W A T C H I N G and P R A Y I N G in J
E R U S A L E M
Israel Under Attack...Day 9
Friday , July 21, 2006
“Whom hast thou reproached (insulted)
and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine
eyes on high? Even against the Holy One of Israel. By thy messengers
thou has reproached the LORD , and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots
I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will
cut down the tall cedar trees thereof: and I will enter into the lodgings of
his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel. … But I know thy abode, and thy
going out and thy coming in, and thy rage against Me.
Because thy rage against Me and thy tumult is come up into Mine ears, therefore
I will put My hook in thy nose, and My bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee
back by the way which thou camest.” (2 Kings
19:22,23,27,28)
Dear Praying Friends,
Today marks the 9th day that
Israel has been locked in a deadly battle with Hizbullah
to the north while simultaneously battling Hamas and
various other terrorist groups in Gaza to the South; PLUS at the same time
guarding the rest of the country from attempts by these groups to infiltrate
suicide bombers bent on spreading murder and destruction to innocent civilians.
If not for the help of the ALMIGHTY the task of safeguarding and defending Israel would indeed
be overwhelming. But His Word is True and
FOREVER settled in Heaven and manifested throughout the whole earth. Therefore,
we are unshakable in our Faith and our foreheads are set as flint with the
knowledge that it is HE, the LORD God ALMIGHTY…El Shaddai…Who
defends this nation of Israel to save it and to cause it to flourish for
His Name sake.
Since my last update 7 days ago, the
battle has intensified on both fronts. More and more communities
throughout the north have now come under unrelenting Katushya
rocket fire. Estimates are that up to 50% of the residents in these
cities, towns and communities have left their homes to seek safe shelter
further south. Those who have not left have been forced to remain in bomb
shelters. Venturing out of these bomb shelters, if only for a short time, could
sometimes prove fatal as was the case of a 30-something year old father who
went to get his daughter a blanket from their apartment only a short distance
away. As he was returning he was hit by a rocket. His wife had been
standing at the entrance to the bomb shelter waiting
for him to return and witnessed the whole thing. The past week has also
seen the city of Haifa
become the target of barrage after barrage of rocket attacks. The first
attack reported in the last update did not cause any casualties however a short
time later a rocket hit the Haifa
train station depot killing 8 workers and wounding dozens more in the single
deadliest toll on Israeli civilians. Since that time dozens more rockets
have slammed into Haifa
and special precautions are underway to protect sensitive installations (like
petrol storage facilities) that could prove catastrophic if hit in these
attacks. Israeli-Arab towns in the north have not been immune to these attacks
as rockets have rained down on them as well. Two days ago, two young
Israeli-Arab brothers, aged 3 and 9, were playing in the streets of lower Nazareth when a rocket
hit and they were killed by the shrapnel. In a cynical statement released
by Hizbullah’s Nasrallah after
his rockets caused the deaths of these two Arab brothers who only wanted to
play, he declared that they were “martyrs for the cause of Philistine.”
As David issued his assessment of the
odds Israel
was faced with when confronted by the Philistines and the giant Goliath… “Who
is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the Living
God”… he understood that though the odds seemed stacked against Israel in the
person of Goliath, that this giant was NO MATCH for the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob!
1 Samuel 17:45 “Then
said David to the Philistines, thou comest to me with
a sword and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of
the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou has defied. This
day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcasses of the
host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild
beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in
Israel. And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth
not with sword and spear: for the battle is the
LORD’S, and He will give you into our hands.” Likewise, today the giant
of Terrorism that has taunted Israel
for decades and has desired to devour the entire world is NO MATCH for this
same God Who will do to it what He did to Goliath.
I want to give you three Praise
Reports to fuel your continued prayers.
