Let Freedom Ring, The Power Of Prayer

Let Freedom Ring

Our Freedom in Jesus 07/27/25

The Power Of Prayer 

We’re wrapping up this series Called Let Freedom Ring, 

Our Freedom in Jesus.

We celebrated our nation’s independence day this month.  A day that a nation asked God to guide and use it, for His honor and glory

We saw that true freedom come’s through Jesus.

John 8:36 (NKJV) 36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

II Corinthians 3:17 NKJV Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

America has done so much for the furtherance of the Gospel, to me there has been no nation like the USA.

Today I want to read a few of these stories and let’s see how the power of prayer saved this nation and a very special one at the end.

These short stories each week are taken from the book 100 Bible Verses that made America.  Robert Morgan.

October 16, 1746: The Prayer That Sunk a Navy 

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

In the 1740s, the American Colonies became a rope in the tug-of-war between Britain and France. One of the harshest periods of conflict, King George’s War, raged from 1744 to 1748, some thirty years before the Declaration of Independence. In the midst of the conflict, in October 1746, Bostonians heard with alarm that the French admiral duc d’Anville was preparing to sail his fleet from Nova Scotia to Boston Harbor to attack the city and ravage New England. It was the largest naval armada to have threatened the American coastline. The governor of the Massachusetts colony had no adequate way to protect Boston, the jewel of American cities, or its fifteen thousand inhabitants. The French were coming to burn the city to the ground. 

Sunday, October 16, 1746, was appointed a citywide day of prayer and fasting. Panicked citizens gathered into the city’s churches, with hundreds of them crowding into the historic Old South Meeting House. The only thing pleasant that day was the weather, which was peaceful and calm. Not a breeze ruffled the waters in the bay, and no threatening clouds drifted through the skies. The pastor of Old South Church was Rev. Thomas Prince, a powerful force in the Great Awakening, a friend of George Whitefield, and a man of prayer. Climbing into the high pulpit, Rev. Prince earnestly interceded on behalf of the Colonies. 

“Deliver us from our enemy,” he reportedly prayed. “Send Thy tempest, Lord, upon the waters to the eastward! Raise Thy right hand. Scatter the ships of our tormentors and drive them thence. ”Suddenly a powerful gust of wind struck the church so hard the shutters banged, startling the congregation. 

Rev. Prince paused and looked up in surprise. Sunlight no longer streamed through the windows, and the room reflected the ominous darkness of the sky. Gathering his thoughts, Rev. Prince continued with greater earnestness, saying, “Sink their proud frigates beneath the power of Thy winds.” Gusts of wind caused the church bell to chime “a wild and uneven sound . . . though no man was in the steeple.” Raising his hands toward heaven, Rev. Prince bellowed, “We hear Thy voice, O Lord! We hear it! Thy breath is upon the waters to the eastward, even upon the deep. Thy bell toils for the death of our enemies!” 

Overcome by emotion, he paused as tears ran down his cheeks, then he ended his prayer saying, “Thine be the glory, Lord. Amen and amen!” That day a storm of hurricane force struck the French ships. The greater part of the fleet was wrecked, and the duc d’Anville either took his own life or died from a stroke. 

Only a few sailors survived. In his book Anatomy of a Naval Disaster: The 1746 French Expedition to North America, Professor James Pritchard wrote, “Not a single French military objective had been achieved. Thousands of soldiers and sailors were dead. . . . No one knows how many men died during the expedition; some estimates range as high as 8,000. So great was the calamity that naval authorities hastened to wind up its affairs and bury quickly and effectively the memory of its existence.”

Back in Boston, the governor set aside a day of thanksgiving, and according to historian Catherine Drinker Bowen, “There was no end to the joyful quotation: If God be for us, who can be against us?” Somehow that verse came to people’s minds, reminding them that when God is our advocate, no enemy—not even an entire navy—can overcome us. This verse comes from the majestic song of Paul at the end of Romans 8, in which he exalts in the grace of the God whose love for us is unending. “What then shall we say to these things?” asked Paul. “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31–32). 

In nearby Braintree on that never-to-be forgotten day, a child named John Adams knelt with his family as his father thanked God “for this most timely evidence of His favor.” 

A century later Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized the event in his poem “A Ballad of the French Fleet,” written in the voice of Rev. Prince, who said, in part: There were rumors in the street, In the houses there was fear Of the coming of the fleet, And the danger hovering near, And while from mouth to mouth Spread the tidings of dismay, I stood in the Old South, Saying humbly, “Let us pray!”

