The Sean McDowell Show - The Most Compelling Heaven Testimonies Ever Collected? | Skeptic Investigates 140 NDEs

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

Randy Kay was a biotech CEO and a self-described skeptic who didn't believe in near-death experiences until he flatlined for 30 minutes in 2005 and, in his telling, found himself face to face with Jesus. Now he's collected 140 NDE accounts he says he's vetted more rigorously than any single volume before. Today, I asked the obvious question: does the evidence actually stack up? READ: Heaven Encounters: 140 Near-Death Experiences Revealing the Afterlife by Randy Kay (https://amzn.to/4x1azpF) CHECK OUT: Logos Bible 60 Day Free Trial (https://logos.com/mcdowell) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% 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://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org CHAPTERS 00:00 – "I was cheek to cheek with Jesus" 00:36 – Is heaven real? Meet Randy Kay 01:50 – The near-death experience: septic shock and seven blood clots 03:15 – What Kay says he saw and heard 05:22 – "How do you know it wasn't a dream?" 07:47 – The cost of going public after 14 years of silence 11:49 – Why Christians can be the hardest audience 14:11 – How the book vets 140 accounts 19:32 – What "verifying" an account does and doesn't mean 22:43 – What would signal a story is fabricated 27:05 – Reincarnation, universalism, and hellish NDEs 31:06 – The "core" features of a near-death experience 34:46 – Case: Mike Olson and the lung donor 42:19 – Case: Dean Braxton's 1 hour 45 minutes 45:14 – Case: Jeffrey Porter, the atheist 53:08 – Case: Lisa — a hellish NDE and a rescue 56:38 – The life review and what it implies 59:17 – Randy's own life review: a dying boy's prayer 1:04:23 – NDEs as a second chance 1:04:50 – Answering the skeptic 1:13:49 – Where to find Randy's work Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Life Audio What kind of near-death experience did you have? So I had seven blood clots. That was what caused me to flatline in the hospital for a little over 30 minutes. I was clinical dead. Tell us what happened in the experience. Pulled by a light, I could see my still body on the bed, and I was pulled into what initially was a kind of a darkened space.

As a believer in Christ, I knew to cry out the name of Jesus Christ. And I did. And immediately, I was cheek to cheek with a figure. I could feel his bristles against my right cheek, and I knew it was Jesus Christ. Is heaven a fairy tale, or if people actually had heavenly encounters and returned to talk about them? Is there good evidence that heaven is real? Our guest today, author Randy Kay, not only had a life transforming near-death experience, but he claims to his knowledge that his new book has more authentic near-death experience accounts

carefully vetted than any other single volume. The subtitle of his book is 140 near-death experiences revealing the afterlife. We're going to see if his evidence stacks up. Randy, it's such a treat to meet you for the first time, and also to have you in studio here at Biola Tao School Theology. Great to be with you, Sean. Thanks for having me. Absolutely.

So I have totally leaned into afterlife apologetics. I'm intrigued by it. I'm compelled by it. When I saw your new book was like, you live in San Diego, we need to have a conversation, you're kind of drive up here with your wife. So let's jump right in. This new book, it's called Heaven Encounters. And you start with the words, I never believed in near-death experiences until I had one myself.

What kind of near-death experience did you have? And how did it affect or transform your life? Yeah. I had what's called septic shock from MRSA, but what really was the more dangerous and also the fatal incident was having pulmonary amy. So I had seven blood clots, including the main blood flow, the pulmonary artery, to the lungs. And because of the MRSA, the septic shock, I had clotting also throughout my body. So that was what caused me to flatline in the hospital for a little over 30 minutes. 30 minutes. When was this?

This was in 2005, April 5th of 2005. And I did not believe in these experiences. I had a crisis of faith, actually, Sean, that I went into this because we had a drug that was pulled off the market by the FDA. We had a potential cure for Alzheimer's that we had developed. Stock plummeted. Much of our investment was in that. I had a biotech company, you know, had need to raise about $80 million. Our daughter then, she developed strokes, many strokes.

So all of this kind of coming together, we were in a Christian coffee shop, my wife and I, that is. And we said, well, at least we have her health. And two weeks later, I was clinically done. dead. Oh my goodness. Okay, so tell us what happened in the experience. Tell us about it. Yes. So initially, as is common with these experiences, I could see my body. It was kind of a tugging in my shirt. I don't know if that was my spirit leaving my body, but that was the last feeling I had in the physical body. And then I was being pulled by a light. I could see my still body on the bed, and I was pulled into what initially was a kind of a darkened space.

I saw these figures in the distance. I believe what I was seeing was after and looking at this was spiritual warfare. And as a believer in Christ, I knew to cry out the name of Jesus Christ. And I did. And immediately I was cheek to cheek with a figure. I could feel his bristles against my right cheek, and I knew it was Jesus Christ. And I just dropped immediately. I was like a wet rag, and I felt unworthy, but I felt very accepted by him that he had found me worthy of himself.

I had left it a crisis of faith, but I did not feel that I had faced any degree of rejection. Then what happened is he reached down, pulled me up, and he faced me toward him. And I was looking to his eyes. And the light emanating from him had I say it tunneled into every dark place within me, illuminating the light of Jesus Christ. Then he leaned over to my right ear and he whispered two words. He whispered, trust me. And then we went on a life review of my life and his redemption of all of the occasions of my life that he revealed to me.

So a skeptic at his point might say, okay, Randy, how do you know this wasn't a dream? Well, my brain was clinically dead. Now, bear in mind that I had been in the space of neurology and cardiovascular surgery. So my entire career. So I led clinical teams in heart surgery. I've been in the neurology space as we were developing, and I was out in Washington, D.C. to introduce a new potential cure for Alzheimer's. And neurology was my forte and cardiovascular.

And the brain, as is verified by clinical studies, is dead within a matter of less than a minute. typically the outlier study is six minutes. I was clinically dead. That is the heart stopped, which is the definition of clinical death, for a little over 30 minutes. So my brain was no longer active. And so I could not hallucinate

as I originally as a skeptic thought that was what caused these experiences. And what I experienced was more real than would be this world, which sounds like a contradiction, but it's a very common experience that's accounted for by those who have gone through these. And so I could, I'll give you an example on just finish with this.

Sure. So I can go through, and this is a little over 20 years later, I can go through every detail of my experience. I can either, if I am dwelling on it, I can start counting blades of grass. And I can't remember what I had for breakfast the other day. Okay. So that's a conundrum in and of itself.

