Rick Hughes narrates the historical moment of General Patton’s prayer during World War II, illustrating the power of faith and collective prayer in times of crisis. He draws parallels between historical and present-day applications of faith, urging listeners to embrace mental discipline and self-control. In doing so, Rick underscores the importance of God’s love and omnipresence, offering an insightful examination of spirituality grounded in biblical principles.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now your host Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m Rick Hughes the host and I’d like to invite you to stay with me for the next few minutes. It’s always a short time of some motivation and some inspiration and always done without any type of manipulation because we don’t try to solicit money. We’re not trying to get you to join up, fess it up, give it up. We just want you to listen. Listen as I teach the Bible. I try to give you God’s objective viewpoint about your life. And hopefully if I can do that, if I can show you that, then you can orient and adjust to the plan. So it’s my prayer that you’ll listen for the next few minutes. Listen to a unique way of studying the Word of God because this show is designed to remind you of biblical truths and introduce you to an in-depth way of studying and learning the Word of God. And my job, as I said, I just try to verify and identify the plan, your job, orient and adjust to the plan. But that plan starts with the best news you have ever heard, the best news the world has ever heard. that Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God, has redeemed you and me out of the slave market of sin. Thus, our debt to God has been paid, and we are now free from the penalty of death and the power of sin. Titus 3.5 says, Not by works of righteousness, which we’ve done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration. and the renewing of the holy spirit which he shed upon us abundantly through jesus christ our lord so that being justified by means of his grace not in our works his grace we would be made heirs according to the confidence or the hope of eternal life you have confidence that you can live with god forever You are heir to all that Christ is heir to in Christ Jesus. So faith alone and Christ alone, you putting your trust in the finished work of Christ on the cross, not you trying to buy your way to heaven, not you trying to impress God. How ridiculous is that? You think God’s turned on with the fact that you don’t cuss? Or God’s turned on by the fact that you don’t drink? Or God’s turned on by the fact that you don’t chew? Or God’s turned on by the fact that you don’t whatever? I mean, that may be nice, and you may have good moral habits, but that’s not salvation. Salvation is faith alone in Christ alone. That’s why the Bible says, he that believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life, and he that believes not, and the wrath of God will abide on him forever. What am I supposed to believe? Well, I’m supposed to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. John 3.16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that whoever believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life. What did I believe in? I believed in Christ. What did Christ say? He said, this is the will of the one that sent me that you believe in me whom he has sent. What did the disciples have to do? They had to believe that he was the Messiah, the uniquely born son of God. Do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the uniquely born son of God? Do you believe that on the cross he took your sin as a punishment for you? He died for you. He took your place. He was your substitute. Do you believe that? Because if you do, you can express that faith to God in prayer and simply tell the Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. I believe he died for me, and I want to accept him as my Savior. That’s the same invitation that famous evangelists have issued for hundreds of years, from D.O. Moody to Billy Graham. would you come forward and receive Christ as your Savior? And you can do it in your car. You can do it at home. You can do it in a cell. You can do it in a lot of different places. But ultimately, you’re responsible to make that decision. So the Bible says, For by grace are you saved by means of your faith, and that not of yourselves, since it’s a gift of God and not of works, lest any man should boast about it. So remember that. It’s very easy to get emotionally involved when you start talking about God. I have a friend who’s a very wonderful friend. He can’t talk about God without crying. His emotions take over. But we’re not talking about emotions. The Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. And our Lord had emotions, but he didn’t let them dictate policy. Proverbs 16.32 says, Patience is better than power, and controlling your emotions better than capturing a city. Now let me give you a few principles. One, your volition, your chooser, your decider, positive or negative, will respond to both your thoughts and your emotions. It’s going to respond to one of the two, so I mean, if you go down to buy a new car, you’re gonna say mentally, I like it, I can afford it. You’ll run the numbers in your head. The salesman’s gonna appeal to your emotions. My, you look good in that car. Doesn’t that car look pretty? Imagine yourself driving that car down the road. you have to make a decision based on your content of your thought or the or the control of your emotions it’s like that all the way through life so point two the conscience houses your mentality of the soul and stores your thoughts and you have a protector that’s your conscience and it has norms and