Well, hey everybody, welcome to Made to Advance.

And today we are gonna do something

we have never done before.

Today we're gonna rebroadcast what is the most popular,

the most listened to episode of Made to Advance

that we have ever had in the history of this podcast.

We're gonna be rebroadcasting my conversation

with John Burke, who is an expert on near-death experiences.

And I know our conversation made such an impact

on all those who were able to listen to it.

So here's my hope.

My hope is that for those of you who are new to the podcast,

you're gonna hear something you've never heard before.

And I trust me, it's gonna make an impact on you.

And then for those who maybe were part

of this conversation when it was first broadcast,

man, I'd encourage you to re-listen to it.

I know for me, like sometimes I hear something

the first time and it's good.

Second time I hear it, I just hear it a whole different way.

And so I hope you enjoy it.

Without further delay,

here is my conversation with John Burke.

Even Christians have a horrible view

of heaven, quite honestly.

Yeah.

You know, an endless, I've heard,

but we'll be worshiping the Lord forever,

just like an endless church service.

I'm a pastor and I'm thinking, I don't want to do that.

Right.

We have a great worship team, but you know, forever?

Yeah.

You know, so I think it gives people hope

because it's exactly what the Bible's been telling us

all along, but for some reason,

we don't really imagine it that way.

Because if we did, we would live for it.

This is the Made to Advance podcast.

I'm your host, Brian Aulick.

We're here to inspire and equip you for your best future.

Well, welcome everybody.

It is so good to be with you today.

And I'm so glad you're on Made to Advance.

Before we get started with our conversation,

I wanna ask you a favor.

If you have appreciated this podcast,

please rate and review us.

That helps us get the word out about Made to Advance.

And it also helps us bring on incredible guests

like the one we have today.

John Burke is with us.

And he is the former pastor, founding pastor

of an amazing, amazing church

called Gateway Church in Austin, Texas.

John has researched over a thousand cases

of near-death experiences or NDEs,

which led him to become the best,

the author of a best-selling book called "Imagine Heaven."

And then he followed that book up

with a book called "Imagine the God of Heaven."

traveled to over 30 countries,

training and equipping more than 100,000 people.

And John, it is so good to have you on Made to Advance.

Thanks, Brian, great to be here.

You know, it's funny, I was excited and eager

and looking forward to this conversation.

And I was at a funeral that a friend of mine

that you also know, Scott Rubin was doing.

He was leading a funeral for his father

and he was doing such a great job.

And then right in the midst of his comments,

he starts talking about your book.

And I thought this is perfect timing.

And he just had so many great things.

It was really fun to hear him say so many great things

about it at such an important time.

Do you get that a lot where people say it comes up

at funerals and those kinds of occasions

where people are trying to speak hope in life?

>> Yeah, particularly imagine heaven.

I think because it changes the perspective, right?

I mean, even Christians, you know, when we think about death, we think of something looming

and horrible.

Even Christians have a horrible view of heaven, quite honestly.

And endless, I've heard, "We'll be worshiping the Lord forever," just like an endless church

service.

I'm a pastor and I'm thinking, "I don't want to do that."

We have a great worship team, but forever?

So I think it gives people hope because it's exactly what the Bible's been telling us all

along, but for some reason we don't really imagine it that way.

Because if we did, we would live for it.

You know, we would be like the heroes of Hebrews chapter 11 who weren't looking for a country

of their own here on earth because they were looking for a heavenly country.

Right on.

I'm curious, and it's funny because I had thought about asking this question, but you're,

and I thought, "Oh, I'm not gonna write it down,"

but you're hitting right on a question I was thinking about,

which is, why do you think there is such a malformed

kind of anemic view of heaven in the church?

'Cause I think you're right on.

I've thought about that many times,

but it just seems so weird to me

that we have this incredible perspective in the scripture,

and then it doesn't seem like it's captivated

the imagination of Christians.

Well, I think that is a big part of it.

I mean, I think our imagination,

you know, when we imagine,

it doesn't mean everything we imagine is imaginary, right?

Imagination is a gift from God

that I think is tied somewhat to faith.

I mean, if you think about it, like,

you know, why would you live

for something that's less than this?

You won't. - Right.

And many don't, by the way.

And that's a problem.

It's all in the scriptures.

And my book, "Imagine Heaven," it's filled with scripture.

Imagine the God of heaven as well,

but it's filled with scripture showing

how what these well over a thousand people

that I've interviewed are commonly experiencing,

saying they're seeing and hearing and experiencing

is all right there in the scriptures.

But when you hear it through their eyes,

suddenly it's like putting color on a black and white painting, right? It brings it to life,

it makes it more vivid. And I think in the scriptures, you know, unless you, I mean,

I studied systematic theology, unless you do a systematic study of the afterlife, the life to

come in scripture, you wouldn't necessarily see that. And then you have to use your imagination

even beyond that. So, you know, Randy Alcorn did. He wrote an excellent book on heaven,

right? And it's more of a theological treatise on it, but he did do a full systematic study and

used imagination to go, "Okay, if it's like this, then what might it be like?" So what I was trying

to do is a similar thing, but help people see through the eyes of these people having near-death

experiences, which I have come to believe, I didn't initially, but I've come to believe

are God's testimonies to our globally connected world, showing that heaven is real, hell is

real, and he is the God of all nations, and he always has been, and he's calling all his

children home.

That's what he did to provide a way for them through Jesus.

Well, I can't wait to unpack a little bit more about just when we talk about near-death

what do those usually involve?

What do they look like?

But there was one question I just felt like I had to ask

before we even got into the kind of the meat of the subject.

You started out professionally as an engineer.

You end up as a pastor.

Not many people think of that as a natural career trajectory.

I'm gonna get my engineering training

and then end up as a pastor

and pastor of a great vibrant church.

How in the world does that happen?

Well, ironically, it passes right through

the whole topic of near-death experiences,

which is, I know, it sounds bizarre.