But again, from a clinical perspective, having returned, there's no accountability for that. That's one of the common threads I hear from people I've talked with with near-death experiences, those I've read in the present, in the past, young, old, different faiths, is they just kind of look at me and go, it wasn't a dream. It was far more real and impactful and life-changing than anything. It's not even close. Now, we weren't planning on talking about this because we're going to get into your book. But you mentioned a little bit before when we were kind of chatting that speaking up on this,

like you waited a while to share, but then speaking up kind of cost you something. Tell us about that. 14 years I did not share. My wife knew the experience, my pastor knew the experience, but no one else. I was interviewed for a business book on God TV that I'd written. And it was then that the pastor who was interviewing me was a pastor of a handful of people that knew about my experience. And he asked me if he could ask me about that. So when I shared it, I actually, Sean, I lamented when I was flying back from Florida to California that I felt the Holy Spirit wanting me to share our private time together because I was not inclined to share it ever.

When I did share it publicly, things changed because all of the friends and the associations I had within the clinical realm, the health care realm, knew me as a very scientifically minded person, not a fanciful thinker, one that, you know, would not lend my thinking toward something of this sort. So I think they thought, they knew my experience in the hospital. They thought maybe I had a stroke or something like that. In fact, I did have a brain bleed after, but I didn't. And so they treated me differently. I was working on a project for bringing a mitral valve reformulation device to market.

And the person with whom I was working at that time said, well, you know, maybe we should just put this on hold for a while. And I noticed gradually after sharing publicly that many of those people kind of faded away. I was, you know, routinely working with them, discussing things with them. And so long story short, my career, you know, basically went by the wayside and we eventually sold our house. We had a house near the ocean in San Diego, north San Diego. That's beautiful, by the way. I remember it fondly. Yes, I grew up in Julian, which is just head 78 east from, you know, an hour and a half probably from there.

and those mountain, or that area on the beach is just stunning. So you were living there given your success. Yeah, Carl's Bad is amazing. Yeah, right. Yeah, everything was wonderful. You know, my son actually went to school at Iowa, you know, and daughter-in-law. They met here. So, you know, that's the world that I lived in.

And it was a great sacrifice. But again, I didn't share it for 14 years. I wasn't inclined to do that. It was my private experience. And so there was a very significant sacrifice for me. And I enjoyed my life. I enjoyed, you know, leading a clinical team in minimally invasive cardiovascular surgery. The research we were doing was something that I loved to do.

And I got into that field because I wanted to help people and save lives, altruistically, you know. So Raymond Moody, right. writes his book in the 70s on near-death experiences. And then you have Michael Sabam and Jeffrey Long and Bruce Grace and others doing work towards the end of the 20th century, into the 21st century. Still 30 years after his book, there's this kind of backlash. Do you think now 20-plus years after your experience, if somebody shared their experience in your world, they'd receive the same reception? Or is there a little bit more openness now than maybe there was? I think there's a degree of openness. What's interesting,

Sean is that I have found it actually more difficult within the Christian community to share these experiences than in the secular community. Wow. I did not expect that. I thought my brothers and sisters in Christ would embrace this because there are many evidences in the Bible. We know of Paul's experience in 2 Corinthians. We know of Jesus recounting what is commonly thought of as a parable of the former

rich man in the bosom of Abraham and the former beggar in the place of what we would call, or he was in the bosom of Abraham, the rich man in Hades. So there were numerous Stephen, you know, and he was being stone. So I did not expect that. I think perhaps, and this is my theory on this, Sean, is that the New Age community had dominated this space for so long. long that I think Christians by and large had thrown the baby out with the bathwater, as they say. And so it was an uphill battle. Now, when I, when I discuss this with somebody who is not a believer, obviously we're not talking about scripture, we're not talking about some of those

validations within the Bible, but when I'm talking with a Christian, I'll discuss those openly and then I'll say, well, you know, is this assumption on your part based on a confirmation bias, or is this something that you've delved into within a degree of objectivity inclusive of cooperating this with what the Bible says, whether it rejects it outright, which it clearly does not. So it's been that kind of battle, which I did not expect. So I've done videos probably 10 with Steve Miller, maybe almost a dozen now. he's one of the few careful academic Christians challenging some of the biblical objections to near-death experiences.

And we did one where we took the top 12 because it's a biblical number and responded to him. I think they're compelling. I think they're evidence. I think we should embrace these. But I do understand, given the universalism, reincarnation, new age beliefs we often hear that were tempted to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think that leads us really well to your book because you create. chronicle 140 accounts of near-death experiences, which come from personal interviews. Now, it is interesting.

There's another case here that just came out two years ago. These are not from Christians. It's from kind of the International Association of Near-Death Studies to 128 total cases. So more and more people are chronicling these carefully. We're just in some ways really seeing this research begin. But I don't know. What criteria do you use to determine if these stories are trustworthy? and if they're reliable.

And I noticed in the back of the book there's an appendix which I appreciated is called distinguishing authentic from counterfeit testimonies. So how do you determine and what do you consider a genuine account? Yeah. Well, it's interesting I-Ns,

which the organization that you referenced, actually is the opposite of my inclusion of these experiences. In other words, they tend to not necessarily discount, but not entertain. Christ-centered experiences, that is, meeting Jesus. So it's what I oftentimes say,

look at the pattern. Don't look at the individual's story. One story is a testimony, but 140 would be a testament. So you asked about the qualifiers. Yeah. So I have a team of people now. We do pre-interviews with people. They come to us.

We don't necessarily go outside to them. many in the past, you know, probably four years have been coming to us. I had an experience and so on and so forth. A few research showed that, you know, a large number of people do have these type NDE experience, not afterlife necessarily. So the validation process. Hi, everyone. If you've been injured in an accident that was not your fault, listen up.

We have legal professionals standing by to answer your questions for free. Call now and find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. Call 800-712-2-2-2-3-00. I'm here with spokesman John Wolfe. So, John, tell everyone listening who should call right now. Well, Maria, first off, thank you for having me here. It's always nice to answer the listener's questions. Now, as far as who should call in,

anyone who's been injured in an accident and think you deserve compensation, give us a call right now. 800-7-1-2-2-3-300. You'll find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. Thanks, John. You heard it, folks. Take advantage of this opportunity and call now 800. 712, 2,300. Advertisement sponsored by Legal Help Center may not be available in all states, not available in California. This is as such. So we're looking first and foremost, and for our people, what is their faith? Do they have a faith in Jesus Christ? So we are exclusive. Now, I've interviewed those who are not.

I've interviewed those who are in the New Age space. I've interviewed, and we probably know some of those people, you know, and I've talked to them as well. But by and large, that's how we're exclusive to Christian NDE experiences. Secondly, we're looking for some form of clinical validation. That could be some hospital record, which is proprietary, but if there's some experience that is, validated in an ambulance or a hospital with records that are available. We're looking at family and their cooperation with these experiences. All of those fit into the domain of did the experience really happen.

