Then he sees this narrow gate open into the
kingdom of heaven and he says, when I come back, I want to go through that narrow gate. How do
I go through that narrow gate? Which temple, which mosque, you know which religion should I
do the religious thing? And the Lord said, No, I want relationship and Santosh comes back and he
is seeking this God. He's like, this was not like the Hindu gods. Who was this God of compassion
and mercy? I expected Him to cast me into hell and He gave me a second chance. Who was He and
he's praying every day, Lord reveal. Well, two years later, his daughter is invited by a friend
to sing in a choir at church. Santosh goes to hear her and as he walks in, he feels the presence of
the same God of light and love. The message that day was on the narrow way. Wow. And how Jesus
is the gate through which you must enter the kingdom of God. Welcome everyone to this channel
as well as to this video. I believe that today's video is not only going to expose you to some very
interesting things but also, those of you who are maybe just curious, it's going to give you some
guidance toward a phenomena that's happening in our culture you probably have heard about this,
about near-death experiences, about heaven, about the future that's waiting all of us. Just about a
year ago, I watched After Death documentary which was based on real near-death experiences and it
explored the whole idea of afterlife and there was a lot of New York bestselling authors, medical
experts, scientists and survivors who actually shed light on what awaits us and one of them that
was not only in that documentary but is actually a New York best-selling author pastor John Burke.
He's a founder and a former lead pastor of Gateway church and not only that but he's a president of
Gateway Leadership Initiative and he wrote a lot of books. One of them is 'Imagine Heaven' and he
just recently released another book, Imagine God and about the God of Heaven who wants to welcome
everyone to heaven and so we're going to learn today about near-death experiences. We're going to
learn about afterlife but first and foremost John, I want to welcome you to my channel and
introduce you to our audience. Hey Vlad, thanks for having me on. John, your life started
as a skeptic of religion. You were engineer by training and actually, you were watching your
father die out of cancer and you read a book by Dr Raymond Moody who actually coined this term
near-death experiences. How did that cause you to start searching more about religion, life and
how did you become a Christian after that? Yeah, I was pretty much agnostic. I thought Jesus was a
legend. I see this book on my dad's dresser and I picked it up and started scanning through it and
I couldn't put it down. I read the whole thing in one night and it was the first book chronicling
these situations where people clinically die you know they have no heartbeat, no brain waves in
some cases, for minutes to even hours and yet when they revive, when they come back, they talk
about a life more real than this one, in a place more beautiful than we can imagine and in the
presence of a God of light and love, who some said was Jesus. They saw Jesus and I'm reading all this
and I'm thinking, oh my gosh like, this is a lot of people you know he chronicled probably about
70, 80 people and I was like, this could be actual evidence. I was always looking for evidence you
know as an engineer, I wanted to know well how do you know and so that didn't convince me, it just
opened my mind and you know not coincidentally, that year, a friend invited me into a small
group Bible study and because of that, I decided to go and just ask all my questions
started and that's how I came to faith in Christ and then, where did the journey into studying this
phenomena of near-death experiences begin? Yeah, it started when I was working as an engineer and
I kept running into them. I lived in Santa Barbara California which turned out to be kind of the
hub of research in the late 80s, early 90s. So I kept running into these experiences or hearing
about them and I just my geeky engineering mind, I started chronicling them. I started trying
to sort it out because I was always curious, How do these near-death experiences fit with what
I'm reading in scripture? What I've come to know about the God of the Bible and so I actually did
my first talk on this in 1989 at the University of California, Santa Barbara. So I've been at
it for 35 years and I've studied well over a thousand of these near-death experiences and then
you became a pastor in Texas. Along the way, yeah, along the way, I left engineering and I went into
ministry and about 26 years ago, my wife and I founded Gateway Church here in Austin actually
for skeptics like me. Oh wow and turns out, there are a lot of us and we've seen a lot of
people come to faith. So we want to explore some of the things that you've learned in your journey,
in your study and investigating this phenomena and you being a pastor, I remember actually watching
the After Death documentary and seeing that and I was like oh wait, he's a pastor but he's
speaking like he's a scientist you know and the way you drew in the skeptics and you brought
them in and that was just really incredible, it was really moving and it was just a powerful
powerful documentary, so is the book that you wrote. And if we can start with these near-death
experiences, so there are out of body experiences. You're mentioning that in your book that about
75.4% of people who have these experiences, have out of body experiences. What exactly is an
out of body experience? Well, when they first die, they say that they leave their body but they
still have a body. It's a spiritual body and this is just what Paul talked about and in fact, I
think Paul might have had a near-death experience. You remember in Acts 14, he was stoned to death
in Lystra dragged out of the city and left for dead and the believers prayed for him and he gets
back up, goes back into the city which I wouldn't do if they just stoned you and then he says in 2
Corinthians 12, fourteen years ago - whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don't know, only
God knows but I was taken up into heaven and heard and saw things inexpressible. So I wonder if those
two connect and that's what happened but Paul then goes on in 1 Corinthians 15, he talks about, we're
buried a natural body but we're raised a spiritual body. We're buried in weakness but we're raised
in dunamis, in power and so these people say, they leave their body but they still are
themselves. In fact, more themselves and they have a spiritual body not just with five senses
but many senses. You know it's kind of what Paul said with powers beyond what we experienced in
this body and actually Vlad, that out of body experience is what first started to convinced me,
this wasn't just hallucination or you know just a trick of the brain because while out of their body
many times they say, they were up above watching their resuscitation or watching the scene of the
accident and even while they had no brain waves, when they came back, they could describe things
that could be checked out that they should not have been able to see or know and there have
actually been studies that I report in 'Imagine the God of Heaven' I report on studies done
showing that these verifiable observations that NDE-ers make are 92% are completely accurate, 92%
of their observations, another 6% mostly accurate, only 2% in this one study were inaccurate. But
doesn't the medical science tell us that our consciousness is the product of our physical
brains. Well, that is what medical science believes but medical science is being challenged
and there are many medical doctors now who've actually studied this who have written papers in
the Journal of the American Medical Association in the Lancet in Europe challenging the materialistic
view of the soul or that there is no soul that our our consciousness is only produced by our brain
because this really really challenges it. One of the things that you highlight in your books and
even hearing different people who had near-death experiences is the heightened senses. It's
the sight, the smell and the sound are the key characteristics of these near-death experiences.