standards these are designed by god to protect you Your norms are the things you operate by and live by every day to maintain good health and hygiene, and your standards come from the Bible, the Word of God. So if you have norms and standards in your conscience, you have a protection of your soul. Without good norms and standards, people don’t stand a chance because they are suckers for emotion, and emotion will control their life. Because point three, the emotions are part of the physiological makeup of your body. And they’re there. There’s nothing wrong with them. I mean, it’s nice to have emotion and to have an emotional response, but not to let them control you, especially in regards to God or the Word of God. So, point four, our job is to control our emotions and act on what we think, not what we feel. And point five, if you don’t control your emotions, they will control you. If you don’t control your emotions, they will control you. And point six, failure to establish a biblical frame of reference. That’s relating everything you do back to the word of God, biblical frame of reference. If you don’t do that, then you leave yourself unprotected. and that means you can have contamination from guilt contamination from shame your emotions will run out of control you have to control your emotions any any addict is out of control emotionally any person who sins repeatedly in any area of sin is letting his emotions dictate policy to his soul And it’s always fed by arrogance where you justify why it’s okay. You justify why you did what you did and why you had a right to do what you do, even though you might not like it and you’re not proud of yourself. You did it. Self-justification. And your emotions took over. So you’ve got to have a biblical frame of reference. You’ve got to be able to stop the emotion from controlling your soul. Self-control, point seven, is critical in the battle of mind over emotions. It’s critical. So Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9, 27, I keep under my body and I bring it into subjection. So that by any means, when I’d preach to others, I wouldn’t be cast away myself. That’s right. That’s the number one fear of anyone in the ministry is to come to end of our ministry and to be disqualified from service because we let our emotions get control of us and we wind ourselves into sin and it complicates life. So there’s nothing more devastating, nothing more miserable in this life than you destroying yourself with your own emotions. You could have stopped it. You could have walked away, but the emotions were just too powerful. So there is something that you must remember these thoughts, these concepts about your life. Now I want to talk to you a little bit more about the unfailing love of God today. This is a phenomenal study we want to go into, and I want to show you a few principles regarding this and tell you where you can get a book about it. But the unfailing love of God is seen in Psalm 33, 13 through 18. Psalm 33, 13 through 18. From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind. From his dwelling place he watches all who live on the earth. He who forms the heart of all, who considers everything they do. No king is saved by the size of his army. And no warrior escapes by means of his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance despite all its great strength. It cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him and on those whose hope is in his unfailing love. Did you hear that? The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him and those whose hope, and that should be the word confidence, the Greek word elpis, not hope like we do, like I hope it doesn’t rain today. That’s not what this word means. Those whose confidence is in his unfailing love. Now let’s break it down for a little bit, okay? From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all of mankind. Psalm 33, 13. Well, what does that mean? Well, this is a reference to the omniscience of God. God is omnipresent, God is omnipotent, and God is omniscient. Omniscient means that God is all-knowing, Omnipresent means that God is eminent and transcendent in all places at one time. And omnipotent means that God is all-powerful. So here is a reference to the omniscience of God. From heaven, the Lord looks down and sees all mankind. 2 Chronicles 16.9 says this, For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, Now, that’s an analogy. God doesn’t have eyes like you think we do. He doesn’t have eyes. He is a spiritual being. He’s imminent. He doesn’t have a body. Jesus Christ has a body. He has a resurrection body. That’s the only body in heaven right now. There are angels there, God is there, but no one is there in a resurrection body except Jesus Christ. Old Testament saints don’t have those resurrection bodies yet. And so the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in behalf of those whose heart is perfect towards him. Herein you’ve done foolishly. Therefore, from now on, you will have war. That’s a warning. Two, there’s nothing you can do to hide yourself from God’s presence since he’s omnipresent. I remember as a youngster pulling the cover up over my head thinking nobody could see me, but God can. You know, the Bible says men love darkness rather than light and they love to get in the dark and they love to do things in the dark. But there’s no darkness with God. He’s watching all the time. So if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, there’s nothing you can do, nowhere you can hide, no place you can be that God cannot see you. So if you turn out the lights in your room, turn out the lights in wherever you may be, and you think nobody can see you, God is watching. His eyes run to and fro. I just read it to