The Sean McDowell Show - How Near Death Experiences Support Christianity

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

For decades, John Burke has been studying accounts of survivors brought back from near death who lived to tell of both heavenly and hellish experiences. There are common experiences shared by thousands of survivors whether they are doctors, college professors, bank presidents, people of all ages and cultures, and even blind people--point to the exhilarating picture of Heaven promised in the Bible. READ: Imagine Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God's Promises, and the Exhilarating Future That Awaits You, by John Burke(https://a.co/d/8uPjiWp) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

What has a former agnostic engineer learned from studying thousands of cases of near-death experiences? The moment it was like taking an egg, cracking it, and then it just came out and I was dead. What does he consider the 10 best pieces of evidence for life after death? Our guest today, John Burke, is a New York Times bestselling author. When people clinically die, but they come back, they are experiencing the same gods. It really does show that there is life after death.

He's a leading expert on near-death experiences, and he's the author of a new book that when your publisher sent it to me, John, immediately I was like, I've never met John. I've been following his stuff for years. Gotta have him on. And the book

is called imagine the god of heaven nice to finally meet you thanks so much for coming on oh thanks for having me on the show sean yeah well let's let's jump right into your story you describe yourself as a former agnostic skeptical engineer that's your training i'm curious about your journey to the christian faith and if near-death experiences played any role in that journey yes it did because my my dad was dying of cancer when someone gave him the very first published research that coined the term near-death experience but research when people clinically die, when their heart stops beating, so there are no brain waves either,

and we're talking from minutes to hours, and either modern medical resuscitation brings them back, in some case, I think it's just miracle, but they come back describing the reality of what you've talked about on your channel you know JP Moreland's talked about that we do have a soul that leaves our body but we still have a spiritual body they experience the life to come both heaven some hell ish experience and and a God that is consistent all around the globe. And I read this in one night when I saw it and at the time

you know I thought Jesus was probably legend you know just grown into a legend. God I didn't know, didn't really care but this was kind of rocking my world and when I read that book, I thought, wow, here are hundreds of people having the same experience. I mean, could this actually be evidence? Because one of my big problems with Christians and Christianity is like the blind faith thing just didn't make sense to me. Like, why would you just throw yourself into something

that makes no sense? I don't get that um and of course i i don't think it is blind faith i think there is incredible evidence on which we stand but and everybody has faith everybody has to trust in something so at that time though um that just opened me up and over the course of the next year or so, someone invited me into a small group Bible study. So I went. I started asking my questions and really exploring. I came to realize there are reasons to believe that God really did reveal himself through Jesus completely separately from these near-death experiences. So I came to faith in Christ.

And I, since then, over the last 35 years, have had this insatiable curiosity, which I, honestly, Sean, I think it was from God, right? He just put that in me. And so I kept running into, I used to live in Santa Barbara. That's where I was an engineer. Oh, okay. Yeah. And Santa Barbara turns out in the 80s to have been kind of the collecting place of people doing research on near-death experiences. And I kept running into them. And I would chronicle them. And I was like, okay, how do these make sense with what I'm reading in the Bible? That was always my question.

I actually gave my first apologetics talk on this in 1989 at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Wow. But I didn't write the book Imagine Heaven until 2015. And that's because, you know, there were a lot of outstanding questions I still had. And it actually wasn't until more and more Christians having these experiences came forward that God began to put the pieces of the puzzle together and give me some what I call interpretive keys. And over the last 35 years, yeah've studied you know thousands of them and and in imagine the God and imagine heaven I was trying to show that the

biblical theology of the afterlife of heaven and hell and and and what we should expect if you really dig in to the scriptures is exactly what these people are commonly, overlappingly saying all over. And I actually quit writing after that because I'm also a pastor of a large church. And that was my fifth book. And I kind of felt like, okay, Lord, I did what you asked. And you didn't call me to be an author.

You called me to be a pastor. And so I kind of hunkered down and did that. And then in COVID, he made it really clear, no, I want you to write, and I want you to write on me. And, Sean, he brought me stories, 70. There's 70 people in Imagine the god of heaven from every continent and it doesn't matter their religious background their cultural upbringing their nationality they are experiencing the same god and this is not the god necessarily they expected but what i'm showing is this is the

god who's been revealing himself throughout history john one of the first times i started studying near-death experiences was probably five or six years ago and honestly i went into it like yeah i'm a skeptic i doubt there's much here and some skeptics might not believe that they'll think well you're christian you found what you're looking for i was really skeptical and then surprised at the amount of testimony and some of the data that we're going to get into. But over the past four to five years, in the back of my mind has kind of been the question, okay, it seems to that people have this experience of light, this experience of love. It seems pluralistic, like it doesn't uniquely point towards Christianity.

