The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 077 – What Near Death Experiences Tell Us About the Biblical Heaven: An Interview with John Burke
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Carrie Newhof Leadership Podcast, a podcast all about leadership, change, and personal growth. The goal? To help you lead like never before, in your church or in your business. And now your host, Carrie Newhof. - Well, hey everybody, and welcome to the podcast. My name is Carrie Newhof, and I hope our time together today helps you lead like never before. I'm super excited about today's guest. His name is John Burke. And maybe you know him because he leads a very effective, like large church in Austin, Texas, which is just a fascinating city, very different than most of Texas. And he's had a tremendous ministry there over the last decade, but I first ran into him as an author 10 years ago, when he released a book called No Perfect People Allowed. Fantastic. And then last year, one of his staff members, Kenny Connolly, put a book of his, his new book in my hand. And I started reading it 'cause I don't tell you about it when I'm sitting down with John, but I was doing the series on The Supernatural. I could not put it down. And he matches up near-death experiences with scripture, and it's fascinating, so fascinating in fact, that I'm involved with the TV show up here in Canada, called 100 Huntley Street, which you can follow at 100huntley.com. And John and I are gonna hang out next month in Canada. And we're gonna like film a bunch of episodes of the TV show, and it's just fascinating. So I'll tell ya, it just as a guy who's preached about heaven for years, it just gave me insight into heaven that I thought I'd never really ever find until I got to heaven. So I think you'll find the conversation fascinating. If you read the book, you'll find it interesting. If you haven't read the book, you'll still find it really, really cool. So, and plus John's a great guy. He's just fun to hang out with. So I was really glad. Rarely do I reach out and just say to an author, cold call like we'd never met before. Hey, would you be on my show? But he's like, yep, no problem. So that was a lot of fun. So I hope you're gonna enjoy this. And we got some goodness coming up for you in the next little while. Next week we're back with Perry Noble. He's got a brand new book all about how to lead with love. And we have a fun and, you know, the kind of conversation, I was gonna say a fun conversation, kind of conversation you can only have with Perry Noble. So the way to make sure you don't miss any of this is to subscribe. And hey, if you notice, hey, is there something like weird with your voice? Yes, today I have a cold. I got a cold yesterday and it's just not getting any better. So if I sound all nasally, yeah, I got a cold. The only good part about having a cold is it makes my voice just a little bit deeper. So if I ever wanted to do like an Alec Baldwin impersonation or something, today's the day. I don't know whether you listen to his podcast, here's the thing, but man, if I had a voice like Alec Baldwin, when he does, I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. That would be incredible. Anyway. Hey, I don't know whether you have heard about yet, if you listen to this podcast you have, the rethink leadership event in Atlanta, but it's coming up really soon. And I'm really excited about it. Andy Stanley, Reggie Joyner, Jeff Henderson, Pete Wilson, John Acuff, so many more Leon's crump. I'm gonna be there and we just can't wait to welcome you. There is still limited space available and we'd love to have you. It's April 27th, 29th in Atlanta, Georgia. The John Maxwell Leadership Center at 12 stone church. So world class leadership and an intimate gathering, you'll be able to hang out with leaders just like you. It's senior leaders only and you can still get some advanced rates. So if you go to rethinkleadership.com, you can register today and thank you to rethink leadership for sponsoring the podcast. We are gonna be together in March very, very soon and I'm just really excited about that. So if you haven't checked that out, maybe even stop this right now and go to rethinkleadership.com and secure your spot because when do you get to hang out with Andy Stanley in a more intimate setting with just a couple hundred people around? Not that often. So it's gonna be fantastic. Can't wait to see you there. And in the meantime, why don't we just, 'cause I'm sick, why don't we just jump right into my interview when I wasn't sick with John Burke. He's the lead and founding pastor of Gateway Church in Austin, Texas, a phenomenal church there and the author of Imagine Heaven. Fascinating subject, fascinating interview, here we go. Well, I am super excited to have John Burke on the podcast today. John, we have almost met numerous times 'cause I've been to your church a few times to speak on the orange tour and know a lot of the people that you know, but I'm so thrilled to have you on the podcast because you have written one of my all time favorite books. Thank you. - Well, thank you and that's really an honor. - Yeah, yeah. So you've written a lot of books. I remember reading No Perfect People Allowed Back. When did that come out in 2006 or so? - Five, yeah. - Five, wow, yeah. So that's over 10 years ago now. And then last year you released a book called Imagine Heaven. Near death experiences, God's promises and the exhilarating future that awaits you. Great subtitle. And actually Kenny Connolly gave me a copy and I happen to be preaching through a series called Supernatural at the time. And I thought, oh, I should read that. I got a week on heaven. And John, I couldn't put it down. It was just fascinating, fascinating stuff. And apparently I'm not alone. It has been on the New York Times bestseller list since it released like for months. And number one on Amazon did a not hit number one overall on Amazon. Like that was crazy. - Yeah, that is crazy. - Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a huge fascination with what are these near death experiences? When people die and then their heart stops or their brainwave stop, in some cases minutes, in some cases hours and yet they revive and they talk about the reality of the afterlife and there's curiosity across the boards on it. It's really wild. - And what's interesting about your book is I've read a few accounts of near death experiences, both positive ones, I mean, Don Piper, for example, but also some negative ones of people who've reported, just in sermon research that I've done in the past, I read even Alexander's book a couple years ago for a series that I was doing. So I mean, some really interesting near death experience stuff, which is not all Christian, honestly. A lot of it's very new agey and you're like, really is the Bible true, but what you've done, I mean, obviously it's true. I think it's true, kind of stake my life on it. But anyway, what you've done is you've taken over a thousand near death experience accounts that you've read and researched and set them against scripture and found remarkable similarities. So tell us a little bit about the methodology behind the book, John. - Well, yeah, to explain that, you know, I didn't like say, hey, this is a big pop culture thing. I think I'll write a book and make it a New York time. That's not how it happened at all. - Never happens that way. - No, I mean, honestly, it came out of the most painful, tragic experience of my life. It started 35 years ago when my dad was dying of cancer and I was not a Christian. I was a skeptic. And someone gave him the first book on near death experiences called Life After Life. And I saw it on his dresser and I picked it up and I read it cover to cover in one night. And at the end of it, I said, oh my gosh, Jesus, you're real. That's what I concluded. - Wow. - The guy who wrote that didn't conclude the same thing and actually led people in more of a new agey kind of way. But just reading the stories and what people reported, that was my conclusion as a non-believer. And that actually set me on a path to go to a small group Bible study the next year and understand grace and, you know, pray the prayer, although I might have come to faith that night. I don't know. - Really, yeah. And your background was in ministry at all or church. You're an engineer, right, by training and profession. - Right, yeah, and, you know, but that actually started me down the path of faith. And, you know, then ultimately went to seminary and went into ministry. But at the same time, so for 35 years, I've been curious about what are these stories? You know, what are these near death experiences? And I've read, you know, like you said, about a thousand of them all throughout over the years. And, you know, at first, the pool of people who were doing the research were doctors, cardiologists, oncologists. And they didn't have necessarily a Christian background. And much of it did get interpreted in more of a new age kind of a way. And so I would scratch my head and go, you know, so much of this seems to align with the scriptures, but then there are these kind of weird twists to it. And, you know, it doesn't mean people come back and follow Jesus. What do you make of all that? So basically what I discovered after studying about a thousand of them is that people are having a real experience, but it's a real experience of something that is really hard to describe. Imagine trying to describe to a flat two-dimensional world of black and white what it's like to live in three dimensions of color. What words do you use? Really, and that is the best analogy of what people are trying to describe. It's not dissimilar or disconnected from our experience, but it's in another dimensionality. So what you find, and this is what I finally saw, is that there are what people report and what they consistently report. And then there are people's individual interpretations of what they report. And what I was trying to do was look across a thousand of them and show what are the commonalities