you. Remember, the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth. He is aware because he’s omniscient. Three, our loving Father dwells in what the Bible calls the third heavens. Now the first heaven is the atmosphere. That’s what the rocket ships blast up through and go out into space. The second heaven is space, the universe. And the third heaven is the abode of God. So our Father dwells in heaven, the abode of God. I don’t know where it is, but I’m expecting I’ll find out one day. You will too if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ. We’ll be absent from the body and face to face with the Lord. I know we’ll be coming back here for a thousand years to rule and reign with Christ in his millennial kingdom. But God dwells in what’s called the third heaven. So from heaven, the Lord looks down and sees all of mankind from heaven, the third heaven. Point four, he knows who are his and he knows who are not his. So how would he know that? Well, if you have the righteousness of Jesus Christ, you’re his. Plus R, God’s righteousness. Minus R, man’s righteousness. So here’s the key. There are none that are righteous, no, not even one, because all of their righteousness is like a filthy rag, God says. Excuse me. And so God is absolutely righteous. He’s plus a heart. You and I are minus R, absolutely not righteous. Now, how can minus R become plus R? It’s simple. 2 Corinthians 5, 21. He, that’s God, hath made him, Jesus, to be sin for us, you and me, the one who knew no sin, that’s Christ, so that we may be made the righteousness of God in him. The only way that I can become righteous is through Jesus Christ. So God had absolute righteousness. Christ has absolute righteousness. I have absolutely no righteousness. But when I come to Jesus Christ and receive him as my savior, then his righteousness is accredited to me. And now I can have fellowship with God through Christ because I have equal righteousness. How about that? He has made him to be sin for us, the one who knew no sin, so that we, us, me, and you could be made the righteousness of God by means of him or in him. Psalm 33, 16, I’m going on on this passage. Then the unfailing love of God passage, Psalm 33, 13 through 18. Now I’m looking at verse 16. No king is saved by the size of his army, and no warrior escapes by his great strength. There’s no doubt that freedom is preserved by military victory. And there’s no doubt, point two, if God does not bless the war effort, then no army can defeat the enemy. I want to take you to General George S. Patton and his prayer for the rain to stop during the Battle of Bastogne In 1944, part of the Battle of the Bulge, the prayer was written by Reverend Monsignor James Hugh Neal. He was an American Catholic priest who served as chaplain in the United States Army through 1926 to 1952, rising eventually to the rank of brigadier general. While serving as chaplain of the 3rd United States Army during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, he composed a famous weather prayer at the request of the 3rd Army’s commander, George Patton. Here’s what Patton said, General Patton. Maybe you saw the movie Patton. If you didn’t, you ought to watch it. And here’s what he said. Chaplain, he said, how much praying is being done in the 3rd Army? And I said, does the general mean by the chaplains or by the men? By everybody, he replied. To this, I said, well, I’m afraid to admit it, sir, but I do not believe that much praying is going on when there’s fighting. Everybody prays, but now with this constant rain, things are quiet, dangerously quiet. Men just sit and wait for something to happen. And prayer out there, difficult. Both chaplains and men are removed from a special building with steeples and church-like and prayer to most of them is done in a formal ritualized affair involving special posture like kneeling down and in a liturgical setting. Sir, I don’t believe that much praying is being done right now. That was the chaplain’s answer. And to which General Patton said, Chaplain, I’m a strong believer in prayer. And there are three ways that men get what they want. By planning, by working, and by praying. Any great military operation takes careful planning or thinking. Then you must have well-trained troops to carry it out. That’s working. But between the plan and the operation, there’s always the unknown. And that unknown spells defeat or victory, success or failure. It’s the reaction of the actors to the ordeal when it actually takes place. Some people call it getting the breaks. Patton said this, I call it God. God has his part or his margin in everything. Now remember our verse I gave you. No king is saved by the size of his army. So Chaplain Patton went on to say, that’s where prayer comes in. Up to now, in the Third Army, God’s been very good to us. We never had to retreat. We’ve suffered no defeats, no famine, no epidemics. And that’s because a lot of people back home are praying for us. We were lucky in Africa, Chaplain, in Sicily and Italy, but simply because people at home prayed. But we have to pray for ourselves too. A good soldier is not made merely by making him think and by making him work. Something in every soldier that goes deeper than that thinking and working, it’s his guts. It’s something that he’s built in himself inside of him. And it is a world of truth and power that’s higher than himself. So great living is not all output of thought and work. Man has to have intake as well. And I don’t know what you call it, Chaplain, but I call it religion itself. Prayer or God. So I want you to put out a training letter on this subject, a prayer to all the chaplains in the Third Army. Write about nothing else, just the importance of prayer. Let me see it before you