Wow!  I like how David said it.

Psalm 18:13–14 (NKJV) 13 The Lord thundered from heaven, And the Most High uttered His voice, Hailstones and coals of fire. 14 He sent out His arrows and scattered the foe, Lightnings in abundance, and He vanquished them.

We need to have faith in the God of all power to help us in our time of need.

2 Chronicles 20:15 (NKJV) 15 And he said, “Listen, all you of Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat! Thus says the Lord to you: ‘Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s.

Church family, When the people of Boston gathered to pray, they didn’t have weapons—they had prayer and faith. God responded to the prayer of Rev. Prince and others with a storm that destroyed the enemy’s fleet. It wasn’t their strength, but their intercession, that brought the victory.

Let’s look at another story that saved our country.

August 29, 1776: The Fog of War 

James 5:16–18 (NKJV) 16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

After their humiliation in Boston, the British fleet retired to Canada to lick their wounds and repair their vessels, then sailed straight for New York City. Washington also moved his troops to New York and began building siege works along Brooklyn Heights. A handful of residents in New York, still loyal to England, plotted to assassinate him. His army was ragged and undisciplined, and his troops suffered illness and disease, including dysentery and smallpox. 

When British ships, carrying thirty-two thousand troops, sailed into New York, their masts tilting with the tides, they looked like a forest of trees swaying in the wind. One observer said, “I thought all London was afloat.” It was “the largest, most powerful force ever sent forth from Britain or any nation. ”Washington didn’t stand a chance. The British invasion began before dawn on Thursday, August 22, and within days the Revolutionary Army was trapped in Brooklyn across the East River from Manhattan and facing annihilation, which would have ended the War less than two months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Late on the afternoon of August 29, Washington gave the order to retreat. The escape of nine thousand weary, rain-soaked troops across a mile-wide river was a desperate gamble. If the British caught on, the entire army would be decimated. 

Many of the men wrote their last wills and testaments on the spot. Just after nightfall the weakest warriors headed for the ferry landing as the retreat began. Immediately the weather became an ally. A strong northeast wind kept British ships from venturing into the area; yet at about 11:00 p.m. the wind died down, allowing Washington’s hastily assembled armada to cross the river without danger. Sympathetic New York sailors and fishermen mobilized, loading soldiers, horses, wagons, cannons, and all manner of equipment onto boats. Wagon wheels were wrapped in cloth to muffle their sounds on the cobblestones and not a word was spoken. The soldiers were told not to cough or make any sounds, and orders passed through the ranks by whispers. 

Campfires were kept burning to deceive the enemy. All night, boats silently ferried the army back and forth across the river, yet when the sun arose, a large portion of the army was still trapped. But a fog had rolled in during the night, thick as velvet, shielding the remaining evacuees, and it remained until the evacuation was completed. One soldier wrote: In this fearful dilemma fervent prayers went up to Him who alone could deliver. As if in answer to those prayers, when the night deepened, a dense fog came rolling in, and settled on land and water. . . . Under cover of this fog . . . Washington silently withdrew his entire army across to New York.

Another eyewitness said: It was one of the most anxious, busy nights that I ever recollect, and being the third in which hardly any of us had closed our eyes to sleep, we were all greatly fatigued. As the dawn of the next day approached, those of us who remained in the trenches became very anxious for our own safety, and when the dawn appeared there were several regiments still on duty. . . . At this time a very dense fog began to rise off the river, and it seemed to settle in a peculiar manner over both encampments. I recollect this peculiar providential occurrence perfectly well, and so very dense was the atmosphere that I could scarcely discern a man at six yards distance. . . . We tarried until the sun had risen, but the fog remained as dense as ever. . . . 

In the history of warfare, I do not recollect a more fortunate retreat. After all, the providential appearance of the fog saved a part of our army from being captured, and certainly myself among others who formed the rear guard. When the fog lifted, the Americans were gone. Historian David McCullough wrote, “The immediate reaction of the British was utter astonishment. That the rebel army had silently vanished in the night under their very noses was almost inconceivable. 

”The evacuation occurred near the current site of the Brooklyn Bridge and has been called the Colonial Dunkirk, referring to the similar, almost miraculous evacuation of the British Army from France during World War II. The “fervent prayers” of the army were answered. Thirteen years later, General Washington took the presidential oath of office at the old Federal Building in lower Manhattan, just a few moments’ walk from the spot he had stepped ashore in 1776, divinely shielded by the fog of war. 