reported. And then where do they align with the scriptures? And what I found is it's amazing how they align with the scriptures. It's unbelievable. That's what struck me about the book. I'm like, oh my goodness, like Revelation springs to life, and I've studied Revelation. Oh, yeah. And, you know, like you and I were talking about, so much of Revelation I thought was purely metaphorical, right? Like, for example, the whole river of life and the trees. I mean, I've read even conservative commentaries. I've done long series back in the day on Revelation. And, you know, people say, hey, the leaves on the trees are metaphors and the tree of life is a metaphor. Well, and especially, you know, the pearly gate and streets of gold. And I used to, you know, carry, I honestly, I used to think, man, it sounds like a gaudy televangelist. You know, I was like, that just didn't, you know, it just didn't do it for me. Exactly. It's like, I'm sure it's got to be better than that. But here's what you're discovering. Tell people what you discovered, which is just so fascinating. Well, what you start to see as you listen to the words of people who have died and claimed that they've actually seen is that they are describing something that's other worldly. And you see the wrestling of the words, of trying to put it into words that we can understand, but you really get a picture. And then you see how John in the book of Revelation struggled to describe it, or Isaiah, or Daniel, or, you know, the various prophets. And you realize that, oh my gosh, they're all, they're all struggling to describe the same place. And it's a real place. Which is kind of crazy that we struggle with that, because Jesus said it was a real place. Yes, he did. He said, I'm going to prepare a place for you. I'm going to come and get you. You'll be with me where I am. And stop and think of how crazy it is, Carrie, that most Christians I find actually think the place where God's kingdom, will, and ways are done, is actually less real, less tangible, less beautiful, less enjoyable, less fun, less personal, than the place where his will is not yet done. And he prayed, he told us to pray your will be done as it is in heaven, right? It's crazy. It is crazy. He really don't have as concrete of a vision of heaven as we do of retirement. And I think that's the problem with Christianity in North America and the Western world, quite honestly, is that we have set our eyes on retirement because we can imagine it. But Colossians 3-1 says, set your heart on things above, not on things of the earth, because your life is hidden in Christ. What does that mean? How do we live like the heroes of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, who were not hoping for a country on this earth, but a country to come, right? That's what it says. So God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them. That's what it says. But we don't really believe it's a real city and a real... Yeah, we think of it. Even the most conservative think it's a metaphor or else it's just, okay, it's a city, but I can't really put my head around that. But like, some of the accounts you outline in the book, which are quotes from people who had these near-death experiences. And we're gonna break this down bit by bit over the course of our conversation today. So we're, man, this is just fascinating. But when you read like their description of the river of life in the trees at the side of the river, and they are not necessarily biblically literate, it's like you're reading John's account in Revelation. Yeah, and that's what I started to see looking, like I said, I'm trying to pull out the commonalities in multiple accounts. So, if one person said, or a few people said something and it wasn't consistent across the board, I just left it at, or I'm trying to explain, well, what do you make of these things that confuse Christians as well? But I talk about that, there are these commonalities. And when you look at it, I'm trying to weave it together with an in-depth study of what the scripture says about heaven and hell. And when you look at what the scripture says, yeah, it's kind of like, imagine if you dropped 10 people into New York State for five minutes, and then you said, okay, describe New York State to us. And some people land in the subway, and they say, well, it's this dark tunnel, and then I came out into the light. And others like, well, these huge glass buildings all around me, and then others, well, this beautiful scenery and trees, and they landed in Central Park. And these other people, well, it was just hills of color because it was the fall in upstate New York, you know? - Right. - And after a while, you start to see this picture, but any one account is not gonna do it. But that's what I feel like you start to see, and I've tried to put together and imagine heaven, is you start to see the panoramic view of this incredible place that God has prepared for us. - And what's interesting is it's the first attempt I've ever read to synthesize with the scripture, and you get a lot of scripture in the book, teaches about eternity and the afterlife, both heaven and hell, not just one person's account, but like you say, multiple, multiple accounts, because Christians have kind of been allergic to near-death experiences. They've either been fascinated or allergic to, or like, hey, we can't even look at that 'cause it's too new age. And then people who have had new death experiences sometimes feel like, well, Christians can't really talk to me about them because they don't see it as authoritative or their suspect, and you weren't afraid by either of those categories or dichotomies, were you? - Well, I will say it took me 35 years to write it for a reason. So yes, I've scratched my head over the years as well. Like, what are these? And how do you make sense of them? And that is what I'm trying to do. But think about this, Kerry. - Every good gift of God gets abused, every single one. So, the scripture tells us that nature reveals the glory of God, right? In heaven, Isaiah hears the angels singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, right? And the whole earth is full of his glory. Well, the whole earth is full of his glory, but people also worship nature, right? They take a good gift and they turn it away from God, or they turn it against God. They take science and they use it as a buttress to push God out of, you know. - Even though science reveals the glory of God in many ways. - It does, everything does. So, the fact that the church is scared somewhat to dive in and make sense of something that I think is a gift of God is not actually new. And this is why I'm doing it because look, one out of 25 people have had a near-death experience. - That's crazy. - According to Gallup, according to other polls around the world. - Really, so how does that work? Does that mean everybody like went into cardiac arrest and then came back? Like one in 25, that means you probably know a dozen people who have had near-death experiences. - And you haven't heard of it because it is such, it's such a sacred experience for people. They are scared to talk about it. Because, you know, if you have a dream and it's a very vivid dream, you're not scared to talk about it. I had this wild dream and it was, you know, people are like, "Ugh, it's a dream." And it's no big deal. This is so real. In fact, this is one of the commonalities that when people come back, they say that this life is the shadow, that's the real thing. And by the way, doesn't Hebrews eight say that as well? - Yeah. - It says that Moses constructed a tabernacle that is a copy and a shadow of the one in heaven, the real one. And so they're talking about something that is so real. They felt so alive. They felt so themselves. This was so concrete and tangible that this life actually is depressing. In fact, that is the common thing that people experience when they come back, they're depressed. They didn't want to come back. - That was almost universal in the accounts that you outlined. When people realized they had a choice or their work wasn't done, it varied in the different accounts. - There was a real disappointment to having to come back to earth and I'll let down. - Yeah, and we would think, well, gosh, that would be a great gift, right? But in fact, it's a responsibility and somewhat of a burden because what you start to realize and if we can't, let's start to get into some of the commonalities 'cause that helps you start to get a picture of why it's depressing to come back. - Okay, so let's go there, but let's just really be clear. What is a near-death experience and what qualifies as an NDE or whatever you want to call it? - Well, so classically, it's when someone clinically dies, right? - Okay. - So they have a cardiac arrest, their heart stops. In some cases, no brain waves. In other cases, it is very, very near death and they have some of the same experience. - Okay. - And that's why near-death is what it got classified as. But like my friend Don Piper, who was pronounced dead by EMS and 90 minutes he was dead, he said, I wasn't near dead, I was dead dead. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - And so it is a bit difficult to classify, but this is another commonality that's important to understand, especially for Christians and for pastors. 'Cause it's one of the confusing aspects of this. Every single person came back. This is not biological death. - Right, this isn't like you were six feet under for 10 years and came back. This is not resurrection. - No, it is, and we shouldn't be surprised. It is what Jesus did for Lazarus. It's what Jesus did for Jairus' daughter. It has happened before, okay? Elijah did it, right? It has happened before. And each person who has these near-death experiences, almost to a person, one very strong commonality is that they knew in this experience that there was a boundary or a border or a threshold, they knew intuitively they couldn't cross. - Right. - In some cases they were literally told, if you cross this, you cannot go back. - Right. - That's very, very important in the interpretation and the understanding of what these accounts are. Because Hebrews says it is appointed for people to die once and then comes the judgment, right? - Yep. - So Christians are like, well, people, they died and they came back and there wasn't judgment, so this can't be biblical. That's the instant conclusion. But they're missing that no, this is not biological death. This is something in between. - So is it that they got a glimpse then? Like if they would have crossed that line, they would have entered the fullness of eternity, but here they got a preview. They didn't watch the movie. They saw the two-minute preview on iTunes. Is that how that worked or what happens? - We don't know. