What 2024’s Middle East Shifts Teach Us about Trusting God in Uncertain Times

As a year filled with conflicts draws to a close, our hearts yearn for lasting peace in the new year. To this end, let’s look to the unlikeliest of places for the hope we need. In the Middle East, 2024 began with Hamas’s leadership seemingly entrenched as the conflict in Gaza continued. Hezbollah bristled with tens of thousands of missiles capable of devastating all of Israel. Iran was escalating its seven-front assault on the Jewish state through its proxies surrounding the Jewish state.

So much changed across the year: Israel assassinated the top leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, neutered the latter’s missile threat against the nation, defeated two air attacks from Iran, and dismantled Iran’s air defenses in response. Iran’s hardline president was killed in a helicopter crash and replaced by a more moderate leader. Rebels toppled the Assad regime in Syria, further weakening Iran’s “Shiite crescent” across the region.

There was a time when many, including former President Jimmy Carter, believed Hamas to be a legitimate political player in the quest for peace in the Middle East. Mr. Carter also called Israel an “apartheid state” and spoke for many in opposing its posture with the Palestinians. At the same time, as his former speechwriter James Fallows noted following his death last Sunday, “Jimmy Carter did more than anyone else, before or since, to bring peace to the Middle East, with his Camp David accords.”

Mr. Fallows may be correct in political terms. But Scripture tells of another leader who resolved a conflict in the Middle East in a way that points to lasting peace in 2025 and beyond.

Three Responses to Sennacherib

2 Chronicles 32 begins: “Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah and encamped against the fortified cities, thinking to win them for himself” (v. 1). Judah’s King Hezekiah responded in three ways.

First, he did what he could.

Jerusalem’s greatest military weakness was its water supply, which came from the Gihon Spring outside the city. The Assyrians could block, divert, or even poison it, which would force the Jews to surrender.

So the king created a massive tunnel to bring water from the spring into the Pool of Siloam inside the city, then he camouflaged the source so the Assyrians could not use or pollute it (vv. 2–4, 30). This tunnel was 1,750 feet long, the length of six football fields. It was completed in 701 BC but still functions today; I have walked through it several times over the years. In addition, the king strengthened the fortifications of the city and “made weapons and shields in abundance” (v. 5).

Second, he encouraged his people to trust in God.

His message to them: “Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him, for there are more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lᴏʀᴅ our God, to help us and to fight our battles” (vv. 7–8).

Third, he turned to God himself.

When the Assyrians threatened the city (vv. 9–19), “Hezekiah the king and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, prayed because of this and cried to heaven” (v. 20). “Prayed” translates a typical Hebrew word for interceding; “cried” adds a deeply personal note, meaning to “call out in agony.”

Here was the astounding result: “The Lᴏʀᴅ sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty warriors and commanders and officers in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land” (v. 21a). When he then “came into the house of his god, some of his own sons struck him down with the sword” (v. 21b).

In this way, “the Lᴏʀᴅ saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from the hand of all his enemies, and he provided for them on every side” (v. 22).

“Righteousness Exalts a Nation”

I cannot know what conflicts you are facing in the days ahead. But I know this: Hezekiah’s story is in Scripture so it can become our story.

Because God assures us that “I the Lᴏʀᴅ do not change” (Malachi 3:6), we can know that he possesses the same power, knowledge, and compassion that led to a miraculous peace in the Middle East twenty-seven centuries ago. If we are not seeing his hand similarly at work in our world today, could it be that we are not looking closely enough?

Perhaps, for example, we should view events involving Israel over this last year through the lens of providence.

Theologians differ over whether the modern State of Israel should be seen as equivalent to the Israel of Scripture. But we know that God still judges the kinds of atrocities perpetrated by Hamas, Hezbollah, the Assad regime, and the terrorism-sponsoring state of Iran. His word assures us, “He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away” (Micah 4:3). All he has ever done, he can still do today.

And we know that what is true of others is true of America as well: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). The prophet said to God, “The nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish; those nations shall be utterly laid waste” (Isaiah 60:12). Accordingly, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lᴏʀᴅ” (Psalm 33:12).

So name your Sennacherib, do what you can in response, and encourage those who are in the battle with you to trust God for his best. Then turn to him yourself, asking him to do what only he can. And pray urgently for our nation to do the same.

The best way to prepare for the new year is to make Jesus our king by submitting our lives fully to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) as we live biblically and act redemptively in our world (Matthew 5:13–16). It is then to treat every new year and every new day as if it is our last, knowing that one day we will be right.

Jimmy Carter famously stated,