What Happens When You Die

After personally interviewing and researching over 1,500 near-death experiences, John Burke compiled his learnings into the New York Times Best-Selling book Imagine Heaven. John aggressively brings clarity and understanding to one of life’s biggest questions: what happens when you die? What you learn may surprise you, and impact the way you live today.

  • 00:00:01
    - So what happens when you die?
  • 00:00:04
    Man, one of life's biggest questions,
  • 00:00:06
    and we are going to dive into it today.
  • 00:00:08
    But hey, before we get there, I want to introduce myself.
  • 00:00:10
    My name is Andy Reider.
  • 00:00:11
    I'm the community pastor for Crossroads Anywhere
  • 00:00:14
    and we are a community of people all over the world
  • 00:00:17
    running after God.
  • 00:00:18
    And if you're watching this,
  • 00:00:19
    I know at least two things about you.
  • 00:00:21
    One, you are alive.
  • 00:00:22
    So just great. Well done with that.
  • 00:00:24
    And secondly, you're at least interested in God.
  • 00:00:27
    So congrats on living. You're crushing it.
  • 00:00:29
    And second, you are in the right spot.
  • 00:00:32
    Crossroads is built for people
  • 00:00:34
    that have given up on church, but not on God.
  • 00:00:36
    We exist to help, well, people learn who God is
  • 00:00:39
    in a language that we can understand.
  • 00:00:41
    And we're really glad you're here today
  • 00:00:43
    and think that you're going to
  • 00:00:44
    get something amazing out of today.
  • 00:00:49
    - When Jesus rose from the dead,
  • 00:00:51
    He conquered death forever.
  • 00:00:54
    And now He is calling us to rise up
  • 00:00:57
    out of all the dead places in our own lives
  • 00:00:59
    to live fully alive.
  • 00:01:02
    Join us at Crossroads this Easter
  • 00:01:04
    for the most important event of the year.
  • 00:01:07
    A triumphant, joyful, hope-filled celebration
  • 00:01:11
    of Jesus's resurrection and the gift of new life.
  • 00:01:14
    Find service times and locations at Crossroads.net.
  • 00:01:20
    - Hi, my name is Brian Tome.
  • 00:01:21
    I'm what's called a senior pastor around here.
  • 00:01:23
    How is everybody today? [cheers]
  • 00:01:27
    Good. All right.
  • 00:01:28
    So here's the story of today.
  • 00:01:30
    I've got a good friend of mine.
  • 00:01:32
    His name is John Burke,
  • 00:01:33
    who's going to be with us in just a moment.
  • 00:01:35
    John and I met 25 years ago.
  • 00:01:38
    I was starting Crossroads along with some other friends
  • 00:01:40
    who were here in Cincinnati.
  • 00:01:41
    He was starting a church called Gateway in Austin, Texas.
  • 00:01:44
    We just ended up meshing together
  • 00:01:46
    and getting to know each other.
  • 00:01:47
    Over the years, it's been a really great relationship.
  • 00:01:49
    And then I fell out of touch with him
  • 00:01:51
    for, like, a couple of years or something like that.
  • 00:01:53
    And of course, during that time
  • 00:01:54
    he becomes a New York Times best selling author.
  • 00:01:58
    Maybe because we weren't talking.
  • 00:02:00
    That's why, that was the magic sauce or something like that.
  • 00:02:02
    And I had him on my podcast called
  • 00:02:05
    The Aggressive Life several months ago,
  • 00:02:07
    and it just took off.
  • 00:02:10
    John is the world's foremost, I believe,
  • 00:02:12
    the world's foremost authority
  • 00:02:14
    on near-death experiences, NDE.
  • 00:02:16
    He's personally interviewed about 2000 people.
  • 00:02:19
    He's done the deep dive research.
  • 00:02:21
    He wrote a book on it. Amazing.
  • 00:02:23
    I had him on the podcast to talk about it.
