Ep 222 | Former Agnostic: There IS Life After Death | John Burke | The Glenn Beck Podcast

This episode explores the intriguing subject of near-death experiences (NDEs), featuring insights from John Burke, a pastor and author who has studied thousands of these experiences.

1. Near-death experiences often involve consistent elements like a profound sense of peace, encounters with a divine presence, and vivid, sometimes verifiable, out-of-body observations.
2. Individuals from diverse backgrounds and beliefs report strikingly similar experiences during NDEs, suggesting a universal aspect to these phenomena.
3. The implications of NDEs often lead to significant life changes for those who experience them, including shifts in belief systems and life priorities.
4. Skeptical of NDEs initially, John Burke's extensive research convinced him of their validity and the potential reality of an afterlife.
5. The experiences discussed often challenge the materialist view of existence and offer a perspective that aligns with spiritual and religious traditions across cultures.

1: Introduction and Sponsorship

A brief introduction to the podcast and mention of the episode's sponsor, Shopify. Glenn Beck: "Have you ever wondered what happens after you die?"

2: Guest Introduction

Introduction of John Burke, discussing his transition from skepticism to belief in an afterlife based on near-death experiences. John Burke: "I was agnostic... I've studied and collected... 1500 cases of near-death experience."

3: Detailed Accounts of NDEs

John Burke shares detailed stories from his research, highlighting common themes and verifiable facts reported by those who have had NDEs. John Burke: "They come back talking about being more alive than they've ever been before..."

4: Theological Implications

Discussion on how NDEs align with Christian theology and other religious beliefs. John Burke: "How do these fit with what God has revealed throughout history?"

1. Explore Spirituality: Consider exploring spiritual beliefs and literature to understand different perspectives on life and afterlife.
2. Mindfulness Practices: Engage in mindfulness and meditation to explore consciousness and personal spirituality.
3. Community Engagement: Join community groups that discuss life, death, and spiritual experiences to gain diverse insights.
4. Read Widely: Read books on NDEs and spirituality like John Burke's works to understand the depth of these phenomena.
5. Reflect on Life's Purpose: Reflect on your life's purpose and how you impact others, inspired by the transformative effects of NDEs reported by individuals.

What happens when we die? John Burke has studied near-death experiences for the past three decades, and what he found transformed him from an agnostic engineer to a pastor. The stories of those who have clinically died but come back to life, he says, point to the “reality of heaven and hell” and the overwhelming love of the God of the Bible who has kept his promises to Abraham and continues to keep his promises today. In a touching conversation about redemption and atonement, Glenn and John discuss afterlife “life reviews” and how we voluntarily lock ourselves in hell when we don’t forgive ourselves. Glenn shares a vivid dream that helped him understand the light of God, and John details the incredible story of how a descendant of Muhammad came to faith in Jesus.

In the end, the pair agree that even though we live in an “evil and broken world,” what matters most to God is “how we treat one another.”

People

John Burke

Companies

None

Books

"Imagine Heaven" by John Burke

Guest Name(s):

John Burke

Content Warnings:

None

Shopify
This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Whether you're selling a little or a lot, Shopify helps you do your thing. However, you cha ching from the launch your online shop stage all the way to the we just hit a million orders stage. No matter what stage you're in, Shopify's there to help you grow. Sign up for a dollar one per month trial period@shopify.com. specialoffer all lowercase. That's Shopify.com specialoffer.

John Burke
And now a Blaze media podcast.

Glenn
Have you ever wondered what happens after you die? I mean, do you float out of your body towards a great light? Do you feel happy, afraid or nothing at all?

For most of us, life after death is a mystery and maybe a collection of hopes or fears.

But it's not a mystery to my next guest. He has spent years studying what are known as near death experiences, or in the business we call them ndes ease. He's examined thousands of stories and talked to the people who have technically clinically died, but then brought back thanks to either modern medicine or a miracle.

Surprisingly, when they come back, they all tell a very similar story. They tell about the afterlife. And all of these stories, my next guest says, points to the truth of goodness of a living God.

Welcome to the podcast, pastor and bestselling author John Burke.

Shopify
This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Whether you're selling a little or a lot, Shopify helps you do your thing. However you cha ching from the launch your online shop stage all the way to the we just hit a million orders stage. No matter what stage you're in, Shopify's there to help you grow. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period@shopify.com. specialoffer all lowercase. That's Shopify.com specialoffer.

Glenn
If you think you've heard the best part, we haven't even begun with John Burke. The name of the book, again, is imagine the God of heaven. More in just a second.

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Glenn
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Hi, John. How are you?

John Burke
Hey, Glenn. I'm great. How are you?

Glenn
It's, I'm great. It, well, I mean, it's still being, it's under investigation right now, so I can't talk much about it, but I think I'm pretty good.

I am so excited for people who don't know you. May we start kind of at the beginning of your journey and then just kind of take where you are now. But when your father died, you were agnostic, or would you say you were atheist?

John Burke
I would say agnostic. I mean, I. Agnostic, yeah.

I studied engineering. I worked as an engineer. I've always had a very analytical mind.

I want to know, how do the pieces fit together? How do you know it's true? Yeah, I was very inquisitive.

So I think early on I just had a lot of questions and very few answers, and I just thought Jesus is probably a legend. God, I don't know. Who knows? You can't know? Kind of, that's kind of where I'd landed.

And then my dad was dying of cancer, and this is decades ago. Someone gave him the very first research on near death experiences. And this is this is people who have clinically died, so they have no heartbeat and no brainwaves, in many cases for minutes to hours.

