Angels and Divine Intervention: Real Modern‑Day Stories - SC2538

SPEAKER 1 Welcome to Science Conversations. I am Kaysie Vokurka. Is there such a thing as an intervening God? Joining me to discuss part two of this topic is Dr. John Ashton. Welcome once again, Dr. John, to the Science Conversations. Hello Kaysie. Dr. John has written a book entitled Evolution Impossible: 12 Reasons why Evolution Cannot Explain the Origin of Life on Earth. And we are discussing some thoughts from chapter 13 of this book. And in our last episode, we were talking a lot about Daniel and his experiences, and just wanting to ask you if there is some examples of some supernatural intervention in Daniel's personal life. SPEAKER 2 Yeah, sure. Well, one of the perhaps most outstanding interventions is when Darius, Darius, who had was put in charge of Babylon by the Persians, the Persian ruler who took over Babylon, was tricked by some of his advisors that didn't like Daniel into making a law that anybody that bowed to some other God would be thrown to the lions' den. Of course, Daniel being a faithful worshiper of the true God, the Hebrew God being a Hebrew. And of course, Daniel had been the chief advisor to Nebuchadnezzar earlier on and also to the succeeding Kings and the last King there, Belshazzar, who was killed, slain by Gobius, of course, in 539. And so Darius had passed this law. Daniel was reported to us praying to his God. And so Darius tried to get out of it, but he had to put Daniel in the lion's den. And Daniel, of course, prayed for protection and recorded that angels came and stood with him, and the lions didn't attack him. And the Bible records that Darius, who was actually a very keen supporter of Daniel, came early the next morning, was so pleased to find him alive, pulled him out, and then the men who had plotted to put Daniel in, they were put into the lion's den and they all got eaten. SPEAKER 1 So there was no question those lions were hungry and they were just restrained by the angel. SPEAKER 2 That's right, so that's a super, supernatural one, yes. SPEAKER 1 Right, so Daniel, he'd had those experiences with the vision, obviously, which isn't a supernatural thing, but also personally he was saved from death by a supernatural being. And of course, those who know the Bible know that there are other accounts in the scriptures about angels in the New Testament, the apostles, some of the disciples in the gospels, in the book of Acts. Anyone could go and read those. I guess what I'm wondering is, are there some examples of modern day accounts where people have seen angels or evidence for the intervention of angels in their lives, personally. SPEAKER 2 Yes, I guess I have heard of different stories. One of the stories that I refer to in the book was told to me by a chaplain friend who was at the time working in Zimbabwe. What had happened was that one of her friends or friend's friends, this lady had driven home, hopped out of the car to open the gate or the garage door or something, and had left the car running. And there was a man hiding behind some shrubbery who jumped into the car at that time and drove off. But her daughter was still in the back seat of the car. and the woman screamed out and another man who was across the road or nearby saw what had happened and she'd yelled out to him and so he went and hopped in his car and gave chase in this car. It was a Peugeot, I think, from memory. And the woman continued to scream because she was so distraught because what happened there, what was happening there in Harare was that cars were being stolen and driven into the next country and sold. And so she didn't know what was going to happen to her daughter who was six or seven years old. And so she was absolutely terrified. You can imagine she continued screaming. And another man pulled up in his car to see what was wrong. And she said, you know, my daughter's just been, you know, kidnapped in this car. And he said, well, we'll we'll drive off afterwards. And she didn't want to hop into the car with the man. The man said, Look, I'm a minister of religion. I'm a Christian. And she looked down, she saw there was a Bible on the front seat, and he said, Let's pray. We'll pray now that God will stop the car. And so they prayed that God would stop the car. And then the lady was more comfortable. She hopped in with the man they gave, headed off down the road in the direction they thought the car would go. and they went a short way and they found the car stopped on the road. And the first man had captured the baddie guy, and the little girl was there unharmed. And when they spoke to the little girl, the little girl said, I was pleading with the man to take me back to mummy, pleading with the man to take me back to mummy, when suddenly she said, I saw this bright figure land on the bonnet of the car and push what she said was like a sword into the engine and the car stopped. Now, when they examined the car later, they found the clutch had failed. Wow. But it was interesting because clutches usually just don't fail like that, you know, they sort of slow down, takes a while. And it's also interesting that why a six or seven year old girl who was pleading with this person terrified to take, you know, to be taken back to a mummy should suddenly make up a story about that. It just doesn't fit. So to me, that seems to be, you know, one of the accounts that I came across personally. I've read a lot of accounts in missionary books and this sort of thing of missionary experiences. I think another famous one, though, that's been recorded in history is the trial of Joan of Arc. so she was a 17 year old young woman from a peasant sort of background that was impressed by God that she was to help the Dauphin become crowned, crowned as the King of France. So at the time, there was contention over the throne of Francis in the 1400s between England and France. One of the English descendants and the French descendant, the son, the Dauphin of the King of France who had just died. His succession was being contested. That was part of the Hundred Years War. And at that time, the British had laid siege to Orleans and were blocking the Dauphin from getting to Reims, which was the traditional area that to be crowned. And Joan of Arc had these visions and had heard these voices But then she began, the voices then were accompanied by beings that would come and talk to