But what you argue, and Steve Miller in his recent book, looking at the data says that's not really the complete story this points uniquely towards christianity now we're going to get into that in some depth in just a minute we're going to walk through your 10 pieces of what you think are points of evidence for the afterlife but two questions before we jump into that number one near-death experiences alone, how far do you think they take us towards the Christian God? Do they take us partway? Do you think they get us all the way there? What can near-death experiences alone reveal about the afterlife, the existence, and character of God? That's my whole book. Yeah. So to summarize, I absolutely think they point to the God who has revealed himself before. And what I like to point out is before any of the world's religions

had a formal sacred scripture, God was revealing himself. That's his claim. And he has also put evidence in history. And the things that he revealed from 4,000 years ago, 3,500 years ago, is exactly what people are experiencing all over the globe. So Moses experiences this God of light in a bush that doesn't burn, right? The Israelites discovered this God of light, of fire that was just powerful and guiding them. You have Daniel experiencing this man who is eyes like lightning, right? You've got all the way throughout. You have Jesus saying, I'm the light of the world. Whoever believes in me will never walk in darkness, will have the light of life.

And of course, you have John in the book of Revelation. He sees the same Jesus, the glorified risen Jesus that Daniel describes in Daniel chapter seven. Well, I've got case after case after case of people describing the same God in Tehran, in Rwanda with a Muslim Imam in Rwanda, Jesus rescues him when he dies of blood cancer i have a hindu manufacturing engineer who when he dies this brilliant god of light takes him to this place and he's standing up on a platform and he describes the way he said it to me is it was a giant compound he said over there and the other side your eyesight eyesight is, you can see for thousands of miles perfectly, which I like to point out. The reason Christians have rejected

so much of this is, you know, at first I was like, it's kind of new agey. That's weird. That's not biblical. Actually it is. You know, John in Revelation says he was taken to heaven and he was taken to a very high mountain, right? And he looks down on the holy city, which Santosh is about to describe, and he reads the names on the foundation stones. How? Telescopic vision, right? Somehow he could see from up very high. So Santosh is saying the same thing he describes this giant walled compound square in shape thousands of miles very high walls beautiful walls inside

these buildings of otherworldly material he said just gorgeous i wanted to go in and i counted there were 12 gates but they were all closed to me and outside the gates i see angels guarding them and i knew then i'm looking at the kingdom of heaven now he had no background in the bible his his father was a sanskrit scholar he grew up with hinduism and yet he's perfectly describing the holy city. And you have, I mean, person after person like this. And then he later, he sees a vision of hell. He sees a vision of the glorified Jesus on a throne, who he later thinks is the glorified Jesus. At first, he didn't know. He just looks at him, and he said has his eyes were like lightning and as soon as i looked at them i he had a life review sees all his sins and realizes i deserve that place

and he falls on his knees and says forgive me lord forgive me forgive me and what's so amazing is then you hear him talk about when the lord spoke to him and said santosh i'm sending you back and then he said when you go back i want you to love your family i want you to love your especially your daughter she needs you right now and he was loving and merciful and compassionate and santosh didn't understand why and then you know he he sees what he said is a very narrow gate right next to the throne open to him. That narrow gate, he said, was the only one opened him into the kingdom of heaven. So he says to the Lord, Lord, when I come back, how can I go through that narrow gate? Okay, crazy.

Like, you know, but even crazier, he comes back two years later, his daughter's invited to sing in a choir in a church because she was a choral major. He goes to hear her, feels the same loving presence of this almighty God he experienced. And the message is on the narrow gate, how Jesus is the narrow gate and the broad way that leads to destruction in matthew 7 and then in john 10 where jesus says i am the gate through which the the sheep enter and santosh thought oh my gosh like this is just for me and he goes home and starts reading the bible and says everything i experience is in here now, I've got people from all over the globe like that, that are testifying to the same God. Some just see him as this God of light and love,

and they don't know who he is, and they can interpret in their own worldview. Gotcha. And that's a very important thing to realize then you've got you know i i i interviewed a room uh an imam from rwanda who was a muslim apologist by the way and he dies of blood cancer and says that jesus rescued him and he knew it was Jesus because he had seen the movie The Passion of the Christ because he got a free ticket to it and here's this man in a robe and a sash and holds his hands out and he said very big holes in his wrists and he said to swedeek, he said, I died for mankind. You are among those I died for.

Never deny it and tell everyone. And Swedeek comes to at his burial. He had been dead overnight. He comes to at his burial and starts proclaiming to all these Muslims that are freaking out that Jesus is here and Jesus is the one who rescued me. Now, here's the thing you know i would hear one of these stories and go you know urban legend good story right because you can have that kind of response but then when you're talking about Bibi in Tehran, who sees the same God Santosh does, and that God says to her, I am he who is. And then Bell Chung, who is a PhD in Hong Kong, and he experiences the same God of light and love who is personal and gives him a life

