George Sawyer - The Daniel Prayer for Parents: Praying Favor, Protection, and Blessing Over Your Children

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king ofBabylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

DANIEL 1:1, MEV

T WO WORLDS COLLIDED, and all sense of pre-existing order was undone. To the youngpeople tossed into this chaos, these people and their customs were strange and unfamiliar.There were new faces, new names, new sights and sounds, new pressures and influences.But this culture was not just different; in many ways it stood in stark contrastevenoppositionto everything the young people had been taught in their homes.

What is happening here? At the beginning of the Book of Daniel, the nation of Israelhad been on a long, steady downward march away from their God and His Word. Eventuallytheir rebellion and disregard for God had permeated their government, religion, andsociety at large, and God could no longer bless or protect them. Eventually theyfound themselves in captivity, reaping the consequences of what they had long beensowing.

Once revered, the nation had become easy prey. The armies of Babylon marched ontotheir fair land and into their seemingly unassailable capital city. They destroyed and burned every symbol of Israels security and faith, and looted everything ofmonetary value. They would even capture some of the leading citizens of Judah andcruelly march their spoils of war all the way back to Babylon in a parade of defeatand disgrace.

But that was not the end of Babylons plans for these captives.

Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring into the kingsservice some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobilityyoung men withoutany physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, wellinformed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the kings palace. He wasto teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians.

DANIEL 1:34

The Babylonians wanted to train Israels best and brightest to serve their nation,a nation steeped in idolatry and with no understanding of the one true God. The youngmen they handpicked showed aptitude for every kind of learning; they were intelligentand gifted. And the Babylonians wanted to misdirect their gifts and abilities toput them in service to their own ungodly kingdom. Their plan was to teach them thelanguage, literature, customs, and purposes of Babylon, and have them forget about,or at least disregard, their God.

But there was no way these young Israelites could reach their full potential if theybecame disconnected from the One who gave them their gifts and talents in the firstplace. To live life at its highest level, we must personally know the gracious Godwho created us. We must realize that our talents and gifts are from God and meantto be used to serve His purposes. So what were these young Hebrews to do?

It is no accident that the Babylonians targeted the young for their training plan.Satan constantly seeks as his victims the most vulnerable, the young, the leastable to defend themselves. And why? He wants to attack and destroy their dreams,hopes, and God-given potential before they have the opportunity to develop.

Satan is always more afraid of a persons future than his past! Every generationis born with a death assignment from Satan and a life-more-abundantly assignmentfrom God. This is why we must pray for this rising generation.

There has always existed a hellish strategy to crush a dream before it develops,to exterminate deliverance as soon as it is birthed from the womb of Gods design.Think with me of Moses. He was born in a crisis, in a pivotal moment in time, asGods answer to His peoples prayers for deliverance. But if Pharaoh had his way,Moses would never have been born.

In a plan that could only have been demonically inspired, Pharaoh issued a deathdecree that all the male babies born to the enslaved Israelites must be executedat birth. Yet with great love and courage, Mosess parents refused to obey Pharaohsdecree. We know the rest of the story. Moses left an incredible legacyand it wasall because his parents protected their son and trusted God with his future.

Fast-forward to two thousand years ago. God came to deliver us from the power ofsin. Jesus Christ was born of a virgin in a nondescript stable in Bethlehem. Theperfect God allowed His divinity to be clothed with humanity. When this happened,an alarm went off in hell, and Satan once again found a human puppet through whichhe could attack this young deliverer. Herod, as Pharaoh before him, decreed thatthe male babies of Israel must be put to death at birth. Why? Satan wanted to exterminatethe Deliverer before Jesus could accomplish the purpose for which God put Him onthis earth.

First Moses, then Jesusand Satan still hasnt come up with anything new. Today Satanis again trying to eliminate the deliverers God is sending to us in our generation.Again his target is the young. For more than forty years now in America there hasbeen a licensed assault against the most vulnerable of allbabies developing in thewomb. It seems in our day that Satans fear and intensity have escalated to unprecedentedlevels even for him. He must be really intimidated by Gods plans for this generationif he cannot even wait until they are born to eliminate them.

Never has a generation been so assaulted and abused both inside and out of the womb.These are potential leaders, deliverers, and champions. We must recognize and respondto this satanic assault with an even greater intensity and devotionwe must prayfor this chosen generation. We are in a battle for the destiny of a generation, andas a consequence, we are in a battle for the future they will define. Our enemyis great, but our God is greater. Our enemy is mighty, but our God is almighty. Ourenemy is wily, but our God has all wisdom.

Our children and grandchildren were not born to become the latest casualties in Satansassault on our youth, but rather the newest conquerors. We are supposed to win this spiritual battle, and we will as we understand the overcoming dominion of Spirit-enabledprayer!

We read in 2 Corinthians 10:35, For though we live in the world, we do not wagewar as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish argumentsand every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we takecaptive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

And Romans 8:31 says, What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us,who can be against us? (MEV).

A few verses later Scripture tells us, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril,or sword?... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Himwho loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels norprincipalities nor powers, neither things present nor things to come, neither heightnor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the loveof God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:35, 3739, MEV).

God is bigger than our obstacle, and through Christ we can triumph over the enemy.Our inheritance as children of God is victory.

WHATS IN A NAME?

Satan likes to insist that intelligence operates only in the absence of the knowledgeof the one true God. How faulty, narrow, and shallow. Today, everywhere we cast ourgaze in education and culture, we see intellectual development without an understandingof destiny. As the late pastor Myles Munroe stated, When purpose is not known, abuseis inevitable.