So we're looking at that foremost. Then we're looking at the person and the reason they're sharing. As I mentioned, I didn't share for 14 years. Clearly, I was not looking to share. So we want to know what their motivation. is. And if there's anything that we glean out of interviewing them that shows that they're looking for attention, they're not drawing their experience toward Jesus Christ, they're drawing it to themselves. That's a knockout factor. If they are, if their motivation is one of writing a book

or something of that nature, you know, that's a red flag that way. It doesn't discount them necessarily, but also we're looking at the experience itself. Does it, is it kind of the repetitive as to what other near-death experiences have said? In other words, are they kind of writing the script based on what they've heard? Or are they detailing their experience with a very unique perspective related to themselves? In other words, God typically reveals these experiences tailored to the individual, what he desires to reveal for them specifically. And so if they've kind of have a cookie cutter, if you will,

account of these experiences, that's kind of a red flag as well. And then finally, looking at all of these experiences, we're looking at a level of discernment as to the credibility of the individual. We love afterlife experiences versus, let's say, near death is all-encompassing Moody coined that term. You did. And so a near-death can be a clinical death or it can be a coma or something of that sort. So we didn't take any visions as a result, nothing where somebody said, you know, I was

sleeping at night and all of a sudden, you know, I'm in heaven. These were people who had some level of trauma, and we favored clinical death experiences, which are far fewer, because at that point the brain is dead. And the person has no means of hallucination or of fabricating these stories that are quite outlandish in some cases. Yeah, they are. Yeah, they definitely are. Yeah. What's the verification point about it?

I think that was one of the last bold points. What do you mean by verifying part of the account? So verifying the account is when we get into kind of the ambiguous nature of these, we can't verify the experience itself. We weren't there. But we can verify it as a scientific study of it based on other cooperated stories. So if we find any evidences where, let's say, there's a contradiction, that let's say somebody tells us that Jesus said that they are special and chosen to bring back that message. That's not how God operates. He doesn't. He lifts

somebody else up and he doesn't if the person comes back, the validation process is largely dependent upon the motivation, the clinical aspect, you know, verifying that experience. But then we're verifying it

based on why they share it. And if they share it because God called them to do it. And he called them to do it because they were testifying, called to testify that the God of Jesus Christ is real, that heaven is real, that hell is real, and that he's coming back, returning, second coming of Jesus Christ, that is a key indicator to us that they're doing

it for the right reason. we've covered the checklist of all of these other things that tell us that it's a valid story. And then, quite frankly, by the time it gets to me, I have about probably well over 20 that's gone through all of that process that I've put on the back shelf. And I say, it didn't fit what we call the smell test. Okay. It just wasn't right. Sure. So.

Fair enough. Yeah. So this is helpful because people who are studying near-death experiences have different biases and different methodologies and different reasons for doing it. So Gary Habermas, of course, has what he calls evidence near-death experiences. He will only consider those in which somebody claims to have seen something or met somebody that later is corroborated in a way they could not have known in their physical state. Like that is his criteria. Steve Miller, I can't remember it was 100, 150 from the Enderf site. He just studied the first 100 and said, what themes do we see that are showing up here?

Do they teach reincarnation? Do they teach universalism? You are distinctly interviewing Christians, which is fine because you're laying your criteria out there, faithful to scripture, but then also walking through the smell test, why am I doing this? what's my motivation, and then accounting stories. So that's fair, given that you've laid out your motivation and your approach to why you do this. Okay, so let's flip it on the other side. What would tell you that a story is fabricated?

Like, what would be a sign like that is not somebody's inventing this for whatever reason or they're just mistaken? Yeah, I'll answer that. If I could just touch on the other experiences in terms of, let's say, an out-of-body experience where the person is in the OR, and we have those as well in the book. And they count the number of Mervyn, Burst from South Africa. He counted eight people in the operating room. And I would know the operating room. I know how many people there for a scrub nurse and so forth circulating.

But he counted that and that was corroborated by the surgeon. So we have those kinds of experiences as well. Right. Those are very difficult to refute. You know, he couldn't possibly have known that. that in and of itself is not, from my perspective, is not the key indicator. Because let's say somebody comes back and they're in the clinical setting, they're talking to a nurse or somebody and they say, yeah, we had such and such people.

How many people were in the room? So it's not an exacting validation. The exacting validation is, and if I'm being off, honest is not entirely accurate. I mean, it's not entirely exacting, that is. In other words, there's a degree of ambiguity. However, and this is the part where we assimilate or synthesize all of these stories, what are some of those evidences from somebody who has not studied this that cooperates with others that have had these experience? Again, we're looking for a pattern. The pattern is not necessarily the same experience. They're seeing the same thing.

they aren't oftentimes. You know, a person can visit Europe, and two people can visit Europe, and they come back with entirely different stories because they're different doesn't invalidate the existence of Europe. So that in of itself is not an indicator. However, the experience in terms of its effect upon them

is, I think, the primary indicator. These people are, we have atheists who are coming back. That's crazy. militant atheists coming back. We have people who have had these experiences who were like yours truly who would deny them and were coming back advocating for them and losing. We have an airline pilot successful to them who sacrificed their careers as well. So there's that skin in the game that we look for. There's something, a sacrifice that was made.

and they are testifying of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, even though some of them went into the experience as either lukewarm Christians or atheist or agnostics. And I was an agnostic, by the way, in my youth, not going into the experience. So their transformation, many of them come back, and they have sacrificed their careers or jobs, what have you, and they've gone into various forms of ministry.

Now, the ministry could be, you know, something where they're just, you know, witnessing to people on the streets. But to the person, in all 140 that are in the book, came back so transformed that they were very on fire, I'll call it, for sharing the great news of Jesus Christ, not necessarily their experience, but sharing who he is, that heaven is real, and there is an afterlife. But more importantly, they are virtually

to the person in some form of ministry, either formally or informally. So one more question on that. If I could push back a little bit, and then I want to get to some of the cases you consider most compelling is I imagine somebody could say, okay, there are cases of Christians who come back and are fired up. You and I were chatting before about people who were saying materialists having an experience come back and they're fired up about reincarnation. They're fired up about universalism. So if we're going to qualify by somebody's experience, then we have to consider all of the experiences, don't we, if we're going to ask what near-death experience is actually proven point towards. How we're going to do you? How we're going to consider? How we're

you respond to that? Well, the passion itself is not the indicator, I do believe. You know, Satan can appear as an angel of light. It's true. And deception is part and parcel with some of the experiences apart from Christ. Satan is the great deceiver. And so we've had experiences, for example, where people have gone into a hell experience as non-believers. Initially, the experiences with Brian Melvin was they saw, they were greeted by these beings who said, welcome to paradise. Now, he was a militant atheist, as he called himself. And so he saw this mansion.