review. And then you have Dr. Rajiv Partee, who's chief anesthesiologist at the Bakersfield Heart Hospital, also grew up Hindu, has a similar, he didn't believe in near-death experiences. He thought they were total bogus. In fact, when he heard some from his patients, he'd give him a shot of Haldol of antipsychotic drug and just go check the stock report. And then he had one. And he got the same response hell and cries out in repentance to god and then he said to christian angels take him this beautiful place with this god of light brighter than the sun personal gives him a life review shows him the things in his life that need to change and sends him back and he said, I thought that might be Jesus. Why in the world would we say that? But even crazier, later he has an experience with this same God of light and he asks,

who are you, Lord? And out of the light steps Jesus and says, I'm Jesus, your savior. I mean, this is like, this is Acts chapter nine, right? And I like to remind Christians of that because a lot of Christians say, you know, well, why are these people of other religions who don't even know Jesus? Why are they experiencing Jesus? Or why are they, why do they feel the love of God? Well, Saul was killing Christians, right? And this brilliant god of light appears to him

and when he asks who are you lord he says i'm jesus but notice uh i do we lock up no i think we're good you're doing great keep going okay we froze on my end um but notice jesus does not tell paul the gospel and he doesn't tell paul what to do he sends ananias later to explain to paul and paul still has a choice because he had a lot to lose and he still has a choice will he be baptized for the remission of his sins will he follow jesus and that's the same within the ears they still have a choice. And so I like to point that out. But yeah, I mean, Sean, when you're talking about 70 people from all over the globe, and they are consistently talking about this same God who has revealed himself throughout history, I think it's incredibly powerful

evidence. What's interesting about your book and your research is that you've looked at thousands of cases, kind of top-down research, but talked personally and interviewed people, kind of bottom up research. Now, one study I'd seen showed that about 4% of people had near-death experiences. You cite a study in your book that one study shows about 5.5%. That means there's millions of people who've had near-death experiences, which is pretty compelling. Now, one of the things where I stopped in your book, you have this section that says 10 points of evidence for life after death. Let's walk through these and explain them to us kind of one by one and then I have some common objections I know there's some people listening right here saying how do we

know this is not hallucinations how do we know we can trust these reports we'll get to some of those tough questions but let's start with these one by one and the first one you have is verifiable observations how can we verify something someone experiences in a near-death experience yeah and i i write this chapter because so many people would say oh well you know that's been explained by you know dr michael schirmer he says it's a it's something that happens in the brain you know you're flooded with chemicals to make you feel better while this scary thing is happening well what what i'm trying to point out in chapter two of imagine the god of heaven is that if these alternate theories don't make some semblance of uh sense out of these 10 points

of evidence they're just throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping it sticks that it's not the soul living on right and and i like to point out that you know a scientific principle is that what is consistently observed is real and like you pointed out we're talking about millions of cases i've personally studied thousands and i've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people so one of the things that convinced me early on when I was still a skeptical engineer is that when people first die they say they leave their body but they're still many times in the room where their resuscitation is happening somewhere up above their body they feel not just like they have five, but 50 senses more alive than they've ever felt. They say this is more real

than this earth life has ever been, which I think is fascinating. But they're able to, when they come back to their body, they're able to make observations that can be checked out. So for instance, one study done and by the way there have been 900 uh scholarly articles published in journals like the journal the american medical association lancet psychiatry this has convinced many medical doctors but christians have ignored it and that's why i think it's you know it's convinced many skeptical doctors, but Christians have ignored it. And that's why I think it's, you know, it's convinced many skeptical doctors and we shouldn't fear this. We should press in

and make sense of them. So one study done by Dr. Janice Holden, she interviewed 93 patients who claimed to have a near-death experience and have made observations that could be checked out, verifiable observations. So any one patient may make five or 10 observations of what was going on in the room, right? What she found is that of their observations, 92% of their observations were 100% accurate, 92%. Another 6% were mostly accurate with maybe some variations, 2%, which was actually one patient was completely. Right. And, and so, you know, you're talking about compared to the, there were control groups done because these other studies have done it with control groups of cardiac arrest patients saying, describe what happened in the room it's like they're just guessing what they saw from er it's not you

know it's not accurate at all so that's one verifiable observations okay hang on before we jump to two what's interesting about this is these these are verifiable observations from a distance where somebody says they left their body went somewhere else these are verifiable observations from a distance where somebody says they left their body, went somewhere else. These are verifiable observations of specificity and detail. And so many that can't be explained by chance. That's what I think is so powerful that you point out. Now, the second one you said is common elements. And what's interesting about this is if people had an expectation of a near death experience and a script ahead of time, you could maybe account for the common elements. But what you're saying is people from different backgrounds, different places, different times have these near-death experiences with common

elements. That's going to require some kind of further explanation. So what are some of those common elements? Yeah. And in the book, I go through the common elements and not only that, the percentages that they have. And in my first book, Imagine Heaven, even though I kind of pointed out, I think 12 or so, I've chronicled about 40 consistent common elements and they all line up with the Bible. By the way, I studied how many of them line up with the with the bible by the way i studied how many of them line up with the expectations of heaven of the other world's religion scriptures and each one about four to five and yet the bible is 40. that's yeah it's it's it's so amazing to me so but think about this okay so you've got millions of people and they talk about these consistent common elements

