Episode Transcript
It's all too often said nowadays that God doesn't work miracles anymore, but I'd like to challenge that concept with a couple of stories I'm calling My Refuge and My Shield. Welcome to Miracles in the 21st Century on Warren Scale. Back when I was a kid on the farm in Gippsland, Victoria, I was burning some rubbish that was wet and wouldn't burn properly. And I'd seen my brothers throw fuel on a fire to get the fire going. As a kid, I didn't know the difference between diesel and petrol, but the pump was in the petrol drum. And so I came back with this petrol in a can and threw it on the fire. And next thing, whoosh, there was fire everywhere. I was badly burnt over my face and my my hands, my legs. But next thing I knew, I was rolled to the ground and it put out most of the fire. And I looked around, there was no one else there. And so I believe that it must have been an angel that had kept me alive and had put the fire out. But it was interesting in that while I was in hospital for about 6 weeks recovering, that I learned what it was like to be a nurse, and I thought that when I grow up, I wanted to be a nurse. And when I finished my schooling, I went to Sydney Adventist Hospital and followed through on that conviction of being a nurse. And that's where I met my wife, and we've now been married 50 years. And so I look back now and I can see that Even though that was hard to take at the time, that was a change in direction in my life, and I could see God's guiding and leading. When I was doing my nurse's training at the Sydney Adventist Hospital, I enjoyed motor cars. I had a Datsun 1600, and being a bit of a young petrolhead, I always enjoyed trying to get the cars to go a little bit faster. And one night on a Saturday night, I was had the car parked outside the nurses' residence at the Sydney Adventist Hospital. And I was putting on this new exhaust underneath to make it go a bit faster. And what I didn't know was that the girls who were out talking were also writing all over the car, "Just married, just married." They were friends who had given me a bit of a prank. And when I got out, I got to see what had happened and I didn't have time to rub it off. And so I went with a mate, Steve Martin, and we went to test out if the car was any faster or not. And so we went down the Cominara Parkway a bit faster than the speed limit, but the road was a little bit damp because it was late at night and there's a little bit of dew on the ground. And I, into the first corner, was sliding a bit, and I thought, it shouldn't be sliding, but I didn't back off. And then coming to the next corner, it was okay. And in the third corner, and I was drifting, I was out as far as I could go, and I was on full lock to correct it. And next thing was over the edge and rolled over and over and over about 9 times, we counted. And we landed on the wheels, and I looked at Steve and said, Steve, you're okay? And he said, yep, I'm fine. And so we got out, we scrambled back up to the top of the hill and got a ride back up to the Sydney Adventist Hospital where I stayed there for a while. Next thing, about 3 AM, I got a knock on the door and it was the police. And I thought, oh mate, I'm in trouble now. And they said, we're search and rescue and we're looking for your wife. Was your wife in the car when you left the church? And I said, I'm not married, I don't have a wife. And I said, "It's all right, mate. Just calm down. We know you've had a hit in the head. Was your wife there in the car? Was she with you when you had the accident?" I said, "Mate, I'm not married. I'm not married." And eventually, after a lot of discussion and getting some other friends in to confirm that I wasn't married, they said, "We've been down the bottom of the cliff looking for your wife for the last hour and a half and we couldn't find her." Ah! —And so I realized again with both those incidents as a young person that my life had been preserved by God for some reason. And so there were a couple of mini miracles that gave me conviction and affirming that God was leading my life and that he had kept my life for a reason. And so I'd like to challenge you today and suggest to you that you give God a go because he will never leave you or forsake you. I'm reminded of Romans 8:28 where it says, "And if we know that all things work together for good for them that love God and are called according to his purposes." No exceptions. God's there for you.