  • 00:02:25
    And we've had a lot of really impressive people
  • 00:02:28
    on the podcast.
  • 00:02:29
    We had Matthew McConaughey, an a lister on the podcast
  • 00:02:32
    who petitioned us, "Can I be on your podcast?"
  • 00:02:34
    Because we have some people who listen to it.
  • 00:02:36
    It's actually the number one religious broadcast in Israel.
  • 00:02:41
    I don't understand that.
  • 00:02:44
    And if you ever listen to it, it's not very religious either.
  • 00:02:47
    But that's how Apple or whoever has categorized it.
  • 00:02:49
    John came on. It was so amazing.
  • 00:02:51
    It just it blew away Matt McConaughey
  • 00:02:53
    and all all the other A-listers we have.
  • 00:02:55
    And because people started passing on,
  • 00:02:57
    because it's filled with hope.
  • 00:02:58
    This is what this is.
  • 00:03:00
    Easter is about hope.
  • 00:03:01
    That thing we just did with Holy Week,
  • 00:03:03
    all of us have things Crossroads that,
  • 00:03:06
    that we don't like. I do, too.
  • 00:03:09
    And one of them is, is we haven't really made
  • 00:03:12
    a big deal about Holy Week over the last few years.
  • 00:03:15
    It's a big deal.
  • 00:03:17
    So we're going to rectify that problem.
  • 00:03:19
    We're going to actually fix that actually this year.
  • 00:03:21
    I can't wait for it, because what Holy Week does
  • 00:03:24
    is it sets our mind out of the humdrum difficulty
  • 00:03:30
    that we deal with in our day to day basis.
  • 00:03:32
    That's why Holy Week is a big deal.
  • 00:03:34
    It sets our mind on eternity.
  • 00:03:36
    And that's why John's book, I think,
  • 00:03:38
    is a runaway bestseller and why people
  • 00:03:40
    just globbed on to it on the podcast,
  • 00:03:42
    because it it takes our perspective and, like,
  • 00:03:45
    clicks it to to a place full with hope
  • 00:03:49
    and full of meaning.
  • 00:03:51
    So that's my intro of my good friend.
  • 00:03:54
    Welcome up on stage right now, John Burke. [applause]
  • 00:04:01
    All right. Can you -- Can you not screw this up?
  • 00:04:04
    Can you? - I'll try. - Okay, good.
  • 00:04:07
    - So. Yeah, Yeah. Welcome.
  • 00:04:10
    It's great to be back.
  • 00:04:11
    I was actually here 10, 12 years ago, something like that.
  • 00:04:14
    I have, I've known Brian for 25 years now.
  • 00:04:17
    I'll tell you three things about Brian.
  • 00:04:19
    One, yeah.
  • 00:04:21
    No, you have a senior pastor who truly does.
  • 00:04:25
    He's a real deal. He loves God.
  • 00:04:27
    And he is a great leader. He is.
  • 00:04:31
    And he has no filter,
  • 00:04:33
    if you haven't figured that out yet.
  • 00:04:35
    Okay. Just so we got all that straight.
  • 00:04:37
    So three guys were playing poker late one night
  • 00:04:39
    and the conversation kind of turned deep.
  • 00:04:41
    And one guy goes, "Hey, what do you want
  • 00:04:43
    people to say at your funeral?"
  • 00:04:45
    And the first guy said, "I want people to say
  • 00:04:48
    I was a brilliant surgeon who saved many lives."
  • 00:04:51
    And the second guy says, "Well, I want people
  • 00:04:54
    to say that that I was a devoted family man
  • 00:04:56
    and I made a difference in the lives of my kids."
  • 00:04:59
    And the third guy said, "I want people to say,
  • 00:05:01
    'Look, he's moving.'"
  • 00:05:07
    Now, believe it or not, more and more accounts
  • 00:05:10
    are saying, "Look, he's moving."