like out of their body, heightened senses, able to make observations, travel through a tunnel, or sometimes it's like through outer outer space into this place of exquisite beauty where light doesn't shine on things. It comes out of everything. And it's not light like the sun. It's light that is life and love all together. They meet deceased relatives. They, you know, they have this great reunion. They see this city, just like John describes many times. They, some say it's clear as crystal. Others say it's gold. So there are all these common elements. Now, the strongest testimony in a court of law is not when everyone says the

same thing. If you have 10 eyewitnesses to a crime on the street and they all say all exactly the same things, that's collusion. You don't trust it because they all tongued. But if you have 10 eyewitnesses that say unique things, but they overlap consistently, that's the strongest testimony. And that's what you have with NDEs. So for instance, and what I like to point out is if this is just a hallucination, first, how do you have a mass hallucination? If it's just a blip in the brain, you know, or chemicals flooding the brain, why don't they all have the same common elements? If this is common to humanity at the point of death.

So why do 48% see the same God of light? Why not 100%? And then why do 32% of them have a life review? Why wouldn't that be common to everyone? 57% of them see deceased family members. Well, family members would be on your brain, right? As you're dying, why wouldn't everybody? Makes sense.

And so, you know, it points out that there's something else going on here. This is a highly lucid experience. It's not like a dream at all. It's the opposite. It makes this world feel like a dream. Now that actually gets us to number three, where it's heightened lucidity. And what's fascinating about this about me is so many people who are blind describe seeing, the deaf describe hearing, but then you have people who maybe just have normal visual and hearing abilities say it's just heightened. Why is that significance and a piece of evidence for the afterlife well because in you know a lot of times people will liken these things

to you know taking dmt or ayahuasca or um you know ketamine or something like that which which may uh you know produce colors you know colors beyond our color spectrum is one thing that people say, or a tunnel. But those are hypolucid, right? It's confused sensorium many times. this was this was more lucid more real more solid even than anything i've ever experienced in this life well how do you explain that consistently when it's so different than what we would see with with any kind of uh drug drug kind of induced you know know, experience. Okay. That, that, that makes sense. Interesting. So let's move to maybe instead of going through all 10 of these, I'm going to pick two or three out that I think are most interesting and then tell folks that got to get your book if they want

all 10. But this is the one that's one of the most interesting ones to me, meeting deceased people, not known. So explain what happens there and why that's evidentially significant yeah actually um actually can I do that and I'll combine sure yeah do it so the two two of the most uh evidential besides the veretical observations yep To me is that when people blind from birth have a near-death experience, they see the same things. And there've been studies done on this of blind people. And I interview multiple, I have several of them in Imagine the God of Heaven.

And like for instance, Debbie. So Debbie, blind leaves her body when she dies and she sees her mother come into the room and, you know, try to help her. And she sees what her mom's wearing. When she comes back, she describes that she was in a robe. What color was it? It was a dark color. Mom says, yes it was black um debbie goes on and meets this god of of light that she describes but it's not light like the sun because it's life and and love it's it's a different kind of light she says um he says you must go back because you're going to have children she'd been told she couldn't have children.

She does go back and she does have children. But she also sees her grandmother on the other side. So this goes on to the next one, meeting unknown deceased people. She had never met her grandmother in this life. Her grandmother had died when she was little. She'd obviously never seen her, but she hadn't even met her. She meets her on the other side. When she comes back, she describes to her mother what she looked like.

But what she ends up describing is her grandmother in her 30s. Wow. Which is interestingly another commonality that people are typically about 30 as they present themselves. Um, so, so meeting other unknown deceased people, and it's not just, you know, Debbie, you have, uh, children who had near death experiences who then meet their siblings on the other side that they didn't even know they had. They come back and they tell their mom or dad when they're resuscitated, you know, I met my brother, I met my sister.

And they're asking, what do you mean? And the more they tell me, they realize, oh, my gosh, we had a miscarriage. You know, we never even told our son or daughter we had a miscarriage. And yet they're claiming they met their brother or sister. They didn't even know they had um in another case um i i think i report and imagine the god of heaven that a a woman who meets this man who was smiling warmly at her you know on the other side and she comes back 10 years later when her mom's on her deathbed her mom confesses to an extramarital affair and shows her a picture of her biological dad and it's the person she met who was smiling warmly at her on the other side holy cow so again and again and again you know you have you have cases like this

and and it's kind of like you know it's kind of like Christian apologetics anyone yeah you might be able to pick apart but when you when you start to see these strands of evidence it ends up being this big fat rope you can hold on to and climb up this is a really helpful way you looked at it because I teach a class at at Biola on the resurrection and there's certain historical facts like the empty tomb, the appearances, the origin of the Christian faith, conversion of Paul, etc. So any adequate hypothesis can't just account for two of those. It has to account for all of those.

