The Eric Metaxas Show - Lee Strobel and Keith Getty

Episode Date: November 14, 2021

Lee Strobel documents near-death and beyond-death experiences in "The Case for Heaven"; and Keith Getty shares tales from a new album, "Confessio - Irish American Roots."

Welcome to the Eric Mettaxas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Folks, I've got something very, very exciting, but I can't share it with you. Instead, I'm going to go to my guest, Keith Getty, Keith. How you doing? Hey, Keith, listen. Look, first of all, you and your beautiful wife, Kristen, who's not just beautiful. She's incredibly talented, as are you. You have a new album out called Confessio.

Yeah. Can I talk to you about the album? Oh, yeah. We'd love to talk about it. Okay, but before that, you and I were just talking off the air, your uncle-in-law, is that what he's called? Uncle-in-law, Professor John Lennox. Professor John Lennox, whom I quote throughout my new book, is Atheism Dead. You spent so much time around Uncle John that you, sometimes you hear his voice in your head.

Is that true? No, no, never. And I'd like to read a statement from the Lennox family. Kristen and I, Chris has just sounded to be a statement which says that I would not wish to impersonate any member of her family on the air, but wish to congratulate Eric Metax's heartily on his new book. Is atheism dead? Is atheism dead? I like the way you pronounce it. Say atheism.

Now, that sounded like you were imitating Uncle John. Uncle John. I do quote him very much in the book. And of course, I love him. and I don't know if we've even sent him a copy of the book, but he should know that I've ripped him off nine ways to Sunday in making the points that I make in my book. But we're here to talk about your album.

Tell us, my friend, Confessio, this goes back to Irish-American roots. So you're in Nashville now, but you're from Ireland, and your wife is from Ireland. And talk about the album, Confessio, brand-new album. Well, you kindly interviewed us before Sing Global last year. We started the family hym sing and did Sing Global all last year through the pandemic. And then we were, honestly, our heads were just fried. And so we went home for a year.

So seven days after, seven days after Sing Global, we flew home, 9-11. It's an easy date to remember getting in a plane. And on 9-11, we flew back to Ireland. And we stayed in Ireland for the whole year. Did that like John Lennox and C.S. Lewis and Alastair McGrath and many other people who you know. We come from that tiny little north coast of Ireland and we spent the year there. And this album really is a love letter to that. You know, we, you know, we come from this place that Christianity is 17 centuries old, that until the 1980s gave more missionaries per capita

than any country in the world. It's not, South Korea now gives the most. And, and, but, but also, this connection, as you brought our four daughters who are all American citizens, as we brought them back, we're all born in America, as he brought them back to their heritage and explain to them, here's Boncranah and Donnie Gall, where John Newton's boat came in and he wrote, began to write amazing grace, here's where Be that My Vision was written, here's our culture, and we began to realize that, even as musicians, that everything from country music to bluegrass, to gospel songs, to shape note, hymnody, to Americana, to Appalachian music are all outgrowths of our own Scotch-Irish tradition that we have. And so this album was

just really, I think it's a love letter to our heritage. So you mentioned shape, note singing. People never talk about shape note. I love shape note singing. Have you ever participated in one of those events where they do shape notes singing? Not an official event. I've been in a room where we've tried it and done it a few times. And how does it go?

Like if they sing, like they would sing Amazing Grace like, Amazing Grace. Like it's a whole different. What is it? How do you describe it musically? It's really bizarre. It's beautiful, but beautiful. are. Well, I think what I love about it is it gathers a community together and it allows them to sing

great hymns that their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers sang. And they sing them in harmony. And harmony represents to me, obviously it represents musical of beauty, but it represents all of us getting together with all our differences and singing to the Lord, you know, who is our hope and who is our Redeemer and who's given us this good news. And so, you know, it's a beautiful thing. And, you know, I guess being back in Ireland and living life at a slower pace, you know, there was a lot of that sense of community and learning the sort of the older traditions again that was really fresh. Well, I want to challenge people to go online, go to YouTube or something and find Shaped Note.

