The Glenn Beck Program - August 10, 2024


Ep 222 ｜ Former Agnostic： There IS Life After Death ｜ John Burke ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 7 minutes

Words per Minute

152.76128

Word Count

10,243

Sentence Count

785

Misogynist Sentences

12

Hate Speech Sentences

13


Summary

Pastor John Burke has spent years studying near-death experiences, or in the business we call them NDEs. He s examined thousands of stories and talked to the people who have technically, clinically died, but then came back thanks to either modern medicine or a miracle. Surprisingly, when they come back, they tell a very similar story about the afterlife. And all of these stories, Burke says, points to the truth of goodness of a living God.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Have you ever wondered what happens after you die?
00:00:08.140 I mean, do you float out of your body towards a great light?
00:00:10.600 Do you feel happy, afraid, or nothing at all?
00:00:13.780 For most of us, life after death is a mystery and maybe a collection of hopes or fears.
00:00:21.520 But it's not a mystery to my next guest.
00:00:23.680 He has spent years studying what are known as near-death experiences, or in the business, we call them NDEs.
00:00:32.280 He's examined thousands of stories and talked to the people who have technically, clinically died,
00:00:39.060 but then brought back thanks to either modern medicine or a miracle.
00:00:43.460 Surprisingly, when they come back, they all tell a very similar story.
00:00:49.000 They tell about the afterlife.
00:00:50.460 And all of these stories, my next guest says, points to the truth of goodness of a living God.
00:00:58.280 Welcome to the podcast, pastor and best-selling author, John Burke.
00:01:05.500 If you think you've heard the best part, we haven't even begun with John Burke.
00:01:10.440 The name of the book, again, is Imagine the God of Heaven.
00:01:14.140 More in just a second.
00:01:15.160 First, it's amazing how easy it can be for your whole day to be derailed.
00:01:19.620 One minute, you're just standing there living your life.
00:01:22.320 The next minute, everything comes crashing down because you're living with pain.
00:01:26.480 I know what that's like.
00:01:28.200 I know how it can go on and on and on and just suck the life out of you.
00:01:32.600 You get to a point to where you feel like, I just, I can't do it this way anymore.
00:01:36.300 I just can't.
00:01:37.560 You don't feel like you want to go on.
00:01:39.260 But everybody is important in this fight that we're in right now.
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00:02:28.220 Hi, John.
00:02:42.320 How are you?
00:02:43.680 Hey, Glenn.
00:02:44.560 I'm great.
00:02:45.280 How are you?
00:02:46.280 It's, I'm great.
00:02:47.620 Well, I mean, it's still being, it's under investigation right now, so I can't talk much about it, but I think I'm pretty good.
00:02:53.660 I am so excited for people who don't know you.
00:02:58.180 May we start kind of at the beginning of your journey and then just kind of take where you are now.
00:03:06.540 But when your father died, you were agnostic or would you say you were atheist?
00:03:16.820 I would say agnostic.
00:03:18.460 I mean, I, yeah, I, I, I studied engineering.
00:03:24.380 I worked as an engineer.
00:03:25.480 I've always had a very analytical mind.
00:03:28.080 You know, I want to know how do the pieces fit together?
00:03:31.300 How do you know it's true?
00:03:32.500 Yeah, I was, I was very inquisitive.
00:03:35.400 So I think early on, I just had a lot of questions and very few answers.
00:03:40.320 And I just thought, you know, Jesus is probably a legend.
00:03:44.360 God, I don't know.
00:03:45.800 Who knows?
00:03:46.380 You can't know.
00:03:47.400 Kind of, that's kind of where I'd landed.
00:03:50.120 And then my dad was dying of cancer.
00:03:53.480 And this is decades ago.
00:03:55.660 Someone gave him the very first research on near-death experiences.
00:04:01.260 And this is, this is people who have clinically died.
00:04:04.920 Um, so they have no, no heartbeat and no brain waves, uh, in many cases for minutes to hours.
00:04:14.720 And yet modern medicine resuscitates them.
00:04:17.560 And this is, of course, it's been happening more, more and more.
00:04:21.120 And modern medicine are in some case miracle.
00:04:23.920 I mean, hours, you know, it's, it's probably not modern medicine, but they come back, they
00:04:29.820 come back and they come back talking about being more alive than they've ever been before
00:04:36.400 in a place more real than this place, more beauty than we've ever imagined.
00:04:42.200 Um, and many times in the presence of a God of light and love, uh, whose presence they
00:04:49.480 never wanted to leave.
00:04:50.480 So I, I see this on my dad's book stand, you know, his, his book beside his bed and I start
00:04:57.040 flipping through it and I'm like, Whoa, what is this?
00:05:00.300 And I, I couldn't put it down.
00:05:01.940 I read the whole thing in one night and my thought was, wow.
00:05:07.040 Okay.
00:05:07.480 This could be the evidence that I've been, I've been wanting, looking for, I've been looking.
00:05:13.380 And so it didn't lead me to faith, um, or, you know, say, okay, there's definitely a
00:05:19.280 God or heaven or hell or anything like that.
00:05:21.720 I just, it opened my mind.
00:05:23.980 And so I started seeking.
00:05:25.780 Um, so I started reading the Bible.
00:05:27.980 I started asking my questions in other places, started finding other answers.
00:05:32.640 And, and I did come to faith and, and eventually I left my career in engineering and I went into
00:05:39.800 ministry really to share the amazing things that I was finding.
00:05:44.500 I was like, why, why didn't anybody tell me this?
00:05:48.060 You know?
00:05:48.320 And, um, and so over the last 35 years, just really because of my inquisitive nature, I have
00:05:55.620 studied, uh, and collected and systematized, uh, probably close to 1,500 cases of near death
00:06:03.800 experience and personally interviewed many of them now.
00:06:07.280 And what, what I was always trying to understand is, okay, how do these then fit with what God
00:06:16.420 has revealed throughout history and recorded in the Bible?
00:06:20.300 That's always been my curiosity.
00:06:22.500 So I finally wrote a book.
00:06:25.760 And I'm sorry to interrupt.
00:06:26.960 And that's, you're saying, how do you square this with heaven, hell judgment, uh, and all
00:06:32.480 of that, because some people are not necessarily, you know, uh, following Jesus or, you know,
00:06:40.160 whatever.
00:06:40.440 And they have positive experiences, right?
00:06:44.460 Well, and that was a big question mark that, that, you know, it took me 35 years to write
00:06:50.100 the book for a reason.
00:06:51.220 Um, you know, because I had a lot of questions myself now I saw, I saw a lot of alignment.
00:06:58.980 It was, in fact, it was amazing in, in the book I wrote in 2015 called imagine heaven.
00:07:04.960 I basically showed how 40 of these commonalities that people all around the globe talk about.
00:07:13.160 So, you know, it, any one, I, I don't really believe, I mean, I'm skeptical.
00:07:19.520 I'm like, well, maybe.
00:07:20.820 Yeah.
00:07:21.220 But when you have five, 10, 15 saying exactly the same thing and they're from different parts
00:07:28.960 of the globe or they're, they're spine surgeons, they're CEOs, they're, they're, you know, medical
00:07:35.320 doctors and other lawyers, um, commercial airline pilot.
00:07:39.220 I mean, these are the people I've interviewed.
00:07:41.340 Like, what do they have to gain making up crazy stories about having this heavenly experience
00:07:49.140 and seeing Jesus?
00:07:49.820 And in today's world, you have probably more to lose by telling, at least in America to
00:07:55.180 tell those kinds of stories.
00:07:56.360 People, they just think you're a whack job.
00:07:57.780 So what did you find when you're looking through all of these stories, what are the things they
00:08:02.840 all have in common?
00:08:04.380 Well, um, well, I'll, I'll, I'll tell you, um, let me tell you a couple of them by, by telling
00:08:17.500 you what convinced me.
