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Awakening to the Supernatural: Skepticism Meets Evidence 0:02 I want documentation. I want corroboration. I want investigation. And so what it does for me is it does 2 things. Number 1, it gives me more evidence that God exists.0:18 Lee, welcome back. Always good to see you.0:20 Oh, great to be here. I love you guys and your ministry here and, how you touch so many lives and, and and share Jesus with so many folks.0:28 I've never said this before, but given your book title, Seeing the Supernatural, I Wish I Was William Shatner. That sounds like a show. It sounds sounds like a show he would be hosting. Right? Who do? But it is an0:39 interesting area, and so many people express that interest. I mean, that's why you do have television shows0:46 That's right.0:47 That talk about the supernatural and what's going on. And, you know, 1 of the things, Lee, that that, is so important for us to understand is why people are drawn to that. What is it that piques our0:59 interest?0:59 Yeah. What do1:00 you think it is?1:00 Well, you're right. About 8 out of 10 people believe that there is something beyond what we can see and touch. And yet we live in a scientific age, a technological age where a lot of, the elites among us, a lot of the1:12 ones who form, popular culture and so forth, try to tell us that no. No. No. We can only believe in that which we can see and touch or put in a test tube. It's called scientific materialism.1:24 There's nothing beyond what we can actually encounter personally in our world. Well, I was a skeptic for much of my life and believe that. The Bible, of course, talks about a whole dimension beyond the realm in1:36 which we find ourselves. But are there really, bits of evidence that point toward the truth that there really is this other realm? And I think people are curious because, you know, popular1:48 culture, likes to delve into things like UFOs and and ancient aliens and and, ghosts and, things like that that are the occult.1:58 Let me I can't believe somebody doesn't know Lee Strobel. But, again, I think your background will bring credibility to this whole discussion.2:06 Yeah.2:06 But you were an atheist. You were this reporter with the Chicago Tribune.2:10 Right.2:11 You were the why guy. Yeah. That's right. Why does it work that way? Why do you say that? I don't believe that. And you were an investigative, reporter.2:19 Yeah.2:19 It's in your makeup up2:21 Yeah.2:21 To doubt.2:22 I want corroboration. You know? I I want facts. Give me evidence.2:26 That's so romantic. I want corroboration.2:28 That's right. That's right. You say you love me? Well, how do I know? What's the corroboration, you know, before we get married, you know? But, so yeah. You're right. And, you know, what amazes me is the level2:40 of corroboration there is for a supernatural realm. It is absolutely stunning. When when you look at things like, deathbed visions of people before they die, how common those are.2:51 Well, we're gonna talk about all that. I wanna start with a couple of stories that you start with in the book on, you know, supernatural experiences. Why don't we talk about, I think it was a secret service agent.3:02 Yes.3:03 This is a guy I hope you could trust.3:04 Yeah. That's right. This is a guy. He's trying to get to sleep. It's 3 AM, and all of a sudden, he feels gripped as if as if his mother was hugging him. You know? This this he never had this sensation before. Just in the3:16 middle of the night, 3 AM, this this gripping, and and it scared him. He he literally jumped out of bed and and got his gun and went hunting in the house.3:24 It was that real.3:25 It was that real. It was like this is so unusual. So it's gotta be is there somebody in the house or what is going on? Finally, he goes back to bed. And when he went back to bed, he felt a sense of peace. And then he3:36 gets a phone call 2 hours later that at 3 AM when this happened, his mother died. And So right3:42 at the same time?3:43 Right at the same time that he had this experience of feeling hugged at that moment. And he said, you know, if I didn't believe in God before that, I do now.3:51 Let me ask you though. I mean, people again I think within the Christian community, many are skeptics as well. And we say, well, you know, we kinda like that idea4:00 of4:00 science and naturalism, and, you know, we need to see it, taste it, touch it, even within the church. Yeah. How do you explain that happening with him but not with somebody else?4:10 Yeah. Exactly. And and I raise a question when I tell that story in the book. I say, could there be a natural explanation for this? Was it a coincidence? Maybe, could have been, or was it something supernatural? Was it a4:21 And why do we as Christians tend to wanna not believe it could be something that God allowed to happen for whatever purpose.4:28 Yeah. I find a lot of Christians really shy away from, delving into the supernatural realm. You know, when you deal with things like near death experiences or deathbed visions or even even God intervening4:40 directly in people's lives in a dramatic way. We4:43 