Naturally, you start adding two explanations, it becomes ad hoc. Well, you're saying the same thing. You list these 10 phenomena and say there might be one explanation that can account for one or two or three of these, but apart from the very testimony that the people who had these experiences say took place, there is no explanation that can account for all of the phenomena collectively. that's the heart of what you're arguing isn't it exactly exactly and that's and and all the alternative theories don't cohesively make sense of these data points and and here's here to me this is the biggest um and and why i'm so excited about this new book imagine

the god of heaven because 48 of people having near-death experiences experience the same God. They encounter the same God of light and love who is personal, who knows them, who gives them a life or view. They come back consistently saying God is love and love of another order. And how we love one another is what matters most now when you have people from all over the globe saying the same thing that's incredibly powerful evidence because why would or why would people who did not expect that God talk about that God hmm now I will well you want to keep going on the you know what i think we've covered probably six or seven of these i think you've laid out your positive case i want to push back with some

of the objections that i've heard that i've thought about and see how you would respond now one of them you've hinted at earlier and you cite this in the book is that michael schirmer has suggested that maybe as the brain is starting to recover, there's these common hallucinations that people have, which we would expect if the brain is recovering to match near-death experiences. Your thoughts on that explanation? Well, I think it doesn't account for most of the things I just talked about I mean it okay let's just say that's the case your your brain is kicking back in I give the case of Pam Reynolds all right Pam Reynolds has this intense surgery

where her it's an aneurysm in the base of her brain and they had to saw open her skull and she talks about being out of her body she experiences god too but she comes back she she's out of her body and halfway through the surgery an hour into it but it was still an hour before they brought her back she describes the saw that they used to open her skull and it didn't look anything like a saw. She said it looked like an electric toothbrush with a big fat cord and it looked like a socket set that the doctor was taking out of. And she hears a female doctor that she didn't even know there would be a female doctor operating on her or part of the operation say, we can't find, we can't find the artery. She was down by her legs. And she describes all this. Then she describes as she's coming back

in their plane, Hotel California, and they shocked her twice. Now, the other thing that Pam had is she had 100 decibel clicks in her ears so that they could monitor and make sure there were no brain waves so they knew there were no brain waves how did she see all that stuff you know how would how would the brain coming back online account for things that happened for two hours in surgery the same thing with you know there are cases there was a case in the Lancet of a man who came into the hospital in Holland completely no heart comatose into the emergency room they were going to shock his heart and realized he had dentures took the dentures out nurse took the dentures out put him in the lower drawer of the crash cart, intubated him and then shocked him.

So they got his heart jump-started, but he never came to in the ER. They moved him out to another room. A week later, he comes to and no one knows where his dentures are. And he sees the nurse in the hallway and says, that nurse knows where my dentures are. And he sees the nurse in the hallway and says, that nurse knows where my dentures are. And then describes all the doctors and nurses in the room, and that that nurse took his dentures out and put them in the lower drawer of that cart with all the bottles on it. And that's where they found. And I mean, there's there are story after story after story of those kinds of evidential things that a blip in the brain coming back on just doesn't explain.

It also doesn't explain why blind people. So this is one that medical doctors aren't going to talk about, but Christians should. So why would blind people consistently say the light of heaven comes out of everything? They would have never heard that on earth, but they do. That the light of heaven comes out of everything. Now, Isaiah 60, Isaiah says, you know, in the new heaven and earth, there is no sun or moon because the glory of God is its light. Revelation 21, John says, there's no sun or moon in heaven. The glory of God is its light. Revelation 21, John says, there's no sun or moon in heaven.

The glory of God is its light and the lamb, Jesus is its lamp and the nations will walk in that light. How would a blind person know that? And how in the world would a blip in the brain make any sense of that? And you can just go on and on with those kinds of, that doesn't make any sense of that and and you can just go on and on with with you know those kinds of that doesn't make any sense I'm really hoping yeah I'm actually hoping um to uh to get me and

uh a good friend uh Dr Jeff Long yeah to debate Michael Shermer uh on Rogan. That would be awesome. Oh, that would be cool. Here's a shout out. Because Joe Rogan had him on, let's do the other side of the case. Let's go for it. I love that. That's cool. Anybody watching this, send a note to Joe Rogan, tell him to host this conversation. That would be awesome. So hallucination maybe in principle could account for one or two of these as I look on the list. Maybe, but there's no way. The bottom line, when you think about when you have information that could not have been attained in that physical state, any brain change can't get the kind of information dentures, Pam Reynolds, some of these other cases, that's where it seems to fall short. Now, some people might suspect, and this is a question I've had is, okay, so you're telling me the story about this guy who remembers where his dentures are. How do we know we can trust these reports? How do we know people are not inventing them for fame, for money, for some other benefit that they get out of it yeah well what i like to

point out is that um i you know i don't always know if every single person is completely telling the truth the thing that you know i don't believe any one near-death experiencer and i don't actually encourage you to believe everything everybody tells you i think a little skepticism is wise it's good and what i like to try to look at is are are these commonalities and then how do they align with the scriptures and if they don't or especially if they contradict the scriptures i throw them out um if they if they if there are multiple people saying the same thing then i consider it and i think about hmm okay how does how does that fit how does that make sense um so i i don't think you should just believe everybody and everything someone says.