00:08:19.420 Okay.
00:08:19.920 So in, in chapter two of this new book, I wrote, imagine the God of heaven.
00:08:24.400 I talk about, uh, science skeptics and near-death experiences.
00:08:28.600 And I go through the 10 points of evidence that, that convinced not only me, but convinced
00:08:34.360 many medical doctors that, that these are real, they're grounded in reality.
00:08:39.700 In other words, it's not just, uh, you know, anoxia, oxygen deprivation.
00:08:46.080 It's not just endorphins or other chemicals flooding the brain to ease our passing.
00:08:51.100 It can't be explained by something happening in the brain, first of all, because there
00:08:55.240 are no brain waves in many cases.
00:08:57.800 Um, but one of them that is a commonality is when people come back, they can make observations
00:09:08.020 that can be verified.
00:09:10.220 Okay.
00:09:10.860 So, so when people die, they say they leave their body, but they still have a body.
00:09:17.720 They have a spiritual body.
00:09:19.540 Now, actually the apostle Paul talked about this.
00:09:23.120 Um, and, and by the way, I think the apostle Paul might have had a near-death experience,
00:09:28.880 you know, in, um, in Acts chapter 14, he, it talks about how in Lystra, a mob turned on
00:09:37.980 him, stoned him to death, dragged him out of the city and left him for dead.
00:09:41.780 And, and, and yet as his friends gathered around him, he gets back up and he goes back into
00:09:50.280 the city, which I wouldn't do if someone had just stoned me to death.
00:09:54.140 He was a pretty courageous dude, you know?
00:09:56.860 Um, but in second Corinthians 12, he says of himself 14 years ago, whether I was in my body
00:10:04.040 or out of my body, I don't know.
00:10:05.720 Only God knows.
00:10:07.220 Now, why would he say that?
00:10:08.660 Well, because we still are ourselves when we die, many people don't realize they're dead
00:10:14.180 because we're still ourselves.
00:10:15.300 We're more ourselves and we still have a body that's like our own, but it's a spiritual body.
00:10:20.280 And Paul said, I was taken up into heaven and saw and heard things inexpressible.
00:10:24.240 Now, this spiritual body, people say they're above their physical body and many times watching
00:10:33.440 their resuscitation or watching what's happening in the ER.
00:10:37.460 When they come back into their body, they can report things that they saw while they had
00:10:43.920 no brainwaves.
00:10:45.920 So I'll give you an example.
00:10:48.660 Um, one medical doctor, a cardiologist I interviewed, Dr. Pim Van Lommel, he's actually,
00:10:53.760 he's, he, he was attending, um, in the ER in Holland when a man was brought in from a
00:11:00.960 park with no heartbeat, no brainwaves.
00:11:03.320 They didn't know how long he'd been dead.
00:11:05.660 So they, they're going to shock his heart.
00:11:07.800 They need to intubate him.
00:11:09.720 Uh, and the nurse saw dentures in his mouth, took the dentures out, put it in the lower drawer
00:11:14.220 of the crash cart and they shocked him, got his heart started again, but he never came
00:11:18.980 to in the ER.
00:11:20.140 So they move him to another room a week later, he comes out of coma and he's bothered.
00:11:26.600 Where are my dentures?
00:11:27.940 You lost my dentures.
00:11:29.920 And then he sees a nurse in the hallway and he says, Hey, get that nurse.
00:11:33.780 That nurse knows where my dentures are and they get the nurse.
00:11:38.620 And then he goes on to explain that he was there up above his body.
00:11:42.840 He described all the personnel in the ER, what they did, what they said, and that, that nurse
00:11:49.920 was the one that took the dentures and put them in the lower drawer of that, that cart
00:11:54.540 with all the bottles on it.
00:11:56.500 And that's exactly where they found them.
00:11:58.480 And it's exactly what happened.
00:12:01.360 Now there have actually, that's, that's, you know, that's a one-off story, but there
00:12:05.400 are many of these.
00:12:06.660 And then in the books, I put these as examples, but also like tell the one with the red dot
00:12:13.540 with the red sticker.
00:12:15.280 Yeah.
00:12:15.460 Yeah.
00:12:15.860 So Mary, uh, in London, and this is in the nineties when they, you know, they still had
00:12:21.220 ceiling fans in, in the hospitals.
00:12:23.560 Um, she dies giving birth to her child.
00:12:27.760 Uh, she's, she's up above.
00:12:29.740 And then as is common as well, she starts to travel.
00:12:33.320 She leaves the room.
00:12:34.540 She travels.
00:12:35.760 Um, in her case, it was through a tunnel.
00:12:37.620 Sometimes it's not through a tunnel, um, and comes into the presence of this God of light
00:12:44.760 who she knew was God, even though she had left the Catholic church long time ago.
00:12:50.500 Um, um, he knew this was God without a doubt and felt this unbelievable, unconditional love.
00:12:57.600 She called it like, like the love of a mother times a thousand.
00:13:01.160 And, and she has a conversation and another commonality is a life review.
00:13:07.040 Um, we can talk more about that cause that's, that's, that changes people's lives.
00:13:10.240 Yeah.
00:13:10.260 Cause I want to get into that.
00:13:11.800 Yeah.
00:13:12.280 But, but he says to her and, uh, and again, the communication.
00:13:17.600 So it's interesting because the communication is thought to thought or just heart to heart.
00:13:22.300 It's, it's not audible.
00:13:24.260 Sometimes it is, but, but usually it's just pure.
00:13:27.820 Um, and, and, and we have on the other side, they say not just five senses, more like 50 senses,
00:13:33.940 which interestingly is what Paul said as well.
00:13:37.140 In first Corinthians 15, Paul said, our bodies are buried in natural body, but they're raised
00:13:41.860 a spiritual body.
00:13:42.840 They're buried in weakness, but they're raised in dunamis in power.
00:13:47.760 And they talk about that eyesight.
00:13:49.520 That's like telescopic communication.
00:13:52.100 It's pure, all these things.
00:13:53.840 So he says to her, you, you need to go back.
00:13:57.640 Your son is going to live and he needs you.
00:14:01.200 She argues with him.
00:14:02.640 And, and, you know, Glenn, this is one of the things I love about, about this is that I,
00:14:08.160 I can't tell you how many near-death experiencers I've interviewed have told me they argued with
00:14:12.800 God, which you'd think, what do you, what are you thinking?
00:14:17.860 But what they say is, even though he's power inexpressible, I mean, this is, this is light
00:14:24.780 brighter than the sun thousands of times, yet not hard to look at mesmerizing, but they
00:14:31.680 feel so comfortable, so known, so, so personally understood in his presence.
00:14:39.680 She's like, this is the greatest thing I've ever experienced.
00:14:42.420 I don't want to go back.
00:14:43.420 No, please don't send me back.
00:14:45.200 I want to be with you.
00:14:46.840 And he says, you need to go back for your son.
00:14:49.000 Well, she does come back.
00:14:50.100 And as she's coming into the ER, she sees on the top of a ceiling fan on the, on the
00:14:57.400 ceiling side, a red sticker.
00:14:59.400 Um, when she comes to, she's trying to tell the doctors and nurses, this incredible experience
00:15:05.600 she had with God and all this, and they think she's psychotic.
00:15:09.020 And that's commonly what happens.
00:15:10.920 And it's why many shut up after that, because this is a, this is a sacred experience.
00:15:18.020 This is, how do you describe an experience more real than what we've experienced?
00:15:24.340 Correct.
00:15:24.860 Right.
00:15:25.280 Correct.
00:15:25.780 And I have an analogy for that, but, but what happened is, hang on just a second, but yes,
00:15:30.080 go ahead.
00:15:30.900 Yeah.
00:15:31.100 I want you to finish that story.
00:15:32.720 Yeah.
