Prayer for Week 11 (beginning 3.10.08)

In the book of Jonah, we read about God's mercy on the wicked city of Ninevah:

And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; (Jonah 4:11)

Many of the commentaries I read noted the phrase "persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand" as being a Hebrew way of describing children and that God's pity on Ninevah was in part due to these little ones who were unable to make moral judgments. This made me think of the children of America. The way that little boys talk...the way that little girls dress. Or worse, the way that little boys are allowed to talk and little girls are encouraged to dress. The music, the movies, and the magazines all marketed to youth but that rob them of innocence and purity. The most vulnerable of our society...so affected and influenced by the sins of our nation.

This week let us lift the children of America in prayer to the God who loves them dearly.

INTERCESSIONS:
- that children would not imitate sinful parents (But I said to their children in the wilderness, "Do not walk in the statutes of of your fathers, nor observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols." Ezek 20:18)

- that fathers will be strong spiritual leaders for their families but do so with the gentleness of Christ (And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Eph 6:4)

- that children would hear the gospel of Christ and open their hearts to Him as their Savior and Lord (Gather the people together, men and women and little ones...that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the LORD your God and carefully observe all the words of this law...and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God... Deut 31:12-13)

- that God will give the children of our nation wisdom and understanding to glorify Him (Both young men and maidens; Old men and children. Let them praise the name of the LORD, For His name alone is exalted; His glory is above the earth and heaven. Psalm 148:12-13)

"The gourd which Jonah had pity on perished in a night; it withered, and there was an end of it. But the precious souls in Nineveh that God had pity on are not so short-lived; they are immortal, and therefore to be carefully and tenderly considered." - A. R. FAUSSET