1) A report
some of you may not have heard was the call recently by Israel’s Chief Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar,
calling on the nation of Israel
to repent and turn back to God and He will defeat their enemies. The following
is an excerpt from his letter as it appeared in the July 19th
edition of The Jerusalem Post:
“The Jewish people
hopes for peace and pursues peace, and calls to our enemies to make
peace. But when our enemies respond with fire and columns of smoke, and come on
horse and chariot [against us], we invoke the name of the Lord our God, and
stand strong and heroic, fearless and steadfast because not in our swords do we
put our trust but in the name of the Lord we rise up and stand emboldened and
God provides redemption. All members of Israel,
wherever they may be, are obligated to gather and to stand
up for themselves, to remove all iniquities and sins from among us, whether
sins against our neighbor or sins against God, we will search them out and
return to the Lord our God, especially in this difficult time as it is written
(Deuteronomy), ‘When you go out to encamp against your enemies, keep your self
from every evil thing... For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp
to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore shall your
camp be holy that He see no unclean thing in you and turn away from you.’
2) Once again
the LORD has stepped in to cancel the assault on Jerusalem proposed for August by the planners
of the International Gay Parade. It was just announced a short time ago
online by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the
planners “postponed the event due to the Lebanon War.” The Ways of the
LORD are AWESOME!!! Continue to pray that it will NEVER happen.
3) Also in
answer to many prayers, there have been at least 2 published reports of Hizbullah terrorist infiltration attempts in the north (one
on July 14th near the town of Zar’it and
the other on July 16 at Moshav Avivim)
and 3 terrorist suicide bombing attack attempts in the center of the country
that were foiled during the past week by soldiers and police. While we
rejoice in these, we know that there are countless more that the LORD Himself
(Who neither slumbers nor sleeps) has foiled and that we may never know about.
For this and so much more we give Him
PRAISE!
*Pray that the
LORD would give Israeli soldiers and other security personnel the eyes of
eagles, the ears of canines and the heart of lions. Pray that He would
uphold them with His Strong Right Arm so that one can put a thousand to
flight…and two, ten thousand. Pray that He would cast the shadow of His
Wing over them in their going out and their coming in and so hide them from the
eyes of the enemy. Pray for the safety of the three Israeli
soldiers now being held captive. Pray for Divine comfort for the
families and comrades of those soldiers who have fallen in defense of this
nation.
*Pray for Israeli leaders that they would fall in line behind the LORD
of Hosts and that they would be instruments used of God to fulfill His purposes
for this nation and this region at this time.
*Pray that the entire nation
would hear and heed this call to repentance and turning back to the God of
their forefathers. And in so doing, the LORD would pour out His Mercy and
Grace and would reveal Himself to them in a deep and personal way so that there
is not only victory in the natural but VICTORY in the spiritual.
*Pray for Divine
Protection and a way of escape for innocent civilians in Lebanon as Israel continues its efforts to
uproot the terrorists from their midst… but that the eyes of the enemy would be
blinded to it.
*Pray for a total breakdown in communication and for a spirit of
confusion to be sent to harass Hizbullah and their
sponsors, Syria and Iran. Pray
that dissention, discord and distrust would prevail among them so that one is
pitted against the other. Pray that all their hiding places would
be brought to light. Pray that not one rocket or missile would hit any of
Israel’s strategic and
sensitive facilities and that the “mega-attacks the enemy desires to inflict
upon the people of Israel
would NEVER happen. Pray that every attempt of the enemy to use Egypt and Jordan
as launching pads to open up another front against Israel would be met instead with
the Fierce FIRE of God.
*Pray that the
children throughout the Middle East…those who
have been under the blinding bondage of Islam from a tender age…that they would
be snatched from the jaws of Jihad and suicide. Pray that they
would reject this call and culture of death and that they would choose instead
life…Eternal Life.
Note:
As I was preparing this update, I
received an email from a friend in Florida
suggesting that I check out the following link. It is a video composed by
A Christian Witness. Using the music of Barry and Batya
Segal, the author has created a stirring slideshow of Psalm 83 as a prayer for Israel. I
was tremendously blessed by it and I believe that you will be also. Click http://www.acwitness.org/psalm83english.html
“For the
effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (James 5:16)
Brenda Giles in Jerusalem
http://www.hugsforisrael.org/
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Note: “Watching and Praying in Jerusalem”
is a news update and commentary of current events from a Biblical
perspective as they are unfolding in Israel with a special focus on
Prayer alerts. Written and compiled by Brenda Giles, the Founding Director of
Hugs for Israel, these
prayer alerts are meant to offer fuel to your intercession for Israel.
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Now, may the LORD God of Israel bless
you and continue to guide you by His Spirit as you stand in the gap for Israel
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