  • 00:05:13
    Do you know the Gallup poll found that
  • 00:05:15
    13 million Americans, 1 out of 25,
  • 00:05:18
    have had what's called a near death experience.
  • 00:05:21
    Their heart stopped beating,
  • 00:05:24
    their brainwaves ceased,
  • 00:05:25
    they were clinically dead,
  • 00:05:27
    and yet modern medicine resuscitated them
  • 00:05:30
    or miracle brought them back
  • 00:05:31
    to talk about the realities of the life to come.
  • 00:05:36
    Now, I got into this because my dad was dying of cancer.
  • 00:05:40
    And I was an agnostic.
  • 00:05:41
    I didn't believe in God, Jesus, none of that.
  • 00:05:44
    And someone gave him the very first research
  • 00:05:49
    that coined the term near-death experience.
  • 00:05:51
    And I saw it on his bedside table
  • 00:05:53
    and I read it in one night and said,
  • 00:05:54
    "Oh, my gosh, this God, Jesus stuff may be real,"
  • 00:05:58
    because so many of them were talking about encountering Him.
  • 00:06:02
    And that opened me up.
  • 00:06:04
    And the next year I ended up coming to faith in Christ.
  • 00:06:08
    And fast forward the story,
  • 00:06:10
    I went from a career in engineering into ministry.
  • 00:06:14
    And after 35 years of studying thousands of these accounts,
  • 00:06:19
    I finally wrote Imagine Heaven.
  • 00:06:21
    And I wrote it for two reasons.
  • 00:06:22
    One, for skeptics like me,
  • 00:06:25
    because I wanted people to see
  • 00:06:27
    there is real evidence that this God stuff is real,
  • 00:06:30
    but also for Christians, because I find
  • 00:06:33
    so few Christians really believe that this life
  • 00:06:36
    is just the beginning of real life,
  • 00:06:38
    so they don't live as if there's more to this life.
  • 00:06:42
    And so I hope you're motivated because
  • 00:06:44
    that's what motivated me to go all out for God.
  • 00:06:48
    Now, a couple of things that I want to tell you first
  • 00:06:50
    I'm skeptical of any one near-death experience story.
  • 00:06:54
    Here's why.
  • 00:06:55
    What I found is each one is interpreting
  • 00:06:59
    an experience that's truly beyond this world.
  • 00:07:02
    I like to liken it like this.
  • 00:07:04
    Imagine if this three dimensional experience
  • 00:07:07
    we're having is actually being lived on
  • 00:07:09
    a flat, black and white painting on the wall in this room.
  • 00:07:12
    Okay.
  • 00:07:13
    And death means separation.
  • 00:07:15
    So when you die, your two dimensional body
  • 00:07:17
    is peeled off that flat, black and white painting
  • 00:07:20
    and brought out into this three dimensional room
  • 00:07:23
    all around you all the time.
  • 00:07:25
    It was always there,
  • 00:07:26
    you just couldn't even conceive of it.
  • 00:07:28
    You experienced color in three dimensions.
  • 00:07:30
    And then imagine having to be pressed back
  • 00:07:32
    into that two dimensional world.
  • 00:07:34
    And you have to describe three dimensions of color
  • 00:07:38
    in two dimensional, flat, black and white terms.
  • 00:07:41
    How would you do it?
  • 00:07:42
    And after interviewing so many of these people,
  • 00:07:44
    that's what they say they're having to do.
  • 00:07:47
    Words can't really describe it,
  • 00:07:49
    so they're having to interpret.
  • 00:07:51
    So what I was trying to do is show
  • 00:07:52
    the commonalities of what they reported
  • 00:07:55
    and how it aligns with scripture.
  • 00:07:57
    And that's what I'm going to do today.
  • 00:07:59
    I'm going to show you some of the commonalities
  • 00:08:01
    that I talk about in Imagine Heaven.
  • 00:08:02
    And I brought some of these people with me by video.