It looked beautiful. Everything was wonderful, glorious. And so he was enticed to go through. And as soon as he passed through, convinced that by the pleasant experience he had initially, he entered into a hell experience. So the emotion, the light, the feelings of,

being at peace, all of those things. Reincarnation is one that many of these experiencers who are non-Christians, non-Christian experiencers, would say that I saw whatever and the reincarnation happened. Well, the fact that they saw somebody and testified reincarnation

in the afterlife is somewhat discounted by the fact that how do they know if they see somebody in there, let's say a person who is alive and they see them there, in their experience, then they translate as evidence of reincarnation. Well, there is no clear evidence for reincarnation. There are innuendos and there are extrapolations of assumptions as to reincarnation. For the Christian experiencer, whether they were a Christian going into it or a Christian coming out of it,

the life review itself discounts reincarnation because the life review is one of the effect of one's life throughout and the impact that God had made in those experiences. So it's appointed once for a person to die, wants to meet Jesus. and so obviously there's no evidence of reincarnation in the Bible. So the person who has a life review, and many of those who are, by the way, who would testify of reincarnation or say that reincarnation is true, also testify of a life review, aka Moody and others. A lot of them do.

That's right. And so why would one have a life review that is going through the life in review if they were going to have another experience over and over and over. It discounts the need to have a life review, which is a kind of a one-and-done review of one's life and why it mattered. So there are a lot of conflicts and contradictions to those. But I think the primary one is the feeling of being in the light, of this feeling of being at peace and all of those things

does not in and of itself testify of a true heaven experience. I interviewed Brian Melvin recently. I noticed he endorsed your book and I don't still even know what to... Hi, everyone. If you've been injured in an accident that was not your fault, listen up.

We have legal professionals standing by to answer your questions for free. Call now and find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. Call 800-712-2-2-2-3-00. I'm here with spokesman John Wolfe. So, John, tell everyone listening who should call right now. Well, Maria, first off, thank you for having me here.

It's always nice to answer the listeners' questions. Now, as far as who should call in, anyone who's been injured in an accident and think you deserve compensation, give us a call right now. 800-7-1-2-2-3-100. You'll find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. Thanks, John. You heard it, folks.

Take advantage of this opportunity and call now 800. 712, 2,300. Advertisement sponsored by Legal Help Center may not be available in all states, not available in California. I make of that experience. It was so dramatic and so chilling. But when I've talked with some of the leading experts of your kind of writers and researchers in near-death experience, I'll ask about hellish near-death experiences. And it doesn't fit the narrative of all is good and universalism and reincarnation.

it challenges it. So many will downplay how populous they are. Right since some studies that suggest five to ten, maybe even more than that, of near-death experiences are hellish near-death experiences. But if you go back, you're talking about kind of the core experiences that define a near-death experience. And this goes back to Moody, von Lomel, Bruce Grayson, Michael Saban, would talk about these kind of core factors that show up, not every time, but kind of common threads such as going to a light, a being that's personal, super, like beyond natural sense is what you hear and what you see and a life review. What doesn't show up is reincarnation. It's not a core part of the experience. In fact, Steve Miller's research, she goes to find

generous on what I've done maybe 2%, maybe 2%, which isn't close. So really, what we know about near-death experiences doesn't promote this reincarnation narrative within itself. Some of that is us reading into it rather than what the experience is. So I'm with you on now. Okay, let's shift to some of stories. Now, what I was not going to do to you, Randy, is I've had people say, okay, page 137, you tell about this girl named Paula, I'm like, there's 140. There's no way you remember all of these.

So I want you to just tell me, you pick two or three that you just think are the most compelling for whatever criteria you choose of near-death experiences that if somebody says tell me about your book you start with say these two yeah well i have transcripts on all of the interviews okay so i i have those uh by the way anyone that says there are you know and our we have about in my collection about 20 percent to 25 percent are hell experience i would call them hell experiences but for 20 to 25 well it doesn't mean statistically that doesn't That's not verifiable. Okay.

But if somebody, my point being, if somebody who is of a new age persuasion and all of the people you mentioned, with the exception of Lommel would, Van Lama, probably are of that persuasion, they put an I-S-H after hell. and if one is to then accept a hellish experience but discount hell, which is mentioned, as you know, more times in the Bible, then they're kind of not being entirely honest about it. This is an all experience. And by the way, all of those to the person who have had those experiences come back with some form of PTSD. That is a stunning thing to me. Like it's different than your typical dream, although people have had scary dreams.

In the interview, I mean, Melvin was in tears. And I think his was in the, I don't know, 60s or 70s he had this. And it was like it was raw for him. If he's the only one, you could write it off, but you're right, there are so many. And you were reluctant 14 years. In my experience, if you've had a hellish near death experience, you're more reluctant because it kind of suggests, I'm the kind of person that's headed to hell. That's worse than like something supernatural that's positive.

So give us maybe just like one or two cases that you interviewed there just fascinating to you. Michaelson had adiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. He was using oxygen for years and waiting to get a lung transplant. So finally he got the call, went into surgery. The clamp came off of his artery to stop blood flow, and therefore he bled out on the operating room table. He met his lung donor in heaven. Now, what really differentiates this from just a personal account is the fact that his wife, who I know Patty, well, I know both of them well, at the same time, she was talking to her sister. and she said,

Mike, she didn't say, I believe, she said, Mike is in heaven, and he's meaning his lung donor. So Mike went to heaven, met his lung donor.

So clinical definition of death for a period of time. And then he said, Jesus told him, these are your new lungs. And this is for you, use them. So he came back, a skeptic, his brother-in-law, I think it was, Jimmy, said, I've been praying for you, and I had this vision, a skeptic now.

I'm not a believer in near-death experiences and a skeptic by nature, said, I had this vision of you, and it was a meeting of having this meeting in heaven with Jesus. and did you meet your lung, did you meet somebody there? And so he came back, having shared this experience, validated by two individuals who were praying for him, validated by the surgical team, and he had this experience of this person who even to this day is often is common with lung transplant recipients. he has some affinity for that lung donor. But that aside. Yeah, understandable.

Dean Braxton is another one. Okay, so tell me what exactly was verified in that one? When you said two people and maybe a medic verified, did they verify that he shared the story, that he verified that he was brain dead? What was verified? Well, the wife had a vision of him meeting his lung donor. While he was. While he was there with a description. Okay, so you're saying the two match up independently.