It's almost like people feel they're describing it that when they are in their body, that they are
limited. When they come out of that, it's almost like everything is just so much like greater. It's
more real. It's almost like this world is not as real. It's that world that's real. Can you give
some examples of heavenly or hellish experiences that people had concerning their senses. Yeah and
interestingly that's exactly what they tell me. They say things like this is the shadow, that's
the real thing. Wow. One guy, Dean Braxton said, after his experience of heaven and being in the
presence of Jesus, he had to come back into his body and he said, it was like going into the sewer
he said, and I had a good life here but it was the comparison is just... we don't realize. So yeah,
they talk about how in this place so many times after they leave their body then they travel.
Sometimes, there are angels there to accompany them. Sometimes, there's this welcoming committee
of people who have passed on before them. Jesus actually talked about this in... I think it's John
13 when He said, Use your worldly resources to make friends so that when it's gone, they'll
welcome you into eternal dwellings and they consistently talk about this welcoming committee
and then they travel and sometimes they say, it's through a tunnel. Sometimes, it's just
out through space but come to this place of exquisite beauty and back to the senses. So their
eyesight is like telescopic. They can see miles, thousands of miles and yet zoom up on something
as well and now, I'll say this you know when I was first studying all this you know as a young
Christian and I'm hearing these things and I'm thinking, okay, this is weird. This is not in the
Bible. This is not right but it actually is and it just takes a lot of digging. So one of the things
the Lord showed me for instance is this idea of this telescopic eye sight. John in the book of
Revelation is taken in the spirit to heaven and he says, he was taken up to a very high mountain
which by the way, I have commercial airline pilots describing coming into the holy city and seeing
those mountains and they're higher than Everest by a long shot. So he's up on a very high mountain
looking down on the holy city and he reads the names on the foundation stones and over the
gates. Wow. How? Right. That's interesting and so you start to see that that God has revealed these
things. The communication of heaven is thought to thought, heart to heart, feeling to feeling. you
can speak and use your mouth. In fact, one NDE-er said, the only time he saw people actually using
words was when they were worshiping God before the throne, they were singing but usually it's this
pure communication - thought to thought, heart to heart. Well, that was another one that kind
of tripped me up for a while until I started to realize you know what that is actually more direct
communication than having to use words, sounds and ears and that is actually how God's Holy Spirit
speaks to us today. Wow, directly to the soul, directly to the mind. Now, we have to have ears to
hear as Jesus said. We have to learn to hear His promptings but so these things of heaven that they
experience, they're all there in the scriptures and that's what I'm trying to show and help people
see that the life to come is really the life to live for and the God of the life to come is the
God to walk with now. Wow, that is incredible. When you're sharing this, I'm remembering my wife
is pregnant right now. So it's our first child and congratulations, thank you and so I just saw the
picture she just sent me the pictures from the scan that they did in the hospital and you can
see the face of the baby and in about 3 weeks, he's going to come into this world. I'm thinking
you know there are three worlds that we live in. One is in the womb for about 9 months. One is
in this earth, 90, 80, 70 years and then there's that world. The one, the mysterious one, the one
that we know so little about even though we see glimpses of that and the scripture reveals to us
to live for this world like you're mentioning and people get these glimpses and I'm thinking like
my boy, he's going to come into this world. There is no words, there is no reference, I can use to
describe to him the world he's about to walk in to you know and when he's going to exit that world
that he is comfortable in, being fed and taken care of, it's going to be a lot of crying you know
a lot of pain but he's not going to die, he's just going to transition you know and the same thing
happens when we leave this world. A lot of crying, a lot of pain but it's also joy because we're
actually going into another world and when people come from that world and what you're sharing right
now as I'm listening to this, I'm like that's so strange. That's so crazy but I'm thinking if
I would try to explain to my son right now, the world I'm in, that there's computers, there's
lights, there's there's all of this. It will not make sense to him. I couldn't even use... there's
no words to explain that and so the world we're going into is going to be so incredible. Well
and one of the reasons I feel called to speak into this biblically is because millions of people
around the globe have had a near-death experience. 2019 study of the European Academy of Neurology
did a study of 35 countries found 5% of the population has had a near-death experience. Wow,
so this and I believe that this is God's testimony in for such a time as this. I mean, we couldn't be
doing this and I couldn't have interviewed people in 70 you know in every continent. 70 people from
all around the world who I put in this new book, 'Imagine the God of Heaven' who experienced the