should believe it.4:43 We should believe it because, my goodness, we see evidence of that kind of thing happening in the Bible.4:47 I guess that that that good skepticism is you can go too far Yes. And everything becomes something.4:53 That's right. And it becomes a superstition kind of a thing. And and, what are you really believing in here and so forth. So some of these things that I talk about in the book, it could have multiple5:05 possibilities in terms of5:07 could it5:07 be a natural explanation? But often, the evidence is much stronger that it's some sort of supernatural encounter.5:12 And it's good to keep our our spiritual eyes wide open for those things as believers5:17 That's right.5:17 So that we can identify what we believe to be true and what possibly is false.5:21 I was interviewing a famous, theologian and, kind of a staid theologian, you know, how they are. And and, he he grew up in a Pentecostal home where he said there was an expectation5:33 of the supernatural. And then he told me a story. He said, in my church, when I was growing up, there was a family driving in their car. That's the day before seat belts. And their 10 year old child5:45 opened the back door and fell out of the car at 70 miles an hour. Well, they thought, my gosh. He's he's gonna be dead. So they stopped. They turned around. They went back, and they find their son standing there in the5:55 street perfectly fine. And they said, what happened? And he said, oh, you didn't see the man that caught me. Wow. And this theologian pulled out his handkerchief and started to dab his6:07 eyes. He says, I miss that. I I miss being in the culture where there was an expectation of the supernatural. I believe an angel caught him. And, and and Oh, wow. Yeah.6:19 And it's Yeah. That'll shape your faith6:20 real quick. Exactly. Yeah.6:21 Wonder what happened to that boy Yeah. Good question. His life. Yeah. You mentioned another story, and then we'll get into some of the things you talked about, but pastor John Boston. What a great name. Yeah. I know.6:30 John Boston. What happened to John?6:33 John was in a car accident. His car hit a utility pole. A electric wire fell down and electrified the car. The the door of the car was jammed shut. So he's in this predicament. You know? He can't touch the6:45 metal of the car because he get electrocuted, and the, the the door is jammed. And and then there's a scruffy man appears from nowhere and comes up and opens the car door, has an6:57 oil effect, opens the car door, takes out this pastor, takes about 50 feet away, and then the car kinda blows up and and that was it. And and the guy said to him, you know, the the7:08 police are on their way, and I can't be here when they get here. So you're gonna be fine. And then he walked away and disappeared. And this guy this pastor said, it must have been an angel. I believe it was an angel7:20 that rescued me. Of course, the Bible says there are times when we provide hospitality unknowingly to angels.7:26 Right.7:26 And so we do have, according to the Bible, these interactions sometimes with angels. And he's convinced that that's what took place. And, you know, we interview some of the, emergency medical people who came and theyThe Reality of the Soul and Modern Miracles 7:36 have no explanation for how this could have taken place and how somebody could easily have opened that car door in the midst of that terrible accident. So7:44 Yeah. Sometimes the best explanation is the 1 right in front of you. Yeah. And especially, again, as believers, the word says that. Do we strike that from scripture? Yeah. We say, well, we believe all of it but that7:55 line. Yeah. No. The Lord told us.7:58 Exactly.7:58 Exactly that. Yeah. Let's go to the soul. I mean, we have, worldviews that compete on this idea that the human soul exists. Yeah. I would say Marxism kinda treats us as animals.8:10 We're not8:10 different from the animal kingdom.8:12 Right.8:12 We're not distinguished other than we have some intellect ability. Yeah. Describe for people that haven't maybe thought about this, what is the soul?8:21 Yeah. The soul or or our consciousness, our our consciousness, our spirit is the locus of our introspection. It's our first person perspective and so forth. It it's the center of our8:32 emotions and our thoughts and so forth. Now there are scientists today, many of them, who will say, no. No. No. We're just a brain. We really don't have consciousness. That's an illusion. You8:44 are just the product of your neurons firing in your brain and your environment. You don't even have free will. Most of them will say you don't even have free will. You think you do, but you don't. And yet I think, you8:55 know, the Bible presumes that there's a soul, that there's a consciousness, that there's a spirit. It never comes out and says, by the way, this is what the soul is. It just presumes it as virtually every civilization in9:05 history has presumed we have a soul. When I interviewed a neuroscientist from Cambridge University in in, in this book, Seeing the Supernatural, and she talks about how as a scientist, she can map things that9:17 happen in