But I was an agnostic.

I thought Jesus was a good teacher,

made legend, not the son of God.

I thought, God, who knows?

I mean, there's no evidence, so probably not.

And that was because I had a lot of questions

and I had very few, really no people take the time

answer any of them or even direct me. And so I came to that conclusion was going along my party

in merry way when my dad's dying of cancer. And someone gave him the very first research that

coined the term near death experience. And I see it on his bedside table. And, and I started reading

it. And I think they gave it to him because he was dying. And this is this is hope that there's

life beyond. Right. And so I'm like, Whoa, what is this? And I and I didn't put it down. I read

the whole thing in one night. And here I'm reading about people if you don't know what a near death

experience is. And I don't even like the term near death experience because the ones I study are not

nearly dead. They're dead. They are clinically dead. Their heart stops beating, brainwaves cease,

And yet they are resuscitated sometimes after minutes, but sometimes after hours.

Sometimes I think it's modern medicine bringing them back,

but sometimes, quite honestly, it's just a miracle.

But they come back talking.

And this is what I'm reading about this, that they were more alive

than they've ever felt in a place more real than this has ever felt.

And then many of them talking about in the presence of this God of light

and love, who is personal, whose presence they never wanted to leave.

And many of them also talked about seeing Jesus.

And because of that, I was like, "Wow, okay, maybe this is the evidence I've been looking

for.

Maybe this God-Jesus afterlife stuff could be real after all."

That's what actually opened me up to start studying the Bible.

No kidding.

And so then I start studying the Bible and it wasn't near-death experiences that led

me to faith in Christ.

It was actually the historical verification of the things God said in the Old Testament.

I'm the only one who knows the future.

Here's what's going to happen.

He foretold what would happen in 1948 with the reformation of Israel after 1900 years

scattered and it happened.

for a skeptical engineering mind, I was like, I can't explain that.

Like he said, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen.

That's how you'll know I'm really God.

Here's what's going to happen.

And then the same thing for, for all the prophecies of the coming

Messiah, fulfilled in Jesus.

So that's actually what led me to faith.

It took me 35 years and researching over a thousand near-death experiences

before I wrote about it in 2015.

And I wrote "Imagine Heaven" back then.

And then I wrote "Imagine God" this year

and actually passed the leadership of our church

to speak on this.

And the reason is, is because I really do believe

that this is God's new global apologetic.

I think he's raising up these testimonies.

In this new book, "Imagine the God of Heaven,"

I have interviewed people, 70 people having near-death experiences after being clinically

dead on every continent.

Wow.

How do you meet all these people?

That's what I'm, when I hear you talk and write about all these different people, you'll

go country after country that you're talking with people.

And I keep thinking, how are these connections happening?

Well I know, and I mean, you know, they happened over 35 years for the, for the first book.

you know, when I felt like the Lord wanted me to write the second book, I said to him,

because I kind of quit. You know how hard it is pastoring a church, right? And I'd actually

written four books after I wrote Imagine Heaven. And even though it became a New York Times

bestseller and was still selling, I said to the Lord, "I think I did what you wanted.

You didn't call me to be an author. You called me to be a pastor. So I'm going to do that

unless you tell me otherwise.

Because it was just a lot.

And so then he did.

And and it was, you know, it was past the leadership.

I want you to focus on this.

And it is because I do think he's doing something.

I think he's showing the nations he is the god of all nations.

And when else could it happen?

So after when he when he asked me to write again, I said to him, I said,

"Well, I had 35 years to research.

You gotta help me."

And I'm not kidding you, Ryan.

People started reaching out to me

with people from all over the world.

'Cause imagine having been out like six years.

You know, it was pretty well known.

So yeah, I mean, a lot of them came to me.

I was kind of blown away.

When we think of near-death experiences,

for lack of better terms, since yeah,

I hear what you're saying,

that this is not near death, they're dead.

And yet there are, but there are some common,

it seems like themes or ideas you've heard

from what people experienced.

You already mentioned some of them.

Do you wanna expand on that at all

as far as what people typically experience

as you've had these conversations and done the research?

Yeah, absolutely.

And let me say first for the person listening,

Christian or not, that may be skeptical

of near-death experiences, I get it.

And it did take me 35 years to write

because there's some things that people say

that can be confusing.

And I had to realize that what I'm looking at

is what is reported again and again and again.

And not necessarily how they interpret

what they're reporting, what any one person interpret.

And that's an important differentiation.

Because...

Yeah, go ahead.

No, go ahead.

Well, I was gonna say, and I appreciate also when you talk about near-death experiences,

you acknowledge ultimately their testimony, their someone's interpretation of their experience,

but you do such a great job, I think, of saying, "Hey, we're always gonna hold the Bible's

authority over any stories of NDEs that we might evaluate and recognize that just because

as a person had a certain experience,

doesn't mean we're gonna hold it at the level of,

okay, this is perfect truth

'cause that was their experience.

We're gonna hold the scripture over it

and maybe even interpret their experience

in light of scripture

versus going the other way around more so.

So, but what were you gonna say?

Well, and that is why in "Imagine the God of Heaven,"

I bring together the case for the God of history,

that all the prophetic fulfillment in actual history

that convinced me as a skeptical engineer

of the Bible's validity and inspiration,

as well as how all these people

from every religious background,

it doesn't matter their religious background or expectation,

they're describing the God of Scripture.

And that's what I'm trying to bring together and show

so that for that very reason

that near-death experiencers come back

and they're still people.

They're sinful people, they struggle.

They can either seek this God they experienced

or they can go away from Him.

Now, I like to say it's a testimony like any testimony.

It's another worldly testimony, but still a testimony.

So if you interviewed 100 people

on the streets of Jerusalem after Jesus' resurrection,

50 of them would say, "Oh yeah, I saw Him raise the dead.

"How can you not believe he was raised from the dead

and the Messiah?

Of course he's a Messiah."