same God and I'm showing, this is the God of the Bible. This is the God of history. This is the
God who's been revealing Himself all along and did what He did through Jesus for every person in
every nation and I believe He's giving testimony to that. I think this is a new apologetic for
our globally connected world to see that yes, God is real. What He's done in history is real and
He wants everyone to be with Him because this life is really chapter one of the real story. We've got
a lot of life left and when we think of heaven is disconnected from this life, we're really missing
it. This life is just the muted beginning of just a taste of the goodness of what's to come and a
taste of hell. We just get a taste of what life apart from God is like and it's a time of choosing
but it's just chapter one and what happens in this life is a continuation into the next life. Can
you speak a little bit into the fact that there are positive and negative near-death experiences.
You quote in your book, the handbook of near-death experiences which reports that 23% of all
the near-death experiences are disturbing, terrifying and despairing. I mean they're
describing hell and a lot of people don't want to talk about that because you know they feel
ashamed and they're scared and what does this mean for a Christian? How does that confirm the Bible?
Yeah and one of the reasons, it took me so long to write is that at first in the 80s and the 90s,
no one was coming forward talking about hellish experiences because like you said, who wants to
say, Hey I went to hell you know and the other thing is that is more real than this as well. So
you know I've interviewed atheistic professors who now are pastors. In fact three pastor friends I
know had hellish near-death experiences and came back and gave their life to Christ. Wow. But these
are real and as I've interviewed them, they've said things to me like, I can't go any farther. I
still get PTSD from it. So it's real and I think what it tells us is that everything that Jesus
said is true and now, the other side of it is that you know in this new book, 'Imagine the God
of Heaven' I have near-death experiencers talking about how God allowed them to feel His heartbreak,
His sadness over the children He created and love and loves who would choose to reject Him and that
free will demands that He give us what we demand, what we want and you know that's what I talk
about as well is that we have to understand that the Bible is really this great love story of
God for all nations starting in Genesis 12 where He raises up Abraham and Sarah and says, I'm going
to bless all the nations and then in Revelation 7, where all, every nation and tribe and tongue and
language is gathered around the throne worshiping God and there's a great wedding. So it's this
great love story of God and because of that, love is really what it's all about. Near-death
experiencers in God's presence have a life review and they come back with two very clear things.
It doesn't matter where on earth they are. God is love and how we love or treat one another is what
matters most to God. Well, that's what Moses said. That's what Jesus said, right. But also you can't
love without free will and so God gives us free will and in that, He actually limits Himself. He
allows us to truly choose either to love Him and follow Him or to reject Him but to reject the
God who is light and love and life, what is it when you go to a place where God stays out? Well,
that's hell and it's outer darkness and it's the creature. My will be done. It's dominate or be
dominated and it's like the worst prison scene. Have you noticed that people who have the hellish
experiences are consistently the ones that have not accepted Christ or they're those who like you
mentioned God allows them to experience hellish things so they could feel His heartbreak and have
you noticed because I've heard some testimonies of people who had near-death experiences who
were not believers but they saw the light, they went through the tunnel, they experienced
God's love and is that a confirmation that if they're not in a relationship with God through
Jesus Christ that they will go to heaven because they had a near-death experience of seeing the
light. How do you kind of see those things? Yeah, I think that's a really important question
because I don't think near-death experiences are an indication of a person's eternity and
here's why. So in a near-death experience, they commonly say that there was a border or
a boundary that knew they couldn't cross over and still come back to earth. Wow and in the new
book, I even have Jesus telling several people, you have to go back. You haven't died yet but
according to our definition of clinical death, they definitely had died. So whatever this is,
this is not and what I tend to think of you know in Hebrews 9:27 I think it says, it's appointed
for mankind to die once and then comes judgment. This is not that. So once you cross over, whatever
that border or boundary is, I believe then you are in either eternal life or eternal death. So you're
no longer connected to time and temporality like we are here and I think because of that, your
decisions are also then eternal or eternalized, whatever that means. I mean we live in time so
it's almost impossible to know what that means but I think that's also why someone can have a
near-death experience and they can see God and they can experience God's love and what else would
you expect, God is love. He can't not love and He can't not love the creatures He created for His
love but that doesn't mean they're right with Him. Case in point, Acts chapter 9, right. Saul, soon
to be the apostle Paul doesn't believe in Jesus. He thinks it's blasphemous to believe in Jesus.