America was forged by men and women who believed in fervent prayer. That adjective has largely been lost to us today. It means earnest, warm, persistent prayer. Imagine the silent but strong prayers rising to heaven from Washington’s desperate army. The Lord responds to prayers like that, for the Bible says, 

James 5:16 NIV …“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective”

This story makes me think of the children of Israel in.

Exodus 14:19–20 (NKJV) 19 And the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them. 20 So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness to the one, and it gave light by night to the other, so that the one did not come near the other all that night.

Psalm 91:1–4 (NKJV) 1 He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.” 3 Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler And from the perilous pestilence. 4 He shall cover you with His feathers, And under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler.

The American army’s retreat was humanly impossible. But fervent prayer invited divine intervention, and God sent a fog—just like the cloud He used to shield Israel from the Egyptians. God’s people may be outnumbered, but they are never out-covered.

I love this next one:

June 28, 1787: The Prayer That Saved the Constitution 

Psalm 127:1 (NKJV) 1 Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman stays awake in vain.

After the British surrender, the American Colonies had a nation but needed a constitution. The old Articles of Confederation were inadequate. In May 1787, delegates gathered in Philadelphia for a convention to draft a constitution that would establish an effective federal government. They appointed George Washington as chair, but that’s about all they agreed on. 

From the beginning, the delegates quarreled over deeply held disagreements as to the extent and form of the new government. 

That’s when Benjamin Franklin, eighty-one, rose to make a motion: In this situation of this assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings? 

In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard—and they were graciously answered. All of us, who were engaged in the struggle, must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. 

And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? . . . I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men! 

And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. ”Ben Franklin was quoting here from Psalm 127. His entire remarkable speech, short as it was, was filled with biblical quotations and allusions, but this psalm was at the heart of what he wanted to say. Unless the Lord is in any enterprise, it has a limited future. Even building a house without His aid is perilous. Raising a family or a home without His strength is hazardous. Guarding a city without His blessings is futile. Working hard to gain wealth without putting Him first is vain. 

How much more the establishing of a new nation, one unlike any ever seen on the earth. Surely such an undertaking requires the help of almighty God. Franklin continued: I firmly believe this; and I also believe, that without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel: we shall be divided by our little partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach. . . . I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business; and that one or more of the clergy of the city be requested to officiate in that service. 

Even this motion failed because, perhaps, the convention had no money to hire a chaplain. But a few days later, on July 4, 1787, General Washington led the delegates to a prayer service at Philadelphia’s Reformed Calvinist Lutheran Church, where Rev. William Rogers offered these words: As this is a period, O Lord, big with events, impenetrable by any human scrutiny, we fervently recommend to Thy Fatherly notice that august Body, assembled in this city, who compose our Federal Convention; will it please Thee, O Thou Eternal I AM, to favor them from day to day with Thy immediate presence; be Thou their wisdom and their strength! 

Enable them to devise such measures as may prove happily instrumental for healing all divisions and promoting the good of the great whole . . . that the United States of America may furnish the world with one example of a free and permanent government, which shall be the result of human and mutual deliberation, and which shall not, like all other governments, whether ancient or modern, spring out of mere chance or be established by force. . . . We close this, our solemn address, by saying, as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ hath taught us—Our Father, who art in Heaven . . . The delegates joined in the Lord’s Prayer, then went back to work. Soon they had a document that began: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union.” James Madison, writing about the event later, said, “It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty Hand, which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical states of the revolution.”

I like how Daniel said it, 

before the King.

Daniel 2:21–23 (NKJV) 21 And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding. 22 He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, And light dwells with Him. 23 “I thank You and praise You, O God of my fathers; You have given me wisdom and might, And have now made known to me what we asked of You, For You have made known to us the king’s demand.”

In the chaos of political debate, it was prayer that changed the atmosphere. Franklin’s call to seek God, and the heartfelt prayer at the July 4th worship service, were reminders that nations are built on God’s wisdom, not man’s brilliance. And when they prayed, clarity and unity followed.

I want to end this series with and amazing miracle.

August 16, 1864: 

Providence Spring 

Numbers 20:11 (NKJV) 11 Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank.