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's her. - We don't know, but that's my sense of it. - Okay. - That's my sense of it. It is somewhat of God giving us one more gift, one more piece of evidence that, no, this is real and I am real, and wake up, because the, sure. - Okay, so now let's get into, what are the commonalities of near-death experiences that you've found, John, in your research? - Yeah, so when people die, what they find is they leave their physical body, but they still have a body. And in fact, many people don't even realize they're dead, 'cause they thought death was lights out, and they find themselves more alive than they've ever felt before. And they say not just with five senses, like it's, they can still feel touch smell and all that, but they say it's like magnified like 50 senses. - Yeah, like vision and smell like just gets heightened to new levels. - Everything. - Which actually carry, as we come back to it, with Heaven and Hell, I think it makes a lot of sense of what this experience of Earth is. I think Earth is a compressed experience of just a taste of Heaven and just a taste of Hell. It's our time of choosing. And that really shows us that God has actually mercifully given us a far-reduced experience of how great it can be but also how horrible it can be. It's a very, very important factor we should come back to. - But it will. - Okay, so people leave their bodies, oftentimes they're still in the vicinity. So it's like they've stepped into another dimensionality. Think about, think about by analogy, if we are flat two-dimensional people, right? And death is separation, right? So imagine now all of a sudden you're ripped out of two dimensions into three dimensions. So you can still see the two-dimensional world, but you're in a dimensionality, they can't even fathom. - Right, so you kind of float outside your body. That was very common. If someone died at an accident scene or in a hospital, it's like they're in the room, but they see themselves dead on the table or lifeless on the table or in the car or in the wreck or under the water. And then they kind of float above and they're able to recount, like, well, I saw three surgeons in the room and yeah, the clock was set at 3.02 p.m., something they never would have been able to see even physically from their perspective as a patient on the table or lying in the driver's seat dead. - Exactly, and this is what has convinced so many skeptical doctors. And I write a chapter called skeptical doctors in the afterlife, and it gives a count after a count of cardiologists who were resuscitating their patients. And when they started to hear, when they asked, like I said, not many people come forward because they get mocked and they don't know what to make about it, but when they start to ask, they start to describe resuscitation. And like this one doctor, I interviewed Dr. Savam, he said, I set out to disprove near-death experiences. But the more people he interviewed, they would describe resuscitation and he said, if I had taped it, I could have used it to teach physicians how to do resuscitation. And they even have done double-blind studies with people who were cardiac patients who didn't have near-death experiences, with those who did to see, well, just how much does familiarity help you know what-- - Right, did you catch all those details when you were wheeled into the room before you went under? - And not at all. - Wow. - Not at all. So those who are claiming they've left their body. And this is now, it's been documented in about 900 scholarly journals, like the Journal of the American Medical Association, Psychiatry, Europe's most prestigious medical journal, The Lancet. In fact, The Lancet reported a guy who came into the hospital, he had had a massive heart attack, he was comatose, and they discovered dentures. So they took his dentures out and put it in the lower drawer of a crash cart, shocked him, his heart starts back up, but he never comes to in the ER. They move him to another room. A week later, he becomes conscious. Not only could he tell the doctors and nurses and everyone in the ER room where he had never been conscious, but he told them where they could find his lost dentures. In the lower drawer of the crash cart in which nurse had put them there. Now, you know, that's just one story, but there are many, many like those. - Yeah, there was that shoe thing where somebody sort of floated above the building and they saw a shoe on a window sill and the doctor was not believing it. And he goes, well, let me show you the shoe I saw on the window sill. And they went out, it was inaccessible. And then when they finally went out there, it's like, oh, there's the shoe. I'm like, well, how did you know that? And so what you're saying in the book, and just to summarize for people who haven't had the chance to read it, is that there's a growing number of like, not even Christian, but just scientific medical community who are going, okay, this is verifiably real. These near death experiences are not all made up. There is something to this. And that there is something beyond life that our dead or near dead patients continue to experience. That is not a hundred percent explainable by what we can see and observe in front of us. Is that right? - Exactly, and there's enough evidence that it is convincing skeptical, even atheistic doctors. And it's very, very important that Christians not turn a blind eye to it and say, no, no, really, the earth is the center of the universe because the Bible says so. - Sounds a little bit like something we went through a few centuries ago, didn't we? - It revolves around the sun revolves around the earth. I'm sure, I'm sure. - Well, and so what I am advocating is that we see how biblical these things are. So we don't turn this gift over to those who don't know what they're, they don't know what they don't know. - That's right. And it's not fundamentally inconsistent with scripture. That's the part that fascinated me. It's not like, this is gonna lead people away from Christ. This could actually lead people to Jesus. - And in many cases it does. I'm an example of it. - Yeah. - You know, 35 years ago. So here's the thing is Paul talks about how when we die, our natural body is planted in the earth. It's sown in weakness, but it's raised in power. It's sown in natural body. It's raised in glory, right? He talks about how we're gonna have a new body. And Jesus showed us, and I talk about how, this physical body is version 1.0. - Right. - What we're talking about is the intermediate heaven, which is we get a body that's a version 2.0. And Paul talks about that in 1 Corinthians 15, 2 Corinthians 5. - Paul he does. - He uses the tomato seed, tomato plant analogy. - Yeah. - Sorry, that's the message translation, but you know, the seed, the plant. - Yeah. Now Jesus showed us the version 3.0. When this spiritual body is then reunited with our resurrected physical body, but this body that's to come in the intermediate heaven is gonna be so much better. And that's what people talk about. That really, we have this experience. We come alive like we've never realized before. - That's another commonality. Let's go back to the commonality. So people die, and then they have some experience where they're dissociated from their physical body, but can see it, like a third party observer. And then what are some other characteristics, John? - Well, so then many people meet loved ones who were deceased. - Yeah. - And so there's this sense of reunion. Now that's another for Christians, sometimes confusing thing. - Yeah. - And it took me a while to figure that one out as well. And I'll talk more about it. That our welcoming committee may seem good at first and it may not turn out so good, okay? But initially people recognize loved ones that they meet on the other side. There is this reunion. You know, for Christians, it is this joyous. They see their loved ones and we recognize each other in some cases, you know, we're wearing what we used to wear. We have clothes on like what was common to that time. In other cases, people are wearing these robes of white that again, the book of Revelation talks about. - Right. - Jesus talks about it. And it was really confusing to me and I write about that. Like I don't wanna wear a robe of white. That's weird, you know? But what I started to realize is that they're not really white, they're also they're translucent and it's exploding with light. - Yes. - And the light though is palpable. People talk about how it's not light like we experience on earth, right? It's light that is love and light that is life. And it's a light that comes out of everything and it's coming out of these people, especially Christians seeing their loved ones. And it's the most unbelievable experience I've ever had. Well, really that makes sense of the scriptures of what Daniel said. When he said those, the angel told Daniel, I think it's in Daniel 12, that those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever. When Paul talks about that in Philippians that will shine, you know, like the stars. When Jesus is transfigured and Moses and Elijah appear and they are, they're white like me. - And again, they're, you know, the people who wrote that in the Gospels, you know, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, when they do the account, they're