00:15:33.100 She finally tells a nurse, here's where you walk.
00:15:36.340 Here's what you did.
00:15:37.220 Here's what you said.
00:15:37.980 And the nurse was like shocked.
00:15:39.620 And she said, look, I can prove it to you.
00:15:42.920 Mary said this, go get a ladder and look on the top side of the ceiling fan and you'll
00:15:47.120 find a red sticker.
00:15:48.120 And here's what it says.
00:15:49.920 And the nurse did with the help of an orderly.
00:15:52.620 And sure enough, it checked out.
00:15:55.440 Now, again, those, those verifiable observations have been studied.
00:16:02.420 So I'm not the only one who has studied these near death experiences.
00:16:05.760 Do you know, there have been 900 scholarly articles written, uh, Dr.
00:16:11.360 Pim van Lommel, the, the Dutch cardiologist wrote up his in the Lancet, Europe's most prestigious
00:16:16.980 medical journal, Dr.
00:16:19.540 Jeffrey Long, who, uh, I know and have interviewed has studied as many as I have wrote.
00:16:24.840 Um, oh, actually he, he didn't write the articles, Dr.
00:16:28.380 Sabum, another cardiologist who set out to disprove near death experiences.
00:16:34.460 And after five years of research writes an article in the journal of the American Medical
00:16:39.060 Association saying, no, they're grounded in reality because of these verifiable observations.
00:16:46.360 Dr.
00:16:46.960 Janice Holden did a study of about a hundred near death experience patients who had had cardiac
00:16:52.760 arrests compared them to a control group who had had cardiac arrest, but had not had a claim
00:16:59.000 to have a near death experience found that of their many observations that each one might
00:17:04.880 make, right?
00:17:05.840 Each one might make five or 10 observations.
00:17:09.640 92% were completely accurate.
00:17:13.420 So in other words, they're, they're telling exactly what, and this is what Dr.
00:17:16.980 Sabum said, he said, these patients could tell me what I did in, in resuscitation of a heart
00:17:25.300 attack that I could have used the tape to teach other physicians how to do, um, you know,
00:17:31.660 resuscitation.
00:17:32.760 He said they couldn't possibly have known that.
00:17:34.820 So Dr.
00:17:35.900 Holden compares it to a, uh, a control group asking them, you had a heart attack.
00:17:41.660 What do you think happened in the ER to resuscitate you?
00:17:44.240 It was guesswork, like 20% accurate.
00:17:48.900 So that's the first thing that really, um, that's, those are some commonalities, but it's
00:17:54.360 also the thing that convinced me or began to convince me when I was a skeptical engineer.
00:18:00.320 The second thing, and with this one, I'll tell you more of the, of the commonalities
00:18:05.280 through, through one of the people I, um, I report on when people blind from birth have
00:18:11.440 a near-death experience, they can see when they come back and are resuscitated, they still
00:18:18.840 can't see yet.
00:18:20.920 They report the same things that cited near-death experiencers report.
00:18:26.800 And some of the things they report, they could not possibly have, have, uh, known or made
00:18:33.580 up.
00:18:33.860 So I'll give you an example, Vicki and I, and I report in the new book, uh, both books.
00:18:39.240 I think I've, I report on three, uh, six total blind people who've had these near-death experiences.
00:18:47.420 Vicki was 22.
00:18:48.920 She, she dies in a car accident.
00:18:51.460 Um, she's there in the hospital and she's above her body, but she doesn't know she's like
00:18:56.700 trying to adjust what's this new sense.
00:18:58.820 And, and so for instance, one of the commonalities is how they see colors beyond our color spectrum.
00:19:07.480 And, um, but Vicki didn't have words for it.
00:19:10.920 She just said there were, there were all these different brightnesses.
00:19:14.220 That's all the, that's how she had to describe it.
00:19:16.800 She realizes that's her body.
00:19:18.980 Cause first of all, she feels wonderful, like, but it's chaos in the ER.
00:19:23.780 And then she notices the, the body on the table has very long hair and a ring with orange
00:19:28.940 blossoms.
00:19:29.420 And that was her wedding ring.
00:19:31.580 And she goes, I don't know what you guys are so upset about.
00:19:34.520 I feel great.
00:19:35.540 And she said, I, I know where I'm going, you know, she, she believed in Jesus.
00:19:40.380 She said, I know where I'm going.
00:19:41.700 And boom, she shoots out.
00:19:44.000 So her, her spiritual body or her soul shoots out of the hospital.
00:19:48.520 She can see all around and then she, she entered what, what I think was a tunnel.
00:19:56.500 Cause that is a, that is a commonality though.
00:19:59.320 Not always.
00:19:59.980 Sometimes it's just, they just keep going.
00:20:02.900 Um, but she said, I entered this place where suddenly there were, there, there was no color.
00:20:08.920 Well, that would be black.
00:20:10.740 Right.
00:20:11.760 And it's this dark tunnel that she goes through and she sees light at the end.
00:20:15.940 And, and when she comes out, she comes out into this bright, beautiful world, not unlike
00:20:21.840 earth, you know, grass and trees and flowers and this beautiful garden or mountains in the
00:20:27.160 distance, the rivers, it's, it's, it's unbelievable beauty like earth, but experienced in new dimensions
00:20:35.840 of time and space.
00:20:37.380 And she says, and now this is one of the keys.
00:20:42.000 She said, the light in this world was not like the light on earth.
00:20:46.200 Now she would have only felt the light on earth shining on her.
00:20:48.880 Right.
00:20:49.760 But she said, this light was love and life and light all together.
00:20:57.680 And it was shining out of everything.
00:20:59.420 It was shining out of the grass and out of the trees and out of the birds.
00:21:02.120 And even out of this group of people who were coming to welcome her and, and she saw in
00:21:08.080 the group, her grandmother and her two friends who had died at age nine and seven that she'd
00:21:13.140 grown up with in a, in a children's home for the blind, uh, Debbie and Diane, she said,
00:21:18.340 but they looked in their prime and, and they were healthy and, and they too had this, this
00:21:24.680 light, she could recognize them fully, but there was this light coming out of everything that
00:21:28.060 was love.
00:21:28.600 Okay.
00:21:29.600 So stop a second and think about this.
00:21:32.040 A person blind from birth would have only heard on earth that light shines on things,
00:21:37.220 not out of things.
00:21:40.180 And yet the Jewish prophet Isaiah who wrote in seven 80 BC and John, one of Jesus disciples
00:21:47.620 who writes in revelation 21, both there is no sun or moon in heaven because the glory of
00:21:55.420 God is its light and the lamb, which is Jesus is its lamp and the nations will walk in that
00:22:03.780 light.
00:22:05.720 That's exactly something.
00:22:07.080 This, this, this gave me goosebumps to hear you say this because I had a, an experience,
00:22:11.960 uh, in my life where I had, um, a dream and, you know, sometimes you have dreams and then other
00:22:18.900 times you have something that you're like, that wasn't a dream.
00:22:21.680 I don't know what that was, but I had this dream and it was, it was at a, yeah, it was
00:22:26.740 a pivot point in my life.
00:22:28.400 I was really struggling with some things in my past and I didn't want to face them.
00:22:32.840 And I had this dream where all of a sudden I was in this very black and white, almost
00:22:38.180 sepia colored world.
00:22:39.560 And it was like, I was in the middle of nowhere, uh, and it was all broken, like cornfields,
00:22:45.940 uh, that were all just dead and, you know, brown and, and dirty snow everywhere.
00:22:52.120 And I stood on this, this road and I, I did a three 60 scan and right behind me was this
00:23:00.060 horrible black storm.
00:23:01.800 And, uh, I just remember thinking, well, I'm not going that way.
00:23:06.760 And, uh, and so I'm just looking around wondering where I'm going to go.
00:23:10.560 And a voice behind me said, where are you going?