And yet modern medicine resuscitates them. And this, of course, has been happening more, more and more. And modern medicine are, in some case, miracle. I mean, ours, you know, it's probably not modern medicine.

Glenn
Yeah, but they come back.

John Burke
They come back and they come back talking about being more alive than they've ever been before in a place more real than this place, more beauty than we've ever imagined, and many times in the presence of a God of light and love whose presence they never wanted to leave.

So I see this on my dad's book, stand beside his bed, and I start flipping through it, and I'm like, whoa, what is this? And I couldn't put it down. I read the whole thing in one night, and my thought was, wow, okay, this could be the evidence that I've.

Glenn
Been wanting, looking for.

John Burke
I've been looking. And so it didn't lead me to faith or say, okay, there's definitely a God or heaven or hell or anything like that. I just. It opened my mind. And so I started seeking.

So I started reading the Bible. I started asking my questions in other places, started finding other answers.

And I did come to faith. And eventually I left my career in engineering, and I went into ministry, really to share the amazing things that I was finding. I was like, why didn't anybody tell me this?

And so over the last 35 years, just really because of my inquisitive nature, I have studied and collected and systematized probably close to 1500 cases of near death experience and personally interviewed many of them now.

And what I was always trying to understand is, okay, how do these then fit with what God has revealed throughout history and recorded in the Bible? That's always been my curiosity.

So I finally wrote a book.

Glenn
I'm sorry to interrupt. And that's you're saying, how do you square this with heaven, hell, judgment, and all of that? Because some people are not necessarily following Jesus or whatever, and they have positive experiences, right.

John Burke
Well, and that was a big question mark, that it took me 35 years to write the book for a reason, because I had a lot of questions myself. Now, I saw a lot of alignment. In fact, it was amazing. In the book I wrote in 2015 called imagine Heaven, I basically showed how 40 of these commonalities that people all around the globe talk about.

So any one, I don't really believe. I mean, I'm skeptical, correct? I'm like, well, maybe.

But when you have 510 15 saying exactly the same thing. And they're from different parts of the globe. Or they're spine surgeons, they're CEO's, they're medical doctors and other lawyers, commercial airline pilots. I mean, these are the people I've interviewed. Like, what do they have to gain? Making up crazy stories about having this heavenly experience and seeing Jesus?

Glenn
And in today's world, you have probably more to lose by telling, at least in America, to tell those kinds of stories. People just think you're a whack job. So what did you find when you're looking through all of these stories? What are the things they all have in common?

John Burke
Well, I'll tell you.

Let me tell you a couple of them by telling you what convinced me.

Okay, so, in chapter two of this new book I wrote, imagine the God of heaven, I talk about science, skeptics, and near death experiences, and I go through the ten points of evidence that convince not only me, but convince many medical doctors that these are real. They're grounded in reality. In other words, it's not just an oxy oxygen deprivation. It's not just endorphins or other chemicals flooding the brain to ease our passing. It can't be explained by something happening in the brain. First of all. Cause there are no brainwaves in many cases.

But one of them, that is a commonality, is when people come back, they can make observations that can be verified.

Okay, so when people die, they say they leave their body, but they still have a body. They have a spiritual body. Now, actually, the apostle Paul talked about this.

And by the way, I think the apostle Paul might have had a near death experience.

In acts chapter 14, it talks about how in Lystra, a mob turned on him, stoned him to death, dragged him out of the city, and left him for dead.

And yet, as his friends gathered around him, he gets back up and he goes back into the city, which I wouldn't do if someone had just stoned me to death. He was a pretty courageous dude.

But in two corinthians twelve, he says of himself 14 years ago, whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don't know. Only God knows.

Now, why would he say that? Well, because we still are ourselves when we die.

Many people don't realize they're dead because we're still ourselves. We're more ourselves, and we still have a body that's like our own, but it's a spiritual body. And Paul said, I was taken up into heaven and saw and heard things inexpressible.

Now, this spiritual body, people say they're above their physical body and many times watching their resuscitation or watching what's happening in the ER.

When they come back into their body, they can report things that they saw while they had no brainwaves.

So I'll give you an example. One medical doctor, cardiologist I interviewed, Doctor Penn van Lammel, he's actually Dutch.

He was attending in the ER in Holland when a man was brought in from a park with no heartbeat, no brainwaves. They didn't know how long he'd been dead, so they're going to shock his heart. They need to intubate him.

And the nurse saw dentures in his mouth, took the dentures out, put it in the lower drawer of the crash cartoo, and they shocked him, got his heart started again, but he never came to in the ER.

So they move him to another room. A week later, he comes out of coma and he's bothered, where are my dentures? You lost my dentures?

And then he sees a nurse in the hallway and he says, hey, get that nurse. That nurse knows where my dentures are.

And they get the nurse. And then he goes on to explain that he was there, up above his body. He described all the personnel in the ER, what they did, what they said, and that that nurse was the one that took the dentures and put them in the lower drawer of that. That cart with all the bottles on it.

And that's exactly where they found him. And it's exactly what happened.

Now, there have actually, that's. That's, you know, that's a one off story. But there are many of these. And in the books, I put these as examples, but also, like, tell the.

Glenn
Tell the one with the red dot. With the red sticker.

John Burke
Yeah, yeah. So Mary in London, and this is in the nineties, when they, you know, they still had ceiling fans in the hospitals.

She dies giving birth to her child.

She's up above, and then, as is common as well, she starts to travel. She leaves the room, she travels.

In her case, it was through a tunnel. Sometimes it's not through a tunnel.