send it. Because we got to get not only the chaplains, but every man in the Third Army to pray. And we must ask God to stop these reigns. These reigns are that margin that hold defeat or victory. And if we all pray, It will be like what Dr. Carrell said, and that’s an illusion. That illusion was to a press quote some days previously when Dr. Alexis Carrell, one of the most foremost scientists, described prayer. He said it was one of the most powerful forms of energy man can generate. So Patton had read that, and he was quoting him, and he said it’s like what Dr. Carrell said. It’s one of the most powerful forms of energy man can generate. It’ll be like plugging into a current whose source comes from heaven. I believe that prayer completes the circuit. It’s the power we need. So the incident of the now famous Patton prayer commenced with a telephone call to the Third Army chaplain, December the 8th, 1944. And this is what he said. Now he said, as is General Patton, do you have a good prayer for the weather? We got to do something about those rains if we’re going to win this war. And our chaplain that we told you said, well, uh, I know where to look for such a prayer. I could locate it and report within the hour. And he hung up the phone and he looked out at the rain and said, hmm, what am I going to do? And the few prayer books that he had contained no formal prayer about weather. that could approve acceptable to the army commander, so he sat down and he typed an original prayer on an improved copy of a five by three filing card. This is what he typed, this is what he wrote. Remember, no king is saved by the size of his army, and no warrior escapes by his great strength. Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech thee of thy great goodness to restrain these immoderate reigns with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon thee, that armed with thy power we may advance from victory to victory and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish thy justice among men and nations. The next day the general read it and without a change directed that it be circulated not only to the 486 chaplains but to every organization commander down to and including regimental level. 3,200 copies were distributed to every unit in the 3rd Army over the signature of the Army chaplain. Strictly speaking, it was the Army commander’s letter, Patton’s letter, not the chaplain’s. But due to the fact that the order came directly from Patton, distribution was completed on 11 December, and in 12 December, advancing the dates, 14 December, it was titled Training Letter No. 5, with a salutation from the chaplain of the 3rd Army. And this is what he said. At this stage of the operation… I would call upon the chaplains and the men of the United States Army to focus their attention on the importance of prayer. No man can win by the size of his army, no king. Now, you know and I know that prayer not done the right way is not going to be answered. Just because somebody’s praying doesn’t mean it’s going to be answered. There is effective prayer and there’s ineffective prayer. The effective prayer is done in the name of Jesus Christ to God the Father by means of the Holy Spirit. And we know that if there’s sin in our life, the Holy Spirit is quenched and can’t do his job. And so the Bible says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. So it’s critical that any time you pray or I pray that we are in fellowship with God by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit. So verse 18 of Psalm 33, the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him and those whose confidence is in his unfailing love. The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him and those whose hope is in unfailing love. The word fear is yara in the Hebrew, meaning to reverence or to respect him. The Bible says, for as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those that fear him. So the question I want to ask you as we wrap it up today, do you fear God? Is his will in your life your number one priority? If it’s not, then you are on the my way highway. And the my way highway is a dead end. You will destroy your life eventually because of your arrogant self-justification of why you don’t have to pay attention to what God told you. Stay off the my way highway. It’s an emotional roller coaster. It’ll lead you to the path of destruction in your life. Learn God’s word and apply God’s word. Grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and you can be absolutely confident that God is in control and that he will not lead you where he cannot sustain you. Please remember that. Verse 18, Psalm 33. Here it is again. The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him and on those whose hope is in his unfailing love. What is the unfailing love of God? That’s the $64,000 question. And that’s the question I will attempt to answer at our next radio show when you come back next Sunday. What is the unfailing love of God? We know in 1 John 4, 8, God is love. We know that. And we know in 1 John 4, 9, and this was manifested, the love of God towards us, that God sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live eternally through him. I want to show you what is the unfailing love of God. It’s the most misunderstood subject in the Bible, and I’ll tell you how you can get a lot of accurate information about it. But you need to come back next week, same time, same place, same station. It’s an honor for me to bring you these radio shows. Thank you for giving me a few minutes of your time. I pray God will bless you and the Holy Spirit will direct your thoughts through these subjects. That’s my prayer in Christ’s name. Amen.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