He's going and arresting Christians to have them jailed and even killed. When the same brilliant
God of light appears to him, sound familiar and he says, who are you? And He says, I'm Jesus who
you're persecuting and I like to point out Jesus did not explain the gospel to him. He didn't tell
him what to do and God does not do that with these NDE-ers either and that confuses us. We're like
well, if it's really Him, why didn't He just say, Hey here's the deal as if He couldn't do that
if He wanted to. That's not His way. His way is to use people, life on life and so Jesus sends
Ananias to Saul and Saul still has a free will. He has to choose. Will I leave Pharisee-ism? He had
a lot going for him. Yeah and become a follower of Jesus, he was going to suffer a lot and so
when NDE-ers come back, they still have a choice to make too and some seek and find this God that
they encountered and many. I mean in the new book, I have Hindus and Muslims and Buddhists and Jews
who encountered this God of light and love and some knew who He was. They knew He was Jesus
because He looked like Jesus. In other cases, not and they came back seeking and they discovered
this is the God of the Bible. This is the God who revealed Himself through Jesus but just because
they see Him you know Revelation 1:7 says, Every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him
so just because you see Him does not mean you're right with Him but what it does mean is that He is
real. He really does love every person. We really are going to give an account for our lives because
this life review, it's just a little snippet of learning. It's fascinating what happens you know
but we see our lives, that's another commonality you know just like says in 2 Peter 3:8 to the
Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. Well NDE-ers say,
time was different there or some of them say, there was no time or some say well, there was
time but there was all the time you needed and so it's a different experience of time. Have you
noticed those people who had hellish experience... Have you met them that were believers? So, yes.
Not usually but there have been believers. There is one in 'Imagine the God of Heaven' and she
first had an experience with God, incredible in His light and love and the acceptance and He
talked to her about the ripple effect of her life, of every thought word and deed and the gifts that
He had given her but then He gives her a vision of hell and He lets her see the agony of people,
all the judgmental thoughts and all these twisted thoughts against one another and that trap us
in ourselves and just this hopelessness and I asked her about that and she said, I think God
knew that because He told me, I want you to go back and tell people everything you've seen
and that's a commonality too like Santosh, this Hindu manufacturing engineer that I report
on, also saw this... what he describes as outer darkness with a pit of fire. That's how, he's
a Hindu and that's how he describes it and then he describes this huge compound. He called
it a compound but he said, it was like this complex square in shape with high gorgeous walls
and inside just beautiful landscape and these mansions, these otherworldly buildings, building
materials and 12 gates. He said my eye sight, I could see for thousands of miles and I
counted them. There were 12. Wow. Yeah, he's describing Revelation 21, what John described
and then he sees who he now thinks is Jesus on His throne and and he too gets a life review and
then the Lord sends him back and he starts to seek and ends up reading the Bible and said
everything I experienced was in the Bible. Wow, and came to faith in Christ so yeah, these people
who experienced both heaven and hell. God said to him, when you go back, I want you to tell the
truth and Santosh knew what He meant. He meant, yeah don't lie but what He meant more was, I
want you to tell what you saw here in hell, what you see here the New Jerusalem and Me and I
want you to tell them the truth. Now you mentioned this in your book as well as pretty much one-third
of people with near-death experiences are passing through the tunnel. Is this concept of
passing through the tunnel found in the Bible? You know I have not found that. I
mean nothing really clear. I think John, when he said he was taken up into heaven, he
was like passing through something, he didn't describe it that way. I think he described it
like a door or a door into but not everyone passes through a tunnel and by the way you know
this really stretched me in my understanding but the other thing that I started to is you know
Deuteronomy 29:29 says, The secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed
belong to us so that we may follow His word, right and so you know hearing about these people
traveling like at the speed of light, that's what they talk about. Sometimes, it's through a tunnel
but sometimes, it's not. Like in this one case, this Jewish girl who... she had grew up hearing
that from her atheist father who was abusive, your life is worthless. There is no God. Jesus
Christ is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind but despite that she always believed in
God and prayed to God every night and felt like God was even there by her bedside, comforting
her and putting her to sleep at night. At 16, her horse rears back, falls on her and
crushes her. She's 30 feet up above her body, watching her sister's freak out. She knows
she's dead. She's not worried about that, she feels great and she sees a light over her
shoulder and there floating with her is Jesus and she said, I wasn't surprised like what's a nice
Jewish girl like me doing with Jesus. She said, I knew this man. I knew this was the God I had
prayed to my whole life. I knew Him and He knew me and He smiled at me, she said and I smiled at
Him. It was like this great reunion and then He gives her a life review and He shows her when she
was praying as a little girl, He shows her Himself sitting by the bed. Wow. So then Jesus, now you
got to remember this is a 16-year-old girl and God gets us. He knows what gets us and she loved to
ride fast on horseback. He gets this grin, grabs her hand and they take off and now this is not...
