Operation Lion Roars: These are the Days of Purim 2026

Paul Wilbur has a fantastic song that to us as supporters of Israeli Messianic Jewish circles is like our anthem. "These are the days of Elijah, Declaring the word of the Lord. And these are the days of Your servant, Moses, Righteousness being restored." We sing it in the jubilation of seeing it is the prophetic future we believe in with all our hearts.

BUT LET THIS SINK IN MY FRIENDS — because in the beginning of this month of March, we are literally seeing the manifestation of the prophetic events that the book of Esther reveals. THESE ARE THE DAYS OF PURIM and they are unfolding before our very eyes.

The book of Esther is a prophetic model. It has been a model of God’s rescue of His Jewish people in exile for nearly 2,000 years. But Esther is also a Grand Finale model for the intercessions of the “Queen” Church before the King YHVH on behalf of Jewish Israel in the end days.

Since the end of the Holocaust, Jews have been restored by God to the Land of Israel. They have often since been 'carried on the shoulders of Christians' out of exile as Christians have supported their return to the ancient Promised Land. Now there is also a different kind of intercession undertaken by Christians who support Israel’s self-defense against enemies, and it is God giving restored Israel victories.

While Christians have played a major role in the persecution of Jews throughout history, now there is the emergence of Christians who embrace their God-given role in the restoration of the Jewish people. Antisemitism may be growing in Western nations, but at the same time God is opening the eyes of Christians in all the nations to be the supporters of the Jewish people, not the persecutors. We have a grand role to play in the full restoration of the Jewish people.

Down through the period of Jewish exile among the nations, time and again Jews were purged from one nation to the next because of enemies that were raised up against them. Honestly, many times the key culprits of persecution of the Jewish people in nation after nation were Christians. These are Christians who held BAD THEOLOGY because bad theology was handed down to them. Through the ages too many Christians have been taught that Christians replaced the Jews as God’s Chosen People. A great many have been taught that Jews were completely rejected by God with finality.

This is not what the Bible says, but the mistaking of God’s character in this mistake caused Christians to believe Jews were now fair game for punishment from Christians. That is evil treatment that God’s Word repudiates. (Zechariah 1:15)  Christians thought they were doing God a favor by opposing and even persecuting Jews. Unfortunately many Christians are completely ignorant of our shameful history of persecuting Jews. Christians don’t teach this history, but Jews do and are well aware of it.

Even as there is a veil over the eyes of Jews that keep them from seeing Yeshua is their Messiah, there is also a veil over many Christians’ eyes that keep them from seeing the unifying of the two of us into one.

The rescue by God of Jews persecuted in the Persian exile in the book of Esther is a model for the rescues that would repeat from 70 AD to the present. Not only has God rescued the Jews from one nation to the next, but also comes the startling reality that by the jealousy of a single man a whole nation could be stirred up against the Jewish people living peaceably among them.

Tucker Carlson is a type of Haman in that he is one man who has been able to stir up a host of Americans against the Jewish people. Tucker may frame it in opposition of Israel, but to come against God’s restoration of the Jews to Israel is to come against all Jews and God. Tucker has unleashed increased Jew-hatred in America.

I believe that the rise of antisemitism in the United States – especially as it has recently risen to infect the conservative Right party through voices like Tucker Carlson and pals – is another sign of the times that God is allowing (See Isaiah 54:16) for purpose of His own.

What purpose? How else will American Jews be persuaded to leave the USA to join their God-driven return to the ancient promised land  — the beleaguered State of Israel? I do believe God is allowing anti-Semitism to arise in the United States because He wants American Jews to come to the Land He restored for them. It is there that God will arise for the Jewish people in many victories over her enemies and where He will spiritually restore the People of the Book.

As for Purim, I can think of no time in history that has more perfectly overlaid over the actual holiday of Purim. That has to mean something. Now instead of the rescue of the Jewish people in an exiled land, our focus is on the ongoing rescues of the Israelis in their own homeland from their implacable foes.

This is why even in the midst of the dramatic rise of anti-Israel voices in the United States, it was so gratifying to see a self-professing non-denominational Christian President join in Israel’s defense against the existential threat from Iran. Christian Americans are still in play here.

I think Purim 2026 has to mean something prophetically. The biblical Feasts of the LORD are a prophetic calendar for the Jewish people. God commanded them to observe them forever. It would be a sign that they are in fact His Chosen People but it would also help them recognize what was taking place in the life of Israel’s Messiah. Most would not be allowed to see that in the first coming, but in the fullness of times the biblical Feasts would testify of Yeshua.  The Leviticus prophetic calendar depicts what unfolds in the salvation of Israel, as expressed by Peter when he exclaimed, "This is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel!" (Acts 2:15)

Purim is NOT one of the 7 biblical Feasts of the LORD, but Purim IS the Jewish holiday BEFORE Passover, the first of the biblical Feasts. Purim is about the rescue of the Jewish people from a wicked adversary while they were exiled in Persia. The name of God is not mentioned once within the book of Esther, which is often called the book that shows "the hidden hand of God" in human affairs.

The Purim story has been experienced over and over again by the Jews in their exile, and now God has restored the State of Israel to many Jews from across the world. Many began to come at the closing of the Holocaust and they have not stopped coming ever since. This is God’s Land of Promise to the Jews.

To find ourselves involved in a literal Purim story in 2026 on the exact day of the Purim holiday, and engaged against the modern nation of an ancient foe, Persia, is like a “burning bush” prophetic marker. I believe it is showing that the clock on the prophetic calendar of the remaining biblical feasts foreshadowing Israel's restoration starts now.

Just to underline the significance of the events of these past several days, I have to mention the BOOKENDS on this Purim event. Last night, February 28^th, there was a relatively rare alignment of six planets—Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter, and Uranus - God aligning His planets like ducks in
a row. Then after Purim on the morning of March 3^rd there was a Blood Moon.

I do not usually draw prophetic understandings from the usual movements in the heavenly bodies of our universe, but Joel 2:30-32 does speak of the signs in the heavens before the return of the LORD:  “I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood BEFORE the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD. And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has promised, among the remnant called by the LORD."

Jesus also says in Luke 21:25 “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring.”

So when "the hidden hand of God" shows up on Purim 2026 to righteously fight back by the hand of Christian America and Jewish Israel against the Islamist tyrants relentlessly threatening Israel with annihilation, I think it worth taking note of Purim being bookended by signs in the Heavens.