Independent. She was praying while he was in the OR. Now, she would not have known that he flatlined at that point as she was praying in the waiting room. That came later and that she had an impression and told her sister that he had met his lung donor. Now, the clinical, the surgeon has admitted that there was. an error in the operating room that the clamp came off and therefore he was he had flatlined so that is clinically verified by by Mike and then his friend is the other cooperating evidence so a clinical team we have an impression as his wife was was praying no reason to

believe that she would have known that he would have met his blood done donor in heaven, his description of his blood, excuse me, did I say blood donor, his lung donor, yeah. In heaven. And then his skeptical friend, Jim, who also, you know, confirmed something to that effect. And that was a skeptical friend. Okay, so I have like a million questions on this case. We don't have to go there.

But like, what's the credibility of these two witnesses? How much had they talked about the lung donor before? Like, who else did they share the story? I don't have to ask all those, but your team really pushed and probed for clarity and trustworthiness and to match up on this account in a way that was satisfying you, obviously. Well, I've had experience with transplant teams. There's a special team that is in waiting upon being called that the organ donor is ready. there is no communication to the recipient at that point going into surgery. They do not want the recipient to have an affinity at that point for the donor for obvious reasons.

Because then they might say, well, you know, I can't. It was a young man, for example. And, you know, they don't want the emotional time. They want the patient. is in all of these critical surgeries. They want the patient to have a very positive frame of mind. So there's not a description of the donor. For the family waiting in the waiting room,

there is no communication typical. Well, there is communication. You know, she's doing fine or whatever. Okay. But the wife's account of having this impression was prior to the surgeon coming out and saying, we had an incident, we corrected it, he's doing fine. But there was corroborating medical evidence that the clamp came off,

which I know, that happens sometimes in surgery. And so you have all of these corroborating evidence. Now, he was an Anglican priest going into this. He was not prone to lying. That's fair. A very ethical, integrous individual who have gotten to know as a friend because we have mutual lung issues because of our, you know, what did us in, if you will. And Anglicans are not particularly charismatic in my experience. No, no.

He was. Like vision and a dream and something supernatural as a whole in my experience, in recent states. He wasn't. And you brought up in Brian Melvin, for example. And, you know, I prayed with him. I said, Brian, you have PTSD. and you need some vision of heaven and a, you know, and he had a vision of that. He's healed of PTSD today.

So, you know, there's evidentiary, you know, validation of these experiences. But in Mike's case, you know, all of the testimonies that we get from other people, as a highly integrous individual, would not make things up. He sticks to his story. He could have embellished his story and said, you know, I met my lung donor in heaven. and he took Mount a Tour of Heaven, and, you know, we saw this, and there was none of that. It was very clear, straightforward testimony. That's super interesting.

Now, there is, we don't have to sidetrack in this, but there are dozens of cases of kind of shared deathbed experiences and shared near-death experiences. We have independent corroboration, same time, same place, same details. That's especially hard to explain away if the witnesses are reliable and you can really document the events. Okay, so you just mentioned a name Dean Braxton. Did I get that right? Yes, Dean Braxton is, has the most time confirmed by hospital records for having been clinically

dead an hour and 45 minutes. Now, that, I've been in neurology, so I know, you know, it's six minutes. there's typically brain damage, you know. He's fully cogent and doesn't show any sign that he's had a stroke or any residual effect of that. So his was from the case of a kidney stone, an infection set in, and he had septic shock. And that led him to go into the hospital. And he explains his experience. in depth.

He explains seeing as is common, as you know, some of his deceased relatives in heaven. And then he goes through his experience in great detail in the minutia of things. Now, his doctor, and this is, he's been interviewed, he's been validated by several sources beyond ourselves, confirms that this experience happened. And so he did not want to bring attention upon himself, as many of these experiencers did not. But he was kind of forced into it

when he shared his testimony initially to friends, and that led to his being showcased on CBN. Oh, wow. And CBN does a very rigorous, you know, validation process in and of themselves. By the way, I have been a documentary you'll see coming out next year, and I'll be in that as well. That's on with Billy Hallowell? Yes, with Billy Hallow. He's a buddy.

I've had him on here a few times. He's doing great work. Yeah, he's a good friend as well. He did. He actually wrote one of the forward for you. He wrote the forward. Yes, he did. He and Piper.

But, yeah, Billy has this great journalistic approach to things. I'm getting off topic. So those are just a couple. You know, I can cite, obviously, you know, 140 of them. That's amazing. One of the things that's compelling to me at first is these accounts are documented carefully in research by doctors, neuroscientists, cardiologists. Some of my favorite people to interview our doctors because they stay on task.

They're no nonsense. They want the facts. And these are not people prone. to just being persuaded to something that's not true. So this doctor was interviewed corroborates it. He's one of many, I think gives it even a even stronger credibility. Now, there's a few cases in here, and you mentioned this early about an atheist. And there's one, I think if I got to write his name is Jeffrey Porter, who described as like cursing his way to heaven.

What happened with this story? You would not believe the before and after. I mean, here's a guy who used the F word, and as you said, he cursed God, had never read the Bible, not once, not one word of the Bible. Hi, everyone. If you've been injured in an accident that was not your fault, listen up. We have legal professionals standing by to answer your questions for free. Call now and find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. Call 800-712. 2,300. I'm here with spokesman John Wolfe. So, John, tell everyone listening who should call right now. Well, Maria, first off, thank you for having me here. It's always nice to answer the listener's questions. Now, as far as who should call in, anyone who's been injured in an accident and think you deserve compensation, give us a call right now. 800-712-2-2-3-100. You'll find out if you have a case and how much

it's potentially worth. Thanks, John. You heard it, folks. Take advantage of this opportunity and Call now 800, 712, 2,300. Advertisement sponsored by Legal Help Center may not be available in all states, not available in California. He had seven strokes, relatively young man, had been an alcoholic and drugs. He was in a boating, he was sailing and had another stroke. and he tried reaching for his phone, couldn't get to it, to call 911. So he flatlined. Now, he is cursing God all this time.

And you would think, you know, you'd kind of throw up a prayer or something, but he did not. He was, to the very end, he was cursing God. So he went the opposite direction to H.E.L. He explains it as being in this space, which is very typical, a hot, the smell of sulfur, these beings, he calls them demons who were chasing him, and he was trying to get away from them. Now, he didn't call out the name of Jesus Christ. He was very committed to the end. He was a firm atheist. However, he heard this voice that said to him, this is your last chance.

You need to give it your all. Apparently, God in his divine providence knew that this guy who was a devout atheist would respond. So he fought. And this is all verified, by the way, as he got in the ambulance into the hospital. And then he fought, and then he explains it as Jesus pulling him up to a place, perhaps not heaven, but this other place, toward this light, where the presence was very comforting. And he was challenged at that point that said, God told him as he accounts for it, or recounts. that he was going to give him a second chance. And there's a chapter of second chances in the book.