  • 00:08:06
    You're going to meet very credible people,
  • 00:08:08
    a spine surgeon, a college professor,
  • 00:08:10
    a commercial airline pilot.
  • 00:08:12
    These people didn't need
  • 00:08:13
    to make up wild, crazy stories to make a buck.
  • 00:08:16
    In fact, the truth is,
  • 00:08:18
    it hurts their career to talk about it.
  • 00:08:20
    But they say nothing was more real
  • 00:08:23
    and nothing is more important.
  • 00:08:24
    Watch this.
  • 00:08:28
    - Dr. Mary Neal is an orthopedic surgeon
  • 00:08:30
    who shares her medical practice
  • 00:08:32
    and her love for outdoor adventure
  • 00:08:34
    with her husband, Bill.
  • 00:08:35
    In 1999, they planned an adventure
  • 00:08:37
    that took Mary on a spiritual journey few have taken
  • 00:08:40
    and returned to talk about.
  • 00:08:43
    - My husband and I really enjoy kayaking.
  • 00:08:45
    We enjoy traveling. We speak Spanish.
  • 00:08:48
    We've traveled internationally a number of times.
  • 00:08:51
    And so for my husband's birthday, I said,
  • 00:08:53
    "Okay, this is the year we're going to do it."
  • 00:08:56
    So we went to Chile for a vacation to kayak.
  • 00:09:00
    - After a week of kayaking,
  • 00:09:02
    Bill sat out the final day with a sore back.
  • 00:09:04
    Mary and the rest of their group
  • 00:09:06
    kayaked through a treacherous stretch of the river.
  • 00:09:10
    - These are drops of 10-15 feet, 20ft maybe,
  • 00:09:14
    which for an experienced kayaker, is not a crazy thing.
  • 00:09:19
    I went over the main drop
  • 00:09:21
    and as I crested over the drop,
  • 00:09:24
    I could see the tremendous turbulence
  • 00:09:27
    and tremendous volume.
  • 00:09:28
    And as I hit the bottom of the drop,
  • 00:09:32
    the front end of my boat became pinned.
  • 00:09:35
    I and my boat were immediately and completely submerged.
  • 00:09:40
    I was absolutely pressed to the front deck of the boat
  • 00:09:44
    and I couldn't move my arms
  • 00:09:46
    even back far enough to reach my spray skirt,
  • 00:09:49
    let alone push myself out.
  • 00:09:52
    I very sincerely asked that God's will be done,
  • 00:09:56
    and I meant it.
  • 00:09:58
    - After several minutes of searching,
  • 00:10:00
    the group leaders realized Mary was trapped under the falls.
  • 00:10:03
    - They came out on the rocks
  • 00:10:05
    and they kept trying to get to the boat,
  • 00:10:08
    but the force and the volume of the water
  • 00:10:11
    was such that they just kept being flushed through.
  • 00:10:16
    I mean, they just couldn't get to me.
  • 00:10:19
    At one point, they sort of recognized
  • 00:10:22
    that it was really turning into a body recovery,
  • 00:10:25
    not so much of a rescue.
  • 00:10:27
    I know I'd been underwater too long to be alive,
  • 00:10:32
    yet I feel more alive than I've ever felt.
  • 00:10:35
    And this is more real than anything I've ever experienced.
  • 00:10:41
    - And Dr. Neil was dead for 30 minutes.
  • 00:10:45
    And yet she said she knew Jesus was holding her
  • 00:10:49
    and she felt more alive than she's ever felt.
  • 00:10:52
    So think about it, that moment that
  • 00:10:55
    maybe you feared your whole life suddenly happens
  • 00:10:59
    and you realize this is actually the beginning of real life.
  • 00:11:03
    And one of the commonalities is they say
  • 00:11:05
    they leave their body, but they have a body.
  • 00:11:08
    They're out of their body, but in a new spiritual body.
