What Happens When We Die? - Interview w/ Pastor John Burke

so John you've recently released a book it climbed to number one of all of Amazon's books it's crazy it's number nine now on the New York Times bestseller correct yeah and what's the premise behind it well it's called imagine heaven near-death experiences God's promises and the exhilarating future that awaits you I've studied about a thousand near-death experiences where you know people die but they're resuscitated and they claim that they saw into the afterlife that their consciousness continued on and so I take a hundred and twenty of those experiences to show the commonalities between them and then I also show how they actually line up with the picture of heaven that the scriptures show us you know what the Bible's always said it's really interesting I guess the biggest question that we have when we die is what happens when we die what's the afterlife like well and I and I show the twelve commonalities that that people you know in these experiences have like we're still ourselves like I talked about how actually you're more yourself than you ever were like you come alive not just with five senses but they describe it like having 50 senses like you you you feel you see you taste you smell but even beyond that we know each other so they recognize loved ones who have already died you still have your memory from Earth but communication is pure it's not it's not just verbal like this it's like full thought heart-to-heart they talk about beauty not unlike that of Earth mountains and trees and forests and beautiful flowers but experienced in other dimensions of time and space a lot of them talk about the vibrant colors like colors way beyond our color spectrum and they're talking about something that really is beyond our three dimensions of space and our you know time is linear here right but time there seems to be different it's for every moment of time we have here there's infinite amount of time there and they talk about how it's like that what they experience almost all of them said this earth feels like the shadow that feels like the real thing and so it's really hard for many of them to come back actually I think the misconception and I grew up with this and III would say many in the scene that we work in is Hell's were the parties at you know oh in heaven is where you're on a cloud and you get to strum chords and sing songs all day and it sounds boring exactly to most of us exactly your research shows different yeah in fact what and and that's what I'm trying to show and imagine heaven that know everything you love about this life you know this is just a tiny taste and by the way everything we hate about this life it's just a tiny taste so we really are experiencing a shrunk down version of heaven and hell and as it's our time of choosing and you know that's another thing that that people commonly experiences many many experienced this man of brilliant light this beam of light has brighter than the Sun but they say not difficult to look at instead just radiating unconditional love and acceptance and in his presence they are known as a personal they know he's God he's a personal being he knows each person and every thought every mode of everything they've ever done those who know Jesus say is Jesus but not everybody identifies them that way but what they say consistently is that they never want to leave his presence because they've never been so loved they've never been so known they've never felt so at home and many times they'll they'll experience a life review so in his presence he will they will relive their lives and again time time works in funky ways so they they'll say it was like in an instant but at the same time they react speery ins every moment three-dimensionally not just what they did or said but they experience from another person's perspective how all their actions affected the relationally the people around them so they see the rip effect of these kind you know acts of kindness that seem you know stupid to us and yet they see how it had an impact and how it made that person feel but also had a ripple effect from person to person and and God is showing them that the things that often we think matter in this life are not what he's looking at that that love and and those little acts of kindness actually have a ripple effect and that's what he cares most about and people consistently come back realizing that you know love is really what this is all about you mentioned that they know it's God but what about people from other cultures like you know India or the Middle East or people that are atheist or agnostic and you know what what is the research that because you studied all accounts not just Christian accounts yeah so what does the research show there well yeah so in imagine heaven I focused in on accounts of people who didn't seem to need like to write a book to make money so college professors and doctors and bank presidents and commercial airline pilots that you know making up stories like that would just hurt their credibility but I also took a look at children and how what they said was consistent with adults and with people from around the globe one fascinating study that I point out was done with 500 Americans and 500 Indians and comparing their near-death experiences to try to take out any religious or cultural bias in it which you see is that they're all trying to describe something that is otherworldly so it's kind of like imagine you know us trying to describe to a flat two-dimensional world of just black and white what it's like being in three dimensions in color it's like you have to use black and white words to try to describe color it's really difficult and even as I interviewed them they get frustrated at some point think oh gosh I can't I can't find the words so their interpretations may be different but what I start to show is that what they're describing is consistently the same the Indians don't see the vedic lo sai of the hindu heaven they they don't experience dissolution of of the self into the impersonal brahman you know the ultimate the ultimate form of God and in Indian culture consistently many of them see this brilliant man of light they see people with books of accounts and OSIS and haraldson who did this study even note you know it doesn't it doesn't match the typical things of the Hindu heaven except maybe karma in the sense of these books of accounts that that show our good or bad deeds that you know basically we give an account for our lives but what they miss is that that is actually biblical if you read the book of Revelation there is the book of life and there are these these books and and and for whatever reason I don't know why God seems to want to show us that every bit of our lives matter to him and you know that freaks people out people fear that yeah but and I and I