00:23:14.640 And I said, well, I don't know, but I'm not going that way.
00:23:17.880 And I turned around and he was behind me and, uh, he said, oh, that storm, that's nothing.
00:23:23.800 And he was this old kind of like head, like almost like nicotine, you know, kind of that
00:23:29.540 yellowy beard.
00:23:30.540 And he was just dirty and everything was dirty and gray and brown.
00:23:35.720 And, um, he, I said, that'll kill me.
00:23:38.840 And he said, no, it's, it's nothing.
00:23:41.260 And I grabbed his hand and all of a sudden we were flying and we flew over the storm.
00:23:47.280 And what I saw was technicolor.
00:23:51.280 It was, it was unlike colors I had ever seen before.
00:23:55.940 And it was so warm.
00:23:57.940 And so, uh, just, you just felt the love.
00:24:02.340 And I said, the first thing I said to myself, kind of, I said, it's so warm here.
00:24:09.100 And he said, this is on the other side.
00:24:12.400 And I turned to look at him and I only saw him for a flash of a second.
00:24:16.660 I saw his beard, which was all yellow and dark.
00:24:20.580 And I saw his hand.
00:24:23.120 And the only way I can describe it is it was made of light.
00:24:27.220 It was like his beard was like a fiber optic.
00:24:30.600 Everything was made of light.
00:24:32.920 And I woke up.
00:24:34.760 And to hear that description is like exactly what I saw.
00:24:38.480 So, yeah, I mean, uh, I probably, God gave you a vivid dream for a purpose.
00:24:47.100 Yeah.
00:24:47.840 And I mean, he did.
00:24:49.200 It changed my life.
00:24:50.280 And there, and there is a storm.
00:24:51.720 There is a dark storm.
00:24:53.020 Yeah.
00:24:53.660 Right.
00:24:54.280 And yet it's nothing.
00:24:55.720 It's, it's nothing to him.
00:24:57.360 We can, we can fly.
00:24:59.320 So, so here's something fascinating because Vicki, um, something that ties into what you just said.
00:25:08.740 So this, this girl blind from birth, blind when she came back, um, sees this welcoming committee, her grandmother, Debbie and Diane, they too have light.
00:25:19.940 This light that is love.
00:25:21.600 Of course, if this is the glory of God, one, God is love and God is light.
00:25:27.860 And he's the light that gives life to everything.
00:25:31.740 Of course, this is not new.
00:25:34.020 This God of light, you know, the same.
00:25:36.880 God who appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai in a bush that wouldn't burn up.
00:25:42.320 That was a brilliant light, right?
00:25:44.560 Jesus is transfigured on the mountain and his face turned brighter than the sun.
00:25:50.340 And he says, I am the light of the world.
00:25:52.720 Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but have the light of life.
00:25:57.340 Right.
00:25:57.820 So, you know, and Jesus said in Matthew 13, talking about the future, then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father forever.
00:26:10.840 And he also says in Luke 16, use your worldly wealth to make friends so that when it is gone, they will welcome you into eternal homes.
00:26:22.940 So, this welcoming committee and these people who have the light and love of God coming out of them or shining through them or experiencing that, it's all in the Bible.
00:26:35.360 But this is exactly what near-death experiencers say.
00:26:39.220 And how and why would they say that?
00:26:42.800 And why would a blind person say that?
00:26:44.680 Because most Christians don't know that in heaven there's no sun or moon and that I didn't know this.
00:26:52.600 In fact, part of why it took me a long time is I was like, oh, this sounds really weird, bizarre, new agey stuff.
00:26:58.540 This isn't biblical.
00:27:00.300 I can't talk about this.
00:27:02.300 And then the more I studied, you know, I became a pastor.
00:27:07.100 And so, you know, I went to seminary and I studied and studied and studied.
00:27:10.220 And along the way, the Lord was like, look, right there.
00:27:14.360 That's what these people are saying.
00:27:16.720 That's what this is.
00:27:18.520 So, then Vicki turns because she sees a light brighter than any and turns and there's Jesus.
00:27:27.380 But he's a man of light.
00:27:30.020 And she runs to him and she said, he hugged me.
00:27:33.740 But the hug was like deeper than anything you could experience on earth.
00:27:38.420 But here's the thing she said.
00:27:41.000 She said, I could feel his beard and there were lights in his beard.
00:27:47.500 That's what this blind girl said.
00:27:49.400 Yes.
00:27:50.300 What you just said.
00:27:51.720 Is that wild?
00:27:53.700 It's crazy.
00:27:55.080 And she describes Jesus, you know, the way you would picture him.
00:28:00.300 And, you know, she was asked like, well, how did you picture him before?
00:28:06.060 And she said, well, you don't understand.
00:28:08.040 I was blind from birth.
00:28:09.020 I had no pictures.
00:28:12.020 People blind from birth don't have mental images.
00:28:15.980 So, even if she had heard things about Jesus, she didn't form a mental image.
00:28:22.040 That sense was not even part of her world.
00:28:25.860 So, it wouldn't be part of her memories either.
00:28:27.820 And yet, you know, she experiences him, describes him that way.
00:28:34.300 And he says to her, you're going to love it here.
00:28:37.080 It all fits together.
00:28:39.300 And they have a conversation.
00:28:40.820 And then he gives her a life review, which is another commonality all around the world.
00:28:48.140 When people are in God's presence, they experience a life review.
00:28:53.300 And, you know, what's fascinating, Glenn, is these – and you have to understand that time works differently on the other side.
00:29:01.820 And near-death experiencers have said to me, there was no time.
00:29:06.060 Or others have said, well, there was time, but there was all the time you needed.
00:29:11.620 Or it wasn't time like we experienced time.
00:29:14.180 It was like all time at the same time.
00:29:17.040 They said it's really hard to put into words.
00:29:18.780 But here's what's interesting, is that 2 Peter 3.8, Peter, one of Jesus' disciples, said to the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.
00:29:31.280 And I've had neurologists who've had near-death experiencers say almost the same thing.
00:29:35.660 Like, I don't know if it was seconds or hours or days.
00:29:39.560 But because time works – and in Imagine the God of Heaven, I go into, you know, how if time were experienced even in not just one dimension like we do, but two dimensions or three dimensions, it would give the sense of what they say.
00:29:57.840 Yeah.
00:29:58.280 And so, they watch kind of as a panoramic replay of their lives happens before them, but the emphasis is on relationship.
00:30:09.860 And they experience not only what they were thinking and feeling in every interaction, but they also often experience what the other person was thinking and feeling, and how their little acts of kindness affected that person and even rippled through humanity, 20, 30 people beyond, or how their mean acts –
00:30:35.040 So, you felt that, they felt that, they understood how, why that little thing mattered.
00:30:42.220 Wow.
00:30:42.560 They come back all over the globe saying two things about this life review.
00:30:50.600 One, God is love.
00:30:52.440 They say that.
00:30:53.860 Even if they didn't know God.
00:30:56.100 And two, what matters most to God is how we treat one another, how we love one another.
00:31:01.420 And that, that has the most profound impact on humanity.
00:31:06.700 Now, if you, again, if you think about it, nothing new.
00:31:10.300 Moses said that, Jesus said the first greatest commandment, love God with all you've got.
00:31:15.560 Second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.
00:31:18.840 Do these two.
00:31:20.180 That's the whole Bible.
00:31:21.380 That sums up all the commands.
00:31:23.480 Yeah.
00:31:23.540 And then in Matthew 25, remember Jesus said, you know, one day before the king of the universe, you know, he'll say, basically, when you served, when you fed, when you visited in the hospital, when you visited in prison, when you did these things to the least of these people, you did it to me.
00:31:46.980 And near-death experiencers say that.
00:31:50.620 They say, as they're watching their life review, if they, if they did something, Vicki did something mean to a little girl at one point, you know, she got jealous and angry and ripped off her necklace and all that.