And 50 more would say, "I saw Lazarus,

I saw Lazarus raised from the dead,

but he's doing it by the power of the demonic.

He's a sorcerer."

That's what our religious teachers say.

So they both report the same thing.

Jesus raised him from the dead,

but their interpretation is vastly different.

So the same can happen with near-death experiences,

but what they're commonly reporting aligns with scripture.

So I'll go through, I'll do it this way.

Because two things that really started to convince me

with a near-death experience is first

that they can actually observe things

while out of their body

they should not have been able to see.

And those have been verified.

So when a person first says they die,

they leave their body,

They talk about how they have a spiritual body.

They're still themselves, in fact,

more themselves than they've ever felt.

In fact, I'm amazed at how many of them,

I'll ask them, "Do you know your dad?"

And they'll say, "Well, at this point, I guess not,

"because I was one moment alive, and then I was more alive."

And they talk about how alive, not just with five senses,

but it seems like sometimes 50 senses

blended to other senses.

Wow.

Now, interestingly, when they're in the spiritual body,

many times they're still in the room of their resuscitation.

And as a result, when they come back,

even though they had maybe no heartbeat, no brainwaves,

they're able to describe what was happening in the room,

who said what, things that can be checked out and verified.

So for instance, this one cardiologist I interviewed

in the Netherlands, Dr. Pim van Lommel,

a guy comes into the ER,

he had been found dead in a park 30 minutes earlier,

brings him into the ER, they go to shock his heart,

tried to intubate him, but there were dentures in his mouth.

The nurse takes the dentures,

puts them in the lower drawer of the crash cart.

They intubate him, they shock him,

they get his heart going again,

but he is still unconscious in the ER.

So he came in unconscious, left unconscious.

A week later in another room, he comes to,

and he's complaining that you lost my dentures.

And then he sees the nurse and he says,

"That nurse, that nurse knows where my dentures are."

And then he explained that I was up above

trying to get your attention and no one would listen to me

and describe who was in the room

and that that nurse had taken his dentures

and put them in the lower drawer

that cart with all the bottles on it,

and that's where they found it.

And that, Dr. Pim van Lommel, who studied these,

actually wrote that up in The Lancet,

Europe's most prestigious medical journal.

Mm.

So, there have been actual studies done

showing that these observations

are 92% completely accurate,

another 6% mostly accurate.

You each may make five or six observations.

only 2% in the study were inaccurate.

So this grounds these experiences in our reality.

The second thing though, that really convinced me

is that when people blind from birth

have a near-death experience, they can see.

And they report the same things as sighted people.

And they report things about heaven

they would not have ever heard on earth.

So I'll tell you about some of the commonalities

And I'll tell you about some of the scripture connections

through Vicki, who is a blind person that I write about.

She dies in a car accident.

She's, again, she's up above her body.

As they commonly say, it's like,

I was trying to adjust to this new perception I was having,

that sight.

And she said, "I knew Jesus and I knew where I was going.

It was a chaos in the emergency room

And she takes off, she shoots up through the hospital and out and into this tunnel that

takes her to this place of incredible light at the end.

And she comes out into this beautiful garden-like setting.

Okay, so those are all commonalities.

Leaving your body, a new spiritual body, which by the way, Paul talks about all this.

Right? And Paul may have had a near death experience in Acts chapter 14.

It says he was stoned to death in Lystra, drug out of the city and left for dead.

And the believers rallied around him. He gets up, right? He comes to and he goes back into the city.

Which, you know, why would you do that after you'd been stoned to death?

And something miraculous obviously happened.

Yeah. Right.

But in 2 Corinthians 12, he says, "14 years ago, whether in my body or out of my body,

I don't know.

Only God knows."

All right, why?

Well, because we still have a spiritual body.

He said, "I was taken up to the third heaven and saw and heard things inexpressible."

So maybe that 14 years earlier was that time in Lystra.

I don't know for sure.

But he writes about, in 1 Corinthians 15, "Our bodies are buried a natural body.

They're raised a spiritual body."

buried in weakness, they're raised in dunamay, power.

Mm-hmm.

Same word we use for dynamite, right?

And these near-death experiencers talk about

these new powers of this spiritual body,

like eyesight that is telescopic,

can see for thousands of miles,

as if you're right up close.

Wow.

Communication that's pure,

that's thought to thought, heart to heart.

Now these things initially I thought,

well, that's kind of new age weirdy, you know,

and that's not in the Bible.

And then the Lord showed me.

Well, actually, you know, in Revelation chapter 21,

John, Jesus' disciple is taken up into heaven

and brought onto a very high mountain, he says,

looking over the holy city of God.

And he reads the names on the foundation stones.

How?

unless he had like telescopic eyesight.

Right. - Right?

We have the mind of Christ.

I think the way the Holy Spirit speaks to us today

is heart to heart, thought to thought,

complete communication, but as Jesus many times said,

you have to have ears to hear.

So we have to learn to have spiritual ears to hear.

And I think that's the communication

you get on the other side.

So these are all commonalities.

Traveling is a commonality, and sometimes it's through a tunnel, but sometimes it's not.

Sometimes it's with angels, and they're just going. It's like out through our atmosphere

and out into the solar system and the universe, which sounds weird and bizarre until you realize

this. I think what's going on here is, imagine if we're living this three-dimensional experience on

flat black and white painting in the wall of your house.

Okay, so we only have up and down and side to side.

We don't even have the dimension in or out.

For death means separation.

It's when our soul separates from our body.

So imagine your two dimensional soul

separating from that two dimensional plane

and suddenly coming out into a three dimensional world

all around you, a world of color and new dimensions.

You can see what's going on

in your flat two-dimensional world

'cause it's contained within.

So that describes how they can see what's going on.

Then you're pressed back into it

and you have to describe three dimensions of color

in flat black and white two-dimensional terms.

And that's what I think near-death experiencers are doing.