Shape note singing is so beautiful. But you are right. There's no question that the Irish connection and Scottish connection to America and to the music, it's just, it's in essence. inevitable. It's there. And so what have you done in this album, Confessio? What kind of songs do you have in it and how do you connect these traditions? No, sure. Well, it ranges from taking some of the beautiful Irish hymns like Be Them a Vision and doing those, taking some hymns that of Irish origin. So how can I keep from singing? It was written by Robert Lorry, who like yourself, moved to New York to help the Christian community there in the last century. But his father was from Carrier. Rick Ferguson, County Antrim. And he came over and he wrote, he wrote hymns like Shall We Gather at the River and

we're marching design. All these beautiful old American names are written. I didn't know that. Beautiful. There's also the interesting things like Kirk Willem. You know Kirk Willem, don't you? The brilliance, the saxophiless who sang played the solo in Whitney Houston's, I will always love you.

Kirk and I... Let me just say, no. I'm really unfamiliar with Brittany's Oove. I'm embarrassed to say that as a music. that I'm unfamiliar with Brittany's Oove and... Yeah, so Kirk Willem. Kirk Willem, he and I have this argument about Amazing Grace, because there's the John Newton Center and Donnie Gall,

which is the next county to ours. And that's where Newton boat came in and he was shipwrecked and he became a Christian, and there's the Amazing Grace Center. So we all believe that Amazing Grace is a Scotch-Irish tune that you can imagine being played in a wee whistle. Kirk Willem believes it's an African-American tune, or he leaves an African. Yes, I've heard both. Yeah. So he and I decided, so Kristen and her friend, Dana Masters, who's been Van Morrison's lead vocalist for the last decade, the two of them do a duet, an amazing grace. And then I play piano and Kirk Willem play saxophone. So it's two Scotch Irish and two African-American. We did a joint interpretation of that, which is great.

It's like the Christian, the Christian Ebony and Ivory, I would say. Probably, yeah. But it was, but of course, we remixed, as you know, Alison Crouse and Kristen have sung together for years. And Alison. Christ. We remixed a version they did it a few years ago of in Christ alone for the 20th anniversary of that. But we also set some, we got, well, we did it as well with my soul for a new movie on Sabina Wormbrand that came out on Monday. The movie is just out? I didn't know this. I had the privilege in my life of meeting Sabina, Sabina Wormbrand and Richard Wormbrand. These are two of the greatest Christian heroes of the 20th century. And there's a new movie. I knew it. It's called Sabina, Tortured for Christ, the Nazi years.

Sabina tortured for Christ. So that film is out. I didn't know that. I'm glad you told me that. The movies, we did. So they did, Wormbrand, part of his Christian conversion was hearing these two ladies singing it as well with my soul in a little church. And so the closing credits of the movie as it finishes is Christ and my wife singing it as well with my soul in this music video. And it's really funny.

I've got to tell you, you'd love this, Eric. We came to make the video and it was a two-day shoot. And I said, I spoke to the director. I said, listen, I'm really worried about this. Because I always play different parts in the piano. And we were having to mime on our recording. And he goes, son, you're only in four measures. So it's a five minutes, five minutes, ten seconds.

And it's five minutes and four seconds of my wife and six seconds of me on camera. What is happening to this world? First, there's Antifa. Now this. I know. Well, I'm just so glad to see you. But you're back now in. in Tennessee.

Yeah, that's right. And we just, I'll tell you something else, one of your friends, we just recorded an extra track for that Confess You, which is being added on the 3rd of December. Ricky Skaggs and Kristen

have done an extra duet for this Irish American record called Brightest and Best, which is coming out on the 3rd of December. So I'm going to make sure you have it so that you can play out on your show on the 3rd of December. You know something?

It really, it bothers me that I don't get to see you in person more often, that I don't get to sing but I guess just cheers me up talking to you, Keith, even if you weren't related by marriage to John Lennox. And in my book, I quote John Lennox and Horatio Spafford, who wrote the hymn, It Is Well With My Soul.