And there's also one titled Grace that Defies Logic. There's no reason why he should have been saved. The doctor then, when he recovered, the doctor said, you must have had a real NDE experience, the doctor. And then the doctor said, from what he had told him, he said, then you need to receive Jesus Christ. The doctor said that. The doctor said that to him. Oh, my goodness.

But he was a devout atheist to the very end. So he's passed away now. Excuse me? You mean he's passed away now? No, he's alive now. In fact, when he came back, he's another example. So this former devout atheist. The records show, the medical records show, that the scarring from his strokes was nearly

non-existent. In other words, that doesn't happen. Scarring doesn't just go away, but that's confirmed. And because he was addicted, you know, he was addicted and he was no longer addicted. He was healed of that. and now he is evangelizing everywhere, you name it, on the streets, he's evangelizing, he goes into a store, he's evangelizing, he is on fire for Christ. That does not happen. I mean, the experience of becoming a believer, you know, being born anew as a new creation, you know, that causes a transformation. his transformation was caused through the experience itself and in coming to Christ.

He's completely diametrically different than he was going into this experience. So your team was able to confirm that he was an atheist before and other people are like, yep, that's who he was, that medically he had this near-death experience and now you can just see as his life. Like your team pieces those together before including it in the book. Well, there's some, we try our hardest to do some. So now there is, now in some cases we'll ask, are you willing to share medical records? There's testimony. I think much of it is validated.

Sometimes they would have the medical records. Those are protected by HIPAA. They aren't proprietary through friends or relatives. So we'll say, do you have, you know, whether it be a spouse, or somebody that walked you through that experiences or somebody like that. We look also at the credibility of the person themselves and the fact that in the benefit that I have in my case, I can look at it from the clinical perspective.

So I can look at it in terms of what he's telling me, in terms of whether that is clinically possible. And for example, the scarring on the lungs, that there would be, and he, you know, x-rays would show that, the stroke, you know, which would be a scarring, which would cause in the brain. And so he had the CAT scan or the MRI, excuse me, out of brain. So not all of those, Sean, are available, but to the best of our ability, we test those. But by the way, when you reference to the other book with 128 experiences,

Yeah. They don't, they, they, they do not have those, their validation, I don't know exactly what their validation is, but I've, their validation is no less significant than our, or no greater significance than ours is. I think ours is, I don't want to call it state of the art, but ours is very strenuous because, bear in mind, I was a skeptic about Andy. experiences going into it until I had my own. I'm still a skeptic going into this when someone shares their experience.

So that's the viewpoint I look. As you mentioned, you know, you like talking to doctors and clinical people because they're naturally inclined that way. I'm naturally inclined that way. I've led clinical teams and mentally invasive. I've been trained and certified. So that's my mindset. You know, I've been there.

I've been in that space my entire career. So chapter five is the warning of hell's reality. We talked about this a little bit. Is there anything more you'd want to add about hellish near-death experiences, what they communicate, how common they are, maybe another instance of one? Yeah. Well, Lisa Sharkey was a almost lifetime drug addict up to her experience. She was abused. And this is kind of, if I might mention, a common theme that I discovered as far as the grace of God.

So many of these people went through some form of abuse, as did the former person we talked about, Jeffrey Porter. I think that does potentially factor in to his, you know, he's near to the brokenhearted. Lisa Sharkey went through abuse from early childhood of all kinds. she became a drug addict, an alcoholic, and she did not, unlike Jeffrey, she wasn't angry at God, but she felt that he was angry at her. And she did flatline. She was in the, from a heroin overdose. She was in the ambulance during her experience when,

she went to this hellish place. Now here's another common theme that she testifies of. She did not feel like God had abandoned her or that God was at fault for her being there. She felt that she deserved to be there. Now, that in of itself, for these hell experiencers, is, you know, antithetic to how you would think. You know, they were playing, why God did you, you know, allow me to go here? Meaning the vast majority of Americans who believe in hell don't think they're going there. Most of us think we're going to heaven is the point that that's what we would expect.

Absolutely. And there's something about the soul going to hell where the person has been outright denied, you know, the God of Jesus Christ. And they realize they have an innate understanding that that's the reason they're there, as Lisa did. and so she heard then again back to the grace that defies logic she heard a voice she knew implicitly because she knew of Jesus that it was Jesus who told her to cry out his name she cried out his name and many of those say likewise when they've been there this crying out as in Brian and not Jeffrey he was too devoutly atheist, but crying out the name of Jesus, and then she was rescued. Today, she not only testifies of Jesus as her Lord and Savior, she ministers to those who have

gone through abuse and drug and alcohol addiction. So her life, as all of them, had been transformed. And it wasn't transformed necessarily because, you know, she prayed the sinner's prayer. It was transformed because she had the relationship, and the relationships itself was very sincere to her. And she was totally transformed. No addiction, nothing of a residual effect from her prior life. Wow. Yeah.

That's amazing. We've probably done four or five of the stories in here. All of them have drama in their own. way, but you had a life review. Tell us a little bit more about this because if like we've talked about it in some of the main studies or near-death experiences, these are peer reviewed, documented, many if not most of these are not Christians. This life review shows up consistently as one of the common features that people report. And again, this is across time. This is across culture. This is across religious faith.

And to me, it suggests a few things, that if there's a life review, I maintain my consciousness in the afterlife. I don't just kind of fade into the unconsciousness. So there's continued soul and thinking and self-existent afterwards that morality matters in this life, that relativism is not true. Like, these things challenge certain ideas that are prevalent in our culture. But tell us your experience. And what are some of the common threads in life reviews of people that you're

team has interviewed. Yeah. I think all of what you said is true. And that's, I think, the life reviews, perhaps, that are accepted on the other side, if you will, are probably the most in need of explaining that, you know, Jesus Christ is not the way the truth in life. No one comes to the father but through him. Because there is this walk through a life.

There's no reincarnation. It's a walk through the life that has been existing. The life review, generally speaking, and for myself included, is one where there's an impression about what we did to the other person. And we have the Lord shows what that person, how that person was affected by us. So there's a degree of empathy for that. But also a degree of understanding. as to what God was doing in that moment. Now, the other side, I'll call the other side, the one that doesn't, you know, testify of Jesus as Lord, would just say we went through an experience, I went through an experience and have no reason for that experience.

In other words, it just happened. Well, why did it happen? Well, in the Christian experienceer, we know that it happened so that the Lord could give us a reason for those vignettes that I call them the theater of life because we're actually there. If I can give an example of my own. Please. Yeah. So I was going through from early childhood.

So I was an agnostic in my youth at Northwestern University. I tried to disprove all religions. I was heavy-duty agnostic with a team of atheists and agnostic. So I was a teenager at the time, and I was in the hospital as an orderly. I was giving a tray of food to a little boy about six, seven years old, and he was dying of cancer. And he told me as such. And he said, I'm going to heaven. And I said to him, and this is the life review.