I've had multiple people tell me instead of going through the tunnel, it was more like this. So she
is flying with Jesus, past and she can see you know our world and then going out of our world and
it's really like going through the galaxies but in another dimension. So all of this is maintained
within something bigger and you know I like to say, it's kind of like if we were living our three
dimensional experience on a flat black and white two-dimensional painting in your living room. You
die and you're peeled off that flat world into a three dimensional world. Now you're experiencing
three dimensions of color in this world that was all around you and you can see your flat world but
they can't. They don't have any idea where you are because they don't have a third dimension. Wow and
that I believe is what near-death experiencers are trying to convey. I think that's why it's so hard
for them to put it into words. You mentioned also and that about 64.6 of people who have near-death
experience involve encountering some kind of a light, brilliant mystical light that has love and
the Bible states that God is light. How does that relate to us as Christians and how does that
confirm what we know about God? Yeah and in and in the new book so there is this mystical light
but then there is clearly the light of God and there's both, okay. So a fascinating little side
note and then we can come back to the God of light but when blind people have near-death experiences,
they can see. Wow, another one of the evidential points in chapter 2, I put 10 points of evidence
that convince me. So the observations were one but blind people seeing and they what they say, they
saw in heaven was this light that is not like the light of the sun because the light is also life
and love, coming out of the birds and the trees and the flowers and the grass and even the people.
Okay, now again I was thinking okay, that's kind of new age. That's kind of strange. What is that?
But in Isaiah 60 and in Revelation 21 it says, There's no sun or moon in heaven because the glory
of God is its light and the nations will walk in that light and this is what blind near-death
experiencers report as well. So this light, also the light coming out of people, Daniel
chapter 12. That's what the angel told Daniel that the righteous will rise and they will shine
like the stars and then Jesus in Matthew 13, Then the righteous will shine like the stars in their
Father's kingdom and so this light is the glory of God which is also the life that gives life to
everything. He's the light that gives life to everything. He's the light of the world, right. In
Him, there is no darkness and you know you think about it, I mean the transfiguration when Jesus
takes Peter, James and John up on the mountain, He's transfigured and they said His face became
brighter than the sun. Well, I mean that's exactly what near-death experiencers see and encounter.
They also encounter other beings about 57% of people report encountering other beings either
angelic beings or people that they knew before. Sometimes they meet them at the gates of...
I think it was pastor Don Piper has mentioned that he saw some of his relatives who passed on to
glory, they were about to meet him but he didn't go inside of heaven, they just met him pretty
much at the entrance and then he had to come back. You alluded to this how we should use our
resources, Jesus said use our resources so that people can welcome into heaven. Can you speak a
little bit more into that? Yeah, I mean heaven is a place of relationship you know relationship is
what it's all about and so when we fear that God is somehow going to take away or take apart our
relationships or some Christians even think well, yeah we're going to all be in love with God but
you know we won't love each other. We won't really be ourselves or we won't recognize it. No, none
of that's true. Those ideas are to keep you from wanting to live for what's to come and by the way
you know that's what the Bible tells us, that's why I wrote Imagine Heaven. It says you know set
your mind Colossians 3, set your mind on things above not things of the earth because your life
is hidden in the heavenlies with Christ, who you really are and what you were really created for is
going to be revealed one day and you know when we are there though, we're fully ourselves. We have
our histories. We laugh together. We recall, we remember and that's what these people experience.
It's this great reunion and the things that we do in this life, we will do there. Jesus said this,
His last night on earth. He said to His friends, I won't drink this cup of wine again until I drink
it with you in My Father's kingdom. What? Yeah, He said it you know. He said, I'm going to prepare
a place for you that you might come and be with Me and so Jesus didn't go into death, He went into
life. He said, I'm not the God of the dead. I'm the God of the living and so when we are together,
yeah, there are hugs, there are kisses but the hugs are deeper they say than anything experienced
on this earth and you know this is a really important thing I think to realize or to think
about, with communication that is pure, you not only know a person's thoughts but their feelings
and everything associated with it, from their past and so you have perfect understanding and with it
comes perfect empathy and I think, we can learn a lot in all of the miscommunications of earth to
realize that a lot of our miscommunication is because we are all wounded and we're struggling
to help someone understand with our limited words and so it's why God said you know listen more than
you speak because we need that help. We need time. Come on. You know when I was younger I used to
think heaven is just going to be us participating in a non-ending eternal worship service. I didn't
want to go there. I was like I don't know. I mean I love church but I'm like I'm not sure I want
to have church nonstop and then there's no night meaning, we're going to have a church through
the night and I was like I mean, I don't know about this. So of course, as a pastor and that
sounds horrible to me. I know you know I mean definitely being in God's presence but I'm like
you know, Hey hell is worse. So I'm just going to go to heaven. I just want to go to heaven but then