So when they take off through our atmosphere

and out through the universe,

well, it's all contained within a greater reality

that is both in the Hebrew mind,

the first heaven was what we can see of the heavens, right?

The second heaven is the spiritual realm all around us.

The third heaven was the kingdom of God,

where the holy city, the New Jerusalem is.

And I think near-death experiencers

are experiencing that exactly.

I wonder, as you're talking, John,

back to even the question of why we maybe don't talk

about this as much at the church level

or people don't have kind of an imagination for it.

I wonder if we, many times as pastors,

are trying to put things in such practical terms,

we're trying to make it seem, you know, on the one hand,

you're trying to help make a relationship with God

accessible, normal sounding, et cetera.

And when we talk about eternal realities,

they're so utterly fantastic.

I mean, we just, there's no,

we can't even begin to get our arms around them.

So then even when we look at the passages,

you see Paul talking about,

"I'm caught up in the third heaven."

You're like, "You know what?

"That sounds weird.

"I'm not gonna preach on that

"because people are just gonna be,

"what are we going, Star Trek here?

"What are we doing?"

This is just, it just sounds kind of weird.

And I'll tell you, Brian,

I didn't preach on it that much.

Yeah. (laughing)

And when I did, I took a whole series to do it

or I would really, because you do have to build a case.

Because most people don't, they don't live there,

they don't travel there.

And I try to remind myself of that often

'cause I'm like, man, I just, this is weird.

It is weird.

But it's so compelling when you see,

and that's why I didn't speak on it that much

until I put it down in a book.

Mm-hmm.

I would occasionally.

I mean, I actually gave my first talk on this in 1989

at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

And I did an outreach talk just to students

showing that these things that are starting to be discovered

align with what the Bible has been saying.

And that's when I first started seeing all this.

Why do you think that,

well, I'm guessing that you've found that both folks

who are people of faith and Christians

and also probably folks, I'm guessing that are not

particularly people of faith,

have found your book interesting reading.

I'd be curious to hear the reactions from both sides.

How do people hear and respond to what they read?

I mean, what's been so encouraging is how many people

have told me they've come to faith as a result,

or believers sending it to non-believing family or friends

and they're like, this is the first thing

that's opened them up.

And I think it's because it reads kind of like

science fiction.

(laughing)

I mean, it does, it takes your imagination

and you just get kind of like, oh my gosh,

like even if you don't believe it,

you know, I don't believe this, but this is wild,

you know, and like all the data and then hearing it

through their eyes, you know, of what they're describing.

And then I think for Christians,

it's helped a lot of Christians see,

oh my gosh, this does align,

and it's gonna be way better than I ever imagined, you know,

or God is way better than, you know,

why don't I trust him more?

That's been the majority of reactions.

That's really cool.

negative ones, you know, I have had friends and even pastor

friends who have said, I got to be honest with you, man. When I

first heard you wrote that book, I was like, Okay, if I didn't

know him, I would think he totally flipped. Because it's so

different than what I had written on before. And he said,

and then I read it. And I was like, Oh, my gosh. Because you

I mean, you know, and so it does take a while

to see the whole case.

You've talked a little bit about,

in other places I've heard you share

that people have visions of heaven,

but also sometimes have visions or glimpses of hell.

And I would just be curious,

sometimes both in the same near-death experience.

Tell me about that, expand on that if you would.

Yeah, I mean, in the new book,

and imagine the God of heaven, I was kind of shocked

at how many that the Lord brought me from all over the world

had visions of both.

And I was kind of asking them like, what's that about?

Like, I'll tell you, one of the ones I love the most

and he's such a dear man, Santosh Akarji,

who grew up in India.

His father was a Sanskrit scholar.

The Hindu scriptures were all he knew.

He was a manufacturing engineer.

his heart coded when his gallbladder erupted

into his pancreas, he thought, he told me,

I thought when you die, there's just nothing,

or maybe I'd come back as another life form,

but that's not what happened.

This brilliant light brighter than the sun,

and they say brighter than the sun,

like a thousand times brighter,

but not hard to look at, mesmerizing,

He said, "Comes to me."

And then I could see my body down on the table.

And he said, "I knew that this was the ultimate authority.

"I knew this was a divine light, that this was God.

"There was no doubt.

"And I fell in love with this light

"'cause I knew he was there to protect me

"and take me someplace safe."

And so they travel and they go through a tunnel as well.

I have a whole theory on what the tunnel is now.

I've changed my mind, but it's another thing.

But they come to a place where he says the light

stops over this giant compound.

Now, we built a hospital in India.

So I've been to India many times.

There are compounds, these big walled, gated communities

everywhere.

So he called it a giant, enormous compound

with these very high, very beautiful walls

in the shape of a square.

This is exactly what he said.

In shape of a square and inside.

And he told me, he said, there your eyesight is,

like you can see for miles and miles.

And he said it was thousands of miles long.

And he said inside these gorgeous grounds,

just beautiful and mansions, big buildings

of other worldly building material.

That's what he said.

And he was a manufacturing engineer.

So that's how he's describing it.

And he said, and I longed to go into this place.

I knew this is the place every human wants to be.

And he looked for a way in and he said,

I counted there were 12 gates, 12 entrances in,

but they were all closed to me.

And I looked at the one closest to try to find a way in

I saw angels guarding the gate,

and then I knew I'm looking at the kingdom of heaven.

Now think about this.

He's never read the Bible,

he's only read the Hebrew scriptures,

and he perfectly described what John describes

in Revelation 21 of the holy city of God.

You said Hebrew scriptures,

I think you meant the religion.

Revelation.

The religion, was he raised as a Christian,

or you said Hebrew scriptures,

he's read the Hebrew, - Oh no, no, no, I'm sorry.

Sanskrit, I think, or what?

He only knew the Hindu scriptures.

Hindu scriptures, there we go.

Important differentiation, yeah.

Yes, very important.

Yeah, he only knew the Hindu scriptures.

And so he has this vision of heaven, the holy city,

and he's looking for a way and he looks

and he's like, "Where am I?"