When the Civil War erupted, a Michigan teenager named John L. Maile enlisted with the Union, served bravely, and rose to the rank of lieutenant. During the Battle in the Wilderness, he was captured and shipped in a cattle car to the infamous POW camp at Andersonville, deep in the heart of Georgia, arriving on May 23, 1864. The prison was an open meadow of twenty-six acres, surrounded by a fifteen-foot-high stockade fence. Pigeon roosts were manned by guards ready to shoot prisoners who crossed the dead line that framed the interior of the stockade. The fort was built to house ten thousand prisoners, but Maile found himself crammed among thirty-three thousand starving, exposed men. The only source of water was a small brook that ran through the meadow, and this was where the prisoners drank, washed, and used the latrine. 

It was downstream from the Confederate camp, and the creek “became a vast cesspool on which boundless swarms of flies settled down and laid their eggs,” Maile wrote. “The odor could be detected miles away. . . . A terrible water famine set in, with the result that many of the ailing ones became insane with thirst.”

Soon hundreds were dying of disease. One evening Maile heard a group of prisoners singing the doxology, and he joined them around a pine stump. An emaciated cavalry sergeant named Shepherd from Columbus, Ohio, who had been an honored preacher of the gospel before the War, was sitting on the stump. The others recognized Shepherd as a spiritual leader among them, despite his physical weakness. He frequently led prayers when POWs died and did what he could to encourage the living. On this occasion, Sergeant Shepherd had led those nearby in singing the doxology in order to gather a crowd. About twenty-five “unkempt, starving men” gathered and joined the song, and its strains reminded them of home and family and the worship services they had enjoyed before the War.

As the singing died down, Sergeant Shepherd said something to this effect: “I have today read in the book of Numbers of Moses striking the rock from which water gushed out for the ample supply of man and beast. I tell you God must strike a rock in Andersonville or we shall all die of thirst. And if there is no rock here, He can smite the ground and bring forth water to supply our desperate needs. Of this I am sure; let us ask Him to do this.” 

The story from Numbers was an apt text for this thirsty group of men, dying for lack of fresh water at Andersonville. When the Israelites needed water in the desert, Moses struck the rock and the water gushed forth. Sergeant Shepherd was desperate enough to ask God for a similar miracle inside the walls of the stockade. Pointing to an uncombed, unwashed, ragged comrade close by, he said, “Will the brother from Chicago pray?” One man after another prayed for water, asking God, as it were, to strike the rock again and provide needed water for the people. The impromptu prayer meeting lasted for about an hour, and the men concluded by again singing the doxology. As they dismissed, Shepherd admonished them, “Boys, when you awake during the night offer to God a little prayer for water. Do the same many times tomorrow, and let us meet here in the evening to pray again for water. ”Prayers went up among the prisoners for several days. Then one morning as they awoke, “an ominous stillness pervaded nature.” By mid-morning, black clouds began rolling in, and the camp was deluged by a long-lasting cloudburst. As Maile vividly recalled, Crashes of thunder broke over our heads and flashes of lightning swished around us as if the air was filled with short circuits. . . . As the mighty deluge swept through the clearing west of the prison, we bowed our heads in preparation of submersion. . . . When it came upon us the sensation was as if a million buckets of water were being poured upon us at once.

When the storm finally ended, a prisoner near the north gate began shouting, “A spring! A spring!” Maile later wrote in his memoirs, Prison Life in Andersonville, he saw “the vent of a spring of purest crystal water, which shot up into the air in a column, and, falling in a fanlike spray, went babbling down the grade. ”Some nearby prisoners described how, during the storm, a lightning bolt had struck inside the deadline, releasing the underground spring. It was as dramatic as Moses striking the rock. A trough was built, bringing the endless supply of water to the prisoners, and the spring still gurgles to this day. If you visit Andersonville, you can tour the National Prisoner of War Museum, then walk over to a stone shelter and see Providence Spring and its inscription: “God smote the hillside and gave them drink—August 16, 1864.”

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Isaiah 41:17–18 (NKJV) 17 “The poor and needy seek water, but there is none, Their tongues fail for thirst. I, the Lord, will hear them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. 18 I will open rivers in desolate heights, And fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, And the dry land springs of water.

Psalm 34:15 (NKJV) 15 The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their cry.

Just as God miraculously brought water from a rock for Israel, He responded to the prayers of dying men in Andersonville by opening a spring in the most hopeless of places. Their prayers, like Moses’, touched heaven—and heaven responded.

I read these stories of our history so that you can see that there is power in prayer.  Yes, in ourselves we might be weak and think how can God answer my prayers, but again this verse that we looked over show’s us that God is no respecter of person.

James 5:16–18 (NKJV) 16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

If God would answer Elijah’s prayer, and these soldiers and other’s, I believe that He will answer our prayer’s also.