He is featured in my book, is Atheism Dead. The world's getting very small. Okay, the album is Confessio. Folks, I hope you'll get it. You can go to gettymusic.com to find out where they're playing, gettymusic.com. Keith Getty, give our best to Kristen, and God bless you, my friend. Thank you. Eric, it's always lovely to see you. Congratulations in your new book.

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So if you're in pain from exercise or even just getting older or to the three week quick start for 1995, let's see if we can get you at a pain too. Go to relieffactor.com. Relieffactor.com or call 800, 500, 500, 8384, 800, 500, 800, 800, 800, 800, 800,000, 8,3,4. Relieffactor.com. I use it. It works. Ladies and gentlemen, do you believe in an afterlife? Most of you listen to this program probably do. But I hope there are some people who don't because I have, as my guest, Lee Strobel, many of you know him.

He's written a lot of big deal books, always starting with the words, The Case 4, not like the case of, you know, the purloined letter or the case of, not mystery stuff. but the case four. He's a journalist or was a journalist for a long time, Chicago. And the new book is called The Case for Heaven. A journalist investigates evidence for life after death. Lee Strobel, welcome. Thanks, Eric.

Great to see it, my friend. It's great to see you. And I have to say, you know, the greatest compliment that I could give is like, I wish I wrote this book because this stuff lights me up. The evidence, the stories, and everything. So let's just, let's leap into it. to it. I mean, there are people that don't believe

they think this is it and in my book is atheism dead. I feel like it doesn't really make sense on a number of levels that this is it. But why did you write a book saying effectively this is not it? There's a thing called heaven, a place called heaven

beyond this world. Well, several years ago I almost die. And yeah, my wife found me unconscious on the bedroom floor. She called the paramedics. I woke up, this is something you never want to have happened to you. I woke up in the emergency room and I looked into the face of the doctor and you looked down and he said you're one step away from a coma, two steps away from dying. And then I went unconscious again. Now wait a minute.

When was this, Lee? How long ago was this? This was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, I had no idea. I had what's called hyponitremia. What is that? It's a, it's a severe drop in my blood sodium level. And I had, I lost a kidney as part of it. And I was hovering between life and death. My blood sodium level was so low that most doctors, when I give them the medical data on where I was, they look at me and say, oh, you died, right? I mean, you can't live with that. So they have to raise it, the level very carefully over a period of days. Because if they don't do it right, you'll end up physically or mentally disabled.

You may die. And so I hover between life and death for quite a while. Now, how rare is this? It sounds very rare. I've never heard this before, and it just happened out of the blue to you. Yeah, it's highly unusual. As I say, I lost a kidney, and so that contributed to it, and then I had an adverse reaction to some medication that they've given me because I'd lost my voice, kind of a cascade of things that were highly unusual. And not a lot of people die of it, but quite a few do. It's kind of surprising. Well, it's a reminder since we're talking about the case for heaven,

and I've become bolder and bolder about saying, ladies and gentlemen, you're definitely going to die. And it could happen tomorrow. I have a friend who lives near you in the woodlands. Dear friend, 30 years, super healthy, almost, I mean, like you, easily could be dead right now. And I think that we live in a culture that pretends like death doesn't exist anymore. You know, science has moved death back into the corners and we don't talk about it.

You could die any moment. Exactly. And all you should really be thinking about before anything else is, what happens then? What happens? Is that it? It's not it. That's right. So here I am. I'm a Christian. I'm lying there between life and death. And I believe what the Bible teaches about the afterlife. But then again, you know, I'm kind of a skeptic. My background's of journalism and law. So I tend to be a skeptic on things. And so I thought, well, how do I know that science and philosophy and and history, so forth, that they support what the Bible teaches? about the afterlife. So that's what kind of launched me on this investigation to try to,

and I interviewed neuroscientists. I interviewed all sorts of people trying to get at the question of how do we know that indeed we do continue to live after our physical demise? Well, what's funny to me is that, you know, you can prove something effectively and people still don't believe it. I mean, all of the anecdotal evidence about life after death, it piles up to the heavens. It's, you know, no pun intended. It's unbelievable stories that You know, you can corroborate what the doctors were doing as I was floating. You hear this stuff over and over and over again, and people just wave it away. So what is in this book, the case for heaven?