And he's up on this very high platform

and he looks to his left and he looks down

and he described an abyss of darkness

that dropped forever it looked like into a pit of fire.

That's how he described it.

That is amazing.

And he said, "I knew if I fell in there,

"I could never get out, it was hopeless."

And so he describes a vision of hell

and he doesn't wanna go there, he wants to go in the city,

but he doesn't know another way

And he turns and anyway, he has this vision or he sees

who he now thinks was Jesus on a throne.

But all he saw was this man who was giant in a robe

and he looks up into his eyes

and he said he had eyes of lightning.

Wow.

So he's describing the risen Jesus, right?

Not the human Jesus, the risen Jesus.

And as soon as he looked into his eyes,

He said, "My whole life was flashed before me.

"I saw all my sins, even the ones I had forgotten,

"he hadn't forgotten."

And he falls to his knees and says,

"Lord, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me."

And he thought the Lord was gonna throw him into the pit

because that's what he knew he deserved.

And when the Lord speaks to him,

Santosh said, well, he says to him,

"Santosh, I'm sending you back to the earth.

And when you go back, you must love, love your family,

and especially your daughter, she needs your help right now.

And he said there was such compassion and mercy

and love and tenderness in the Lord's voice

that he started to like warm up a little bit.

And he sees, he said to the right side

of this platform and this throne,

what he called a very narrow gate.

It was so narrow, it was strange to him how narrow it was,

but it was open into the kingdom of heaven.

It was open to him, the only gate open.

And anyway, long story short, he comes back

and he is seeking with all his heart.

So he's everyday praying.

He said, who was this God of mercy and compassion and love?

He was not like the Hindu gods I knew.

And he was praying to know him.

And the Lord says in Jeremiah,

if you seek me with all your heart, you'll find me.

And two years later, his daughter is invited

to sing in a church choir.

She was a choral major in college.

Santosh goes to hear her.

He feels the loving presence of that same God

as he walks into the church.

And the message was on Matthew 7

about the narrow gate.

You must take the narrow gate.

And then Matthew, John chapter 10, where Jesus says,

"Truly I tell you, I'm the gate for the sheep.

All who come in through me will be saved."

Wow.

And he went home, read the Bible,

and said, "Everything I experienced was in this book,"

and became a follower of Jesus.

Wow.

So I have 70 interviews I did personally

with people all over the globe like that.

Where God, and here's what's fascinating, Brian,

God gives them, it's kind of like parables.

So he doesn't tell them,

and this tripped me up for a while.

It's like, okay, well, if this God of light and love

is really the God of the Bible,

why didn't he tell them, I'm Jesus,

I'm the way, the truth, and life, go follow me,

here's the gospel, I died for your sins,

pray this prayer, but he doesn't do that.

And that was very confusing to me for many years

until I realized, wait a second,

Paul was not a believer in Jesus when on the Damascus,

he was going to arrest and persecute

and even kill Christians when the same God of light

appears to him on the Damascus road, Acts chapter nine.

And he says, "Who are you, Lord?"

And when he asked, he says, "I'm Jesus,

"who you're persecuting."

But he doesn't tell him the gospel.

He doesn't tell him what to do.

He later sends Ananias, a person, a man.

Because that's his method.

And Ananias explains it to Paul,

and then Paul still had a decision to make.

He had a lot to lose turning from Phariseeism.

Will I be baptized for the remission of my sin

and follow Jesus?

So these near-death experiences are like that.

They can see this God of light and love.

They can see the reality of heaven and hell.

But when they come back,

they still have to decide, will I seek?

And when they seek, they do fine.

I mean, almost all of them do.

It's almost like, and I know you used the word apologetic earlier, it's like a pre-evangelism,

God reaching out to people and helping prepare their hearts and minds for something more,

but also they have to take, as you're saying, they have to seek, they have to take a step,

and ultimately it's even good what you're saying as far as reaffirming what we see throughout

Scripture, which is the primary way people step into a relationship with God, is through

hearing someone tell them about Jesus explicitly.

I think sometimes people think, "Well, if God's gonna get to them anyway in a country

that's hard to reach through dreams and visions, why do we need to go?

Why do we need to talk about Jesus?"

And what I hear you saying is God is indeed generously giving experiences out to help

people examine their own hearts and their own spiritual journeys, but still so important

that they end up encountering someone

who can share Jesus with them.

He wants everyone to know,

like I like to say,

nobody has perfectly kept

the five pillars of Islam,

the eightfold path of Buddhism.

They don't have perfect karma.

We haven't kept the 10 commandments.

You haven't even kept your own moral law.

Right.

You ever said I'll never and you did?

So it's like God wants everyone to know

that though we have all sinned and fallen short

of his standard, of his glory,

he has made a way that every human heart

that wants him can have him

and can not walk in condemnation,

which is what most walk in.

If they don't know what God's done through Jesus,

they walk in condemnation and guilt.

but to know that there is forgiveness

and relationship with God available.

So yeah, and he's doing this all.

I think though these near-death experiences

are not even so much for that person.

'Cause the interesting thing is

how many of them argue with God.

Like even Santosh, others, they argue with God.

I don't wanna go back, let me stay.

And he says, no, I'm sending you back

a purpose. So I think these are testimonies for us and for the

nations. You know, like a couple other fascinating ones, Bibi in

Tehran. So in the news right now, right. So she gave me this

testimony in Farsi in the Persian language, and it was

translated. She codes, she's she's thinking the Prophet Ali

is gonna come and judge her because her son,

who was Hezbollah, actually became a Christian

through a vision of Jesus.

And he led his sister to faith in Jesus.

And so she felt like a total failure to Allah and to Islam.

And she has this vision like that she's gonna have

a horrible judgment, but the prophet Ali did not come.

this giant man, just like Santosh described,

in a glorious robe and light emitting from him,

comes and she knows this is a divine presence

and he says, "I am he who is."

