The instances in which, in answer to prayer, God has sent remarkable deliverances to people, are numerous and striking. In the days of Queen Elizabeth, the terrible Spanish Armada was scattered or destroyed in answer to fervent prayers offered by the people of God in England. In 1746; the French armament of forty ships, prepared under the Duke d’Anville against the American colonies, was, in answer to prayer, totally ruined by a tempest. The leaders of the expedition were so overwhelmed at the suddenness and completeness of their disaster, that both of them committed suicide.
But God can save his beleaguered people without destroying their foes. LeClerc tells us that when, in 1672, the Dutch were expecting an attack from their enemies by sea, “public prayers were ordered for deliverance. It came to pass that when their enemies waited only for the tide, in order to land, the tide was retarded, contrary to its usual course, for twelve hours, so that their enemies were obliged to defer the attempt to another opportunity; which they never found, because a storm arose afterwards, and drove them from the coast.”
How wonderfully God has answered prayer in behalf of good institutions founded to alleviate human misery. Of this we have a striking instance in the Orphan House, at Halle, founded by Francke. His school was unendowed. In 1696, he had not money to support the school a week longer. When the last morsel was about to be consumed, a thousand crowns were received from an unknown source. At other times of distress he received, answer to special prayer twenty, thirty, and fifty crowns.
He says: “Another time all our provision was spent, but in addressing myself to the Lord, I found myself deeply affected with the fourth petition of the Lord’s prayer, ‘Give us this day our daily bread;’ and my thoughts were fixed in a more especial manner on the words ‘this day,’ because on the very same day we had great occasion for it. While I was yet praying, a friend of mine came before my door in a coach, and brought the sum of four hundred crowns!”
— Power of Prayer, by Prime
Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer - 1893