the brain, areas of the brain that light up when when certain thoughts take place or whatever. She said those aren't the thoughts. Those are correlated to the thoughts. She said there's been no discovery of9:28 modern neuroscience that disproves the existence of God. And, she said, in contrary, if there is a God, this would explain why we have a mind, not just a brain, but a mind.9:40 Because we're made in his image.9:41 We're made in his image. God is a disembodied mind. And so it makes sense that we would have a mind as well. So, yeah, I think it's important because the Bible says to be absent from the bodies and present with the Lord.9:53 Jesus told the other person being crucified in the cross, next to him. He said, today, you'll be with me in paradise. Well, you know, Christian teaching is that at the moment of death, our spirit, our soul separates from10:04 our physical body and goes either to be with the Lord or away from the Lord, until the consummation of history, when Jesus returns, when our body is reunited with our, with10:16 our soul and where we have final judgment and then we spend eternity either in the presence of God or absent, his presence in hell. So it's consistent with scripture that we would have a soul10:28 that survives the death of the physical body, and we see this in near death experiences as well.10:33 In fact, Lee, I think this scientist you're quoting also compared the soul to coffee. Now we're getting somewhere.10:39 Now we're getting somewhere. Actually, she was saying that, you know, how do you how do you describe the smell of coffee? And she asked me that as a writer, and I'm saying, I don't how would I10:50 describe the aroma of coffee? And she said, you know, we could talk about the physical makeup of caffeine, the chemical makeup of caffeine. That doesn't get you very far. We could talk to what happens in your body when11:02 you consume, coffee, but that doesn't get us to the smell of coffee. The smell of coffee is an example of what they call qualia, which are things that, we can't really capture except in a first person11:14 experience.11:15 You have11:15 to do. You have to experience it. And and that's what the first person perspective and first person experience is, what the soul, the consciousness, the spirit, provides to us.11:27 What we see in touch can only take us so far.11:29 Lee, when we read the Bible, there's many accounts of miracles in there, but literally denominations have sprung up with those that believe those miracles no longer exist Yeah. Or those that believe11:41 that's really only the only thing that exists Yeah. And everything in between. But even the idea that so many denominations or churches have risen up based on this theological difference,11:52 Yeah.11:53 What should we as healthy believers look at when we read these scriptures and the deaf can hear and the blind can see and the lame can walk and, you know, the routine? Yeah. And we don't see it as often today, at least12:05 in Western culture. I hear more of this in Africa and parts of Asia. Yeah. So what what's going on?12:11 Well, we do see miracles in clusters around the planet, as you mentioned, where the gospel is just breaking in in Mozambique, in Brazil, in China. It's been estimated that 90 percent of the growth of the church in China12:22 is a result of people either themselves have had a miracle in their life or they know somebody who has.12:26 Interesting.12:27 So but, nevertheless, there are modern miracles that and, again, I'm a skeptic, so I I want documentation. I want corroboration. I want investigation. And so what it does for me is it does 212:39 things. Number 1, it gives me more evidence that God exists. And number 2, it gives me more confidence in the gospels and in the in the Bible. Because if if if Jesus did miracles in the first century, a lot of12:50 people find that an impediment to believing the the gospels of being true. But if if if we're still seeing miracles today, then they certainly could have taken place in the first century. So it's a way almost of13:01 corroborating, what the gospels are telling us. So, I look at cases that are particularly either published in peer reviewed medical journals, that are done as13:13 scientific studies. And there are cases, I'm telling you, that there is no explanation other than a supernatural event has taken place. I'll give you an example. Again, this is a case published in a peer reviewed13:25 medical journal. It's a woman who was blind for 12 years from an incurable medical condition. She went to a school for the blind. She learned to read braille. She walked with a white cane, and she13:37 married a Baptist pastor. So 1 night, they're getting ready for bed, and she's in bed. And he comes up and he starts to cry. And he puts his hand on her shoulder, and he begins to pray. And he says, Lord, I know you can13:46 heal my wife. I know you can restore her sight. And and and I pray you will do it right now. And she opened her eyes to perfect eyesight. And she said, I was blind when my husband started praying.13:58 I opened my eyes. I've got perfect eyesight. It's a miracle. I can't believe