And comes into the presence of this God of light, who she knew was God. Even though she had left the catholic church long time ago, she knew this was God without a doubt, and felt this unbelievable unconditional love. She called it like the love of a mother times a thousand.

And she has a conversation.

And another commonality is a life review.

We can talk more about that. Because that.

Glenn
Yeah, because I want to get into that.

John Burke
Yeah, but he says to her, and again, the communication. So it's interesting because the communication is thought to thought or just heart to heart. It's not audible. Sometimes it is, but usually it's just pure.

And we have, on the other side, they say not just five senses, more like 50 senses, which, interestingly, is what Paul said as well. In one corinthians 15, Paul said, our bodies are buried a natural body, but they're raised a spiritual body. They're buried in weakness, but they're raised in Dunamas, in power.

And they talk about that eyesight, that's like telescopic communication. It's pure thought. All these things.

He says to her, you need to go back. Your son is going to live, and he needs you.

She argues with him. And, you know, Glenn, this is one of the things I love about this, is that I can't tell you how many near death experiencers I've interviewed have told me they argued with God, which you'd think, what are you thinking? But what they say is, even though he's power, inexpressible, I mean, this is light, brighter than the sun thousands of times, yet not hard to look at, mesmerizing, but they feel so comfortable, so known, so personally understood in his presence. She's like, this is the greatest thing I've ever experienced. I don't want to go back. No, please don't send me back. I want to be with you.

And he says, you need to go back for your son. Well, she does come back. And as she's coming into the erde, she sees on the top of a ceiling fan, on the ceiling side, a red sticker.

When she comes to, she's trying to tell the doctors and nurses this incredible experience she had with God and all this, and they think she's psychotic. And that's commonly what happens. And it's why many shut up after that, because this is a sacred experience. This is. How do you describe an experience more real than what we've experienced?

Glenn
Correct? Right, correct.

John Burke
And I have an analogy for that. But what happened is.

Glenn
Hang on just a second. But, yes, go ahead. I want you to finish that story.

John Burke
She finally tells a nurse, here's where you walk. Here's what you did, here's what you said. And the nurse was, like, shocked.

And she said, look, I can prove it to you. Mary said this. Go get a ladder and look on the top side of the ceiling fan, and you'll find a red sticker, and here's what it says.

And the nurse did, with the help of an orderly, and sure enough, it checked out.

Now, again, those verifiable observations have been studied. So I'm not the only one who has studied these near death experiences. Do you know there have been 900 scholarly articles written? Doctor Pim van Lammel, the dutch cardiologist, wrote up his in the Lancet, Europe's most prestigious medical journal.

Doctor Jeffrey Long, who I know and have interviewed, has studied as many as I have wrote.

Actually, he didn't write the article. It was doctor Sabam, another cardiologist who set out to disprove near death experiences and after five years of research, writes an article in the Journal of the American Medical association saying, no, they're grounded in reality because of these verifiable observations. Doctor Janice Holden did a study of about 100 near death experienced patients who had had cardiac arrests.

Compared them to a control group who had had cardiac arrest but had not, had it claimed to have a near death experience.

Found that of their many observations that each one might make, right, each one might make five or ten observations, 92% were completely accurate.

So in other words, they're telling exactly what, and this is what Doctor Sabim said. He said these patients could tell me what I did in resuscitation of a heart attack, that I could have used the tape to teach other physicians how to do resuscitation. He said they couldn't possibly have known that. So Doctor Holden compares it to a, a control group asking them, you had a heart attack. What do you think happened in the ER to resuscitate you? It was guesswork, like 20% accurate.

So that's the first thing that really, those are some commonalities. But it's also the thing that convinced me, or began to convince me when I was a skeptical engineer.

The second thing, and with this one, I'll tell you more of the commonalities through one of the people I, I report on.

When people blind from birth have a near death experience, they can see.

When they come back and are resuscitated, they still can't see.

Yet they report the same things that cited near death experiencers report, and some of the things they report, they could not possibly have known or made up. So I'll give you an example. Vicki and I report in the new book, both books, I think I report on three, six total blind people who've had these near death experiences.

Vicki was 22. She dies in a car accident.

She's there in the hospital, and she's above her body, but she doesn't know. She's trying to adjust what is this new sense?

And so, for instance, one of the commonalities is how they see colors beyond our color spectrum.

But Vicki didn't have words for it. She just said there were all these different brightnesses.

That's how she had to describe it. She realizes that's her body, because, first of all, she feels wonderful, but it's chaos in the ER. And then she notices the body on the table, has very long hair and a ring with orange blossoms, and that was her wedding ring.

And she goes, I don't know what you guys are so upset about. I feel great. And she said, I know where I'm going. You know, she believed in Jesus. She said, I know where I'm going. And boom, she shoots out. So her spiritual body or her soul shoots out of the hospital. She can see all around.

And then she entered what I think, Washington tunnel, because that is a commonality, though not always. Sometimes they just keep going.

But she said, I entered this place where suddenly there was no color.

Well, that would be black, right?

And it's this dark tunnel that she goes through. And she sees light at the end. And when she comes out, she comes out into this bright, beautiful world, not unlike earth, grass and trees and flowers in this beautiful garden. There are mountains in the distance, the rivers. It's unbelievable beauty like earth, but experienced in new dimensions of time and space.

And she says, and now this is one of the keys. She said the light in this world was not like the light on earth. Now, she would have only felt the light on earth shining on her, right?

But she said this light was love and life and light altogether.

And it was shining out of everything. It was shining out of the grass and out of the trees and out of the birds and even out of this group of people who were coming to welcome her. And she saw in the group her grandmother and her two friends who had died at age nine and seven that she'd grown up with in a children's home for the blind, Debbie and Diane. She said, but they looked in their prime and they were healthy, and they, too, had this light. She could recognize them fully, but there was this light coming out of everything. That was love.