like, well, we don't really know how to describe this. It's like, why do then you could bleach them? I don't know, what else do you say, right? Like this had a category we couldn't, we couldn't describe. - Well, and so here's the other thing that's so fascinating is that so many times what happens then is people pass through what they either call a tunnel and it becomes black many times. Sometimes it's not black, but sometimes they're on a pathway or it's a tunnel and it's like they're going from one world to another. I don't know, is that like a wormhole? I don't know, I wonder, but clearly they go, they're going to another place or another world and they come out into this beauty that's just hard to describe. It's not unlike Earth. So like, now again, what I'm trying to do is I write, I incorporate about 120 of these people's stories in Imagine Heaven, I'll let you hear it through their words. And these are people like an orthopedic surgeon, a TWA airline pilot, a college professor, a tenured college professor, a bank president, people who really don't have any good reason to make up crazy stories like that, but they would ruin their careers. - Yeah, that's what I loved about your methodology. You're like, there's lots of accounts, but there's some people clearly, who maybe don't have much of a future, much of a life. And it's like, oh, if I go public with my story, I'll make millions, I'll be on the news. You actually focus primarily on people who could lose professional standing, could lose income, could be discredited in their field, by going public with that. - And they have been. - And they have been. It's like, wow, you're the weirdo now. - Yeah, like this tenured college professor who was an atheist who actually had an experience of hell, but Jesus rescued him when he cried out to him. He comes back, what could possibly motivate a tenured atheist college professor to leave his profession and become a Christian pastor and lose his marriage, because his wife was still an atheist and thought he was a cooke. - Yeah, there's no personal gain. And that's a thing that I loved about your methodology, is like, I'm gonna go from the people who have more to lose and more to gain by telling this story, as opposed to the person who's trying to get rich, quick, or get a best-selling book or a movie deal or something like that. So that was fascinating. So anyway, going down the wormhole. - Well, so these people then are, they're writing about how they come into this world that is so beautiful. Like this TWA airline pilot talks about coming in and this city, this huge city, as far as he could see, that was more brilliant, more beautiful than he could have ever imagined. And this light in the center of it that gave light and life to everything. These huge mountains out over in the distance and the beauty of the grass and the trees and the flowers. And you're sitting there thinking, I mean, my first thought was, no way. It's like science fiction, you know? And then I started thinking, why is my faith so weak? - Yeah. - But when you hear all these people talking about the same city, when you, I mean, one of the fascinating things is how they all describe the grass and they describe it the same way. And they say it's a green, like you can't even imagine, but it's translucent grass and the light comes out of the grass and out of the trees and out of the leaves. - And it was perfectly manicured. I love that part. - It was like, it was perfectly cut. I'm like, yes, my efforts here on Earth are not in vain. They will be rewarded in heaven. - I know. (laughing) - Well, and when you hear the same exact thing being said by blind people. - Yeah. - So I include three blind people, their stories in Imagine Heaven. People who are blind from birth, who when they died, they could see. - Right. - And they describe these things. So like Brad was an eight-year-old. I'm gonna read some of his stories. - Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. - So Brad's an eight-year-old. He dies in the Boston Center for the Blind. He leaves his body and he watches his blind roommate. For the first time, he can see and he can see color and understand what color is his blind roommate stumbling out to try to get help because he could tell he was dying. And then he passes up right through the roof of the hospital or of the center for the blind and he moves through. He said, I guess what was blackness 'cause suddenly there was no color. And so he goes through this tunnel and he comes out on the other side into this immense field stretching for miles. He notices huge palm trees with enormous leaves and tall grass. And he says this, I was walking up this field. It seemed as if I was so exhilarated, so unbelievably renewed that I didn't wanna leave. I wanted to stay forever where I was and that's what is so common as well, right? There is no way to describe the peace and the tranquility. The weather was absolutely perfect in terms of temperature and humidity. By the way, a blind person would recognize that. No one else talked about the humidity. - Right, right, right, but the humidity because their earthly senses are heightened, right? - Senses are tuned to, you're still yourself. This is the thing that's so amazing. It was so fresh, so unbelievably fresh that mountain air on earth could not even come close. There was a tremendous light up there. And this is what I want you to pay attention to. It seemed to come from every direction. It was all around and everywhere that I happened to be looking, it seemed like everything. Even the grass I'd been stepping on seemed to soak in that light. It seemed like the light could actually penetrate through everything, even the leaves on the trees. There was no shade, there was no need for shade. The light was actually all encompassing. - This is Revelation 22, 21. - Yeah, I wondered, how could I know this? Because I'd never seen before that point. I felt that I wouldn't understand it, have it happened on earth, but where I was, I was able to accept it almost immediately. Now, here's the thing I want to point out, Brad, this eight year old blind kid, he ends up walking up to this wall that he describes as a wall like a wall of gemstones with this light that was, it was like his own fire coming out of the wall. And he was almost afraid to touch it, but then it was so, he could have just looked at it forever. And then he goes through this archway, and he's starting to go through this archway. He doesn't even know what he's describing. - Right. - He's describing the exact same wall and archway that a surgeon, a Christian surgeon, a Christian pastor, this Christian TWA airline pilot is describing, and it is this gate, this archway of mesmerizing pearlescent-like substance. It's not a pearl, it's something otherworldly. - Right. - And he's heading into the city. He's heading into the city of God. This is what John described in Revelation 21 and 22. He said the city is the 12 foundations are 12 different gemstones. And you hear other people describing it in different ways. And the light, it says there is no Isaiah, says it, and so does John. There is no sun or moon in heaven. The light of God gives it light, and the lamb, Jesus is its lamp, and the nations will walk in that light. - Yes. - And this is what people are describing. And here's the thing that's amazing. Most Christians don't know that. - No, that's true. - Most Christians do not know that there's no sun or moon in heaven and that God is its light. And they've never thought about, well, if the colors of this earth are the spectrum of the earth's light, I wonder what the color spectrum of God's light is. Well, they describe it. This is another commonality. They can't stop talking about the lights of heaven and the colors, how vivid and how the spectrum goes so far beyond our color spectrum, we can't even explain it. Isn't that fascinating? - It's so bad and it's so biblical. - And many of the things we long for, like that perfect temperature. You know, people don't like to be too hot. They don't like to be too cold. Our art, right? Beautiful in color and the darkness that we see and we go, why God, why God? I mean, just gets amplified in heaven. And so it's, what did C.S. Lewis say? I'm gonna butcher the quote, but something like, you know, we're longing for a place we've never seen or been to. I have often thought, did God give C.S. Lewis an experience like this? Because he had such insight like that. Like even when he said, what we see now of people, you know, if you saw them in their glory, you'd be tempted to worship them, you know? Or if you saw them as they could be apart from God, you would see the most hideous grotesque, right? Well, there's some truth to that. - Yeah, there really is in the afterlife accounts. Because in the afterlife accounts, this is another thing that's common is that people, Christians, what they see in the city of God are people and they radiate the glory of God. But not all the same. Some shine brighter than others. - Yep. - And now think about that. That's kind of a weird thought. We've never thought about that. But, you know, I kind of postulate, you know, on this earth, we like, you know, we kind of show off our glory, right? You know, our muscles, you know, or our beauty and the red carpet and, you know, who we know or who we're close to or all that, right? I mean, it's, you know, it's a little craft. - Yeah, absolutely. - But what if, what if in heaven, the greatest reward is how much we share in the glory of God. How much we let his spirit shine through us in this life is in fact how much we experience of his light and life and love in heaven for eternity. - Yeah, and that's interesting because there are people. I mean, we've all met them. Every, every leader listening can relate to this. And there are a handful of people you meet in your life and you go, wow, when that person has spent time in the presence of God, you just know it. Even here, you know, without a near death experience, but just on a pure like person to person level, you're like, wow, that person, you know, radiates