But here's the important point is that with any one of person talking about the observations that I'm reporting in Imagine the God of Heaven and in Imagine Heaven, you could replace it with thousands of others so but here's another important thing sean is i interview um and i do this on purpose uh i i look for mostly those who have something to lose not something to gain so for instance you know i i've interviewed, I mean, Santosh is a manufacturing engineer and a Hindu. He has nothing to gain, you know, talking about this crazy story of seeing the heaven of the Bible, right? You have spine surgeons, commercial airline pilots, bank presidents. You know, these are people, CEOs that I've interviewed. They are actually very hesitant to come forward and talk because they know people are going to think they're crazy and it's going to hurt their career.

They're not doing it to make a buck selling a book, which as you know, is not even a buck usually. Fair enough. That makes sense. Now, let me push back on something you said. You said you look at near-death experiences and see how they match up with the scriptures. And if they don't, you toss them out. Now, I can imagine someone listening going, okay, John, so you're finding what you're looking for, taking the cases that support your narrative, getting rid of those who don't. How is that a fair metric of analyzing near-death experiences and what they actually tell us about the afterlife well i'm i'm talking about well okay so i go into that and imagine the

god of heaven because um it's not that i don't consider them i do consider them and i'll tell you there's some that i there's there's one in particular, that I'm really wrestling with, that, you know, theologically is borderline. And yet, I've heard a lot of people say it. So I don't I just I just I set it aside. And I try to, you know, I wait, I wait to see if there's if there's more evidence or if things make sense in the future, or I find, oh, you know, that actually does reconcile. But what I also try to show in Imagine the God of Heaven is that I think there is a foundation in Scripture

and in history where God has given us very good evidence, not only of who he is, but that he was superintending the writing of scripture and what the prophets said. And I give some historical evidence of that, right? but here's the other important point. Near-death experiences can't tell us what happens in eternity. One of the commonalities about 35% have is they come to a border or a boundary in this experience that they knew they couldn't cross and still come back to this life. And in the, in the new book, I even have Jesus telling some of them, you haven't died yet. You have to go back. Well, they had died.

By our clinical standards, they didn't have a heartbeat or brainwaves. So whatever a near-death experience is, it's something in between what we would call clinical death and I think what Hebrews 9.27 means when it says it's appointed for mankind to die once, and then comes judgment, right? So this is not that. So a near-death experience can't tell us what happens when someone crosses over into eternity. I also, by the way, think that's why people, even in their near-death experiences, and i've interviewed many of them who are having hellish experiences cry out to god to save them and he does and then he sends them back and i think that's why they you know they still have uh a chance an opportunity uh but there's

still there's still the opportunity to choose because they're not completely disconnected from this life yet so yeah i think there's only been one who's come back from the other side of eternity uh and that's jesus and he said that gotcha okay so this is this is helpful clarification you're not saying i pick and choose those that match up with the Bible. You're saying the vast majority match up, but there's a few outlier cases you're looking at, looking for more evidence, not quite sure what to do with, but those are the big exceptions rather than the norm. And that's fair. When you think about a case, there's going to be outlier facts that you've got to make sense of. That's very different than picking and choosing certain facts and ignoring others now one of the things that's interesting is some end years those who've experienced a near-death experience

report from from within their religious tradition so hindus seen multiple gods there's even been atheists like A.J. Ayer who has a near-death experience and stays an atheist. So why doesn't this support an atheist worldview or a Hindu worldview? Why uniquely a Christian worldview? Well, and so again, going back, I didn't come at this originally as a Christian. It actually opened me up to considering what the Bible said and then I saw oh it actually matches up. Now that's just me but I do point out in Imagine the God of Heaven that sometimes people do interpret this God they experience in their own cultural worldview.

So I give an example of Arvind, who is a Hindu in India, and he floats up out into the hallway of the hospital where his body is, and he sees this brilliant light, again, brighter than the sun, conveys love, and then he goes back, okay? So a shallow experience, and that's important to know.

Different people have different depths of experience. He interprets that God as the goddess Kali, Kalika, Kalika. And so he says, I encountered the goddess Kali. Now, the goddess Kali is described as a woman, usually black or blue skin with four arms and a long tongue hanging out. Well, that's not who he described at all. Who he described was this brilliant God of light that appeared to Moses and all throughout the scriptures.

Same thing with Nia. Nia is in Africa, a lioness, bitter head. She leaves her body. She leaves her body. She's a teenager. She leaves her body, and she said this brilliant, she called it a glow, like the sun, fire, the morning, guides her to this beautiful place. She said some may call heaven. She said God definitely exists.