By the way, this is, I'm explaining the life review and what happened in my life, both, as Jesus was showing me. And he said, someday I'm going to be, or I'm going to be in heaven. Not someday. He said, I'm going to be in heaven. And I said, well, that's great. If there is a heaven. Hi, everyone. If you've been injured in an accident that was not your fault, listen up.

We have legal professionals standing by to answer your questions for free. Call now and find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. Call 800-712-2-2-3-300. I'm here with spokesman John Wolfe. So, John, tell everyone listening who should call right now. Well, Maria, first off, thank you for having me here. It's always nice to answer the listener's questions. Now, as far as who should call in,

anyone who's been injured in an accident and think you deserve compensation, give us a call right now. 800-712-2-2-2-3-100. You'll find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. Thanks, John. You heard it, folks. Take advantage of this opportunity and call now, 800-7-1-2-2-2-3-100. Advertisement sponsored by Legal Help Center may not be available in all states, not available in California. Then I'm sure you'll be there.

So I'm watching this with Jesus. And he said, okay, but he picked up on that I wasn't really a believer. And he said, I'm going to pray for you. I will pray for you. So three days later, he died. I'm seeing this in real time. I'm seeing the effect of his prayer while the Holy Spirit, is explaining to me

that the prayer of that little boy, as he did pray, was ushered forth, to stop myself from getting emotional, ushered forth to heaven, received by God. And he explained to me

that the prayer of that little boy who I did not know was affected and answered by God so that God weaved together through my life, several incidences as an agnostic including a car accident other things that should have killed me keeping me alive

as and I'll end with this as I mentioned I tried to diswee a team we tried to disprove all religions we couldn't disprove the Bible as much as we tried at a huge computer at Northwestern God showed me the instant I looked out a window of my apartment and I said to an unknown God, if you're real, I need to know you as more than pages in a book.

I need to know you as real as I know anyone else. He showed that to me as the trigger in these life reviews. Again, everything has meaning, everything has a redemptive quality aspect for the believer. And that was an answered prayer. He said, okay, I didn't, he didn't say this verbatim. but he basically was telling me that that triggered what would be then his receipt of my petition to show himself, show himself to me, and that I became a believer. How old was that boy, by the way, that you can remember?

About six or seven years old. Six or seven years old. He was a little boy. I remember him vividly. Faith of a child. And I didn't remember him vividly. I remembered the experience, but now I remember him vividly from the life review experience. I mean, exactly.

I could describe him exactly. Now, I thought when you were describing that, you were going to say in the life review, you looked back and were like ashamed at the way you treated and rejected this boy. Was that a piece of the life review where there were like positive things, how God worked and just looking back at, oh, my goodness, my whatever kind of just sin or arrogance or whatever. Was that a piece of the life review, too, awareness of sin? Yes, but here's the interesting thing, Sean. it is this. And this blows my mind. So there were those experiences where I had disappointed

failed God and, you know, this little boy was sharing and I wasn't accepting of his faith. So when I returned, I can share, I can remember distinctly, precisely all of those life reviews, except for the times that I had failed him, although I knew implicitly that he had showed me those. And so I prayed, and this is after I had returned, I prayed and said, why is that, Lord? Why is it that I can remember all of these other life reviews except the ones where you had shown me that I had failed? And he said this. He said, because I removed them as far as the East is from the West. And I learned that all of those, and this is what spoke to me profoundly,

that he showed me those experiences when I had failed, not to condemn me, but to reflect the grace of Jesus Christ in all of those experiences. That's amazing. One of the things that jumped out of my book, it's so fascinating you shared that, is that you view the near-death experience like, this is God's grace. He didn't have to give people another chance. And some people are like, well, he doesn't give everybody a near-death experience.

Well, he's given some who testify about it, and you have 140 that are here that people can read whether they've had one or not. So what would you say at this point if somebody goes, all right, Randy, I'm just not convinced. This sounds all too much like fantasy and dream and hallucination. like no way. What would you say to yourself before you had the near-death experience or is there anything you could have said to get yourself to view them differently?

I think they would be valid if it was one testimony or 10 testimonies even. But 140, I think, is a testament. And I'll put it in context because of my scientific background, my clinical background, I was in the healthcare industry all of my career. When we would,

the FDA requires probably the most stringent clinical proof. In other words, patients, outcome studies, verifications. And typically in a stage three trial, you would have about the same number, about 100 or so patients in that clinical trial for the final prior approval. So the most stringent organization in the world, the FDA, you know, takes,

years, sometimes up to 10 years of development to get to a market finally, requires a similar level of validation in these experiences. In other words, 140 being a testament is one as hard to discount. All of the validation processes aside, when you take all of these people who have made sacrifices of their careers, who have made sacrifices of friends who are doing it for the sake of just because God told them to do it, not wanting attention. Aside from all of the clinical validations,

all of the family validations, all of the cooperations in terms of their consistency of stories and things of that sort, just the mere fact that these people by and large, almost to the person, put themselves out there so that they could, knowing they would be accused of making it up, of looking for attention or writing a book or something of that sort. Sean, I can't imagine anyone wanting this kind of attention. I have oftentimes gotten to my knees or just spoken to the Lord. I've said, Lord, if you could remove me from this, maybe, and let somebody else do this.

Because the hardest thing for me is to live a life of credibility. an achievement and then to have somebody say, well, you're just making it up. Or you're just, you know, telling stories of people who make it up, people I've come to know. It's the hardest thing that I've ever gone through. And I've gone through some hard things. Who would want that? Who would want that? I think you'd almost have to be a masochist to want that.

of attention because it almost overnight can destroy your credibility with some years trying to have developing a reputation and a credibility that is beyond reproach and all of a sudden overnight people are questioning and these are the real names of people in here they're not hidden dean braxton what was it do you say steve porter did i remember are Jeffrey porter Jeffrey Porter. Yes. They're all, there's only one person who doesn't have a last name. Her name is Daly.

And she specifically asked her last name not be used because she has been at the effect of stalking and abuse. Oh, that's understandable. We will give her a pass. But the rest of them, their names, yes. And in some cases, their locations, I mean, they're full transparency. We've gotten approval from every single one that we've sent out. Some have since gone on to heaven are there today. So we've recorded their stories for posterity.

And yes, they are in their real names, real experiences, and real lives. So just a couple more questions. Are these – so this from, you know, I. very carefully documented 128 cases. These 140, could these overlap? Are they independent? Are you the first one reporting these 140 stories or if they've reported them elsewhere? I'm asking because Gary Hobrass, and again, we have to be careful the metric we're

using we've talked about to assess these as being valid stories. But Gary Hobrass would say there's about 500 evidenced near-death experiences. So with these potentially overlap, are they distinct? and unique stories you're telling us, how would they fit in with other near-death experiments? Well, some of them may overlap, but rarely, I think. I was talking to Dr. Jeffrey Long one day. A chance to interview him.