Okay, so stop a second and think about this.

A person blind from birth would have only heard on earth that light shines on things, not out of things.

And yet the jewish prophet Isaiah, who wrote in 780 BC, and John, one of Jesus disciples, who writes in revelation 21 both, there is no sun or moon in heaven, because the glory of God is its light.

And the lamb, which is Jesus is its lamp, and the nations will walk in that light.

That's exactly.

Glenn
I'll tell you something.

This gave me goosebumps to hear you say this, because I had an experience in my life where I had a.

A dream. And, you know, sometimes you have dreams, and then other times you have something that you're like, that wasn't a dream. I don't know what that was, but I had this dream, and it was at a. Yeah, it was a pivot point in my life. I was really struggling with some things in my past, and I didn't want to face them. And I had this dream where all of a sudden I was in this very black and white, almost sepia colored world. And it was like I was in the middle of nowhere, and it was all broken, like cornfields that were all just dead and brown and dirty snow everywhere. And I stood on this road, and I did a 360 scan, and right behind me was this horrible black storm.

And I just remember thinking, well, I'm not going that way. And so I'm just looking around, wondering where I'm gonna go. And a voice behind me said, where are you going? And I said, well, I don't know. I'm not going that way. And I turned around, and he was behind me, and he said, oh, that storm. That's nothing. And he was this old kind of like, had like, almost like nicotine, you know, kind of that yellowy beard. And he was just dirty. And everything was dirty and gray and brown.

John Burke
I.

Glenn
And I said, that'll kill me. And he said, no, it's nothing.

And I grabbed his hand, and all of a sudden, we were flying, and we flew over the storm.

And what I saw was Technicolor.

It was unlike colors I had ever seen before.

And it was so warm and so just. You just felt the love. And I said.

The first thing I said to myself, kind of. I said, it's so warm here.

And he said, this is on the other side. And I turned to look at him, and I only saw him for a flash of a second. I saw his beard, which was all yellow and dark, and I saw his hand.

And the only way I can describe it is it was made of light. It was like his beard was like a fiber optic. Everything was made of light. And I woke up, and to hear that description is, like, exactly what I saw.

John Burke
Yeah.

Glenn
I mean, amazing.

John Burke
I probably God gave you a vivid dream for a purpose.

Glenn
Yeah.

John Burke
And, I mean, yeah, he did.

Glenn
It changed my life.

John Burke
And there is a storm. There is a dark storm. Right? And yet it's nothing. It's nothing to him. We can. We can fly him.

So here's something fascinating, because, Vicki, something that ties into what you just said. So this girl, blind from birth, blind when she came back, sees this welcoming committee, her grandmother, Debbie and Diane, they too have light. This light that is love. Of course, if this is the glory of God, one God is love and God is light, and he's the light that gives life to everything. Of course, this is not new, this God of light. You know, the same God who appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai in a bush that wouldn't burn up. It was a brilliant light, right?

Jesus is transfigured on the mountain and his face turned brighter than the sun.

And he says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but have the light of life.

Right? So, you know, and Jesus said in Matthew 13 talking about the future, then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father forever.

And he also says in Luke 16, use your worldly wealth to make friends so that when it is gone, they will welcome you into eternal homes.

So this welcoming committee and these people who have the light and love of God coming out of them or shining through them or experiencing that, it's all in the Bible. But this is exactly what near death experiencers say. And how. And why would they say that?

And why would a blind person say that? Because most christians don't know that in heaven there's no sun or moon and that I didn't know this. In fact, part of why it took me a long time is I was like, oh, this sounds really weird, bizarre, new agey stuff.

This isn't biblical. I can't talk about this.

And then the more I studied, I became a pastor. And so I went to seminary, and I studied and studied and studied. And along the way, the Lord was like, look right there.

That's what these people are saying. That's what this is.

So then Vicki turns because she sees a light brighter than any, and turns, and there's Jesus, but he's a man of light.

And she runs to him and she said, he hugged me, but the hug was, like, deeper than anything you could experience on earth. But here's the thing she said.

She said I could feel his beard and there were lights in his beard.

That's what this blind girl said?

Glenn
Yes.

John Burke
What you just said, is that why?

Glenn
Yeah, it's crazy.

John Burke
And she describes Jesus, you know, the way you would picture him. And she was asked, like, well, how did you picture him before. And she said, well, you don't understand. I was blind from birth. I had no pictures.

People blind from birth don't have mental images.

So even if she had heard things about Jesus, she didn't form a mental image. That sense was not even part of her world, so it wouldn't be part of her memories either.

And yet she experiences them, describes them that way. And he says to her, you're going to love it here. It all fits together.

And they have a conversation. And then he gives her a life review, which is another commonality.

All around the world.

When people are in God's presence, they experience a life review.

And you know what's fascinating, Glenn, is these.

And you have to understand that time works differently on the other side.

And near death experiencers have said to me, there was no time. Or others have said, well, there was time, but there was all the time you needed, or it wasn't time, like, we experienced time. It was like all time at the same time. They said, it's really hard to put into words, but here's what's interesting, is that two Peter, three, eight Peter, one of Jesus disciples said to the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.

And I've had neurologists who've had near death experiences say almost the same thing. Like, I don't know if it was seconds or hours or days, but because time works. And in imagine the God of heaven, I go into how if time were experienced even in not just one dimension like we do, but two dimensions or three dimensions, it would give the sense of what they say.