you know hearing that heaven is not just a worship experience, we will always live in worship to God
but you know we're not the four living creatures, creatures that day and night will sing holy and
holy but we will live, we will create with God. We will you know be part of you know the Bible says
that He will put us in charge of things. There's going to be responsibilities. It's not just going
to be floating and playing harp for eternity and so heaven is not and then some people hear these
you know lyrics that hell is going to have a party and they're like you know I'm just going to go
to hell instead of going to heaven and you know hearing these stories you're sharing right now,
heaven is going to be a really fun place. Well you know my favorite part of this new book 'Imagine
the God of Heaven' is the last section because it's about doing life with the God of joy and
as these near-death experiencers talk about the joy of heaven and the experience of life. I mean
they talk about seeing children there that are... they're playing with animals and with angels
and you know they're being children. They're being like children and they were the ones that
died prematurely but they are growing as spirits, they're growing still. So life goes on and just
like you said and Jesus said, you know there are going to be things that are real. We are going to
have real responsibilities, the gifts we've been given, the loves we have. You know I like to say
to people, have you ever thought man, you know, I just might not be able to do that in this life
or you regret that you weren't able to be this wonderful artist or you had all these songs in you
that you could never get out. Well, this is just chapter one of the rest of the story of life and
you're going to have life to do all those things and experience all those things and I've had some
people say to me, yeah but you know what, anything forever sounds bad and I get that but here's what
you're missing. We live in one dimensional time and in our one-dimensional time you know we do,
we only go from moment to moment but time on the other side doesn't even work that way. So what
I like to say is imagine instead a moment when you're in the zone, you know that term it's like
maybe you're creating something or you're doing some project or you're in a conversation and time
goes away or it feels almost like that and you're like oh man, I need more time. Well, that's more
like what heaven is going to be like. It's like you're forever lost in the wonder and awe and
experience and relationship and it's life. I'm curious about the life review you mentioned about
this Jewish girl at 16 who had... Jesus revealed to her about you know her life and where she was
praying and He was sitting next to her and you mention as well that about 22% of people who had
near-death experiences report a life review where their deeds, their whole life as it seems, it's
played back to them and perhaps evaluated. Do you think that all of us are going to have a similar
thing that these people are experiencing when we die, where Jesus talks about the judgment seat
of Christ that we're going to stand before and our whole life is going to be in front of us? I
do but I don't think this is it. I think the life review is God giving this person and honestly, I
think all of us. I think it's a testimony for all of us that Jesus words are true you know He said,
everything that is hidden will be revealed. There is no secret. You you can think that things are
hidden, they're not which when you know what God is like, when you know the grace and the love and
the compassion and the kindness of God, then you don't need to hide anything from Him because He's
already there and He's in it with you and He wants to guide you to even better things but but I do
think this is a semblance of what will happen. So I do think we will have a chance to and this
life review is fascinating Vlad because again, time doesn't work the same way. So literally it's
many times it's their whole life relived but kind of like from a panoramic three-dimensional.
They're watching themselves living again but they're feeling and remembering everything they
thought and felt in, say a conversation but they're also hearing, feeling and understanding
everything the other person is going through. Oh wow. So every act of kindness they experience, how
that affected the other person. Every mean thing they see how that affected the other person
and in some cases, God shows them the ripple effect through humanity 10, 20, 30 times out. For
instance this one woman, Penny in 'Imagine the God of Heaven' she talked about how you know God
showed her things that were important to Him that she had forgotten. She hadn't even thought about
them and they were the little things. They're the Matthew 25 things when when Jesus says, Then
the king will say to them, when you fed me, when you clothed me you know and they'll say,
When did we do this to You, Lord? And He said, when you did it to the least of these, You did
it to Me, right. Well, she was in line, she's watching herself in this grocery store in line
and this woman who was a single mom, couldn't pay and she was like trying to figure out what to put
back, what she could afford and Penny just said, Hey I got it. Don't worry about it. I got it for
you and she's like oh no, no, no. It's like oh, don't worry about it. It's okay and then she sees
that woman deciding to go and volunteer at a food pantry to help serve others who were struggling
because of that act of kindness motivated her to do that. In another instance, Howard Storm who
was one of the ones who went to hell. He was the atheist college professor who first had a
hellish experience, cried out for Jesus to save him and into this outer darkness comes this light
brighter than the sun. Arms reach out, take him out and he gets a life review in Jesus presence
and you know what Jesus showed him was fascinating because they're going along and he's realizing
that this is my Creator holding me and loving me and trying to give me understanding of my life and
as it's going along, he stops Jesus. He said, wait a second. You skipped the most important thing in
my life and you know it was this award. He got as a tenure art professor and this big banquet and
cash prize and honor, all thousands of people show up and Jesus said, no, that's not important.