This is your discussions with people who have seen, who have experienced these kinds of things. Yeah, I interviewed neuroscientists, for instance, and others on the question of what did near-death experiences really tell us? Because I was a skeptic about those. I thought, no, wait, they're just hallucinating. nations. That's just oxygen deprivation to the brain. So even as a Christian, you were a skeptic about this stuff. I didn't think that the science supported. I thought, okay, I can believe what the Bible says, but certainly near-death experiences are just mythology and make-believe and wishful

thinking. But what I learned was that there have been 900 scientific articles written about near-death experiences over the last 40 years and published in scientific and medical journals. This is a very well-researched area of science. In fact, the Lansing, which is the famous medical journal in England, did an article that said that when you look at all of the alternative explanations for near-death experiences, oh, it's optioned deprivation. So none of those explanations explain what actually takes place. And then I interviewed John Burke for my book.

John Burke is a Christian pastor in Austin, Texas. He has studied a thousand near-death experiences over 35 years. And his conclusion, which was radical to me, is that when you look at the core of what happens in these near-death experiences, yes, there are some differences, but look at the core of what actually takes place. Don't look at how people interpret it, but look what actually occurs. It is consistent with Christian theology. That was very important to me.

And you mentioned the word corroboration, and I'm with you. I mean, when somebody tells me, oh, I died and I met Jesus, and he's five foot 10, there's brown eyes, I mean, I go, okay, well, I can't corroborate that. But when we have a study that was done of 21 blind people, most of them blind since birth, who during their near-death experiences, could see for the first time. For instance, Vicki Umutpeg, she was 26 years old, blind since birth, car accident, she's declared dead. And yet she later says, I, my spirit separated from my body. I watched the resuscitation of it.

I saw people for the first time. She'd never even seen shadows before. So I saw people for the first time. I saw plants. I saw trees. I saw animals. And then when her spirit returned to her body and she was revived, her eyesight disappeared again. One medical researcher said, this is medically impossible. This just can't happen. And yet we have multiple corroborative cases like that. And of course, the most famous one involves a woman named Maria who died in the hospital of a heart attack. And yet she says, I was alive the whole time. I watched the resuscitation efforts. But my, my spirit floated out of the hospital. And then when her spirit returning was reunited and her body was reanimated, she said, by the way, there's a man's tennis shoe on the third-story ledge, the roof of the hospital. And it's dark blue. It's left-footed.

It's a man's shoe. There's some wear over the little toe. And the shoelaces tucked under the heel. And so they go on the roof and guess what? They find the exact shoe. Now, Lee, I'm pretty sure that could just be a coincidence. Can you can we believe like God is so amazing and so funny. Yeah.

I mean that that's what he chooses to do to blow people's minds. He could do anything, but he chose that specific. Yes. Now, of course, I want you to write another book about who was the guy that lost his shoe and why was it there? But I mean... Why is this on the roof, right? That is, that, I've never heard anything like that.

That's, you know, because you hear all these stories that the doctors were in this corner of the room and they did this and it. And it's all true. But this is a level of specificity and altitude, which is really impressive. Yes. Yeah, that's right. There was another case where a woman, 31-year-old housewife from Atlanta, Georgia, had a brain aneurysm. So she got bleeding in her brain. They had to do a radical surgery.

So they get her into surgery. They cool her body to 60 degrees first. Then they drained every drop of blood from her head. Three clinical tests showed there was zero brain activity. No breathing, no heartbeat. She was clinically dead. They put earphones, earplugs in her ears with 100 decibels of noise, which is like a subway train going next to you. And they taped her eyes shut. And yet she said, I was conscious the whole time. And I even met deceased relatives. I was in the very presence of God. And when her spirit returned to her body, she was able to describe the highly unusual surgical tools that were used during her surgery. She was able to describe the conversations in the surgical suite when she said, one nurse said, we have a problem where arteries are too small. Another nurse said, well, let's try the other leg.

