of their country, free from the extremist Islam that has enslaved them for decades.
Doing so will also reveal the power of good over evil, just like David did over Goliath, the unsuspecting military hero who came from anonymity and is now celebrated as a brave warrior. The Witch realizes this crying out as she’s dying that she “never thought a little girl like would be able to melt me and end my wicked deeds.”
The Wicked Witch serves as another metaphor for the Islamic regime today that most do not know about. In my book, “A Love Journey with God,” I recount personal experiences how the regime integrates modern witchcraft to create fear among the masses. It’s hard to imagine in the west in 2024 that these things are true, and not just a fantasy from a movie generations ago, but in Iran today, witchcraft is alive and “well.”
Let this be a call to the world to see that the good represented by Israel is greater than the evil represented in the Iranian Islamic regime and its proxies. And through this, that Israel not only represents good, but is protected by God.
I wish at this season when the Jewish people celebrate their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, that even with all the challenges facing Israel and Jewish people around the world, and the potential of an attack by the Islamic regime and its proxies, they should know that God still stands with them, He is protecting them, and they will be victorious.
And I wish that just as God delivered the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, showing His might and faithfulness to His people to the pagan world, that Iran will be delivered, and that the Iranian people will come to know the one true God.