00:32:05.440 And, and she said she could, she could feel Jesus' disappointment in that.
00:32:10.620 But she always felt his unconditional love at the same time.
00:32:13.960 And so they come back realizing, and it changes them because they realize, you know, all the things we tend to live for, to try to prove ourselves to the world or power or status or this or that, it just doesn't matter.
00:32:28.040 Doesn't matter.
00:32:28.840 But, but, but what we do with our, with our gifts and our time and our, and our talents to, to use them to love God and love our fellow human, well, that, that not, not only does it matter, but it has a bigger impact than you could ever imagine.
00:32:45.820 This is just fascinating.
00:32:51.260 When they go through their life review, are they, are they shown, I mean, is it, you know, is it just a series of their whole life, how it happens in time and everything?
00:33:06.320 I don't know, but they see the good and the bad, is it, is it a, is it a, is it a, a judgment in a way from them themselves seeing it, not from somebody accusing, but seeing it knowing the truth now?
00:33:21.440 Yes.
00:33:21.840 And that's, and that's, that's the fascinating thing that confused me for a long time, Glenn, honestly.
00:33:28.020 Cause like I said, I, I went from, from being a engineer to being a pastor and early on.
00:33:35.880 And again, I've studied these for 35 years and I'd say early on, you know, about 10, 15 years into the study of near-death experiences, many researchers were saying, well, look, this clearly has,
00:33:50.720 this is not the God of Jesus because, you know, the God of the Bible is this punishing, vindictive God and the God of near-death experiences is this unconditional love.
00:34:03.780 And what these people commonly say is God was not judging me.
00:34:08.340 God was loving me and supporting me.
00:34:11.340 And I was judging myself and I knew, I knew my right and I knew my wrong.
00:34:18.320 So here's the fascinating thing.
00:34:21.440 One later, I, I, I found a couple of things that made sense of this.
00:34:27.080 First of all, you know, many people know John 3, 16, God so loved the world.
00:34:31.180 He gave his only, only begotten son that whoever would believe in him would have eternal life.
00:34:35.620 Not many know the next verse for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world.
00:34:43.460 Yes.
00:34:43.980 But that the world through him might be saved or rescued or put in right relationship with God.
00:34:51.560 Correct.
00:34:52.160 And so it's not surprising that in the presence of God, people from every nation feel loved because he loves them.
00:35:00.160 He created them to be his child.
00:35:01.760 But the other thing Jesus said to the Pharisees at one point, he said, by your own words, will you be condemned?
00:35:10.680 By your own words, will you be acquitted?
00:35:13.280 And this is exactly what this is showing, is that we can hide from the truth.
00:35:21.360 We can rationalize and justify and pretend in this life, but you can't in that one.
00:35:29.160 You just see the truth.
00:35:30.780 It's unvarnished.
00:35:32.060 So, John, I've often thought that, because I see God as our loving father, and I've learned how to be a better father by reading the scriptures and seeing how he treats us.
00:35:46.940 And it's always, please don't do that.
00:35:49.400 Please don't do that.
00:35:50.220 It's so much easier if you don't do that.
00:35:53.020 And he's always there to forgive us.
00:35:55.500 And I thought about the concept of hell and redemption, and I know because I have been redeemed, and I needed it really badly.
00:36:06.140 And it changed my world.
00:36:08.440 I mean, he saved me, literally and figuratively saved my body and my soul.
00:36:14.000 And so, I've often thought that if you have full recollection of your life, and you can see, and you know the truth, you're standing there at the judgment seat, you know the truth.
00:36:31.660 Unless you've worked redemption and the atonement, unless you know how to apply that to yourself and accept the full forgiveness, you're in hell.
00:36:44.640 Because he's not judging you.
00:36:47.120 You are.
00:36:47.880 He's just saying to you, just forgive, forgive.
00:36:51.400 I love you.
00:36:52.040 I love you.
00:36:52.480 But you can't forgive yourself because you haven't worked the atonement.
00:36:57.360 You haven't worked the redemption that he gave you.
00:37:00.800 It's a personal thing.
00:37:02.540 Does that sound reasonable to you?
00:37:05.460 Yes.
00:37:05.980 And that's what I'm trying to show.
00:37:08.720 So, in Imagine Heaven, I was writing about the commonalities and how they align in the Bible with the afterlife, with heaven, with hell, and generally with the concept of God.
00:37:22.980 But after interviewing so many of them, I found so many of them said, you know, of all the beauty that's to come.
00:37:31.960 And I mean, you think Earth is spectacular now.
00:37:35.480 You know, of all the adventure, of all the great reunions with loved ones, they would say nothing compared to just being in the presence of God.
00:37:44.720 He is the love you've always wanted.
00:37:46.680 And so, I wrote this new book to show, I interviewed 70 people from every continent on the planet.
00:37:58.060 So, this is not just a North American Christian thing.
00:38:02.380 God is the God of all nations.
00:38:03.040 Tell me about B.B. and Saeed.
00:38:05.220 Tell me about B.B. and Saeed, because I think this shows.
00:38:08.720 Yeah, so, yeah, it's a wild, wild story.
00:38:15.780 So, I had a family in our church from Tehran, Iranian family, who had come to faith in Jesus, and the father had literally tried to kill him.
00:38:29.540 And so, they escaped and got refuge in Austin, where my church is, and they started coming to our church.
00:38:35.220 And this, Saeed is their pastor, and when he was visiting Austin, he came to visit them and ask if he could meet with me.
00:38:46.100 And I'm like, sure.
00:38:47.840 And so, we go to lunch, and he brings his mother, B.B., who only speaks Farsi.
00:38:54.860 And I was like, why did you bring your mother who only speaks Farsi?
00:38:58.820 And I didn't know.
00:39:01.180 Now, here's the crazy thing is, he didn't know that I had written a book on near-death experiences.
00:39:09.260 He didn't know I was a New York Times bestselling author on this.
00:39:12.060 He just knew I was a pastor of the church of these people that he used to pastor.
00:39:16.360 And so, we're at lunch, and he said, my mom is related to the prophet Muhammad.
00:39:25.340 And he was telling me how he came to faith in Jesus while in Tehran.
00:39:30.260 And I said, well, is she a believer in Jesus, or is she still Muslim?
00:39:34.740 And he said, well, I'll let her tell you.
00:39:36.860 So, she starts to tell me this story.
00:39:40.460 He's translated.
00:39:41.160 In Farsi?
00:39:42.240 In Farsi.
00:39:42.760 All right.
00:39:44.260 So, I'm sitting in a restaurant hearing this with him translating.
00:39:48.120 She was so distraught over first Saeed, and then his sister also became followers of Jesus,
00:39:56.800 actually because of a vision when Saeed was very conflicted, because he was Hezbollah.
00:40:05.100 He literally had been trained as a teenager in Hezbollah.
00:40:10.220 And he started dating an Iranian girl who was a Christian.
00:40:17.100 And she said, look, if we're going to keep dating, I want you to talk to my pastor.
00:40:21.900 And the pastor basically tried to explain God's grace through Jesus.
00:40:26.060 We can all be forgiven.
00:40:27.760 You know, just turn to him.
00:40:29.420 And he left, and he was so angry, he decided he's going to kill that pastor.
00:40:36.060 This is what he told me.
00:40:36.920 But he had to walk home, and it took him an hour to walk home.
00:40:42.400 And on the walk, he started to become distraught inside.
00:40:47.520 He was like this pastor saying, God loves us, but they're infidels because they believe this
00:40:55.320 Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and God can be a man, and that can't be possible, and it's wrong.
00:41:00.900 And finally, he said, God, I want to know the truth.
00:41:07.560 I will follow you, just show me the truth.
00:41:10.200 And that night, three times, he wakes up with a vision of a man standing with his arms out
00:41:16.920 like this, you know, as if on a cross.