  • 00:11:12
    And what people commonly say is that
  • 00:11:15
    this body doesn't have five senses,
  • 00:11:17
    but more like 50 senses.
  • 00:11:19
    In fact, you've never felt so alive before.
  • 00:11:21
    And commonly they leave their body,
  • 00:11:24
    but they're still there in the room
  • 00:11:27
    and so they can watch the rescue or the resuscitation,
  • 00:11:30
    and when they come back, describe what happened.
  • 00:11:33
    And that's actually what convinced me
  • 00:11:35
    as a skeptical engineer, but I write in Imagine Heaven
  • 00:11:37
    about how many skeptical doctors, medical doctors
  • 00:11:41
    have been convinced as well.
  • 00:11:42
    Like, Dr. Michael Sabom is a cardiologist
  • 00:11:45
    that I interviewed, and he told me that
  • 00:11:48
    he set out to disprove near-death experiences.
  • 00:11:51
    He didn't think they were real at all
  • 00:11:52
    because he had never heard about it from his patients.
  • 00:11:55
    And then he starts interviewing his patients
  • 00:11:57
    and they start telling him.
  • 00:11:59
    And he said, like before interviewing this guy Pete,
  • 00:12:03
    he said he didn't believe in it at all.
  • 00:12:06
    And yet he said Pete described
  • 00:12:08
    watching Dr. Sabom do his resuscitation.
  • 00:12:11
    And he said, "When I ask him to tell me
  • 00:12:13
    exactly what he saw, he described the resuscitation
  • 00:12:16
    with such detail and accuracy I could have
  • 00:12:18
    later used the tape to teach physicians.
  • 00:12:22
    And Dr. Sabom said the more people he interviewed,
  • 00:12:25
    they told similar details of their resuscitation.
  • 00:12:30
    Like, one patient he interviewed talked about
  • 00:12:32
    how he saw one of the surgeons working on him
  • 00:12:36
    had failed to wear scuffs over his white patent leather shoes.
  • 00:12:40
    And he was able to check out these details;
  • 00:12:42
    after five years of scientific study,
  • 00:12:45
    he changed his mind.
  • 00:12:46
    He came to believe that
  • 00:12:48
    we exist after our physical clinical death.
  • 00:12:52
    And he published it in
  • 00:12:54
    the Journal of the American Medical Association.
  • 00:12:57
    Now, another doctor, Dr. Long,
  • 00:13:00
    Jeffrey Long, who's a radiation oncologist,
  • 00:13:02
    read the article in JAMA, and he had the same thought,
  • 00:13:06
    "That's not true."
  • 00:13:08
    And then he started interviewing his patients.
  • 00:13:10
    And more and more he found describing similar things.
  • 00:13:13
    And he has now studied thousands like I have,
  • 00:13:17
    he's become a friend.
  • 00:13:18
    He's also a follower of Jesus.
  • 00:13:20
    But here's what he determined. Dr. Long said:
  • 00:13:37
    And in the book I show these stories
  • 00:13:40
    that illustrate what happens, like,
  • 00:13:43
    another another cardiologist in Holland,
  • 00:13:46
    because these are all over the globe.
  • 00:13:49
    He reported in The Lancet, the medical journal,
  • 00:13:52
    the most prestigious medical journal in Europe.
  • 00:13:54
    He reports of a guy coming into a hospital there in Holland.
  • 00:13:58
    He'd been found dead in a park.
  • 00:14:00
    But they decided they were going to shock him.
  • 00:14:03
    And they went to intubate him
  • 00:14:04
    and the nurse noticed he had dentures.
  • 00:14:06
    So the nurse took the dentures out,
  • 00:14:07
    put them in the lower drawer of the crash cart.
  • 00:14:10
    They shocked his heart, got his heart started again,
  • 00:14:13
    but he never came to in E.R..
  • 00:14:16
    Moved his body into another room.