the love of God or that person has clearly spent time in the presence of God or that person really reflects the love of Jesus. And I wonder if in heaven, you know, Paul talks about making it as one who just escapes narrowly through the flames or, you know, you get there by the skin of your teeth and you're in heaven, but there is a direct cause and effect, not going to salvation, but going to reward that you talk about in the book as well, right? Where even the houses, you mentioned the houses, there are actual houses that these people see. It's like Jesus who says, you know, I'm going to prepare a place for you. We think, oh, that's metaphorical. It's like, no, no, no, I'm going to prepare a place for you in my father's house. There are many rooms if it were not. So I would told you so, but they're different. And some have big houses and some have little houses and some, some, but they're all geometrically shaped in different ways and talk a little bit about that. - Yeah. And I mean, you know, I know what a lot of pastors listen to this or go, what? - I know. - And this is the part, that's why we're doing this interview is like, I'm like, okay, this bent all my categories. So we have to have a conversation. - It did mine too. It made me go, okay, well, yeah, why do I think those things? Like they're in scripture, but I've just twisted them to be a little bit more metaphorical. - I've reduced them. You know what it is? - I've reduced. - If I had to say what the bias I walked into is that my interpretation of scripture was reductionistic, not, and this is somebody who evangelical, committed Christian, believes the Bible, you know, preaches like every single weekend. Heaven and hell hang in the balance, who's tried to live this out my adult life, who believes Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And who reads the Bible? Pretty much every single day of my adult life. And I reduce those metaphors and what your account did was it magnified them. And I think it's changed me personally, reading. And it did me too, it shocked, quite honestly, because but it gave me such a vivid impression of the life to come that I realized that what Jesus said is true. - And I know, you know, this is the weird part. - I know. - You and I agree. I never would have questioned before reading it. Of course what Jesus says is true. Of course there is a heaven. Yes, there is a second coming. Yes, I believe, I'm one of the few who still believe in hell. I think, yeah, the decisions we make in this life impact the next, and we'll get to that. But for some reason, when you marry the accounts that people have actually experienced to the revelation of scripture, as God has given to us in his word, it just amplifies the reality rather than makes us think, oh, you know, in my father's house, there are many rooms, and if it were not so, I would have told you so. I'm sure that's true. - Yeah. - I don't know. Is that, that was your experience. - Absolutely. - And I do think, I think the way to look at it is with that analogy of a two-dimensional black and white world to a three-dimensional. - Yeah. - You know, a black and white painting can hang in a house, right? And if we were in that black and white painting, we're still in this three-dimensional room that is where heaven is, hell is, I don't know, you know? But we don't experience it because our experience is limited for now. But one day, we will step into eternity, and it's not that that our two-dimensional, that we can't still understand or experience our two-dimensional world, it's that it's so greater than just that. - Yeah, it's 1 Corinthians 13. Now we see in part, and then that ties into love. Now, man, I think this is gonna be a 17-part interview, John, 'cause this is fascinating. There were a couple of other commonalities, if you could just touch on the big one. Life review, I don't wanna jump you ahead, but life review was a big one, and there were a few others as well. And I wanna talk about Jesus. - Let's start with Jesus. - Oh, yeah, let's start with Jesus. So this one blew me away, as much as I believe that Jesus is who he says he was. People who don't even have a faith experience met this 30-something male with a beard. Well, not just that, a man of brilliant light, who is love, who knows them inside and out, knows they're every thought, every motive. And I use examples from around the world. - Yeah. - Right? I mean, people around-- - This isn't like people who got teleported out of a Baptist church. - No, and this is what's so fascinating. Like, I even talk about a study done of 500 Indians, from the continent of India, and 500 Americans. And the researchers were trying to prove that near-death experiences are other than anything our religions point to. - Right. - That's what they were trying to prove, all right? And they conclude that, see, it's not Christian because these people experience this God who is this being of light, who is love, who knows them personally, they don't feel condemned, they don't feel judged, see, it's all good. - So it's universalism. Basically, they're trying to prove universalism. - Yeah. - Right, so it's not Christian. Now, I explain, I try to explain that, right? - Right. - Why would that be the case? Well, it would be the case because that's exactly who we should expect of Jesus. - Right. - I mean, the religious leaders wanted to stone the adulterous woman to death, and what did he say? - I don't condemn. - Where are your condemners? Neither do I condemn you. This is what we should expect, right? 'Cause their life isn't over yet. And he does love them, and he does know them, and he does want them to seek him. But he doesn't force our will. I think so many times we think, well, God is just limited, you know? Like if God could, he could just show up, but he can't. - Right. - And so when he does show up, we're confused why he doesn't say, hey, I'm Jesus, you know? I wasn't able to tell you before, but now I'm gonna tell you. No, that is the point, he wants us to seek him. He doesn't force our will. So he doesn't force the will of people who see him. And this is what I try to show as well, that even though these people see him all across the globe, you know, Paul did too. So Paul sees this brilliant man of light. He asks, who are you? He says, I'm Jesus. Now that didn't mean Paul was converted. - Right. - Actually, Jesus said, go to Ananias, he'll tell you what to do. Ananias said, be baptized for the remission of your sins. Paul still had a choice. - Yeah. - These people still have a choice. And some of them do really seek and they find the God of the Bible, others don't. Just like the Pharisees, they saw Jesus do miracles right in front of them. And some said you're demonically possessed. - Right. So this doesn't automatically lead to faith, but people do encounter not just God, but Jesus, right? - And what I'm showing as well is this study that's trying to disprove a Christian or a Hindu view. Here's what they say of the Indians who had these experiences. So I'm quoting from these researchers. They say several basic Hindu ideas of the afterlife were never portrayed in the visions of the Indian patients who had these near death experiences. The various Vedic loci of the afterlife of Hindu heaven were never mentioned, nor were reincarnation or dissolution into Brahma. That's where we lose our personal selves and we become one with the impersonal Brahma, the formless aspect of God, which is the goal of Indian spiritual striving. Now listen to this, say the concept of karma, the accumulation of merits and demerits, that's basically payback for your good or bad deeds, may have vaguely been suggested by reports of a white robe man with a book of accounts. - Wow. - And there are multiple ones in India like that where they see heaven and they see a book of accounts or books of accounts. That's not Hindu, that's revelation. - That's Christian. Yep. - That's Daniel, that's John in Revelation. - That's fascinating. - It is fascinating. - And so it's a person, not a being, not a state, not enlightenment, it's a person. - Oh, and they know, and they know he is, he's a person. He is the most beautiful. They can't even describe Samah who was Middle Eastern. She actually, she was raised Muslim, she came to faith in Christ and actually was ripped apart by a bomb in church, in the Middle East, okay? 10 people died, she somehow came back. Here's what she says, when she sees Jesus, okay? And Jesus says, "Welcome home, Samah." And she says, "It was as if Jesus were a brilliant diamond, his beauty dazzling and excellent radiating holiness and splendor totally captivated me. All of my affection and attention were focused on him. Everything else in heaven was like a precious stone, but it's glory fading in beauty beside the beautiful diamond that reflected light from every angle." In this, I quote this New Zealander, who- - This is a Muslim woman, yeah. - That was a, well, that was a Christian. - She's a Christian. - Okay, gotcha, gotcha, sorry, sorry. - She grew up Muslim, she had come today. - Sorry, thank you. - Yeah, yeah. - Okay, so a New Zealander. - So a New Zealander who also, as he's dying, sees a vision of his mom praying and saying, "Ean, you know, if at ever you need to, you know, just turn back to God and ask for forgiveness and he will accept you." And he was just a wild guy. He's a 20-something surfing and sleeping, doing drugs, sleeping around, you know. And he's in the hospital, he's dying. And basically the Lord's prayer starts to come to his mind and he prays it. And at first he starts, he has a kind of a hellish experience. - Yeah, I was gonna say, I remember his account and he actually felt like he was heading toward hell. - Well, he starts in a hellish kind of experience and he goes, "Why am I here?" And he's crying out to God, "Why am I here?" I asked for forgiveness. And it's a, so I'll be honest, some of this was confusing. Like, "Well, what, why?" And again, you know, what I've concluded is that in some cases, God is showing that he knows, right? He knows he's gonna send these people back. And