00:41:20.900 And he comes to faith.
00:41:23.700 He leads his sister to faith in Jesus.
00:41:25.820 His mom is so distraught that she has failed Islam.
00:41:31.680 And by the way, they lived in a gated community next door to Achminajab's council.
00:41:38.120 Oh, my gosh.
00:41:39.820 Oh, my gosh.
00:41:40.260 So they were very well-to-do.
00:41:41.800 They're right there.
00:41:43.080 Yeah.
00:41:43.260 They're right there.
00:41:45.060 And she has a heart attack.
00:41:49.040 And she thinks she's going to be judged by the Prophet Ali.
00:41:53.480 That's their belief that that's what's going to happen.
00:42:00.800 And, of course, she's failed.
00:42:03.520 And she's waiting for this.
00:42:05.540 And that's not what happened.
00:42:06.460 And she said this man of light, large, comes and says one thing, I am he who is.
00:42:19.540 That's how Saeed translated it to me.
00:42:21.980 I am he who is.
00:42:23.300 And, boom, she's back in her body, but with a peace and a joy she's never felt before.
00:42:30.260 And she's super confused.
00:42:31.500 Like, who is this God?
00:42:33.620 And she starts seeking.
00:42:34.980 And the next year, she has a whole other revelation and realizes that this was the same God who said in the burning bush to Moses, I am who I am.
00:42:50.920 It's basically the same thing.
00:42:52.080 Translated, I am he who is.
00:42:54.340 And that is Jesus.
00:42:55.320 And she also becomes a follower of Jesus.
00:42:58.980 But here's the crazy thing, Glenn.
00:43:00.580 I've got 70 stories like that.
00:43:03.480 Santosh, one of my favorites, he was a manufacturing engineer, grew up in India.
00:43:10.840 He thought, when I die, there's either nothing or I'll come back as another life form.
00:43:16.900 But he said that's not what happened.
00:43:18.540 He hears code blue.
00:43:20.140 His heart stops.
00:43:21.580 Brainwaves cease.
00:43:23.060 He's there up above his body.
00:43:24.220 And he said this brilliant divine light came to me.
00:43:27.720 And he said this light was brighter than anything you can imagine.
00:43:31.480 I knew it would burn my retina in an instant.
00:43:34.560 But I could look as mesmerizing.
00:43:36.980 And I fell in love with this light because I knew this light was for me.
00:43:41.920 So this light takes him.
00:43:44.140 And I'll have to shorten the story.
00:43:45.560 But it's all in the book, Imagine the God of Heaven.
00:43:48.080 It's fascinating.
00:43:49.040 Basically, he's looking out over this giant, he called it a giant compound, thousands of miles long.
00:44:00.680 But he said, your eyesight's telescopic there.
00:44:04.000 And he said, very high, thick, gorgeous walls.
00:44:08.560 Now, I've been to India many times because we helped build a hospital for impoverished people over there.
00:44:15.880 And there are compounds everywhere.
00:44:18.160 There are these walled, gated compounds everywhere.
00:44:21.800 But he describes it thousands of miles long, square-shaped.
00:44:27.000 And he said, inside these beautiful grounds and buildings of otherworldly building material and people everywhere.
00:44:34.080 And he longed to be inside.
00:44:35.760 He said, this is the goal of humanity.
00:44:37.580 I knew it is to live there, to be there.
00:44:40.320 And he wanted to get in.
00:44:41.920 And he started looking for a way in.
00:44:43.480 And he said, and there were gates, 12 of them.
00:44:46.580 I counted them.
00:44:49.020 And he said, then I looked at the gate closest to me.
00:44:52.040 And I saw angels guarding them.
00:44:56.400 And he said, then I knew.
00:44:57.640 I'm looking at the kingdom of heaven.
00:44:59.340 Now, he perfectly described exactly what John described Jesus' disciple in Revelation 21 when he said he was taken up in the Spirit to a very high mountain and describes this same holy city of God.
00:45:18.440 And by the way, John even says what it said on the foundations.
00:45:23.100 So, if he's up on a very high mountain, how in the world did he read from far away the names on the foundation stones?
00:45:31.120 Well, again, what near-death experiencers say, your eyesight's like telescopic there.
00:45:35.540 Right.
00:45:35.980 And Santosh describes this same exact holy city, yet he had never read the Bible.
00:45:42.740 He then sees a vision of hell.
00:45:45.500 He describes the same thing.
00:45:47.260 It was this abyss of darkness and hopeless.
00:45:52.420 And he knew, you fall there, you never get out.
00:45:56.700 And he doesn't want to go there.
00:45:58.140 He wants to go in the city, but he can't find a way in.
00:46:01.360 And he turns and looks, and there is who he said is God on a throne, but in the form of a man, but a huge man, like Bebe saw.
00:46:14.740 They both describe him the same way.
00:46:17.000 And he looks into his eyes, and he says his eyes were like lightning.
00:46:21.620 So, this, and Santosh said to me afterwards, he said, I believe that was the risen Jesus.
00:46:27.320 God appearing in the form we can understand.
00:46:32.220 And so, he sees his entire life.
00:46:35.240 He sees all his sins, and he falls to his knees and says, Lord, forgive me.
00:46:40.020 Please forgive me.
00:46:40.940 Please forgive me.
00:46:41.360 Because he knew, again, I deserve the abyss.
00:46:46.380 But he didn't want to go there.
00:46:48.380 And he's looking for another way.
00:46:50.880 And Glenn, it's the craziest story because the Lord starts to speak to him, and he says, Santosh, I'm going to send you back.
00:46:56.900 And when I send you back, you must love your family, especially your daughter.
00:47:02.760 She needs you right now.
00:47:05.360 Now, think about this.
00:47:07.440 Here's a guy.
00:47:08.740 He doesn't know the Lord, but the Lord knows him and his daughter and loves them and cares about them.
00:47:15.500 And Santosh then, you know, he was expecting judgment.
00:47:20.740 And instead, he felt this love and mercy and compassion in the Lord's voice.
00:47:26.380 So, he looks to the right, and he sees what he described as this very narrow gate right next to this throne that was open to him.
00:47:38.700 And he could go in.
00:47:40.220 But he knew he couldn't go in without his permission.
00:47:42.560 And so, he gets bold, and he says, Lord, if I come back, I want to go through that narrow gate into your kingdom.
00:47:49.060 How do I go through that narrow gate?
00:47:50.520 Anyway, I'll shorten it, but when he comes back, he is seeking God.
00:47:58.480 And he said, this was not like the gods I had grown up knowing.
00:48:03.620 Who is this God of power but who is loving and personal and compassionate and knew me so well but cared about me and didn't hold my sins against me?
00:48:15.420 And he's seeking, every day he's praying, he's asking the Lord to guide him.
00:48:21.560 And his daughter then is invited, because she was a choral major in college, she's invited with a friend to sing in a choir at church.
00:48:32.800 Santosh goes to hear his daughter, and he walks into this church, and he feels the same love of that God of light.
00:48:41.960 And the message that day is on the narrow gate, and how Jesus is the gate through whom you can enter the kingdom of God.
00:48:50.500 He goes home, and he told me, I started reading the Bible.
00:48:53.200 Everything I experienced was in this book.
00:48:56.120 And he came to faith in Jesus.
00:48:59.140 That's fantastic.
00:49:00.640 I've been friends with him for a couple years now.
00:49:02.880 He actually went through those gates two months ago.
00:49:07.840 Oh.
00:49:08.620 So he died.
00:49:10.720 And he went through.
00:49:11.180 But so, Glenn, Australians, Chinese people, people in the Middle East, in Canada, it doesn't matter where they come from.
00:49:25.640 It doesn't matter their religious background.
00:49:27.920 Even some who didn't believe in God at all, they're reporting the same God who revealed himself throughout history.