And then she was even able to know that during the surgery, they were playing the song, Hotel California, in the background. The Eagles, one of my favorite bands, although that song's a little dark. but it's kind of scary because it's like you can check in but you can never check out. Yeah, I don't think I'd want that being played during my surgery, but it was a dark tuneage for a near-death experience. But I got to say that, you know, the idea, I actually do mention this in my book is Atheism Dead. John Lennox talks about this. He says the brain is not the mind and the mind is not the brain.

So here they drain all the blood out of her brain. The brain is, there's no brain. But she and her mind. continue. So the brain is not the mind. Your brain will rot and you will continue to exist. We have to go to a break. We'll find out what's on the other side of the break in just a moment. Don't go away. Hey folks, Eric Metaxis here. Joe Biden and the Democrats have laid out the most socialist agenda our country has ever seen. Instead of following President Trump's blueprint that had the economy booming, the Dems are going to raise taxes, increase regulations, and skyrocket an already outrageous

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Contact Legacy, precious metals today. That's 866-473-6204. Folks, I'm talking to Lee Strobel, who's the author of a new book called The Case for Heaven. A journalist investigates evidence for life after death. I am so fascinated by this. You were just about to say something before we went to the break. Well, you made a very important point, Eric, which is that we're not reducible to our brain. We are more than our physical brain.

And how do we know that? Because there's a difference between our brain, our physical brain, and our consciousness, our mind or our spirit, our soul. And the example that was given to me by the neuroscientist from Cambridge University, who I interviewed, Dr. Sharon Dirich's PhD from Cambridge, a well-known neuroscientist, who wrote a book called Am I Just My Brain? And the answer is, no, you're not. But she gave an illustration.

She said, what if there was a woman named Mary? And Mary was the world's leading expert on vision. She understood the physical makeup of the eye, how it was constructed, the physics, the chemistry, how the eye functions, how images are carried through the optic nerve, how the brain processes that. She understands it better than anybody in the world, but she's blind. what if all of a sudden for the first time Mary received her eyesight at that moment would Mary learn anything new about vision yeah she would she'd be able to see she'd have the first person experience of seeing no amount of knowledge about the physical working of the eye and the brain would get Mary to that point of that first person experience of seeing and so consciousness and the brain are not the same thing. Consciousness or the soul or the spirit is distinct from the human brain. Don't you find it funny. Whenever you hear people talk about, you know, the idea that the brain's a computer,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you, you say, what is consciousness? I mean, this is heavy stuff. Yeah. But when is it that you become conscious? Computers are not conscious. How big does a computer have to be before it makes the leap to consciousness? It will never make the leap to consciousness. Because that, you know, a brain is different from a mind. And when you're talking about this, I mean, this is very heavy. And there are scientists who have really puzzled over this. And there's some people who just sort of assume that, well, of course, we live in a material universe. But that leap, it's an infinite leap. You can never make the leap from computer to consciousness. That's exactly right. And there really is, I believe no rational explanation from the materialists who believe we are just our brain to explain

consciousness. So you either say it's an illusion, which a lot of materialists, people just believe the physical world is all there is. They will say consciousness is an illusion. Free will, Sam Harris says, free will is an illusion. Really? Is that a livable worldview? Not even close. Is that a logical worldview? Not even close. So I think you're, absolutely right. And you know, the Bible says that there's really two aspects of the afterlife. We're believers. When we die, our spirit, our soul, our consciousness separates from our body. We go to an intermediate state and we're either present with Jesus in paradise or we're separated from God in Hades. And then the second phase begins when Jesus returns at the consummation of history. We're

united with our now resurrected bodies. We go through final judgment. And then we spend eternity in a very physical place, whether heaven or hell. So this question, and when Jesus said truly to the repentant criminal on the cross, truly today will be with me in paradise. And the apostle Paul says to be absent from the bodies present with the Lord, suggests that indeed our soul does separate from our physical body. And science is telling us near-death experiences, as I say, which are documented in 900 scientific studies telling us this is consistent.

with what the Bible tells us. I really believe... And that's huge. I really believe we're on the verge of revival and reformation because I really think that science, and again, that's a thesis of my new book, but there is, the evidence is piling up, and it has to do with the Internet and whatever. Somehow the information's exploding. It's harder and harder and harder to avoid. The science is getting us farther and farther. So we can see, these things that we could have pretended ignorance or we could have pretended like who's to say.