And so they watch, kind of as a panoramic replay of their lives happens before them.

But the emphasis is on relationship.

And they experience not only what they were thinking and feeling in every interaction, but they also often experience what the other person was thinking and feeling, and how their little acts of kindness affected that person and even rippled through humanity. 2030 people beyond, or how their. Their meaning.

Glenn
So you felt that they felt that they understood how, why that little thing mattered.

John Burke
Wow.

They come back all over the globe saying two things about this life review. One, God is love. They say that even if they didn't know God. And two, what matters most to God is how we treat one another, how we love one another, and that that has the most profound impact on humanity.

Now, if you, again, if you think about it, nothing new. Moses said that Jesus said, the first greatest commandment, love God with all you've got. Second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself do these two. That's the whole Bible that sums up all the commands.

And then in Matthew 25, remember, Jesus said one day before the king of the universe, he'll say, basically, when you served, when you fed, when you visited in the hospital, when you visited in prison, when you did these things to the least of these people, you did it to me.

And near death experiencers say that. They say as they're watching their life review, if they did something, Vicki did something mean to a little girl.

At one point, she got jealous and angry and ripped off her necklace and all that.

And she said she could feel Jesus disappointment in that, but she always felt his unconditional love at the same time.

And so they come back realizing, and it changes them because they realize, you know, all the things we tend to live for to try to prove ourselves to the world or power or status or this or that, it just doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

But what we do with our gifts and our time and our talents to use them to love God and love our fellow human, well, that not only does it matter, but it has a bigger impact than you could ever imagine.

Glenn
This is just fascinating. When they go through their life review, are they shown, I mean, is it, you know, is it just a series of their whole life, how it happens in time and everything? I don't know. But they see the good and the bad. Is it, is it a, is it a judgment in a way, from them themselves seeing it, not from somebody accusing, but seeing it knowing the truth now?

John Burke
Yes. And that's the fascinating thing that confused me for a long time, Glenn, honestly, because like I said, I went from being an engineer to being a pastor. And early on, and again, I've studied these for 35 years. And I'd say early on, you know, about 1015 years into the study of near death experiences, many researchers were saying, well, look, this clearly has, this is not the God of Jesus because, you know, the God of the Bible is this punishing, vindictive God and the God of near death experiences is this unconditional love. And what these people commonly say is God was not judging me. God was loving me and supporting me, and I was judging myself. And I knew, I knew my right and I knew my wrong. So here's the fascinating thing.

One, later, I found a couple of things that made sense of this. First of all, you know, many people know John 316. God so loved the world, he gave his only, only begotten son, that whoever would believe in him would have eternal life. Not many know the next verse. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world.

Yes, but that the world through him might be saved or rescued or put in right relationship with God.

Glenn
Correct.

John Burke
And so it's not surprising that in the presence of God, people from every nation feel loved because he loves them. He created them to be his child. But the other thing Jesus said to the Pharisees at one point, he said, by your own words, will you be condemned. By your own words will you be acquitted?

And this is exactly what this is showing, is that we can hide from the truth. We can rationalize and justify and pretend in this life, but you can't in that one. You just see the truth. It's unvarnished.

Glenn
So, John, I've often thought that because I see God as our loving father. And I've learned how to be a better father by reading the scriptures and seeing how he treats us. And it's always, please don't do that. Please don't do that. It's so much easier if you don't do that.

And he's always there to forgive us.

And I thought about the concept of hell and. And redemption. And I know because I have been redeemed and I needed it really badly, and it changed my world. I mean, he saved me, literally and figuratively saved my body and my soul. And so I've often thought that if you have full recollection of your life and you can see and you know the truth, okay, you're standing there at the judgment seat. You know the truth. Unless you've worked redemption and the atonement, unless you know how to apply that to yourself and accept the full forgiveness, you're in hell.

Because he's not judging you. You are. He's just saying to you, just forgive. Forgive. I love you. I love you. But you can't forgive yourself because you haven't worked the atonement. You haven't worked the redemption that he gave you. It's a personal thing. Does that sound reasonable to you?

John Burke
Yes.

And that's what I'm trying to show.

So in imagine heaven, I was writing about the commonalities and how they align in the Bible with the afterlife, with heaven, with hell, and generally with the concept of. Of God. But after interviewing so many of them, I found so many of them said, you know, of all the beauty that's to come. And, I mean, you think earth is spectacular now? You know, of all the adventure, of all the great reunions with loved ones, they would say nothing compared to just being in the presence of God. He is the love you've always wanted.

And so I wrote this new book to show. I interviewed 70 people from every continent on the planet.

So this is not just a north american christian thing.

God is the God.

Glenn
Tell me about BB. And said, tell me about BB and said, because I think this is. This shows.

John Burke
Yeah, so, so, yeah, it's a wild, wild story. So I had a family in our church from Tehran, iranian family, who had come to faith in Jesus and the father had literally tried to kill him. And so they escaped and got refuge in Austin, where my church is. And they started coming to our church and said, is their pastor. And when he was visiting Austin, he came to visit them and ask if he could meet with me. And I'm like, sure. And so we go to lunche and he brings his mother, Bebe, who only speaks Farsi. And I was like, why did you bring your mother?

And I didn't know. Now here's the crazy thing, is, he didn't know that I had written a book on near death experiences. He didn't know I was a New York Times bestselling author on this. He just knew I was a pastor of the church, of these people that he used to pastor. And so we're at lunch and he said, my mom is related to the prophet Muhammad.

And he was telling me how he came to faith in Jesus while in Tehran. And I said, well, is she a believer in Jesus or is she still muslim? And he said, well, I'll let her tell you. So she starts to tell me this story.