That's how it was translated to me in English

from her Farsi.

I am he who is.

Wow.

And boom, she's in her body again,

but she said with a joy and a peace she had never felt.

It starts her on a journey.

She didn't know who, who this was, but discovered, well, this is the same God of

light that appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai in the burning bush that didn't burn.

Right.

And says, I am he, who is, I am who I am.

Right.

And so I, I see the same thing happening where it's like God gives them.

It's all, like I said, Jesus was a parable loving God

and he still is.

Yeah.

He wants to know, will we seek him?

And when we seek him with all our heart, we do find him.

And these people do, Bibi did.

Some now, interestingly, some just know.

I mean, Heidi was a 16 year old Jewish girl

who grew up with an atheist, abusive father

who told her every night,

told his three daughters every night,

"There is no God, your life is worthless.

"Jesus Christ is the biggest hoax

"ever perpetrated on mankind."

Wow.

And yet, she believed in God.

He was very abusive.

She grew up in a very abusive home.

And so she always believed in God

and prayed to God every night and felt his comfort,

like he was there by her bedside, comforting her,

giving her peace, helping her go to sleep.

So at 16, her horse, she's in a horseback accident

on the side of a mountain,

and her horse lands on her and crushes her.

She's up 30 feet above her body.

She knows she's dead.

She sees a light over her shoulder to her right, turns,

and she said, "There was Jesus,

but he was shining brighter than the sun,

but I knew he was Jesus."

And she said, "I wasn't thinking,

what's a good Jewish girl like me doing with Jesus?

I'm not supposed to be with Jesus."

She said, "No, I knew him.

I knew this was the God I had always prayed to."

And she just intuitively knew.

And then in her life review,

she sees that he was the one sitting by her bed

when she was a little girl at night,

comforting her, putting her to sleep.

She saw Jesus.

And then ironically, Jesus, not ironically,

but Jesus takes her to God the Father

and she has an experience of God,

this infinite light that she goes into

and then she's sitting and being held,

she said, by God the Father, but also Jesus,

but they were separate, but they were one

and she can't explain how God can be a man

and God can be light and God can be love.

She's like, I can't explain it,

but that's what I experienced.

That's amazing.

You know what strikes me as you're reflecting

on some of these different stories

is for the person who is skeptical or says,

I don't know about all that.

You know, you hear one or two, sure.

But then when you hear similar themes repeatedly

and such remarkable reflections,

it really after a time, you have to say,

I mean, if you're gonna be honestly a fair-minded person,

you have to say, maybe there's something here.

Maybe this isn't just a random one-off weird experience.

I'm curious when it comes to Christians

having these kinds of experiences,

it would seem to me that the more your view of heaven,

the more your understanding of heaven is compelling,

and so you've had, let's say, a near-death experience,

and all of a sudden you've seen things

in a way that you've never seen before.

How does that, and/or how should that affect,

then, how we live today?

I think that obviously eternity should be a big motivator

for Christians, but as we said earlier,

maybe not as much as it ought to be these days,

but when somebody gets that clear picture,

how do you see them live differently because of it?

Oh man, I mean, I think so many ways.

One, when you realize that when we get to the other side,

"We will be in the presence of God.

We will know even as we are known,"

as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13.

And people say that.

And I've interviewed people who have suffered tremendously.

And they've said, "How could a good God

let this happen to me as a child?

There can't be a God who loves me."

But they did believe, but they didn't, but they did.

And then they get into his presence and they said,

just like Job. I didn't even ask my question. I knew. I knew. Oh, like it makes so much sense.

But and so I would say, so does it make sense now? He said, no, that actually is knowledge

that was veiled when I came back. Which interestingly, Paul said as well, in 2 Corinthians

12 when he said, you know, he's taken up to the third heaven, saw and heard things inexpressible,

and things no man is allowed to tell. So there's some things that near-death experiencers

experienced there, and when they come back, they knew they understood it there, and it all made

sense, but here it still doesn't. But that alone can help us realize, and then realizing what life

in the city of God, what life in paradise is going to be like, like the beauty of mountains and trees

and forests and valleys, all of creation, but more, because this creation is deteriorating.

That creation is getting better. It's the love and the life and the light of God that is filling

everything. So it's literally this life. The best way to think about it is when you step from this

life into the next life, it's not this drastic change. It's like life to as one spine surgeon

I interviewed said, it was like going from life into more life, reality into more reality.

So we're going to live this life even more.

That's the best way to think about it.

And Jesus said all these things,

but there's gonna be work to do.

There are gonna be responsibilities.

There are houses, there are families,

there are parties, there are wonderful adventures

and experiences and incredible things to do and see.

He said all this.

Many people don't realize it because like I said,

they haven't put it all together

in a systematic theology of heaven, but it's all there.

And when you start to see that,

the best example I can have is that

we save for retirement because we imagine playing golf

and doing my favorite hobby or traveling the world

or having these things and these great experiences

and not the burden of work and all that.

Well, we imagine retirement well,

so we sacrifice for it.

We labor for it.

But it's not the thing to sacrifice and labor for

because it's gonna end,

but what is coming is worth sacrificing for,

is worth laboring for.

And I do believe that the way we live our lives now,

Though heaven is a free gift,

relationship with God is a free gift.

That's what Jesus did on the cross.

It's a heart turning to him for forgiveness and leadership.

Jesus made that clear.

But the way we live our lives does affect

how we enter into the experience of eternity.

And Jesus also talked about this a lot.

He talked about rewards in heaven.

He talked about whoever can be faithful

with things that don't last

will be trusted with things that do last.

Don't just save up treasures here on earth,

save up treasures in heaven.

We think he was lying.

Was it just a metaphor or is it actually,

we'll really experience that.

Right.

And I feel like--

We dumb it down.

We dumb it down too much.

I feel like-

We think we're all treasures.

I feel like the more your picture of heaven is robust

and filled out and filled with joy,

It lets you do two things at the same time

that are very difficult to do at the same time.