he's giving them an understanding of heaven and hell. I put even Alexander's account in there. He's the neurosurgeon who wrote proof of heaven, right? And, you know, though I question, he might be a Christian, but he was very skeptical. He does talk about in church, how it all kind of came together for him afterwards. - He called himself, I think, in his book, 'cause I read it, a nominal Anglican, right? Or something like that, yeah. - But, you know, he is, he's not leading people in the way of Christ. He's leading people to try to experience out of body experiences. So, you know, in a way that I, you know, this is, I don't think God wants us to go that way. You know, I talk about that. But here's what's fascinating. No matter how he interprets it, I just took his words, what he reported. And he starts in a hellish experience that's just like everybody else is reporting. And then he also has an experience of this beauty and this beautiful place, right? And he notes that they told him, you're getting an overview. You're getting an experience of the whole thing, right? So, in some cases, I think God is giving us a glimpse of the whole thing. - Yep, of life and death, heaven and hell. - Life and death, heaven and hell to show it's real. The whole thing is real. - Isn't that interesting? Okay, go ahead. - Yeah, so very clearly people around the globe experience this being of light who they know to be God and more loving than they could ever possibly imagine. No one wants to leave his presence, but in his presence many times, he gives them a life review. And this is another commonality. And this one is fascinating because now again, they describe what Peter said, that to the Lord a day is like a thousand years or a thousand years is like a day. Fascinating hearing how near-death experiences talk about time because they use different words, right? - Yeah. - Some of them say, there wasn't a past, present and future. Time doesn't work that way, or some say there was no time. But then others say, no, there was time, but I don't know if it was an instant or years or an eternity. - Fascinating. - Well, that's what the Bible says. - Exactly. - There was a time when there was no time, there will be a time where there is no time, time and space are created order. - And I actually believe that there is time, but it's gonna be time in two or three dimensions. And I talk about how even two or three dimensions of time start to make sense of when God said I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. And, you know, he transcends even that. He transcends all time 'cause he created time. - Yeah. - He will experience other dimensions at times. So they experienced this life review and whether it was an instant, but they relived their years up until that point. But the fascinating thing is they re-experience it. And let me read you this one account. - Yeah. - And this is a woman who I don't think she's a Christian, necessarily, but listen to what she said. I went through this dark vacuum at super speed. I saw a bright light and I heard this beautiful music and saw colors I had never seen before. The light was the pinnacle of everything there is, of energy, of love, especially, of warmth, of beauty. I was immersed in a feeling of total love. From the moment the light spoke to me, I felt really good, secure and loved. The love which came from it was just unimaginable, indescribable, and it was a fun person to be with. Now, this is what trips us up, right? 'Cause she's talking about Jesus, but as it. And she knows all the theological categories wrong, but we'll get to that, all right? She says, and it had a sense of humor too, definitely. I never wanted to leave the presence of this being. My whole life so far appeared to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic three-dimensional review. Each event seemed to be accompanied by an awareness of good and evil. Okay, so this is just what Jesus said. Or by insight into its cause and effect. Throughout, I not only saw everything from my own point of view, but I also knew the thoughts and feelings of everybody who I'd ever been involved with in these events, as if their thoughts were lodged inside of me. It meant that I not only saw what I had done or thought, but even how this had affected others, as if I were seen with all-knowing eyes. And throughout the review, stress the importance of love. This is common, right? Yeah, this is almost universal, the life review. It's unbelievable. Well, it's not that everybody has one, but those who have it, it's very common that they have this panoramic reliving of their lives, but in the presence of God, he is showing them the impact of their thoughts, their deeds, their motives, their actions. He knows it all, it's exactly what Jesus said. Yeah, every thought, every hidden motive, everything exposed. Everything will be brought to life. Everything he said, these people are validating, but what they're realizing, they come back realizing the importance of love, that these little acts of kindness, these little deeds that we do, that they impact other people, and God shows the ripple effect throughout humanity. Yeah, and that very, and I remember in a lot of the accounts that you relayed, people said things that they hoped would show up as really good were kind of insignificant. And then other things that they thought nothing of turned out to be really big events, and that our actions, our motives, how we make people feel, whether we're truly motivated by the love of God, really makes a big difference. And it shouldn't shock us as pastors, but hey, wake up, call Jesus was serious. Yeah, and there's a patch. Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me, right? That's what he said at the judgment is gonna happen. And he meant it. This is not judgment. And that's a very important thing to understand, and I point out in the chapter on rewards and judgments that this is where near-death researchers miss it completely. The judgment, there are two judgments. There's the beam of seat, the judgment of rewards, and there's the judgment of faith of whether we recognized our need for Christ atoning death, right? And neither of those happens until all of human history is wrapped up. These people did not biologically die. They didn't cross that boundary. So we shouldn't expect judgment. What they're seeing is just the truth of what Jesus said. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And the bema, you say bema. Now, explain where that term comes from the bema, bema seat of judgment. Well, I mean, it comes from the New Testament. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The bema, the bema, so there are two judgments spoken about in the New Testament. You know, the Great White Throne is the judgment of faith. And that's where, that's where every deed, everything ever done will be laid bare. And here's the other fascinating thing. Here's where people get this wrong. In this life review, what they commonly say is we're our own worst judges. Right. And this is another thing that confuses Christians because we don't know the scriptures that well quite often. Right, so researchers say, see God isn't judging you. You're your own worst judge. Now, they misinterpret it to say, so just get over it 'cause it's all good. Yeah. Well, that's not a good understanding. And it's not what a lot of people realize. What Jesus said is by your own words will you be judged, by your own words will you be vindicated. He said that. Yep. So again, he's just telling us the truth. At the Great White Throne, we're going to realize that either our own words, I don't need you, God, I am God. Or I will be God. Or I will figure this out on my own is gonna be the worst indictment we could ever imagine because he's who we've wanted. Yes. What our whole life has been for. This is, we finally realize that this is what I was longing for and our own words will reject him. What greater sentencing could there ever be? And that's, and you know, this is the other thing that people commonly realize is that's not God's will at all. No. He's done everything he can possibly do to remove every barrier between every human and himself except our pride, you know. And this is what I'm trying to do through the book is show the gospel and help people, you know, where it was come to faith. And help Christians live for it and be bold about it. Those are just great commonalities you see. If I want to, I want to ask you a couple more questions, John, but let's go back to Jesus because the thing that really probably almost made me drop the book when I was reading it is, you know, we always wonder about the Sunday school pictures of Jesus we see with the beard, you know, and he's generally looking up to heaven. He's got the shoulder length, brown hair and people go, he doesn't even look Jewish and that sort of thing. And yet there are numerous accounts that you were laid that actually describe not just the being of light, but somebody who appears to be a man, Jesus, about 30 years old with shoulder length, reddish brown hair and a beard. And in that translucent garment, the white, the gold sash, the whole deal, like man, that's what people actually saw the Jesus that we would commonly think of as a picture of Jesus. - Well, and it's both and. - Yeah. - It is both and because people, they describe this brilliant man of light. Ian, this New Zealand surfer asks to come closer and in this brilliant light brighter than the sun stood a man in a robe with his arms out to him. - Right. - You know, and he tries to describe this and they try to describe these garments woven of light. It's just, but the light is love and it's palpable. - Yeah. - And they describe his eyes. I mean, so many of them, even little kids, they say, you know, his eyes are the most beautiful eyes you could ever imagine. And they describe them, some of them as all the colors and like fire or like, but not fire like we think of fire, but it's just. - A very biblical. - Yeah. - Very biblical, but you start to realize that all the biblical words fall short. They were trying their best