He's transparent in Farsi.

All right, so I'm sitting in a restaurant hearing this with him translating.

She was so distraught over first said. And then his sister also became followers of Jesus, actually because of a vision.

When said was very conflicted because he was Hezbollah, he literally was. Had been trained as a teenager Hezbollah. And he'd started dating an iranian girl who was a Christian.

And she said, look, if we're going to keep dating, I want you to talk to my pastor. And the pastor basically tried to explain God's grace through Jesus. We can all be forgiven, you know, just turn to him. And he left. And he was so angry, he decided he's going to kill that pastor. This is what he told me.

Glenn
Oh, my gosh.

John Burke
But he had to walk home. And it took him an hour to walk home. And on the walk, he started to become distraught inside. He was like this pastor saying, God loves us, but, you know, they're, they're infidels because they believe this father, son, holy spirit. That and God can be a man, and that can't be possible, and it's wrong. And he's just. And finally he said, goddess, I want to know the truth. I will follow you. Just show me the truth. And that night, three times, he wakes up with a vision of a man standing with his arms out like this, as if on a cross.

And he comes to faith. He leads his sister to faith in Jesus. His mom is so distraught that she has failed Islam.

And by the way, they lived in a gated community next door to Ahmed Job's council.

Glenn
Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh.

John Burke
So they were very well to do.

Glenn
They're right there.

John Burke
Yeah, they're right there.

And she has a heart attack, and she thinks she's going to be judged by the prophet Ali. That's their belief, that that's what's going to happen. And of course, she's failed, and she's waiting for this, and that's not what happened. She said, this man of light, large, comes and says one thing. I am he who is.

That's how Saeed translated it to me. I am he who is. And boom, she's back in her body, but with a peace and a joy she's never felt before. And she's super confused, like, who is this God?

And she starts seeking, and the next year, she has a whole other revelation and realizes that this was the same God who said in the burning bush to Moses, I am who I am. It's basically the same thing translated, I am he who is. And that is Jesus. And she also becomes a follower of Jesus.

But here's the crazy thing, Glenn. I've got 70 stories like that. Santosh, one of my favorites. He was a manufacturing engineer, grew up in India.

He thought, when I die, there's either nothing or I'll come back as another life form.

But he said, that's not what happened. He hears code blue. His heart stops. Brainwaves cease. He's there, up above his body, and he said, this brilliant, divine light came to me, and he said, this light was brighter than anything you can imagine. I knew it would burn my retina in an instant, but I could look as mesmerizing, and I fell in love with this light because I knew this light was for me.

So this light takes him, and I'll have to shorten the story, but it's all in the book. Imagine the God of heaven. Fascinating.

Basically, he's looking out over this giant.

He called it a giant compound thousands of miles long. But he said, your eyesight's telescopic there.

And he said, very high, thick, gorgeous walls. Now, I've been to India many times because we helped build a hospital for impoverished people over there. And there are compounds everywhere. There are these walled, gated compounds everywhere. But he describes it thousands of miles long, square shaped. And he said, inside these beautiful grounds and buildings of otherworldly building material and people everywhere. And he longed to be inside. He said, this is the goal of humanity. I knew it is to live there, to be there. And he wanted to get in. And he started looking for a way in. And he said, and there were gates, twelve of them. I counted them.

And he said, then I looked at the gate closest to me and I saw angels guarding them. And he said, then I knew, I'm looking at the kingdom of heaven.

Now, he perfectly described exactly what John described Jesus disciple in revelation 21, when he said he was taken up in the spirit to a very high mountain and describes this same holy city of God. And by the way, John even says what it said on the foundations.

So if he's up on a very high mountain, how in the world did he read from far away the names on the foundation stones?

Well, again, what near death experiencers say. Your eyesight's like telescopic there, right? And Santosh describes this same exact holy city, yet he had never read the Bible.

He then sees a vision of hell.

He describes the same thing. It was this abyss of darkness and hopeless. And he knew you fall there, you never get out.

And he doesn't want to go there. He wants to go in the city, but he can't find a way in. And he turns and looks and there is who he said is God on a throne, but in the form of a man.

But a huge man like bb saw.

They both described him the same way. And he looks into his eyes and he says, his eyes were like lightning. So this. And Santosh said to me afterwards, he said, I believe that was the risen Jesus, God appearing in the form we can understand.

And so he sees his entire life, he sees all his sins and he falls to his knees and says, lord, forgive me, please forgive me, please. Because he knew again, I deserve the abyss, but he didn't want to go there. And he's looking for another way.

And Glenn, it's the craziest story because the Lord starts to speak to him and he says, santosh, I'm going to send you back.

And when I send you back, you must love your family, especially your daughter. She needs you right now.

Now think about this.

Here's a guy, he doesn't know the Lord, but the Lord knows him and his daughter and loves them and cares about them.

And Santosh, then he was expecting judgment, and instead he felt this love and mercy and compassion in the Lord's voice. So he looks to the right and he sees what he described as this very narrow gate right next to this throne that was open to him. And he could go in, but he knew he couldn't go in without his permission. And so he gets bold and he says, lord, if I come back, I want to go through that narrow gate into your kingdom. How do I go through that narrow gate?

Anyway, I'll shorten it. But when he comes back, he is seeking God. And he said, this was not like the gods I had grown up knowing who was this God of power, but who was loving and personal and compassionate and knew me so well, but cared about me and didn't hold my sins against me. And he's seeking every day he's praying.

He's asking the Lord to guide him. And his daughter then is invited because she was a choral major in college, she's invited with a friend to sing in a choir at church.