What I want you to see is how you treated the students and what he said is what I was realizing
is that what really mattered was relationship and even with his father. His father was abusive and
he said you know what I saw in my life review is that where I thought, I was all the victim and
you know all these people did these bad things to me. I started to realize, no, it was a two-way
street because yes, my dad was a horrible person and very abusive but then I became mean and mad
and did everything I could to hurt and provoke him and we were both playing this game. Was there any
life reviews where they were given an opportunity to see what God felt when they were doing those
decisions or where God was in their life? Yes ,yes because because Howard said as he's watching
this, he said and at this point in my life view, I felt the literal pain that Jesus and the
angels were feeling watching my life played out, literal pain. He said it was not literally but
figuratively like I was stabbing Him in the chest, wow and he said and here's the most kind loving
caring Being who I realized is my Creator, my Friend, my Savior and the last thing I wanted
to do was hurt Him and I don't want to hurt him to this day and he's a pastor today because of it,
because of the love of God but what he also saw is a time. Jesus showed him a time when his sister
and I think she had lost a pet or something like that and she was crying in the night and Howard
gets up and he goes in and he's just there with her, comforting her and he felt, Jesus just joy.
He felt what Jesus was feeling and what he said is you know God is a very feeling Being and I think
this is a really really important point because I think Christian theology ended up rejecting a lot
of the Hebrew mindset of God and adopted the Greek mindset of this very stoic you know other being
who has no connection to us. That is not the God of the Bible. Go read Jeremiah chapter 3 you know
where God says you know how I longed to give you this good land and I wanted you to call Me Father
and never reject Me and yet like an adulterous wife commits adultery on her husband so you've
committed adultery on Me. That's what He feels like, right, wow and as you read the stories of
these people. What I'm trying to do in 'Imagine the God of Heaven' is show the theology of God and
the character of God shown through the scriptures but when you hear like Erica, who was one of
the ones who God after being in His presence showed her these people who had rejected Him and
she said, she felt before this, she'd only felt this overwhelming love from God and then suddenly
she feels this overwhelming sadness as if she lost all of her children at once in one accident,
just like the bottom dropping out and she's like, where is this feeling coming from? What is this?
And then she realized the sadness was coming from God and He said and then He showed her hell. He
showed her these people who had rejected Him and the misery they were in from rejecting Him and yet
they were in their own prisons like CS Lewis said, I think he was brilliantly right. The gates
of hell are locked from the inside, that hell is God giving the free will creature what they
demand when they say, stay out of my life but God is a very feeling God and I think you know
theologians say well, that's just anthropomorphic which is a which is a big word to say well, we're
just putting human characteristics on God. Okay, but we are created in His image. He's not created
in ours. So do we think God is less personal, less kind, less feeling than we are? We're
greater? No, no, we've missed it completely and you know Vlad what I'm so excited about this book
'Imagine the God of Heaven' is that we all put God in a box. We have to because we're finite but
God is far greater in sovereignty, in omniscience, omnipotence you know He's transcendent but He's
imminent. He's all these great things beyond our imagination but He's also far more relatable. He's
far more personal. He's more fun and enjoyable and even funny and that hits the walls of
many Christians boxes right. It's like no, God's not like that. Yeah He is and He's the one
who created us to enjoy everything we enjoy. Every good gift comes from Him. Now, can we can we use
them wrongly? Yes but what I'm trying to show is all these things the scriptures have told us, this
is what it actually means. So that people will actually give their hearts wholeheartedly to God
and follow Him, holding nothing back. Realizing, wow if I really want joy and the enjoyment of
life to the core and that to continue forever, He's really the love I'm after and John you
wrote, 'Imagine Heaven' and then recently you wrote 'Imagine the God of Heaven.' What is
the difference between those two books? Well, they are similar in that 'Imagine Heaven' what I'm
really doing is I'm taking the theology of heaven and hell of the afterlife across the scriptures
and I'm illustrating it through these 120 people that had all these commonalities and I'm showing
how this experience of the life to come is exactly what scriptures been telling us but these
overlapping descriptions show you what that's actually like okay but from all the wonders of
the beauty and the reunions and the mysteries and all the stuff they said to me writing, 'Imagine
Heaven', they consistently said nothing compared to just being with God. Nothing compared to God
Himself. All of the wonders of heaven just melted, wow and so when God called me to write again, it
was very clear that the only thing greater than heaven is Him, is the God of heaven and people
don't get that. Christians don't get that. People do not understand how He is what you're longing
for and so in 'Imagine the God of Heaven' what I'm doing is I'm showing the story of God through
history and through scripture but also all these attributes of God and the heart and character of
God and how He relates to us and you're seeing it through these 70 people that I've interviewed
from every continent on earth and so it's kind of mind blowing honestly like what is your most
surprising person that you've interviewed in the 'Imagine the God of Heaven' the one that comes to
your mind that is just like most crazy testimony, story. I think the one about Santosh, who
it's interesting because he became a good friend after I interviewed him and just loves
Jesus and he just passed away last week. Oh wow and he just went through that narrow door
into heaven and I'm just... I'm elated for him but I'm grieving with his family too but Santosh's
story was just so remarkable because he encounters the same God of light and love but then he also
describes like I said hell, the New Jerusalem, the really Jesus as He appeared to John in
Revelation. He knew about the Bible before? Nothing. So, no knowledge. He grew up in India.