to describe something that in our dimensionality is just hard to picture. But yes, Jesus can appear. He can appear kind of toned down. You know, like he did on the Mais Road, right? - Yeah. - Or he can appear in all his glory like he did on the Mount of Transfiguration. - Wow. - And so yes, it is a both hand. And you know, like Vicki who was another blind near death experiencer, you know, she experiences Jesus and he embraces her, and this is another thing, is the embraces of heaven, the hugs of heaven. They tried to describe them and yes, it's physical, but it's so much more than that. - Yeah, she said it was like he enveloped me. It's not just a hug. And I mean, you just, you do, you start to see that really everything of this life is a toned down version of the abundant life we were created to live. All of it, every good gift is just a toned down version of what's to come. So one more question before we sort of talk about where people can find things in that, let's talk about hell, not everybody made it to heaven in this story. And there have been other books, you know, I think it's 23 minutes in hell and other books that describe a shadow side to the afterlife. And you have a chapter in Imagine Heaven about that as well, John, because I think one of the reasons a lot of Christians have been afraid of near death experiences is because they think at points to almost Unitarian universalism where everybody gets in and there is no judgment and the Bible is inaccurate in its view of the afterlife. And you know, I know a lot of Christians who just struggle with the well, if God is so loving, why is there a hell? And yet some people actually experienced an eternity or a near death experience that would lead them to a much closer description of hell than it would have happened. So talk about that for a moment. Yeah, and Carrie, this is why I think it's so important for Christians to speak into this topic because what happened is the early researchers, when these stories started coming out, more and more people got the boldness to step forward, but they told the good stories. People who had horrible experiences were like, what's wrong with me? Oh my gosh. And this is not a small deal. These are so traumatic. It's like post traumatic stress syndrome times 100. So yes, I do a whole chapter on what about hellish experiences. And even though, you know, one out of 25 people have had near death experiences, very few come forward because they often get mocked, but of those who have come forward now, 23% had hellish experiences. That's a lot, that's a whole lot. In fact, Dutch researcher, Dr. Pemvan Lommel, who is not a Christian, I don't think, he doesn't seem to be leading people that direction, but he says this of hellish experiences. To their horror, they sometimes find themselves pulled even deeper into the profound darkness. The NDE, near death experience, ends in this scary atmosphere. Such a terrifying NDE usually produces long-lasting emotional trauma. The exact number of people who experience such a frightening NDE is unknown because they often keep quiet out of shame and guilt. These are more common than we realize. And I also talk about how many cardiologists, while resuscitating patients, like this one cardiologist, Dr. Rawlings, who did not believe at all, is resuscitating a patient and he keeps screaming every time his heart revives, he keeps screaming, "I'm in hell, I'm in hell." And then he goes to reach for a tool or whatever, he's trying to put in a pacemaker, the guy dies again every time. And he says, "Pray for me, I'm in hell, "you gotta keep me out of hell." And Rawlings said, "Keep your hell to yourself, "I'm not a preacher, I'm a doctor, "let me get me your pacemaker in." But the guy keeps pleading with him, and so Rawlings, just to get the guy to shut up, reaches back to his old Sunday school knowledge and says, "Okay, just say this. "Jesus saved me from hell. "If I live, I'm on the account for you." Something like that. The guy prays it. The next time he, again, his heart stops, he actually later found out he had a good experience. Now, that scared the hell out of Rawlings. - Yeah, no kidding. - And he goes and dust off his Bible and starts reading. He goes to talk to the guy the week later and said, "What was this hellish thing you were seeing?" The guy said, "What are you talking about?" He didn't remember any of the hellish experiences. He only remembered the one after he prayed where he was in the room watching the doctor resuscitate him, and then he went to this beautiful lush valley, mountain valley where he met his biological mother who died giving birth to him, and his mother who raised him who had died as well. - Wow. - So Rawlings and several other cardiologists talk about people who, the memory is so traumatic, it's suppressed. - It's almost repressed, yeah. - Yeah, we don't know the numbers. - And even Ian, the New Zealand surfer you mentioned, he was heading toward hell. And people experienced different gradations of hell as well in their accounts. And what you, I think the most powerful one is a guy that I know personally and interviewed him. He was a college professor, tenured college professor who was an atheist. He was in Paris when his lower duodenum, his lower intestine ruptured. They say you have five hours till you die, you don't get surgery. They couldn't get a surgeon 'cause it was the weekend in Paris. Nine hours later, he gives up. Now, here's what's really important. So he thought it was just gonna be lights out. - Right, and he believed when you died, that was it. It was just, you had your nice 50 years, 70 years, you're done, over. - And he finds himself standing beside the bed in the room, looking at his wife, he feels more alive than he's ever felt before. He doesn't realize he's dead. - Right. - And this is what, you know, when you start to see these, this is how you start to make sense of, okay, well, maybe some of 'em start good, but it doesn't mean they're all gonna end good. 'Cause his started good. He felt more alive than he ever had with, you know, this sensory explosion, you know, just feels so himself. And he had a welcoming committee, too. - Yep. - He had a group of people who were out in the hallway at the hospital saying, Howard, come with us. We've been waiting for you. - This is a chilling story, I remember this one. This is a horrible story. - Yeah. - We've been coming, we've been waiting for you. And he said, I need surgery, I'm dying. I need surgery. He said, we know, we know, we'll help you come with us. And basically, they lead him. Now, it's hard for us to understand what's going on because again, time isn't working the way it does here and distances don't work the way they work here. It's looking back and seeing his wife sitting there, even though he tried to get her and couldn't get her attention, but basically they lead him into this outer darkness. And suddenly he realizes he's in utter darkness and these people have been tricking him and they pounce on him. And it becomes this all-out, horrific brawl. - So they appear to be his friends, but in fact, they just torture him. - And it literally is the outer darkness that Jesus was talking about, where there's weeping, there's gnashing of teeth that are just. - And he even, he says things happen to him, like sexual and graphic that he can't even write about. He's like, I'm not even gonna write about this. - I interviewed him. - Yeah. - I interviewed him and he talked for an hour and a half about this, but he got to a place where it literally brought him to tears again. Now again, my point is how do you get a tenured college professor who's an atheist to make up such a stupid wild story and then leave his tenured profession to become a Christian pastor? - Right, right. - You know, how do you explain? - That paints his first X number of years in a horrible light, like I was wrong, I made a mistake. - Yeah, so, and there are fascinating stories. Now, one of the most, so my point is that the Bible gives us, and Jesus has given us a panoramic view, a bigger picture that all these near-death experiences fit into to help us see the bigger picture. But if we don't look at the bigger picture of the scripture and make sense of these, what happens is researchers just take 'em and they interpret it in their own way. - Well, they make an idiosyncratic thing or an individual thing, a universal thing where what I like about what you did is you look at all of it. And again, what this fellow, I forget his name, experienced, the college professor. Yeah, what was it, Howard? - Howard. - Yeah, Howard. What Howard experienced is not inconsistent at all with scripture, it's very consistent with. - In a book that was just on hellish experiences, that was actually trying to make light of them in some ways. I quote an experience of a woman and it's chilling too because she grew up Jewish and she says in the story, she starts off saying, I don't really know what to make of this 'cause in one sense it was realer than anything has ever been real to me before, but I'm Jewish and I don't believe in Jesus. - Yeah. - But what happened to me, and then she goes on and talks about how there was this car crash, she's up above the car crash, she sees her two kids in the car and people stop and they take her kids out of the car, she can tell the other person's died and she's looking at it and suddenly she feels this warmth, this incredible peace and tranquility to her right and she turns and looks and she says, it was Jesus, like just how you would think you would see Jesus. And he took my hand and I felt so warm, so loved, so embraced that I never ever wanted to leave this person's presence. Then she says, he led me to this place, to this well, he leads her to this well and he leads her across this place she said that was just horrific with these tortured souls who they were just in a horrible way and he basically shows her something in this well and she says, I felt like I had a choice of whether to stay or not, but I knew this young Jesus didn't want me to stay because if I stayed, I'd be one