On the one hand, when I see and have a view

of a more physical Revelation 21, 22,

new heavens, new earth kind of heaven,

I can appreciate the joys that this life has to offer.

I can say this is a foretaste of the good things

that are to come.

They won't even compare to how great things are

that will be to come, but I can enjoy things.

That being said, I can also not be addicted to things,

and when Jesus talks about sacrificing

for the kingdom of God, I can realize

what is in eternity is going to be so much better,

so it's worth the costs that I'm paying now.

And I just think it's tough because sometimes

I think that when people think of heaven,

they get into this nothing in this world matters

kind of a mode, and then there are others

who are everything in this world matters,

and really, I don't think about heaven.

I think when you really got a good balanced picture

of heaven, maybe you can do both.

You think that's true, enjoy things of this world

and at the same time have a detachment from this world

that lets you to pursue the kingdom of God

with a newfound freedom and passion?

Yeah, it's not an either or, it is a perspective.

And that's what I think the right view of heaven

and the right view of God, by the way,

is that all of life is a gift from God.

Every, you know, my favorite chapter in the new book,

Imagine the God of Heaven,

is doing life with the God of all joy.

And what I'm showing is that we don't really believe

that God could laugh.

That God could have a sense of humor.

That God could understand us.

That God could be relatable like a best friend.

And by the way, if you don't believe this,

He is your best friend because no one else

has been through every high and every low with you

and is still crazy enamored with you.

That's so good.

And gets you better than you get yourself

and even laughs at your bad jokes.

And I think for a lot of Christians,

we put God in a box and we think, well, no,

I don't see anything in scripture where it says Jesus laughed.

Well, okay, who do you think gave you laughter?

The devil?

I mean, it's your creator.

Laughter, psychologists tell us laughter

is a higher form of communication.

It's a very higher type of communication.

And, but near-death experiencers talk about experiencing

the joy of God, experiencing the delights of heaven,

that God actually delights to delight us.

That he gives, I interviewed two commercial airline pilots

who had near-death experiences, okay?

Two different ones, didn't even know each other.

Both of them described God giving them a flyover

of the Holy City.

And both of them said, I guess because I was a pilot

and he knew I would enjoy like I'd flown into, you know,

hundreds of cities all over the world.

And, you know, God delights to give us joy.

He is the God of all joy.

And as C.S. Lewis says,

joy is the serious business of heaven.

But I think Christians don't have that view.

And as a result, back to earth,

we don't believe that God is the one who gives us pleasures.

And so we don't thank him for it.

We don't let him into it.

You know, I have little granddaughters now,

and you know, when I had little kids,

it was the same thing.

I love to give them good gifts

and then watch them enjoy it and enjoy it with them.

And you think I'm better than God?

No, I was created in His image in World War II.

So, you know, just realizing that God is so much better

than we've ever imagined.

And what it does is it helps you realize

that I can thank Him and enjoy the things

He's given me here more by seeking Him

than by turning away from Him.

And as I pay attention in the little moments,

and I thank Him and I respond to His Spirit,

and I think about others,

you know what the Life Review shows us

is that Matthew 25 is absolutely true.

The Life Review is Matthew 25,

where they experience watching

how every little act of kindness,

the ripple effect it had through humanity, you know?

Or every little act of meanness, you know, or blow up,

it has an effect.

And they come back saying God is love

and how we love or treat one another

is what matters most to God.

So I think what these do is it just takes the scriptures

and it like lights them up with a neon light,

like, no, I meant it.

Right.

Well, that's what I,

when I think of the purpose of our podcast, Made to Advance,

we really want to equip and inspire people

to live into their best futures.

And of course you don't get much of a better future

than heaven.

And I hope that as people are listening today,

that they're really able to use this vision of heaven

and hopefully, pick up your books

and be compelled to take it further

The more our imagination is captivated by what is to come,

I feel like the better prepared we are to live faithfully

and a life forgiven in the present.

And all of a sudden now,

investing in relationships looks different

and more valuable.

All of a sudden,

the money that maybe I wanna clutch and cling to,

I'm a little bit more willing to just freely give

and invest in the kingdom

because I realized there's so much more

and so much better on the other side.

So that's what I,

Part of for me, being able to have this conversation with you today, is just to inspire people

a little bit with the goodness of God and what He has in front of them.

Now, maybe this is the last question--well, no, two questions.

First I was going to ask you, between the two books, Imagine Heaven, Imagine the God

of Heaven, where do you advise a person, if they could pick one to read first, which one

would you say to read first?

Well, it's really hard.

Imagine heaven gives all the commonalities of the heavenly experience and a little about

the God of heaven.

Okay.

Whereas, imagine the God of heaven, it's going to help you just fall crazy in love with God

if you're not already, but trust in more. You'll be blown away by that. And I would say,

if you're a believer and you haven't read either, probably start with Imagine Heaven.

Okay. And if you're not a believer, start with the first?

Well...

Oh, no, excuse me. Imagine Heaven is the first. So you're saying...

Imagine God?

Yeah. You're saying, would you say, you're saying if you're a believer, start with Imagine Heaven?

Yeah. I mean, if you want to see the totality, you know, like I talk about things like rewards

in heaven and, you know, what will we do forever and, you know, time and how it works on the other

side and, you know, what our bodies will be like, what relationship will be like, you know.

If somebody is not a believer yet, John, which book would you say for them? If they're just

asking questions, they're not sure what they think about Jesus, would you start with the same?

Well, you could accept that.

I'm really making a case in the first six or seven chapters of Imagine the God of Heaven.

I'm bringing together both near death experience research.

In Chapter two, I go through the ten points of evidence that convinced me

that these near death experiences are worth listening to.

But then in Chapter three and four, I go through some of the historical

prophetic fulfillment, that this God of history is the same as the God revealing himself to all

the nations. And then you get to hear it from all the nations. So a lot of people who are like,

they're really put off by Christians, you know, Jesus can't be the only way and blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah. Well, they'll hear. I think a big part of that is they misunderstand.

