I can understand where you're coming from, yet "the spirit of this age" and "the spirit of the world" is so strong that I'm with him on erring on the side of caution.
A recent example is that I saw a number that had significance to me when I was in NAR coming back up again a lot, so much so that I did start that errant, dangerous thought "It must be a sign!" Cue some woo woo
Twilight Zone music. I was seeing it everywhere! At work, at the store, in a gym class with the number of reps we did, etc. Truth is that it was not a sign, but I was assigning artificial significance to a number. At least it wasn't 11 and multiples of 11, but it may well have been with the attention I was giving it.
I think we have to think about what motivates us and draws us to supposed signs. We have all we need in Scripture really, but yet, if you're like me, you may be drawn to go out of bounds which for me has led to heartache and despair. I'm not saying you're like me, but I would just err on the side of caution. Not look for numbers or Marshalls.