Less and less are we able to say who's to say. The evidence is here and here and here and it piles up and up and up and up. And you have to be kind of willful in looking away from it. So I think we're kind of on the verge of something in the West. I'm very hopeful. Yeah. Let's follow the science. So if you follow the science of cosmology, the origin of the universe, if you follow the science of physics, which is the fine-tuning of the universe, if you follow the science of DNA and you look at the biological information in every cell in the human body, this all points toward a supernatural creator whose qualities happen to match the same description of the God of the Bible.

So I agree with you. I think that science is pointing increasing. They said we discoverers over the last 50 or 60 years. So that's what's so funny. Again, that's when you read my book, you'll know, like, This is exactly where I came out. It's also where Stephen Meyer comes out in his book, The Return of the God hypothesis, on a higher level,

on a more, writing on a more popular level. But it's called logic. And the fact is that the last 50 or 60 years, it's bad news for the materialist because we didn't have the science that we now have. Now you can't really say, is God dead? Because the evidence has just piled up while we were kind of in this fantasy that we could live in a secular world. And it's just no longer, it's no longer possible.

When did this book come out? Well, I even, yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, it just came out recently in September. And one of the things I do in it is I have what I call the pyramid to heaven. I interviewed a philosopher, a famous philosopher about this. And so he said, let's let's start at the broadest question. What is truth?

We'll establish what is truth. Truth is that which corresponds to reality. And then we look at world. We're bumping into a hard break. This sounds brilliant. This sounds amazing. So as soon as we come back, we're going to hear about the pyramid to heaven. With Lee Stroh, don't go away.

The book is the case for heaven. Hey, folks, all of you out there know that My Pillow doesn't have box stores or any shopping channels. They've been part of this canceled culture and they want to pass the savings on directly to you. So you can get the lowest price in the history of My Pillow for the classic standard My Pillow regularly. 6998, now only 1998 with promo code Eric. They also have queen size regularly 79.998, now 2498 with promo code Eric or king size regularly 89.998, only 2998 with promo code Eric. My pillow is not just pillows.

They've got over 150 products, everything from sleepwear to slippers and dog beds, you name it. My promo code Eric also works on my store.com. You can get my books and frankspeech.com. Go to Mypillow.com or call 1,800-978-3057. Use promo code Eric to take advantage of Mike's special offer on his standard My Pillow. That's Mypillow.com promo code Eric or 1-800-978-3057. Folks, I'm talking to Lee Strobel.

The new book is The Case for Heaven. A journalist investigates evidence for life after death. Lee, you were just talking about this person who came up with this idea called the Pyramid of Heaven. So go ahead. What is that idea? Sure. his name, by the way, is Dr. Chad Meister. And he was an atheist for much of his life.

He was on the verge of suicide, literally had the gun cocked and ready to kill himself. When God supernaturally reached out to him, he became not only a Christian, but he's one of the world's foremost Christian philosophers now. And so I interviewed him from my book, and he said, let's just build a pyramid. Let's start with the broadest issue, the base of the pyramid. What is truth? Well, truth is that which corresponds to reality. Okay, well then next step on the pyramid is what worldviews are there? Well, there only can be three, atheism, pantheism, which is that everything is God, or theism, that there is a God who we are accountable to.

We look at each one of those worldviews, are they livable and are they logical? And we conclude that atheism is neither livable nor logical, neither is pantheism, and yet theism survives. I just want to interrupt you before you go on. We need to be clear, and this is what I conclude in my book is atheism dead. You can talk all you want about being an atheist, but it is not livable. You cannot, you can say you're an atheist. I mean, I can say I'm a canary. I could say whatever I want, but you cannot live consistently as though there is no God, there is no meaning.