of these tortured souls. She says, I never wanted to leave his presence, but he didn't want me to stay 'cause I'd be one of these tortured souls, so I end up going back. Now, here's the craziest part, after all that she says, but I don't believe in Jesus because I'm Jewish, so I don't know what to make of that whole thing. - Yeah, I know, it's like, who? And we talked about this before we started recording, but I read a book years ago now for a sermon I was doing an eternity by Bill Weiss called "23 Minutes in Hell" and that's one of the most chilling books I've ever read, but he wasn't a believer at a near death experience that led him to hell and it's just horrendous and again, it's action by our choice and how we respond to the love of God extended to us in Jesus Christ. - And I think that's the thing to take to heart is that just because God allows these experiences to happen and again, it's not new, you know? We've gotten away from it all the time. - Jesus and multiple people, right? It's not new, but he's allowing it for a reason. It doesn't take away our free will. This life, what it does is it helps make sense of it. This life is a shrunk down taste of heaven and hell, much reduced because God knows there's something far, far better to come, but there's also something way, way worse that's possible. - So when people say this is heaven, you kind of go, well, yes, but not really. And when people say, I'm going through hell, it's like, or you hear that all the time, my life is hell, it's like, not really. Maybe a sampling, but no. - And that's why I do a whole chapter on no more crying, tears are pain, right? No more morning crying or pain because it actually makes sense even of why God allows so much suffering. - Yeah, yeah, so that you kind of get warned. It's like, you know, you burn your hand on the stove, but you still have use of your hand, so don't burn it off. - And truly, and truly, like Paul talked about, that yeah, you know, God wants every person to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. He wants every person, and truly, he is so merciful. All it takes is a repentant heart, that's all it takes. - And that is what happened in some of the accounts too, right? Where people are headed toward hell, and they're like, they pray this prayer that they barely remember, and, you know, God, I'm turning to you, and Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so, and then their eternity changes. - Yeah, and again, you know-- - Their direction changes. - For many Christian pastors, they're like, well, you know, you can't decide after you die. Well, these people didn't die. Again, this was not biological death, and I think that's a very, very important distinction to make. So what I'm trying to do in Imagine Heaven is clear up a lot of the both Christian confusion and new age confusion, and look at not how people necessarily interpret one or two individual stories, 'cause I do not wanna encourage people to go read individual near-death experiences and form their view of the afterlife. I'm advocating the scriptures. I'm advocating that people really take seriously what the prophets and what Jesus taught, but see that these actually fit together to show that everything they said is real, and it's really gonna happen. And so Christians live like it's true. You know, Paul was serious when he said that there will be some who, yes, they are saved, but as if running out of a burning house. Everything they live for, everything they work for went up in smoke, yeah, you're in heaven. And as John Edward said, you know, he said, I think all of us will experience the fullness of the love and joy of God, but with different capacities. - Yeah, yeah. - Right? And you gotta live, you want to live to be the one who shares in the glory of God fully, but remember, that means we share in a suffering, and we don't always wanna share in a suffering. - No, and to me, this book has just really, and again, as you and I've already said, I've always believed the scriptures, I've always believed it was real, but it just, I don't know whether it punctuates or highlights or just livens my sense of urgency. And you and I were talking before we started recording, like I just think this could be an incredible apologetics book, even though it's not really written as an apologetics book. It is on my list of like, there are people I wanna give this book to, and I pray they read it, because I think it might change their eternity. - Well, it is, I mean, it is, the God's using it that way. I mean, I've, you know, I've been interviewed on Fox and CBS and NBC and people are just fascinated. They wanna know, we're all gonna die. We have a-- - What really happens? - And when we did a six-week series at Gateway, and I mean, people invited non-Christian friends like crazy, and they came. Our attendance grew by 30% during that series. And we have seen so many stories of people who were just like me. They were just like, I don't know, I don't know what I think about God or Jesus or all that. And yet afterwards, they believed, they gave their heart to Christ. And that really is my prayer. My prayer is that, you know, that thousands of people who are like I was would be in eternity, you know, because of this. And that Christians who, you know, really are more excited about retirement, quite honestly, would live sacrificial lives and really pay attention to the urgency of the time. - Yeah, we can't over-invest in this mission. We really can't. I'm with you on that. Now, John, I know people are gonna want to know more. So the book probably has a website, but there's also a way that you can make resources available for people that I'd love for you to tell our leaders and listeners about. - Yeah, imagineheaven.net is the website. You can go out and read two chapters, free the first two chapters free out there. And we've been getting lots of requests. So what we've done is we put it together where if like a church wants to do a series, we can, through imagineheaven.net, you can get the books in bulk. So you can get them about, I think 50% off or something like that. And then when you do that, you also get the message transcripts and the live interviews I did with these people. - Awesome, so full video of these interviews. - The atheistic college professor, the TWA, airline pilot, Don Piper, the pastor who was dead 90 minutes. So I did live interviews with them and show you where you can show those during the sermon. So you can basically show them to your congregation as well. And it's powerful, it really is. - Oh, I can only imagine. So what we can do, it's imagineheaven.net. And that's where people can find that out. And again, if you're interested in doing this series and you can get the books in discount and then if you buy a certain number of books, those messages are free as well, which is incredible. - Yeah, just a case of books, that's all yeah. You buy a case, they're half off and you get all the resources free. - That's cool. - You know, we want people to be there with us, right? - Absolutely, absolutely. John, I can't thank you enough. I know how busy you are. And I know this has just been fascinating to me. So this was a 100% selfish interview on my part. So I just wanna thank you so much. But I know you've helped so many leaders with this. People are gonna wanna track with you too, John. So where can they find you on social media? And you also lead a church full-time. So tell us a little bit about that too. - johnberkonline.com is where I blog. And then yeah, if you have any questions, you can just email info@imagineheaven.net for the resources and stuff. But yeah, thanks so much, Kerry. - And get me church Austin too is your church. So we'll make sure people can get that. Hey, John, thank you so much. Really, really appreciate this huge investment in the kingdom. What do you do? You've inspired me for many, many years. And this book has just been great for me. A real encouragement. And I know it well from many other leaders as well. - Oh, thanks, Kerry. - Okay, so is that not fascinating or what? Like, isn't that great? I just love that conversation. I loved the book. And I'm actually gonna do that series thing that John talked about. So all the links are gonna be in the show notes. You can get them at kerrynuhoff.com/episodes77. And you can just find them right there. So I don't know, for some of you like, I love the Bible. I believe the Bible. I've read the Bible all of my life. I believe it's the authoritative word of God. But when you actually begin to read some of these accounts and they sound an awful lot like what Isaiah saw or what John saw, you're like, wow, did they have like near-death experiences? Or what about Paul and 1 Corinthians 12? Or did God just take them there super naturally to see these things that apparently lots of other people have seen as well, but haven't talked about it. Anyway, it was just so interesting to me that I decided to share it with you. I hope it was good for you. People say like one of the things they like about the podcast is it's so eclectic. So this is definitely on the eclectic side, but really enjoyed it. And next week we're back with Perry Noble. And then we've got Andy Stanley coming up in the next few weeks, Ravi Zacharias. We've got Dr. Kim Kimberling, who's gonna talk all about how to have an awesome marriage. Whit George is coming up, Josh Whitehead from Faith Promise Church. And then a whole bunch of others. It's gonna be great. Make sure you subscribe. And if you would be so kind, leave a rating and review. On iTunes, because when you do that, when you subscribe and you leave a rating and review, it gets this into the feed of other people and then other listeners benefit. And I'm very thankful when word gets out about this podcast. So if it's been helpful to you, share it with other people. And hey, I'm looking forward to next Tuesday. Thanks so much. I really hope our time together today helped you lead like never before. - You've been listening to the Kerry Newhof Leadership Podcast. Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]