Jesus being the only way makes the only way, but it makes a way for everyone.

Otherwise, we're just left up to our try-hard religion.

Right, right. Yeah, it's funny how...

So yeah, that's...

Well, that's helpful. And yeah, it is a funny thing how on the one hand,

Christianity is rightly viewed very exclusive insofar as Jesus claims to be the only way,

But he also says, "If you're willing to trust me, anyone of any background can step into my path,"

so without having to check off all kinds of boxes of religious works and good deeds. So

it's weird because Christianity is, on the one hand, very exclusive and very welcoming to anybody

who's just willing to give their hearts to Him. Now, I'm gonna end on, after this significant,

massive topic, the goodness of God, heaven, eternity, all of it. I'm going to end with what

probably feels like a very small question, but it's the number one question I get from people,

and I bet you do too, when it comes to what is any kind of afterlife experience going to be like,

and that is, are my pets going to be there? [laughs]

Yeah, that's the number one question I get.

Yeah, so just for fun, it seems like a weird question to end on, but because I know it's the

What do you think about pets?

I know, I'm like,

you guys need to learn to love people more.

Yeah. (laughing)

It is harder, it is harder, but it's more important.

No, yes, absolutely.

I mean, I interviewed Karina, this woman from Columbia,

and she first has a hellish experience

and is praying the Lord's prayer, but fervently,

And he pulls her out and brings her up.

And she sees this blinding light.

And she says, "Send me back to hell.

I'm not worthy.

I know I'm filthy.

I'm not worthy."

And he says, "No, you are.

Come, I love you."

And she's still skeptical.

And she said, "Then Lord, show me some of my,

show me some of the people I love

who have gone on before me."

And he said, "Look to your right."

And there is Max, her little dog,

who had died earlier that year.

And then her other dog who had died years later.

And in she goes.

Randy Kay, who was a CEO,

he dies of a pulmonary embolism, 30 minutes dead.

He's there with Jesus holding him and then they're walking.

And at one point,

Jesus said, "Look."

And he looks across the field and here comes,

He didn't have many friends when he was a kid,

a child growing up, 'cause he was bullied,

but he had this one little dog, Casey,

who would jump up on him and just lick him like a lollipop

every day when he came home from school.

Cross this field comes Casey, the dog who had died,

jumps up on him and licks him like a lollipop.

And Jesus said to him,

"See, beloved, I give you the desires of your heart."

That's Psalm 37, four, delight yourself in the Lord

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Yeah.

So yes, and you know, and some Christians,

I don't understand why, but it's no,

animals don't have souls, they're not gonna be there

in heaven, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, you didn't read the Bible.

There are definitely gonna be lions and lambs and eagles

and Jesus is gonna be riding a horse, I guess,

without a soul, but it's all there in the Bible.

Yeah, well, that is the funny thing.

And it's back to your point, and this is where I think spending some time in your books,

and you mentioned Randy Alcorn does a great job tackling some of these same subjects.

We have these little isolated verses, and sometimes you don't realize how big of a theme

animals are in the Bible when describing eternity.

It really is, I mean, some of those primary images, the lying laying down with the lamb,

this idea that animals that have historically been in conflict operating in peace.

Now, maybe some say, "Well, it's all figurative."

Man, I mean, you really have to put a lot

in the figurative category if you're gonna do that,

because it sure doesn't sound like it's all figurative

when you read it in the text.

So I think that we've just gotta sit

with some of these verses,

and that's why I really wanna encourage

anyone who's listening or watching

to pick up your books and take a good read,

because the more we can soak our souls in the scriptures

and other people's experiences that speak to those,

or testify to those same scriptures,

the more we can have this robust imagination

when it comes to the goodness of God

and the goodness of the plan He has for us.

So I just thank you so much, John,

for your work in this area.

And I know that stepping away from the church

that you founded and led for so many years,

it's just really an incredible church,

and I've respected your work in Austin for so long.

And I really appreciate, in some ways,

your example of your hope in the God of heaven

and being willing to step away from such a great ministry

leadership position to go full-time in this kind of ministry.

What you're doing is really a great example of everything we just talked about.

You've got a vision of the God of heaven, and you're going to pursue Him, even if there

could have been some rewards of different kinds from staying put.

So thank you so much for your ministry.

>> Oh, thank you, Brian.

I appreciate it.

>> Well, I hope we get a time to talk sometime in the future, but I know this is going to

be an encouragement to many.

Again, pick up John's books.

You can find him online, he's on social, all those good things.

John, anything you wanna say

about how people can look you up?

Imagineheaven.net is the website you can go to.

Okay. Imagineheaven.net.

All right, great.

Well, thanks so much for this conversation

and we'll cross paths soon.

Wow, what a great conversation with John.

Hey, if you heard that conversation,

I wanna encourage you on a couple of next steps.

Number one, if you're not yet a follower of Jesus,

check out one of John's books

and begin that seeking process.

Maybe you're even sensing through this conversation

that God is drawing your heart to Christ.

And if that's the case, I would just encourage you

to pray a very simple prayer where you acknowledge

that you have sin and brokenness in your life

and that you need Jesus as your savior to forgive you.

You need Jesus as your leader to help you live the life

he created you to live.

And if you are a follower of Jesus,

I wanna encourage you to spend some time thinking,

dreaming, praying into heaven,

maybe pick up a book like the kind we've talked about today

and start to fill your heart and mind

with God's vision for heaven.

What I have hoped and prayed for

would come out of this conversation

is more Christians who are captivated by heaven

and therefore would be even more passionate

about living for the kingdom of God

with the time God gives them on this earth.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed the episode.

Again, if you have, please rate and review us.

That's a great help to the podcast.

This has been a production of Engedi Church

and we have more incredible conversations coming your way.

So just know until next time, you were made to advance.