You cannot do it. But this is, this philosopher concludes that. But he also says the same about pantheism. He does. And pantheism is internally inconsistent and it's unlivable. Besides which, by the way, in pantheism, there's no heaven. There's Nirvana. What is Nirvana?

Nirvana's been described as what's left after you blow out a candle. It's the extinguishing of yourself. I mean, you're extinguished ultimately. There's so many inconsistencies in pantheism. It can't be true. And yet theism is internally consistent. But wait a minute. Pantheism is like where you say,

become one with everything? Yes, it's reincarnation. Isn't that, isn't that the Buddhist hot dog? What did the, what did the, what did the, what did the, what did the, what did the, what did theist hot dog vendor, make me one with everything? Ha ha. That's good. I had to put in just a really cheap, stupid joke in case people, I'm sorry. All right, so, but let's keep going.

So pantheism doesn't work, atheism doesn't work. So you're left with theism. There's one god. You're left with theism. Exactly. And then you're left theism. at Revelation, you look at, okay, well, can we trust what the Bible tells us? Can we trust the New Testament? Is it essentially reliable in what it tells us about the life, teachings, miracles, death,

and resurrection of Jesus? And we conclude, yes, it is reliable. Then we look at the resurrection, evidence inside and outside the Bible that confirm and corroborate that Jesus didn't just claim to be the Son of God. He backed up that claim by returning from the dead. So the pyramid's getting narrow and narrow, and then finally at the tip of the pyramid is the gospel. And when we get to that point, we're reaching heaven. I mean, that's the doorway that we can enter into heaven. So it's kind of a way of looking at how much possible and working our way to the conclusion that the Christian teaching

is that which makes sense and which is livable. I just want to say it's so important for us to understand that our faith is real and it's logical. And whenever anybody says that's not true, we have to know. that they're mistaken. We don't have to say like, well, I think you're mistaken. You have to know, just like the way you know, you know, science is real, math is real. This is not just what we want. And I think that there are a lot of people that they just want to look away. They want to believe what they want,

or they've been wounded or something. Do you have any stories in this book, The Case for Heaven, where people experience life after death, and it's not Heaven but hell? Yes, absolutely. Howard Storm. Howard Storm was an atheist. He was a professor at a secular university and he had to the art department. He dies in the hospital. But then he said, yeah, they're saying I'm dead, but I'm standing next to my body. He's still alive. His soul is still alive. And some guys in the hallway say, hey, come with us. And so he's, okay. So he follows him down the hallway of the hospital and then down another corridor, down another quarter. And finally said, where are we going? We've been walking forever. And they started get mean to him and started clawing. him and biting him and and swearing at him and they literally as he said they reduced me to roadkill his eye would scouse out his ear was chewed off and he said he said no horror movie could ever capture the cruelty of what they did to me and then he called out to jesus jesus came rescued him um and then ultimately he is revived he comes back his spirit is reunited with this body. He resumes consciousness. He not only rejects his atheism, he not only becomes a Christian,

he becomes an ordained pastor, and to this day is the pastor of a tiny little church. I believe it's in Oklahoma. It radically changed. Like 24% of these near-death experiences are hellish experiences, or they are negative experiences in some way. Now, it's important to understand that people in near-death experiences, they're dead. They've been declared dead. Some in the morgue, And yet they're not irreversibly dead. You know, the Bible talks about you were appointed once to die and then the judgment. Well, they're not dead in an irreversible way because they're going to come back. So they're clinically dead.