00:49:35.940 And that's what I'm trying to show.
00:49:37.320 Well, so I think your work is really important now because there is a lack of faith.
00:49:44.080 And those with faith sometimes believe it, but they disempower it.
00:49:53.100 You know, they look at their life, and they're like, yeah, yeah, well, that's God.
00:49:57.840 And, you know, people ask me all the time, Glenn, what are we going to do?
00:50:00.260 What are we going to do?
00:50:00.780 And I'm like, well, we can't do anything but what we can do.
00:50:05.040 God knows this isn't a surprise.
00:50:07.580 He's got it all taken care of.
00:50:09.380 We have to do what we have to do, but trust in him.
00:50:13.020 And so many Christians just dismiss that.
00:50:17.300 They're like, yeah, yeah, I know I've got to pray and read the Bible, but what are we going to do?
00:50:20.180 No, that's the first thing that you should be doing, and then working on yourself to forgive others and to be kind and not get wrapped up into this world.
00:50:31.240 You know, when you're in a self-defense situation, when it's either you or them, I'd like to, as kind of in the spirit of this podcast, introduce my foe to Jesus.
00:50:45.640 But I don't always want to introduce somebody to Jesus.
00:50:49.460 That's a huge responsibility, and we will be held accountable.
00:50:53.320 Also, you'll be held accountable with the rule of law here in America, and it's going to wreck your life for about two years.
00:51:01.640 And God help you if you made the wrong choice.
00:51:04.560 There is an alternative to a lethal weapon, and that is a Berna launcher.
00:51:10.760 I have it.
00:51:11.680 Members of my family have it.
00:51:13.080 My team has it.
00:51:14.040 It is a great complement to firearms.
00:51:16.680 I am a big believer in firearms.
00:51:19.180 But there are situations where less than lethal is the way to go.
00:51:22.400 And Berna is the best alternative to deadly force.
00:51:26.080 It fires powerful deterrents like tear gas and kinetic rounds.
00:51:30.160 We're talking about things that can incapacitate an attacker for up to 40 minutes.
00:51:34.380 Government agencies and police departments, they're getting rid of their tasers.
00:51:38.560 They're using Berna.
00:51:39.980 They use it every day as their go-to less-than-lethal option.
00:51:43.980 And it works for them.
00:51:45.180 It will work for you as well.
00:51:48.120 Sometimes you have to choose between life and death, but that situation isn't every day.
00:51:51.860 And when that situation arises, you want Berna.
00:51:55.120 B-Y-R-N-A dot com.
00:51:58.160 Made here in America.
00:51:59.860 Berna dot com slash Glenn.
00:52:01.980 Use that and you'll get a 10% discount.
00:52:04.760 Berna dot com slash Glenn.
00:52:06.440 So I think what you're doing is so important because people are being beaten down.
00:52:13.000 But there's also another part of your book where you start to go into prophecy and showing us how it's being fulfilled.
00:52:21.860 Let's just talk about the regathering of Israel that you talk about in your book.
00:52:27.460 Yeah, and the reason is, you know, I've had Christians especially really misunderstand.
00:52:36.680 And I think, like you said, I think it's misunderstanding the grace of God, really.
00:52:41.820 Because they've said, well, why would a Hindu or a Muslim or others, why would they see Jesus?
00:52:47.840 Or why would they see God?
00:52:49.360 Why aren't they in hell?
00:52:52.380 Because they're children of his.
00:52:54.320 Well, sometimes I feel like we're more concerned about getting people to hell than we are to heaven.
00:53:00.740 You know, like, don't worry.
00:53:03.880 God's going to sort it all out.
00:53:05.620 But here's the other thing that's important.
00:53:07.220 And this is what I'm trying to trace through.
00:53:08.740 Well, let me say, first of all, I do not believe near-death experiences are crossing over into either eternal life or eternal death.
00:53:22.540 There's something in between.
00:53:24.000 And that's very important because that confused me for a long time.
00:53:27.260 So you're saying that you feel they're going to the waiting room.
00:53:30.320 They're going to the lobby.
00:53:35.280 It's like this.
00:53:36.440 Imagine if I visited Buckingham Palace, okay?
00:53:41.920 And I get to see the place, describe it.
00:53:44.140 Well, that doesn't mean, you know, the royal family is adopting me to move in forever.
00:53:49.560 I just get to see it.
00:53:50.640 Yes.
00:53:50.940 Okay.
00:53:51.340 And I think God is allowing, I believe these are testimonies of the reality of hell and heaven and this God of grace who revealed himself through Jesus to the entire globe for such a time.
00:54:06.260 Glenn, there's no other time I could have interviewed people on every continent, right?
00:54:13.800 And to report about it.
00:54:16.440 And so God is showing all the nations what he's been saying all along.
00:54:21.960 Genesis chapter 12.
00:54:23.940 He raises up Abraham and Sarah.
00:54:26.120 He says, I'm going to bless you to bless all nations.
00:54:30.320 That's always been God's, you know, God's not a respecter of persons.
00:54:35.340 He doesn't love some nationalities more than others.
00:54:38.500 He meant us all to be his children.
00:54:41.240 500 times through the Old Testament prophets, God is speaking to all the nations.
00:54:46.080 Go try to find another God who is addressing all nations.
00:54:51.180 There aren't.
00:54:52.100 They're more tribal.
00:54:53.320 They're more local deities, right?
00:54:55.460 So this has always been the God of all nations.
00:54:58.560 Jesus comes and claims that he lays down his life for all nations.
00:55:04.800 And he tells his disciples, go tell all the nations there's forgiveness offered in my name.
00:55:09.840 In other words, what I have done is cleared the way that God can be just in taking back anyone who wants my forgiveness and relationship.
00:55:21.880 In other words, he has removed every barrier between every person and himself except one, our pride.
00:55:31.480 So he does not take away our free will.
00:55:35.340 And if in our pride we say, no, I'm good.
00:55:38.880 I don't need God.
00:55:40.420 I don't need forgiveness.
00:55:41.700 I'm good.
00:55:42.180 But at the end of the day, I think it grieves him.
00:55:47.580 And I've got stories in the book in Imagine the God of Heaven of the grief God shows some of these people that he feels.
00:55:54.100 Because it's like a mom or dad losing their child, you know?
00:55:59.440 Yes, yes.
00:56:00.120 To a horrible heroin addiction and they just won't come out of it.
00:56:02.700 Yes.
00:56:03.720 Right.
00:56:04.040 But that is what hell is.
00:56:08.240 Their choice.
00:56:09.540 23% of people who have come forward reporting near-death experiences have reported hellish experiences, at least.
00:56:17.140 It might be more than that because, you know, many don't talk about them.
00:56:22.120 Because these hellish experiences are just as real as the heavenly ones.
00:56:26.120 And what they say is, yeah, just what C.S. Lewis said when he said he believed hell was locked from the inside.
00:56:38.780 In other words, it's the human creature, the free will creature locking God out.
00:56:47.500 Yes.
00:56:48.080 Not God.
00:56:49.260 Yes, yes, yes.
00:56:50.840 Yeah.
00:56:51.120 Yes.
00:56:51.460 But I think we go back with everything that we are, just as your people are explaining, with our free will.
00:57:00.480 And, you know, when the Lord says, come to me like a child, I've always interpreted that as, well, a child is innocent and everything else.
00:57:09.560 But the most important thing about children is they always ask the same question to the point of driving you out of your mind.
00:57:16.720 Why?
00:57:17.160 So, coming to the Lord as a child, you are open to his understanding.
00:57:25.240 You're coming to him and saying, I don't understand all this.
00:57:28.500 This is what I thought it was, but is that right?
00:57:31.820 And coming to him and surrendering your will to him and say, you are the truth, I'll accept.
00:57:40.780 And I think there's a lot of people that will cross over and they'll be very surprised because it's not exactly how they understood it.