talk about that how what the Bible talks about is there two judgments and this is neither of them this life review in fact what people consistently experience is unconditional love and and such compassion from God and that he really gets them he understands and and I talk about how there there are two judgments talked about and they don't happen till the end of history so this is neither of them the first one is is simply whether we've accepted God's free gift of eternal life with him that's what he wants he wants he wants us to not fear judgment or condemnation at all the second one is a reward ceremony it's called judgment because it's it's taken from the word the judges stand like from the Greek Olympics but it really is where people would go to get their gold or silver medals or you know crowns in their day and so it's really God wants to reward us and this is so encouraging because you know you think sometimes some of us have been too hell right I mean we been through stuff that God never intended it's horrible and when we take even that stuff that was horrible and we turned to him and we seek to follow him to make something good out of it and and love rather than seek revenge or try to bless rather than curse those things he sees and those are the things that matter and get rewarded eternally now what about the science behind it like people would say they weren't really dead or this is all just made up how do we know that any of these accounts are even worth you know their ways of gold yeah so I write a whole chapter on all these cardiologists and oncologists and doctors who didn't believe in life after death and yet what they started to hear from their patients who were resuscitated convinced them a guy is brought in he had a heart massive heart attack he was brought in unconscious into the hospital they removed his dentures so that he wouldn't choke and they did CPR you know shock paddles all that he stays in a coma they move him out of that room into another room and a week later he revives and no one can find his dentures and he is able to tell them exactly who is in the room and the nurse that put his dentures in the bottom drawer of the crash cart and they find his dentures a woman in in the hospital she dies and this one lady when she's resuscitated claimed that she moved out of that room of the hospital and up several floors in the hospital and saw a shoe on a Ledge outside of a window and so this this nurse who heard her tell that went and searched all over on and finds this shoe out on a ledge where no idea even how it got out there how you would get it there you couldn't just put it there and she had never been there she's never been there now I know not everybody's had a great experience and we're gonna we're gonna cut to a clip where you interview Howard storm who was an atheist professor who kind of had some scary instances yeah and this is an important thing I write about is that you know many people initially you know they feel great they feel more alive than ever they they meet people that seem nice you know or maybe in people they recognize but Howard storm his account is important because it begins like that but it doesn't end like that I just felt the worst that ever felt in my entire life yeah I mean I couldn't breathe and now I'm like Superman and my eyesight my hearing my case myself so you still don't know you're dead no and you feel I would forget why if you feel I feel more alive than I've ever felt in my entire life I heard people calling me in English kind of nicely you know Howard Howard come here come here now as I asked them questions like where are we going how much further things like that they started to become more rude and say things to me like shut up so I'm like trying to fend them off by punching and slamming them and they're poignant tugging at me and at first it was pushing kicking pulling hitting and then that became biting and tearing with their fingernails and hands the emotional pain of what they had done to me was worse than the physical pain the physical pain was pain from head to foot just solid horrible acute pain on a scale of 1 to 10 10 total didn't begin to match what I felt on the inside was you know having been taken down to nothing I mean the worst things that you could possibly imagine had happened to me and about 23 percent of people who have had near-death experiences have had what's what are called hellish near-death experience so I write a chapter on that to help us understand well what does that mean and how can we know that's not gonna be our destination cuz it's not a keg party what about those of us that have just struggled and faced those hellish circumstances here on earth we want to give up because heaven sounds so great and we don't feel like we have any purpose here on this earth like if it's as great as you you make it out to be them wants to stop us well yeah and suicide I'll tell you is never the solution and I talked about some people who who had near-death experiences in a suicide attempt and all of them come back saying that was not a good idea the thing to realize is that God has us here for a purpose and and this life though it seems long it's short part of it is that even when we go through horrible things it doesn't mean those were God's will we have free will and that's what people realize is we really do have choices we have choices that that affect us and that affect others and people have made choices that have hurt us but we can make choices to even take those things that have hurt us and reach out to others who are being hurt and comfort them and care about them and that in doing that we actually make something good out of this horrible thing God knows our hearts and our motives and our thoughts and many times that's what matters most to him it's simpler than we make it like Jesus said you know he doesn't want us to worry about all these things that we get all bent out of shape about he wants us to know that God loves us more than we can possibly imagine because he created us for himself it's like we feel about our kids it's like they don't have to earn our love they're our kids that's what he wants us to understand and then we can follow him to love others as much as he loves us that's a process but he does have a purpose for every single person here the book is imagine heaven thank you John Burke thanks Beth

Channel: Backstage by HeartSupport

Views: 30,134

Rating: 4.9244184 out of 5

Keywords: jesus, heartsupport, music, help, god, near death experiences, stories, john burke, anxiety, heart support, suicide, imagine heaven, testimony, depression, counseling, jake luhrs, songs, to write love on her arms, band, gateway church, august burns red, heaven, howard storm, self harm, interview, motivation

Id: zLsqyvLAN8I

Length: 15min 47sec (947 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2016