He's amazing. Yeah, he is amazing. And I said, Jeffrey, do you know that there's very little overlap between a Christian N.D. experienceer, in terms of, let's say, IANs entertaining myself, because I'll talk about Jesus Christ as being the way, the truth of the life, no one comes to the father. I'll talk about exclusivity.

I cannot talk about anything else. And that's, Jeffrey, I can't be a speaker for IANS. And plus, probably somebody's talking, I know somebody's talking about reincarnation would not be in this book. And he was surprised that I told him there's a mutual exclusivity. I think he understood the Christian part because we don't, you know, some who testifying,

you've interviewed some who, you know, reincarnation, former neurologist and Harvard training. All of those people would say, well, I'm a Christian. You know, I'm a Christian. Well, a Christian and also a Buddhist and a Hindu and all of the other kind of a podpore. What that means. Yeah. And so all of the people that I've included here, 140, they will start evangelizing. You will not get them in a room, and they will not talk about Jesus.

He's the only one. They'll talk that way. That's off-putting to some who want kind of an all-of-the-above type testimony. So I've never spoken at that organization. Now, I've been treated very kindly. And Jeffrey Porter, I would consider him as a friend and very friendly, and I deeply respect him. Dr. Grayson, all of those people, I deep respect. However, there's a fine line there.

And there's very few that would cross over on one side or the other. There's almost a mutual exclusivity. Whether it's said explicitly or not, it's there. I sense that too. We won't go into the details of that, but I appreciate you sharing that. I found your book fascinating. Probably I'd have to do the math, maybe six, seven years ago. If I saw this, I would have thought, honestly, I would have thought, this guy's crazy. There's no way you can corroborate these stories. I really would have been tempted to write most of them off until I really read. I started with Steve Miller's book where he lays out the evidence carefully for near-death experiences and was genuinely pleasantly

surprised. Even though I'm an apologist and believe in the soul and I believe in heaven, I really was skeptical. Like, I don't want to get taken by this stuff. Now, those who listen to my podcast and watch know that I'm on board with this, and I think it's a compelling evidence for heaven, for the soul, for the afterlife, for God. I want to talk to as many people as I can. So I read your book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love these stories. They're so interesting to me. And I have two mindsets. Number one, I'm still skeptical. I still want to know why they tell them the story. What are the details, can it be corroborated? Like, I still have that skeptical, but I'm far more credible and give people the benefit of it out rather than writing it off. So I definitely would encourage

people to pick up your book, Heaven Encounters, 140 near-death experiences revealing the afterlife. How else can people follow you and what you're doing? Well, we're at Randyk.org. Heaven Encounters is a program that we broadcast on Middle Eastern television because they will not accept any proselyization, but they will accept an NDE story, even though we're talking about Jesus. Wow. So I have a Muslim in there that now knows Jesus as is Lord and Savior. So, yeah, so on the website are all of our different outlets that we have, and so in our reaches.

So we can go into places the church cannot, because it's... And vice versa, it's difficult for us sometimes to speak at a church. So we host a Heaven Encounters conference. We were the first to do a Christian afterlife conference. And we've hosted that a number of times now. And we'll do probably one again next year. And we have one kind of ad hoc one in Arkansas this year. Well, we need to talk and connect.

Because as far as I'm aware, we just had it Talbot this summer, the first afterlife apologetics class. We had Steve Miller here. We co-taught it. And so I'm really leaning into this. I think it's compelling on so many reasons I get excited about. I find it fascinating. So we'll have to talk and kind of see ways we can maybe partner together and work.

I do think one last thing I'll say. It's interesting that this is accepted in the Muslim world. Because the Muslim world, there's far more cases of dreams, as you know, of people. And people criticize NDE's and we'll say, like, why don't they just, share the gospel clearly. Now, in your cases, some others, that happens, but it doesn't seem to be the norm. Well, that also doesn't happen with dreams to Muslims. They have dream of somebody in white. They have dream of grace. They have dream of something supernatural. And it's often years, sometimes decades later, that God sends someone to interpret it. So I don't think we should

Hi everyone. If you've been injured in an accident that was not your fault, listen up. We have legal professional standing by to answer your questions for free. Call now and find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. Call 800-712-2-2-2300. I'm here with spokesman John Wolf. So John, tell everyone listening who should call right now. Well, Maria, first off, thank you for having me here. It's always nice to answer the listener's questions. Now, as far as who should call in, Anyone who's been injured in an accident and think you deserve compensation, give us a call right now. 800-712-2-2-2-3-100. You'll find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth.

Thanks, John. You heard it, folks. Take advantage of this opportunity and call now 800-712-2-2-2-3-00. Advertisement sponsored by Legal Help Center may not be available in all states, not available in California. Expect near-death experiences to always get straight to the gospel, but to provoke people about life after death, or vocal about the way they live their life, challenged materialism. And I think you're right that it's a part of God's grace. Randy, thoroughly enjoyed this.

This is so much fun. Thanks for driving up being here at Biola. Again, your book Heaven Encounters is fascinating. Folks, if you're listening, make sure he has subscribed and let me know, do you want me to keep leaning into afterlife apologetics? Tell me, are you on board with this? Is this interesting? Who else should I interview?

Are there particular stories? Are there authors? Are there skeptics that I should talk with? let me know your thoughts. I'm probably going to do some anyways because it fascinates me, but I would love to know what my viewers and listeners think. And if you have a near-death experience story,

please think about sharing it here. In a lot of my videos, when Lee Strobel was writing his book on Seeing the Supernatural, he watched a ton of my interviews and thought it was going to be full of skeptics. But what he saw is people sharing their stories and being encouraging, he's like, wait a minute, there is far more here than I realized.

And so if you've had a near death experience, we'd love for you to share it here. Would be fascinating. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Appreciate it. Hey, friends, if you enjoyed this show, please hit that follow button on your podcast app. Most of you tuning in haven't done this yet. And it makes a huge difference in helping us reach and equip more people and build community.

And please consider leaving a podcast review. Every review helps. Thanks for listening to the Sean McDowell Show, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Iowa University, where we have on-campus and online programs in apologetic, spiritual information, marriage and family, Bible, and so much more. We would love to train you to more effectively live, teach, and defend the Christian faith today. And we will see you when the next episode drops. Hey there, it's Nicole Yunus, host of the How to Study the Bible podcast, where every single week we join together to encounter God through His Word. You can subscribe at life audio.com.