Judges 4 tells the story of one of Israel’s unlikely delivers. The Israelites had done evil in the eyes of the Lord. As a result of their disobedience, the Lord sold them to a Canaanite king who cruelly oppressed them for twenty years. They cried to the Lord for help. Deborah, a prophetess, told Barak, a warrior, what to do to deliver the people, but he refused to go without Deborah. Together they pursued the enemy and won the victory. In chapter 5 after the victory, we have the Song of Deborah. The last verse says, “So may all your enemies perish, O Lord! But may they who love you be like the sun, when it rises in its strength.” Today, let us rise in strength to overthrow our oppressors!

 Recently I read an article by Luis Durani, “The Closing of the American Mind.” Mr. Durani credits America’s faulty educational system as the major reason for the downturn in American society. We have a 70% graduation rate for our high schools and of those who do graduate, only 80% of them are college ready (that means they can enter college without having to take any remedial classes).

California who has one of the poorest educational track records in our country has come up with a novel idea proposed by Governor Jerry Brown. Governor Brown wants to give failing schools back to their communities. Basically, he is saying that the government has run California’s poorer schools in the ground and now they doesn’t know what to do— so simply return it to an already poverty stricken neighborhood that has no resources or track record for improving education.

While our schools fail, the powers over education, spend time, money and resources on making sure that transgender students have the right to choose a bathroom of their chosen gender. This is a prime example of the actions by the infamous Emperor Nero, who was said to “fiddle while Rome burned.”

Today, America needs unlikely deliverers like Barak and Deborah to rise up and lead the way in prayer and intercession. We cannot wait. In a few days, schools will be open and children will pour through the doors with hope of obtaining an education that will prepare them for life. But 21% of the students will never learn to read beyond a fifth grade level. In the natural, we are on the brink of sheer hopelessness.

But God…. Those of us who trust in God have a different kind of hope for American education. No matter how dismal things may seem, we know that if we don’t quit and we stand strong in prayer, we can transform American education! Let us resolve to make things better. We are not hopeless.  Neither are we hopeful dreamers, we stand on the Word of God pray and believe that things can, and will, be different. God isn’t finished with America and His desire is for the Mountain of Education to be transformed.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” Hebrews 11:1-2