her and give her advice and tell her what to do and reveal things to her. So we have a lot of details about her trial when she was tried for heresy and her statements. And it's quite amazing. The reason why she was given the command of the French army was that she was able to tell the king in detail his prayer that he had prayed to God the night before. So she'd asked to be taken to see the King, and it had been revealed to her what the prayer was. It was also revealed to her by these beings of a special sword, a famous sword that had been lost for many time, for a long time. And she told the people where or told people where they would find the sword, and it was a long way from where she lived. hadn't been seen from a long time before she was born. So a lot of quite supernatural things like this from the voices. But also she said there were figures that used to come and talk to her about this. And I guess there's similar experiences, I guess, with voices too. SPEAKER 1 Yeah, interesting. So obviously you've mentioned about a lot of historical documentation about her story. Again, tangible evidence that these things do occur in human life and in personal experiences and intervene in it. And yeah, you mentioned about voices as another means of experiencing supernatural intervention. Any more modern stories about that one? SPEAKER 2 Yes, well, I have some in my own experience, I guess, that I could talk about. Well, I did some research in this area and asked people about these experiences and collected examples. One example was from a local doctor, GP, who were told that when she was working at a particular hospital, she was driving along the road one morning to go to work, was approaching a windy section when she heard a musical voice very clearly say to her, slow down. And she was coming to a bend and she said, I was brought up with manners and she said, it's interesting, I didn't feel afraid with this voice speaking behind me in the car. And my response was, I beg your pardon. And the voice said again, slow right down. And she slowed right down and was pulling off the road when a yellow Ford Mustang car came around this blind corner on the wrong side of the road at high speed. and she said, if I hadn't slowed down, I probably would have been very seriously injured if not killed. And it's interesting, I had a similar experience when I was working in Tasmania. I was the chemistry tutor for the first year med students, and some of the students were interested in Bible studies. And of an evening, I'd give a little Bible study with the group. And on the way back, I was driving back into Hobart down a steep hill and it was a rainy road and I saw that there were green traffic lights ahead and I had the same impression, slow down. And I sort of remember thinking to myself, well, hang on, I'm doing under the speed limit, you know. But it was really important to slow down. And so I did slow down a little bit. And as I came to this intersection, it was a blind intersection because there was a big government office building on the corner. And just as I got to the intersection, a blue Datsun sports car came through the red light on the other side. Oh, wow. And fortunately, I hit him rather than he hit me. Otherwise he would have slammed right into my driver's door. and I hit him, he did a complete 360 spin and then drove off. And I had a big 56 sheave at the time. I pulled over and rang the police, but I didn't get the number, but I reported what had happened. And they said, oh, we're already looking for him. Somebody heard the bang, where he was working in the office building, and looked down and got the number plate of the car. Oh, wow. Yeah, so that was pretty cool. I guess another quite spectacular one that I had was that my going to work one evening on the freeway, my car started to hiss and I realized, oh no, I'm blowing steam everywhere. I pulled over and I stopped and realized I'd blown the top radiator hose in my car. And I thought, oh, what am I going to do? I had this really strong impression Hitchhike now. Just hitchhike now. So I put my thumb out and the next car coming up the road saw me and pulled over and I said, Can you please give me a lift into Hobart, please? I've got to get to work. And he said, well, what's the problem? I said, I've got burst radiator hose. And he said, I might have one of those. And I said, oh, I don't think so. The car was a little Leyland Marina and the upper radiator hose had a vulcanized two-piece in it for the heater as well. So it wasn't just a plain piece of hose. It was quite a complicated hose with bits to it. And the guy came in and looked, he said, oh, I think I've got one of those. And he opened the front door, passenger door of his car and there on the floor was a pile of radiator hoses. Serious? And he ratted through it and pulled out one and it fitted. Now, this is a Leyland Marina, right? There weren't many Leyland Marinas in Tasmania. And it fitted and got me on the road about five minutes later. SPEAKER 1 Wow. SPEAKER 2 So one of the things that impressed me was that was this really strong impression. I know there are other famous people that dealt with this, like Harriet Tubman. She talked about the same thing of She was the lady, of course, in America that rescued a whole lot of slaves. She was a slave herself and was never captured. And she talked about how she'd be walking along guiding the escaped slaves and then suddenly have an impression to go somewhere. One of the impressions she talked about, they were walking along this trail and she suddenly had this impression, cross the river now. And they were walking along next to a river and she told everyone, go across the river. and as they got across the river and then were walking through the forest on the other side, they saw that there was a group of men waiting for them just a little bit further along the road that they were on. Oh, wow. This sort of thing. And she tells a lot of stories like that. So I think we have overwhelming evidence of a mind, you know, intervening mind guiding and protecting people. SPEAKER 1 And supernatural beings involved in that whole process as well. Very interesting discussion, very interesting to explore that. And of course we still have one more part to this discussion, so thank you for sharing and we look forward to examining further the question, is there such a thing as an intervening God?