And that's like Lazarus. Exactly. That's exactly right. And so as a result, we can have a situation where Jesus, this is post-mortem, so to speak, he calls out to Jesus and Jesus rescues him. I'm not sure we all can count on that when we're irreversible. reversibly dead. You know what I mean? That's the horror. I think we have to be honestly. I don't want to believe hell is real, but the evidence seems to suggest that it is. The Bible suggests strongly that this is what it is. And then you hear stories. C.S. Lewis, there's a new film out called the

Most Reluctant Convert. People can go see it. I recommend it highly. But C.S. Lewis talks about a friend, I think it was when he was in World War I. And one of them he'd been dabbling in the occult. And as he was dying, he's screaming out, you know, these devils are clawing at me, help me, help me. I mean, it just seemed obvious what is happening. You hear these stories, and we need to take this seriously, folks. It's absolutely horrific, but we need to face it. I have two chapters in the book on hell, because I knew I couldn't write a book about the afterlife without dealing with hell. And I deal with two of the ways in which a lot of young pastors are trying to soften

hell a bit. One is through teaching universalism that ultimately we're all saved. We're going to meet Adolf Hitler in heaven, which is a heresy. And then some pursue what's called annihilationism. Which means that when you die snuffs you out of existence. You don't go to

hell for eternity. When we come back, I want to explore both of those. This is very important folks. I hope you don't go away. We'll be right back with Lee Strobel. The book is the case for heaven. Folks, we've just got a few moments left with Lee Strobel and I thought, hey, when I talk about hell, Lee, your book is called The Case for Heaven, but you talk about how some pastors are trying to, I don't know, blur the line and say, well, not really, everybody ends up in heaven.

I wish, but I don't see how that's possible, but I wish. I mean, the thought of this is so horrifying. So they talk about universalism or they talk about annihilationism that maybe we just, we are blown out like a candle and that is it. Yeah, those two are very popular. We can say about universalism, there's so many passages in Scripture that are dependent on you responding to the gospel message. John 112, the last verse I read as an atheist that brought me to fate that says, but as many has received him. To them, he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name.

So the formula is believe plus receive equals become. We have to receive God's grace. There's too many passages that make eternal life contingent on our response to God. And annihilationism. Now, John Stott, the great evangelical pope, so to speak, of the 20th century, ended up believing in annihilationism. It's not a heresy. It's a secondary issue. You can make a really good biblical case for it.

And I do in the book. In fact, I talked to an annihilationist who said, I read your book. Thank you for spelling out our case very accurately. They can make a good case, but it falls short, I believe. Although I want to say to people, if you really, really, really, really think about annihilationism, you should be utterly horrified of that. That's not a good thing. It is really, really sick.

People don't make you're exactly right. Most people say, oh, yeah, well, that wouldn't be bad. No, are you serious? Do you want to be snuffed out of existence for eternity? For eternity. Anyway, yeah. Anyway, yeah, we're living in times where people don't, you know, it's kind of the same old complaint in a way, but that a lot of people from pulpits are not talking about these

uncomfortable things. Maybe because people in the past have spoken about these things insensitively or somehow wrongly. You know, we shouldn't be, well, I mean. It shouldn't be gloating over it. No, no, and we should be weeping at the very idea that anyone could ever possibly go to hell. It's horrifying, and we should do everything we can to tell people that there's something beautiful. It's God's intention for them. Unless you're Presbyterian Calvinist, in which case, who's to say?

Yeah, well, we've just got a minute left. What do we say? I'm just so glad you wrote this book, Lee, The Case for Heaven. I really am excited about it. People need to know. Life is tough enough. We need to know where. we are supposed to go and where the Lord wants us to go.

Yeah. Can I say one last thing? Yes, anything. I interviewed Luis Palau, the great evangelist. I was the last interview before he died. And he said something to me, Eric, I think is relevant to all of us. Here he is. He knows he's about to die.

He shared his faith with a billion people during his lifetime. Great man of God. And he said to me, Lee, when you get to the end of your life and all, is said and done, you will never regret being courageous for Christ. That's a message for all of us. Luis Palau was a friend, and I just loved him so much. I did too. And I could see the joy of Jesus in him. Yes. And that's the way we're supposed to go out of this life, knowing that there is no question that where we're going is infinitely better than wherever we are. We need to know that. We shouldn't hope that, folks. Don't hope it. Know it. You will live differently. Lee, I'm just grateful for you.

Generally, particularly grateful for this book, The Case for Heaven. Thank you for your time and for writing this important book. God bless you. I appreciate it. God bless you.