In what is almost universally known as the Lord’s Prayer, The Lord Jesus taught his disciples to say these words in prayer to God, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”.
Those words teach us several things:
1. That there are temptations that comes to us
2. That it is temptation to do evil
3. That God wants to deliver us from evil (for if he did not want to deliver us from evil, the Lord would not have taught us to ask Him to)
4. That God would not deliver us from evil automatically even though He wishes to. We need to ask Him. (If He automatically delivered us from evil then the Lord would have no need to teach us to ask God to deliver us).
5. That except God delivers us, then we would fall victim to evil. (Surely, if we could have delivered ourselves from evil, then the Lord would have seen no need to teach us to approach God in prayer, to deliver us)
In a story carried by the Trinidad Express on June 14, 2011, under the sub heading, “school violence on the rise”, Tim Gopeesingh, the Minister of Education was quoted as saying, “We have had approximately 11,000 cases of students having to be suspended from schools over a six-year period and the incidence is rising, unfortunately. For the year 2009-2010 academic year, we have had over 3,300 suspensions. This is an unfortunate increase in the incidence of school suspension ... all widespread in the school population and we are hoping very quickly to combat this issue". Eleven thousand students? That certainly is not a few. This puts to rest the view that it is only a few bad ones involved in the evil. And surely, 11000 did not come from just a few selected schools. Further, we certainly did not read about each of the 11000 incidences, which suggests that while evil is prevalent, much of it is not brought to the attention of the public, leading some to believe that what come to their attention are a few isolated incidences.
Rather than witnessing success over this challenge, as the Minister had hoped, nearly three years later, the nation has been alarmed at the violence that they have vividly witnessed occurring in our nation’s school. We have recently witnessed violence involving young school girls. In another case a twelve year old student was before the court for choking a teacher who could easily have been his mother.
Without a doubt, our children are being led into evil. We therefore need to pray. We can also safely conclude that a lack of prayer for our children would have contributed to what we are now witnessing.
The Scripture teaches and show many examples of how human action and behaviour is influenced by another world that resides with us called the spirit world. To put it another way, many of the behaviours we consider as normal because they occur so often are really motivated by evil spirits.
The Scripture also shows us that there often is a pattern or trend to the working of evil spirits. The statistics provided by the Minister points to a trend, that some refer to as a culture. The recent events of school fighting, especially involving females show the extent to which the evils affecting our children are spreading. It is the working of evil spirits.
Even for those who may think that their children would not practise violence have no guarantee that an innocent child may not be a victim of violence. It is therefore in everyone’s personal interest to pray not only for their children, but all children.
The Scripture teaches us that we are not at the mercy of these spirits and that we can and are expected to exercise authority over them, if they are to be stopped from their evil workings. Almost every person believes in the necessity to train our children. Training instils values and gives choices. My good training keeps me in place when the tempter comes.
But God has also made His authority available to us through prayer. We need to be praying continually for our children. As a part of that prayer we should be commanding evil spirits to depart from them. We see such a prayer in the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray, that is commonly called “The Lord’s Prayer”.
In it he taught them to pray, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”. Does God actually lead persons into temptation? If he does, then why even ask him not to? The prayer is asking God for protection against the temptation we face. We ask that he delivers us from evil, which means that without His protection we can be victims of evil. We need to prayer daily for our children, calling their names in prayer, that they are not led into temptation but delivered from evil.
Another scripture says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you”. In our prayer, we should be speaking to the evil spirits commanding them to depart from their attempted influence of our children. Except we take these actions evil will continue and these trends we see occurring in schools can worsen as they spread.
Let’s pray, “Father, we thank you for sending Jesus whom I acknowledge as Lord over my life and Lord over the life of (call the names of our children). I ask you Father, that you lead (child’s name) not into temptation and deliver (child’s name) from all evil. Deliver (him/her) from evil influences wherever they are encountered and especially at school. Bring to his/her remembrance the good values he/she has been taught and strengthen him/her to walk in those good values. Help him/her to love what is good and to resist the wrong.
I command you Satan, in the name of the Lord Jesus to desist in your attempts to bring my child (call his/her name) into evil.
Father, I give you thanks for hearing and answering prayer in the Name of Jesus. Amen”
Make this a part of your daily prayer and teach your children to pray as well.