THE REALITY OF GOD'S PRESENCE AND SUPERNATURAL INTERVENTION
If miracles happened as written in the Bible, we should always be expectant that they could happen now to those who seek God because God is an unchanging God through the ages...
It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.
So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.
The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. ‘Quick, get up!’ he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.
Then the angel said to him, ‘Put on your clothes and sandals.’ And Peter did so. ‘Wrap your cloak round you and follow me,’ the angel told him. Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.
Then Peter came to himself and said, ‘Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.’ ACTS 12:1-11.
We approach the most precious season of the year once again, when we focus on the very essence of the Gospel: the suffering, death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ as Paul writes:
I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you… For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1Co.15:3-4).
In the Book of Acts, it is written that; filled with the Holy Spirit, disciples of Christ vigorously went out to preach the Gospel and the power of God accompanied them. It has been a natural phenomenon for people to see God being active through His followers up to this day.
Lately, when hearing an exciting account of a Christian lady’s miraculous experience, I was reminded of the biblical narrative quoted above at the time of the Passover feast 2000 years ago. Peter’s miraculous rescue from prison took place in such an astonishing way to remind him of the account of the first Passover at the time of Exodus, in which the Lord instructed the Israelites to eat the meal and leave Egypt ‘with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand’ (Ex.12:11). As a result, they were set free from the bondage of Egypt, i.e., ‘the iron smelting furnace’ (De.4:20). When the angel appeared before Peter and released him from prison, the Lord likewise reproduced the first Passover night and Peter was saved through ‘the iron gate’ leading to the city.
Nowadays more often than ever, it is exciting to witness the reality of God’s miraculous intervention to His faithful followers around us. If miracles happened as written in the Bible, we should always be expectant that they could happen now to those who seek God because God is an unchanging God through the ages. A Christian lady called Kathi experienced a miraculous escape from abductors ten years ago and shared her experience on YouTube (Click here):
When Kathi Byker was kidnapped at knife point from her bed, she didn't know what to do. Prayer was the furthest thing from her mind. But suddenly she remembered what she had been taught about the Holy Spirit and the power of praying in tongues. Watch what happens when she began to use her prayer language!
In her talk, she shared a lot about how true the presence of the Lord and His angels’ help were in times of her helplessness. I believe that what she shares is very relevant to us all, since we are facing some of the worst times of persecution and tribulation. I would like to highlight some of what she pointed out, which many Christians might agree with through their own experiences, and also, which would become very important to remember in times of our own hardship.
When two men abruptly appeared in her bedroom, wielding knives and dressed in black, Kathi believed it was a nightmare but soon found it to be real. With duct tape over her eyes and mouth, she was pushed into her own vehicle, which the intruders planned to steal and she was commanded to lie down on the back seat, threatened at knifepoint.
For a while, so much trauma and confusion prevented her from thinking of prayer but when she realised her utter helplessness, she remembered to call out to God, which was the turning point. Although she was still in the same situation, everything had changed in her heart. After that, God was in the centre in her heart and spirit. Not knowing what to pray, except muttering ‘Help, God’, she focused on God and prayed in tongues. The Spirit Himself interceded for her.
She continued to pray in tongues and pleaded the blood of Jesus over her body. She needed God’s protection. God brought Scripture after Scripture to her mind and so she felt tremendous peace and power. According to her words, “the fear factor was lessening as the God factor was going up”.
Soon after that, she was pulled into a cornfield and after the abductor bound her to a telephone pole with duct tape, he left her behind. Hearing him leave, she removed tapes from her eyes, mouth, wrists and knees, which miraculously ripped when she just put slight pressure on it. In the darkness, she had to decide which way she should go and while sometimes hiding and praying, as directed by God, she ran barefoot to find someone to help her. She can testify that God is there to rescue us all at the hardest times.
The other factor of her miraculous escape lies in the earnest prayers of brothers and sisters, whom her husband called soon after her abduction. The three men involved in the abduction are now serving long-term prison sentence, and she has chosen to forgive them before God.