And then she comes back to her body and she says that she experienced Durga Ma, the goddess Durga. Now, again, the goddess Durga is described as a beautiful woman with eight to 10 arms and weapons in each arm riding a lion. Well, that's not who she described. She described the same God of brilliant light who brings her back.

Now, interestingly, she also said, I came back with an understanding of Christianity and Jesus that I had not had before. Why? Why Jesus? You know, why this Hindu chief anesthesiologist who, again, experiences this brilliant God of light and then also discovers he's Jesus? Why Jesus? and yet that's a consistent thing that's happening all over the globe on the other hand um i have not heard experiences where people are consistently describing what their expectation of other gods would be oh interesting okay so a sense, is it fair to say even when Jesus does miracles, people interpret them differently based on their bias and their worldview? And that's Jesus in the flesh doing something explicitly. process it they report a common experience that when those details are

looked at line up with the Christian God but people can still interpret them differently at least for a season if they choose to do so for different reasons that's exactly what I say I say if I were to go back in Jesus day and interview a bunch of people who saw him raise the dead, some would say, why wouldn't you believe he's the Messiah? And others would say he's demon possessed, obviously. Right. And I think it's a really important point because one of the things you realize is that life doesn't end when we go to the other side, it actually begins and we're still ourselves. And so these people are just eyewitnesses.

They don't come back perfect. They're still sinful people. They still have a free will. They can choose to seek God and those who do find out who he is, or they can choose to, some come back and they try to recreate the experience. Okay, John, so are you aware of any stories of people who say we're atheists and have a near-death experience and become Hindus or Mormons or Muslims? Or a Christian has a near-death experience and abandons their faith and maybe joins New Age or becomes a Buddhist?

And if not, have you looked for those kinds of cases? Like would they pop up on your radar if they were there? Or is your study kind of selective that maybe you wouldn't find them? Well, I will say this. Yes, I have. I have interviewed and I've studied those who have come back from a new, from a near death experience and then they end up pursuing Buddhism or they end up pursuing more of a Hindu or a new age philosophy. Uh, yes, definitely. Okay. Um, but what I'm trying to show in Imagine the God of Heaven is that consistently the God that they are describing is not just showing up in our age of near-death experiences.

Why in the world would we think that? I mean, people who study near-death experiences, they can't deny these people claim they're experiencing this God, the same God, and they point that out. But nobody goes back to go, well, did this God just decide to go, hey, knock, knock, I'm here? No. And so what I'm trying to show is that there is a consistency of God's revelation throughout history that matches what God is doing today when these people come back and report having been in his presence. book it it lines up like the heaven and hell the afterlife that we would expect through god's revelation in the scriptures whereas it doesn't really in the sacred scriptures of the of the world's religions i mean maybe four or five points compared to more like 38 to 40. okay so that's

really helpful so that has a near-death experience and chooses to engage new age hinduism some other faith they're certainly free to do so but when you look at the god that is consistently reported and the god of the scriptures they line up in a way that you don't have with other faiths that's the key point you're making that i think is significant you lay that out in your book now let me ask you this you and i were chatting beforehand i had a season a few weeks ago of just going through a lot of pain, debilitating pain. And so at the end of your book,

you describe what near-death experiences have to say to people in pain and suffering. And in many ways, this is the big question. You know this, John, whether it's Christians struggling with their faith, non-believers wondering if they're going to come to faith if there's so much evil and pain and suffering the world then god is good and powerful enough and can stop it and doesn't where is god so what do near-death experiences have to say to those who are suffering yeah and i and i do a whole, uh, some of the people who have

had near death experiences like, um, Dr. Mark Madonna, uh, he actually died at 16 in a fire. His, his house caught on fire. His dad was out out of town he rescued two of his brothers but his mom and his youngest brother were trapped in her room and he was trying to rescue them and wasn't able to and and you know got like horribly burned over 80% of his body and the hot on in the ambulance on the way his heart stopped and he was in so much pain i mean just such brutal pain he was just saying god just take me kill me please don't make me go through this and then he leaves his body and he said he was there with his mom and his brother. And he said, it was like we were sitting on the couch watching TV together,

just like so home. And the Lord was there and he saw, and here's what he said. He said to me, he said, you know, I saw God's plan and all I could say was of course of course like that makes perfect sense it's beautiful and you know he but he was seen what he was also seen is that he lost his mom and his brother and he went through hell after that when he came back and the last thing the Lord said to him is he said, you've got to go back because I still have a purpose and a plan for you. And he said, it's not going to be easy, but we're going to do it together. It's not going to be easy, but we're going to do it together. And Mark went through 38 surgeries. I mean, burn, burn victim. It's like,

it's the most horrible thing. He was disfigured now as a teenager, he's a teenager without a mom. Um, his dad then was, was so distraught. He turned to alcoholism. so now his dad becomes an alcoholic. In college, he found alcohol as a way to, what he later realized, numb the pain of PTSD. So he becomes an alcoholic and then goes through recovery. And in recovery, really develops some spiritual disciplines and kind of re-energizes his faith because he he knew the lord he believed which is another important thing i like to point out sean is that just because someone has a near-death experience doesn't mean their life is easy or they or they know everything or they never sin they're just people they're they're just people that honestly it's a responsibility.