His father was a Sanskrit scholar. He only knew the Hindu scriptures. Oh and so then he has
this conversation. So then he sees you know he doesn't want to go to hell, the gates before
him are closed. He's like and he says you know like I was never offered reincarnation, that was
never an option and then he looks and he sees who he knows is the Almighty but in the form of a man
but but huge on this throne and then he has this conversation. Well, first he looks into His eyes
and he says, His eyes were like lightning. Now, that's not always what people see when they look
into Jesus eyes. Many times they talk about how His eyes are mesmerizing and they just get lost in
His eyes but what Santosh was seeing was what John saw in Revelation 1 and as soon as he looked into
His eyes, his whole life flashed before him and he saw and this is the thing about the life review
you know we can justify our actions on this side of life. They can't there, it's just laid bare.
They know right and they know wrong and they know what they did right and wrong and he knew this is
what I deserved, this place of outer darkness and then he has this conversation with God who says
Santosh, I'm sending you back and when you go back, I want you to love your family especially
your daughter. She needs your help right now. Now think about that. So here's this guy, who he
doesn't know this God but this God knows him and his daughter intimately and cares and then he sees
this like I said this narrow gate open into the kingdom of heaven and he says, when I come back,
I want to go through that narrow gate. How do I go through that narrow gate? And the only thing He
says to him. He says and what Santos was saying is you know which temple? Which mosque? You know
which religion should I do the religious thing? And the Lord said, No, I want relationship. I want
to see how honest you can be with Me not one day, a week, 365 days a year. Walk with Me, surrender
to Me daily, wow and Santosh comes back and he is seeking this God. He's like this was not like
the Hindu gods. Who was this God of compassion and mercy? I expected Him to cast me into hell and
He gave me a second chance. Who was He? And he's praying every day, Lord reveal and you know the
Bible says, If you seek Me with all your heart, you'll find Me. Well, two years later, his
daughter who was a choral major in college is invited by a friend to sing in a choir at church.
Santosh goes to hear her and as he walks in, he feels the presence of the same God of light and
love. The message that day was on the narrow way, wow and how Jesus is the gate through which you
must enter the kingdom of God. Isn't it crazy? So that... man, I'm getting goosebumps here. I
know I mean that story, I'm just and he was such a humble, loving man you know and just loved Jesus
to his last day and wanted everyone to know and so... John could you speak to those people that
are watching maybe and maybe they're skeptical or perhaps, they're not walking with the Lord
today. could you give them that invitation, that gospel invitation to... they don't need to die and
experience that. A lot of people have experienced that they can already make that decision. Could
you lead them into that? Yeah you know what I would say to you is that God is a God of love,
mercy, kindness, compassion and He's a God of justice so He does make wrong things right but
the way He made them right is His justice met His mercy on the cross of Jesus and what Jesus claimed
to do was to pay for all of our wrongs, past, present and future and He did that because He
meant for you to be His child walking with Him in love and confidence. He doesn't want you to fear.
He wants you to know that He has removed all your wrongs as far as the East is from the West. Those
are His words and He did that so that all you need to do is turn back to Him in your heart you know
that's the Bible says, Repent that just means to turn back, that's what that word means and so
yeah, let me lead you in a prayer if you don't mind and just tell Him this. Lord Jesus, I want
what You did on the cross to count for me. I want You to come and lead and guide my life and thank
you that You do love me so much that You call me, Your child and that there's nothing You wouldn't
do for me and that I'm uniquely Yours and so God I want to follow You the rest of my days, thank
you, in Jesus Name, Amen. Amen and John if people want to get your books or learn more about this
topic, especially the new book 'Imagine the God of Heaven' and other books that you have 'Imagine
Heaven' where can they find more information about your ministry and about your books. Yeah, so
you can go to imaginethegodofheaven.com just the book name.com I'm the pastor of Gateway church. So
that's Gatewaychurch.com although I'm not speaking as much but there are messages that I've done in
the past out there on this topic. So you can you can search 'Imagine Heaven' or 'Imagine the God
of Heaven' and you can see some of the people I've interviewed as well. Thank you so much for
being very generous with your time and I believe that this interview as well as what you've been
writing about is going to cause a lot of people to turn upwards, to turn toward God, to turn
toward eternity. I'm even as you were talking, I'm already... it's almost like I was having my own
life review for the last week and I'm thinking I'm like man, how did Jesus feel about this incident?
How did He feel about that? I'm like, did that... because sometimes we're just we're just so not
aware of the fact that He is aware of everything that we do and those of you guys who watched this
and you prayed the prayer and you gave your life to the Lord today, let us know in the comments
below if you recommitted your life to Jesus and if you did or maybe this was your first time doing
that, you know we want to encourage you to grab a Bible, begin to get to know the God of heaven and
find a local church that preaches Jesus and join a community of other believers so you can know about
this God that created you and created a place for you. I love the fact that you know you had a
book on heaven and how you highlighted that the greatest thing about heaven is not heaven, it's
the God of heaven, so thank you. Thanks so much.