00:57:48.040 It won't be like I understand it.
00:57:50.320 And if you're not open, if you're like, nope, that's not right, you're going to lock yourself away.
00:57:56.300 And that's what I'm trying to do in Imagine the God of Heaven is, you know, we all put God in a box because we're finite, you know, and God is not limited by our finiteness.
00:58:12.560 And so, God is far more mysterious.
00:58:17.360 You know, if God is not mysterious to you, you don't have the right God.
00:58:22.720 Right.
00:58:23.200 You know, beautiful, we don't often think of beautiful, glorious, powerful, sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, all those big words.
00:58:31.920 But what do those mean?
00:58:33.140 I'm trying to show what those mean through the eyes of these people who have experienced it.
00:58:38.380 And you start to triangulate and you go, oh, my gosh, why don't I trust him?
00:58:42.740 But on the other side of the box, God is far more relatable, personable, enjoyable.
00:58:50.680 You ever use that word, fun, funny, joyful.
00:58:56.800 And many, many Christians, like, they don't think of God that way.
00:59:01.000 And so, kind of like you said, yeah, they give mental, you know, yeah, I believe in God.
00:59:05.820 But they don't live like it.
00:59:07.680 They don't trust him.
00:59:09.580 They don't think he's got much to offer them, you know?
00:59:14.520 And so, really, they're just living for retirement, not for the life to come.
00:59:19.620 And so, I'm trying to help people see that, no, what the scriptures teach, God is far better than you can possibly get your little mind to wrap around.
00:59:32.220 And when you start to picture, and really imagine God accurately, you start to go, oh, my gosh.
00:59:40.840 I mean, why?
00:59:42.200 Everything I desire, everything I love about this life, every good thing comes from God.
00:59:49.560 And that's where I'm going.
00:59:51.080 And he is sovereign.
00:59:53.200 I don't have anything to worry about.
00:59:54.780 And as a result, I'm free to use my time and my talents, my gifts to love and serve.
01:00:00.840 I don't have to prove anything to anybody, you know?
01:00:03.980 There's just an incredible peace, an incredible joy that's available, and even through the sufferings of life.
01:00:12.520 You know, I interviewed this one guy, Dr. Mark Medano.
01:00:18.560 And he is now a plastic surgeon who treats burn victims because at age 16, they had a house fire that burned down their house, and he got his two older brothers out, but his younger brother and his mom were trapped, and he passed out and got burned over 65% of his body trying to save them, and he couldn't save them.
01:00:46.220 They died.
01:00:46.800 But in the hospital on the way, he kept coding.
01:00:52.260 His heart kept crashing.
01:00:54.820 And he was in such pain.
01:00:56.540 He was like, God, just take my life.
01:00:58.240 This is—he was, you know, I mean, burned.
01:01:00.760 There's nothing worse, right?
01:01:02.760 And at one point, he did crash, and he told me he was there with his mom and his brother in the presence of Jesus.
01:01:13.480 And he said, it wasn't literally like this, but it felt like we were just all snuggled up on the couch, like when we would watch TV together.
01:01:23.700 And it was just so wonderful there with Jesus.
01:01:26.940 And he saw how God's plan worked.
01:01:31.700 And here's what he said to me.
01:01:33.620 He said, I thought to myself, yes, of course.
01:01:38.880 It makes so much sense.
01:01:41.020 Like, it all—it couldn't be any other way.
01:01:43.840 It has to be this way.
01:01:45.060 It makes so much sense.
01:01:46.440 And then—and Jesus said to him, you're—because this is another commonality.
01:01:53.140 He says, your time isn't fulfilled on earth.
01:01:56.760 You still have things to accomplish.
01:01:58.960 I'm going to send you back.
01:02:00.860 And he said, it's going to be difficult, but we're going to do it together.
01:02:06.420 So, Mark, Mark comes back, and you want to talk about suffering and difficult.
01:02:14.880 You know, he's a 16-year-old burn victim, right?
01:02:19.000 He had—you know, he was disfigured.
01:02:21.660 He had lost his mom and his sister.
01:02:24.060 His dad is so, you know, depressed he becomes an alcoholic.
01:02:28.820 Mark had to go through 38 reconstructive surgeries, the pain and the suffering of all that.
01:02:35.380 He then becomes an alcoholic in college just to escape the PTSD from the experience.
01:02:45.280 And as a result, he ends up in recovery.
01:02:49.620 And in recovery, he comes back to the Lord.
01:02:54.060 And through the strength and the discipline he learned and just taking it day by day, right?
01:03:01.180 Depending on the Lord, one day at a time, he found the motivation to become a doctor.
01:03:09.780 And he becomes a plastic surgeon who could then help other burn victims like himself.
01:03:17.400 It's unbelievable.
01:03:18.640 It's unbelievable, you know?
01:03:20.320 But it teaches us so much, Glenn.
01:03:22.580 And this is what I'm trying to show, that these people bring us back nuggets of wisdom that it's in the Bible, yes.
01:03:29.900 But sometimes we don't take it to heart because maybe it goes in the head, but it doesn't sink into the heart.
01:03:36.340 And when you hear through the words of these people who have suffered to say, you know what?
01:03:43.480 I still don't like the suffering.
01:03:46.360 I don't think God's doing it to me.
01:03:49.460 This world is broken.
01:03:51.300 This is an evil, broken world.
01:03:53.400 Look, Jesus would not have taught us to pray, God, your will be done on earth like it is in heaven.
01:03:59.760 If God's will were being done on earth, it's not.
01:04:04.520 And so a lot of the pain and a lot of the suffering, it comes from a world that God has truly given us free will,
01:04:11.680 but we choose to use it in ways that he, just like you said, is like, don't do that, please.
01:04:17.320 You know, just going to multiply pain.
01:04:20.360 John, I have to tell you, this has been—go ahead.
01:04:23.680 Go ahead.
01:04:23.960 Well, you hear these people talking about, you know, how God is ultimately in control, and he does have a plan, and we can't see it all right now.
01:04:36.820 But when we walk faithfully with him, you know, and that's the really cool thing.
01:04:42.380 Like Santosh, that Hindu, you know, who saw God in the narrow door, you know, he was asking, what do I have to do, what do I have to do?
01:04:51.340 And I find God doesn't—he doesn't tell us, but sometimes he speaks in parables, even to these near-death experiencers, which who does that remind you of, right?
01:05:02.860 And he says to Santosh, you know, what I want is relationship.
01:05:10.880 I want to see how honest you'll be with me, not one day a week, because Santosh was thinking, what church, what synagogue, what mom—
01:05:17.800 What church do I go to?
01:05:18.680 What thing do I do?
01:05:20.520 What religious thing do I do once a week to appease you?
01:05:24.380 And he said, that's not what I want.
01:05:25.660 I want—he said, I want honesty.
01:05:28.780 I want to see how honest you'll be with me, not one day a week, but 365 days, 24-7, walk with me.
01:05:38.420 That's what he said.
01:05:40.100 And Santosh didn't know what he meant.
01:05:41.540 John, it has been a truly fascinating hour.
01:05:44.660 I wish we could—I wish I had another hour with you, but I'd love to invite you back again, because I just think this was an hour of joy and of truth, and I so appreciate it.
01:05:57.580 The name of the book is Imagine the God of Heaven.
01:06:00.940 The author is John Burke.
01:06:03.440 God bless you, John.
01:06:04.240 Thanks, Glenn.
01:06:05.700 Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.
01:06:34.240 And I'll see you next time.
01:06:37.180 We're going to novella.
01:06:37.320 I'll see you next time.
01:06:37.660 Bye-bye.
01:06:38.900 Next time, I'll see you.
01:06:40.160 And I'll see you next time.
01:06:46.300 Bye-bye.
01:06:47.160 Bye-bye.
01:07:01.040 Bye.
01:07:02.100 Bye-bye.