Santosh goes to hear his daughter and he walks into this church and he feels the same love of that God of light.

And the message that day is on the narrow gate and how Jesus is the gate through whom you can enter the kingdom of God. He goes home and he told me, I started reading the Bible. Everything I experienced was in this book.

And he came to faith in Jesus.

And fantastic. I've been friends with him for a couple years now. He actually went through those gates two months ago.

So he got fantastic and he went through.

So, Glenn, Australians, chinese people, people in the Middle east, in Canada, it doesn't matter where they come from. It doesn't matter their religious background, even some who didn't believe in God at all, they're reporting the same God who revealed himself throughout history. And that's what I'm trying to show.

Glenn
So I think your work is really important now because there is a lack of faith. And those with faith sometimes believe it, but they disempower it.

They look at their life and they're like, yeah, yeah, well, that's God. And people ask me all the time, Glenn, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And I'm like, well, we can't do anything, but what we can do. God knows this isn't a surprise. He's got it all taken care of. We have to do what we have to do but trust in him. And so many Christians just dismissed. They're like, yeah, yeah, I know I've got to pray and read the Bible, but what are we going to do? No, that's the first thing that you should be doing. And then working on yourself to forgive others and to be kind and not to get wrapped up into this world, you know, when you're in a self defense situation, when it's either you or them.

I'd like to is kind of in the spirit of this podcast, introduce my foe to Jesus. But I don't always want to introduce somebody to Jesus.

That's a huge responsibility and we will be held accountable. Also, you'll be held accountable with the rule of law here in America, and it's going to wreck your life for about two years. And God help you if you made the wrong choice. There is an alternative to a lethal weapon, and that is a burn, a launcher.

I have it, members of my family have it, my team has it. It is a great compliment to firearms. I am a big believer in firearms, but there are situations where less than lethal is the way to go. And burn is the best alternative to deadly force. It fires powerful deterrents like tear gas and kinetic rounds. We're talking about things that can incapacitate an attacker for up to 40 minutes. Government agencies and police departments, they're getting rid of their tasers, they're using burna. They use it every day as their go to less than lethal option. And it works for them.

It will work for you as well. Sometimes you have to choose between life and death, but that situation isn't every day. And when that situation arises, you want Berna Byrna.com made here in America. Burna.com glenn. Use that and you'll get a 10% discount. Berna.com glenn.

So I think what you're doing is so important because people are being beaten down. But there's also another part of your book where you start to go into prophecy and showing us how it's being fulfilled.

Let's just talk about the regathering of Israel that you talk about in your book.

John Burke
Yeah. And the reason is I've had christians especially really misunderstand.

And I think, like you said, I think it's misunderstanding the grace of God, really, because they've said, well, why would a Hindu or a Muslim or others, why would they see Jesus? Or why would they see God? Why doesn't he? Why aren't they in hell?

And, well, sometimes I feel like we're more concerned about getting people to hell than we are to heaven.

Don't worry. God's going to sort it all out. But. But here's the other thing that's important, and this is what I'm trying to trace through.

Well, let me say, first of all, I do not believe near death experiences are crossing over into either eternal life or eternal death. There's something in between. And that's very important because that confused me for a long time.

Glenn
So you're saying that you feel. They're going to the waiting room, they're going to the lobby.

John Burke
It's like this.

Imagine if I visited Buckingham palace and I get to see the place. Describe it. Well, that doesn't mean the royal family adopting me to move in forever. I just get to see.

And I think God is allowing. I believe these are testimonies of the reality of hell and heaven and this God of grace who revealed himself through Jesus to the entire globe for such a time as this, Glenn, there's no other time I could have interviewed people on every continent.

Right.

And to report about it. And so God is showing all the nations what he's been saying all along. Genesis, chapter twelve.

He raises up Abraham and Sarah. He says, I'm going to bless you. To bless all nations.

That's always been God's.

God's not a respecter of persons. He doesn't love some nationalities more than others. He meant us all to be his children.

500 times through the Old Testament prophets, God is speaking to all the nations. Go try to find another goddess who is addressing all nations. There aren't. They're more tribal, they're more local deities. Right.

So this has always been the God of all nations. Jesus comes and claims that he lays down his life for all nations. And he tells his disciples, go tell all the nations there's forgiveness offered in my name. In other words, what I have done is cleared the way that God can be, just in taking back anyone who wants my forgiveness and relationship. In other words, he has removed every barrier between every person and himself except one, our pride.

So he does not take away our free will. And if in our pride we say, no, I'm good, I don't need God, I don't need forgiveness. I'm good.

At the end of the day, I think it grieves him. And I've got stories in the book. And imagine the God of heaven, of the grief. God shows some of these people that he feels because it's like a mom or dad losing their child to a horrible heroin addiction. And they just won't come out.

But that is what hell is, their choice.

23% of people who have come forward reporting near death experiences have reported hellish experiences. At least it might be more than that, because many don't talk about them, because these hellish experiences are just as real as the heavenly ones.

And what they say is, yeah, just what Cs Lewis said when he said he believed hell was locked from the inside of.

In other words, it's the human creature, the free will creature, locking God out.

Yes. Not yes, yes, yes, yes.

Glenn
But I think we go back with everything that we are, just as your people are explaining with our free will. And when the Lord says, come to me like a child, I've always interpreted that as, well, a child is innocent and everything else. But the most important thing about children is they always ask the same question to the point of driving you out of your mind, why.