You know, a lot of times, why couldn't I have that experience? You don't want it. They say dying is easy. Coming back is really tough. Wow. You know, but Mark, Mark goes through all of this. And, and I mean, a lot of suffering, but in the end, he ends up becoming a physical therapist and then a plastic surgeon and uses his empathy to be able to heal other burn victims. And through it all, what was most astounding is that he said, you know, God is so good.

And in the end, it's all okay. Like it all works. And he's saying that from the perspective of being in that timeless place. And so I have several people who've had near-death experiences and been through a lot of a lot of pain and suffering and even though it still doesn't perfectly answer you know the how in the world could God allow this I would never allow this to happen to my child if I really loved them and you know like it doesn't it doesn't perfectly was resolve that but what I think it does do is it says you know the truth is we won't have

all the answers this side but we can trust that god actually does and there will be a day when we look back like these people and say of course like i i didn't get it then at all, but now I see. And maybe Sean, it's, you know, cause I've thought a lot about this. I mean, you know, this started for me in pain because my dad was dying and I didn't care about God because I had life by the throat. I was doing great. And unfortunately it takes pain many times to wake us up. And so even though we don't understand why God in pain, you know, allows pain and suffering. Another thing in the ears tell us is there's a ripple effect to all our thoughts and words and actions, and it ripples through humanity. And so he loves each one of us as if we're the only ones that's what

in the ear say, but he doesn't only love us and what he's working out through humanity is, is for the good of all. And so I think what Indy ears can help us with is just trust that even though maybe I'm not able to work out every answer here, maybe that's because I'm finite. And one day, when I'm not bound by one dimension of time, and I'm in God's presence, it really will make sense. You know, you said earlier, such a biblical truth in the sense of what NDEers report is that God is sovereign. He has a plan. He'll be with us through our suffering and someday we'll look back and say, I get it. That's nothing new that an NDEer is saying that we didn't know from the book of Job or in the scriptures. But what it does is it reminds us there's people alive today who believe this

and are testifying to the truth of that and can encourage the rest of us by their example. And so maybe those kind of NDEs are an act of God's grace to encourage people going through a whole lot of pain that God is with them and just reinforcing what's in scripture. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, and I was just going to say, I mean, that was really what motivated me to write Imagine the God of Heaven. I am an apologetics geek, so it was for that because so many know, so many people have come to faith all around the world reading Imagine Heaven. I wanted to show them the point is God. But what I even more wanted to do is help all of us, Christians included, expand the box that we put God in, because we all do, we're finite, right? And what these indie

ears do is what we read or know, we imagine, but we still imagine God in a box. And the truth is, what these people say is that God is way more glorious and sovereign and magnificent and beautiful, you know, all the big words, omniscient, omnipotent, infinite, eternal than we've ever imagined. But also, God is way more personable and relatable and gets you. And not only that, he's humorous and he's fun. He's like a fun, and you laugh because Christians don't feel God that way. That's true. But hey, he's the same God who instituted seven festivals throughout the year of Israel sayingrael saying you know come and and celebrate before the lord together for a whole week right jesus last night on earth he said stay connected to me abide in me like a a branch stays abiding in a vine and you'll bear much fruit i've told you these things so that you may have my joy and your joy would overflow why why would we think that we somehow enjoy something

in life the pleasures of life all of them like we didn't make those up god created us with the ability to experience that and so why would why would we think he is less enjoyable john's relation i've been reading so many books and studying near-death experiences like my friend steve miller brings kind of a philosophical background yeah he's a good medical yeah oh you do that makes that makes total sense you have doctors who bring like a medical background you bring in engineering but a real pastoral voice, which I appreciate. And that just comes through your book again, Imagine the God of Heaven. To my viewers, if you want to study near-death experiences, Christian or not, this is one I would put on the top of my list is one you've got to check out. John, we will have you back in due time

because I have more and more questions about near-death experiences. And maybe in some time, we'll come back and check up where the research continues to go. I saw you in the movie After Death, an experience there. I thought that movie was fantastic. Anybody watching this who wants to see, for example, the story of Pam Reynolds told visually, wants to hear Jeffrey Long interviewed, some of the key players in near-death experience visually, check out the movie by Angel Studios, After Death. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed that.

Before you click away, make sure you hit subscribe. This is a topic we're going to cover continually here, as well as the evidence for God, the afterlife, the soul, and so on. And if you thought about studying apologetics, we'd love to have you. Information is below. Biola's the top rated distance apologetic Masters program if you're not ready for Masters we have a certificate program our team would like to kind of guide you through and help you get a little bit of formal training

that's below John again it's a treat to meet you that was awesome to hear that you go back to the early 90s with my dad in Russia it's amazing we haven't met before now but now we'll be in touch and i'll i'll be rooting for you thanks for coming on thanks sean you