it. My life has changed. And for 47 years since then, she's had good eyesight. Yeah. This is, again, published in a peer reviewed14:10 medical journal as a case study. How do you account for that?14:13 Where did she live?14:14 I'm not sure what town she was in.14:16 But in the US?14:16 In the United States. Wow.14:17 And, you know, part of me is going, really? I need to see that.14:20 Yes. And same as you. You know, there was, I did a study. I hired George Barnard's organization to do a study, and I asked a cross section of American adults, have you ever had at least 1 experience in your life that you14:31 can only explain as a miracle of God? 38 percent of American adults said yes. Now let's just throw out 99 percent of them. Let's say, yeah, they think it was a miracle. It was just a big coincidence.14:43 Let's throw out 90 that still leaves 1000000 miracles just in the United States. So God is still in the miracle business. Now here's the thing. This is a valid scientific study that was published14:55 in a secular scientific peer reviewed medical journal, the Southern Medical Journal, a reputable medical journal. And I went and in my book, Seeing the Supernatural, I interviewed the scholar that did this research. And15:07 I said, what are you what's your conclusion? And she said, well, being a professor at a secular university, she can only go so far. So she said, well, something is going on. Interesting. Something is15:19 going on.15:19 You know, Lee, I've now that you're saying this, you know, I I, go to Mayo for a checkup every year. There is more, talk about the importance of prayer Yes. The15:31 importance of God, even in those medical discussions15:34 Yes.15:34 Because they're seeing those that do that Yes. Have quicker recovery15:39 Yes.15:39 Better outcomes. That's right. And so even the medical profession is noticing something in this It's15:44 very true.15:44 Area of spirit. Yep. That's right. That's very true. And it's just really kind of15:49 come out over the last decade or so. Like that. Yeah. 1 of the problems with those studies is, though, they'll they'll divide heart attack, let's say. And these people we're gonna pray for, and these people we're not15:59 gonna pray for.15:59 Yeah. That's tough.16:00 Unless yeah. Because you know the people not being prayed for, somebody's praying for. Right? They have family members. So it's hard to kinda get it. But the you're right. There've been a series of of, scientific studies16:11 published in publications through the years that have established that something is going on.16:15 So this is gonna be it's gonna feel like a left field question here. But in the book, you talk about Evel Knievel. Yeah. I can remember being a teenager going, this guy doesn't wanna live. I mean, jumping at Caesar16:26 Palace, and he's up in the I was watching that live. Yeah. I can't remember. I was, like, 12.16:30 Oh, remember when he tumbled and he broke every bone in his body?16:32 I was, like, moving with him, you know, going Yes. Why would a human being do this? I mean, I'm 12 or 13 thinking this guy's crazy.16:39 Right.16:40 But16:40 but it's I tell the story in the book. He this is an example of God, supernaturally intervening in a life. Evel Knievel lived a evil life in many ways. He was a gambler. He was a womanizer.16:52 He drank drunk. Yep. Very successful financially. But he's standing on the beach in Florida at the toward the end of his life, and he told me, he said, God spoke to me. He said, I didn't hear it through my17:04 ear. I heard him in my chest, in my body, and and God said to me, Robert, which is a real name. Robert, I've saved you more times than you'll ever know. Now you need to come to me through my son, Jesus.17:16 And he freaked out. He didn't know what to do. He I I don't even know who Jesus is. So the only Christian he knew was Frank Gifford. Remember this Yeah.17:23 Frank Gifford. Sure.17:24 And so he calls Frank. He said, Frank, I just had this experience. I I don't I don't know. Who's Jesus? And Frank said, get that book, The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Seriously? Yeah. That'll explain it. So Why? So17:34 he gets my anyway, Evel Knievel had a radical born again experience. Hundred and 80 degree turn in his life. Just remarkable. When he was baptized, he17:46 shared his testimony. The pastor ripped up his sermon and said, you all have heard the gospel. This is a church that never had an altar call. He said, anybody wants to come up right now, receive Christ, be baptized.17:57 700 people came forward Oh, my. In 2 services. It was, Christianity Today did an article about it. It was like Pentecost. I mean and we became friends. I remember the first time he called me, I18:09 answered the phone. I said, hi. This is Lee. And he said, is this Lee Strobel? I said, yes. He said, this is evil. And I thought Satan has got my phone number. I said, is this even possible? I said, no. No. Evil could18:19 even oh, okay. I18:20 was gonna say, if you went to dinner, you didn't let him drive, did you? You know what? You know, he Hey, Lee. Let me no. 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