So coming to the Lord as a child, you are open to his understanding. You're coming to him and saying, I don't understand all this. This is what I thought it was, but is that right? And coming to him and surrendering your will to him and say, you are the truth, I'll accept. And I think there's a lot of people that will cross over and they'll be very surprised because it's not exactly how they understood it. It won't be like I understand it. And if you're not open, if you're like, nope, that's not right, you're going.

John Burke
To lock yourself away and that's, he'll.

Glenn
Let you do it.

John Burke
That's what I'm trying to do in, imagine the God of heaven is, you know, all put God in a box because we're, we're finite, you know, and God is not limited by our finiteness.

And so, so God is far more mysterious.

You know, if God is not mysterious to you, you don't have the right God.

Glenn
Right, right.

John Burke
Beautiful. We don't often think of beautiful, glorious, powerful, sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent. All those big words. But what do those mean? I'm trying to show what those mean through the eyes of these people who have experienced it. And you start to triangulate and you go, oh, my gosh, why don't I trust him? But on the other side of the box, God is far more relatable, personable, enjoyable. You ever use that word? Fun, funny, joyful.

And many christians, like, they don't think of God that way. And so kind of like you said, yeah, they give mental.

Yeah, I believe in God, but they don't live like it. They don't trust him.

They don't think he's got much to offer them.

And so really they're just living for retirement, not for the life to come. And so I'm trying to help.

I'm trying to help people see that, no, what the scriptures teach God is far better than you can possibly get your little mind to wrap around.

And when you start to picture, and I really imagine God accurately, you start to go, oh, my gosh. I mean, why?

Everything I desire, everything I love about this life, every good thing comes from goddess. And that's where I'm going. And he is sovereign. I don't have anything to worry about. And as a result, I'm free to use my time and my talents, my gifts to love and serve. I don't have to prove anything to anybody.

There's just an incredible peace, an incredible joy that's available and even through the sufferings of life.

I interviewed this one guy, Doctor Mark Medano, and he is now a plastic surgeon who treats berm victims because at age 16, they had a house fire that burned down their house.

And he got his two older brothers out, but his younger brother and his mom were trapped and he passed out and got burned over 65% of his body trying to save them. And he couldn't save them. They died.

But in the hospital, on the way, he kept coding. His heart kept crashing.

And he was in such pain. He was like, God, just take my life. This is. He was, you know, I mean, burn. There's nothing worse, right?

And at one point, he, he did crash. And he told me he was. He was there with his mom and his brother in the presence of Jesus.

And he said, it wasn't literally like this, but it felt like we were just all snuggled up on the couch, like when we would watch tv together. And it was just so wonderful there with Jesus. And he saw how God's plan worked. And here's what he said to me. He said, I thought to myself, yes, of course.

It makes so much sense.

Like it all, it couldn't be any other way. It has to be this way. It makes so much sense.

And then, and Jesus said to him, you're. Because this is another commonality, he says, your time isn't fulfilled on earth. You still have things to accomplish.

I'm going to send you back.

And he said, it's going to be difficult, but we're going to do it together.

So Mark. Mark comes back and you want to talk about suffering and difficult.

He's a 16 year old burn victim, right?

He was disfigured. He had lost his mom and his sister.

His dad is so depressed, he becomes an alcoholic. Mark had to go through 38 reconstructive surgeries, the pain and the suffering of all that.

He then becomes an alcoholic in college just to escape the PTSD from the experience.

And as a result, he ends up in recovery.

And in recovery, he comes back to the Lord.

And through the strength and the discipline, he learned. And just taking it day by day, right. Depending on the Lord, one day at a time, he found the motivation to become a doctor, and he becomes a plastic surgeon who could then help other, other burn victims like himself.

Glenn
It's unbelievable.

John Burke
It's unbelievable, you know, but it teaches us so much, Glenn. And this is what I'm trying to show, that these people bring us back nuggets of wisdom, that it's in the Bible. Yes, but sometimes we don't take it to heart because maybe it goes in the head, but it doesn't sink into the heart. And when you hear through the words of these people who have suffered, to say, you know what? I still don't like the suffering.

I don't think God's doing it. To me, this world is broken. This is an evil, broken world. Look, Jesus would not have taught us to pray God your will be done on earth like it is in heaven if God's will were being done on earth. It's not.

And so a lot of the pain and a lot of the suffering, it comes from a world that God has truly given us free will, but we choose to use it in ways that he just, like you said, is like, don't do that, please. You know, just going to multiply pain.

Glenn
John, I have to tell you, this has been.

Go ahead. Go ahead.

John Burke
Well, you hear these people talking about how God is ultimately in control, and he does have a plan, and we can't see it all right now, but when we walk faithfully with him, and that's the really cool thing. Like Santosh, that Hindu who saw God and the narrow door, he was asking, what do I have to do? What I have to do? And I find God doesn't. He doesn't tell us, but sometimes he speaks in parables, even to these near death experiencers, which. Who does that remind you of? Right?

And he says to Santosh, what I want is relationship.

I want to see how honest you'll be with me. Not one day a week. Because Santosh was thinking, what church? What synagogue?

Glenn
What church?

John Burke
Do I go to what religious thing do I do once a week to appease you? And he said that's not what I want.

He said, I want honesty. I want to see how honest you'll be with me not one day a week, but 365 days, 24/7 walk with me. That's what he said.

And Santosh didn't know what he said.

Glenn
John, it has been a truly fascinating hour.

I wish I had another hour with you, but I'd love to invite you back again because cause I just think this was an hour of joy and of truth, and I so appreciate it. The name of the book is imagine the God of heaven. The author is John Burke. God bless you John.

John Burke
Thanks Glenn.

Glenn
Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast cast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.