  • 00:14:18
    A week later, he becomes conscious
  • 00:14:20
    and they can't find his dentures.
  • 00:14:22
    And then he sees the nurse and he says,
  • 00:14:23
    "That nurse knows where my dentures are."
  • 00:14:26
    And he describes how he had been up
  • 00:14:29
    and all the doctors that were in the room in the E.R.
  • 00:14:31
    and how that nurse had taken his dentures
  • 00:14:33
    and put them in the lower drawer of that cart
  • 00:14:35
    with all the bottles on it.
  • 00:14:36
    And that's where they found his dentures.
  • 00:14:39
    Now, these would just be stories,
  • 00:14:41
    except there's actually been research done around them.
  • 00:14:44
    Dr. Jan Holden is a professor of psychology,
  • 00:14:46
    studied over 100 near-death experience patients
  • 00:14:49
    and compared them to other patients.
  • 00:14:52
    And they made out-of-body observations.
  • 00:14:57
    And she went and researched it and found
  • 00:15:00
    92% of them were completely accurate,
  • 00:15:04
    6% contained some error,
  • 00:15:07
    only 2% were were completely erroneous.
  • 00:15:11
    So just the observations alone
  • 00:15:13
    prove there's something going on here.
  • 00:15:16
    Now, this is not new.
  • 00:15:19
    Actually, if you think about it,
  • 00:15:21
    Jesus raised Lazarus back to life, Jairus' daughter.
  • 00:15:25
    And I believe the apostle Paul probably had
  • 00:15:28
    a near-death experience when he got stoned in Lystra.
  • 00:15:32
    Stoned with rocks, by the way, just -- [laughter]
  • 00:15:35
    I'm from Austin.
  • 00:15:36
    I always, you know, I'm not sure if people understand.
  • 00:15:39
    And so it says this in Acts 14, it says:
  • 00:15:52
    I wouldn't go back in the town
  • 00:15:54
    where they just stoned me to death. Right?
  • 00:15:56
    But it says this.
  • 00:15:57
    Paul says this later in 2 Corinthians 12, he says:
  • 00:16:04
    I think he was referring to this time.
  • 00:16:10
    Why doesn't he know?
  • 00:16:11
    Because we still are ourselves.
  • 00:16:13
    We still have a body.
  • 00:16:14
    But not with five senses,
  • 00:16:16
    more like 50 senses, people say.
  • 00:16:27
    And that also is a commonality that many say.
  • 00:16:31
    So if you think about it, you know,
  • 00:16:33
    when we die, we get a new body, but it's an upgrade.
  • 00:16:37
    This is like version 1.0. We get 2.0.
  • 00:16:40
    Jesus, by the way, has 3.0.
  • 00:16:43
    But that's a talk for another day.
  • 00:16:46
    But that's what Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 15
  • 00:16:48
    when he says:
  • 00:16:55
    but they'll be raised in "Dunamis" is the Greek word,
  • 00:16:59
    power, strength, it's power.
  • 00:17:06
    And I explore more of this in Imagine Heaven,
  • 00:17:08
    but some of these amazing powers of this new spiritual body,
  • 00:17:12
    like, people say they could see for miles and miles,
  • 00:17:15
    but they could see, like, every vein on the leaf
  • 00:17:17
    of every leaf of a tree,
  • 00:17:20
    or like communication was pure thought to thought,
  • 00:17:23
    heart to heart, no misunderstanding.
  • 00:17:26
    Or travel could be in an instant,
  • 00:17:28
    or you could walk or float or fly even,
  • 00:17:32
    all kinds of experiences that are new.
  • 00:17:36
    And we experience these new things
  • 00:17:39
    in new dimensions of beauty as well.
  • 00:17:42
    That's another commonality is
  • 00:17:44
    after observing their their bodies in the room
  • 00:17:47
    many times, then people travel, they go through some --
  • 00:17:50
    go through a tunnel, some are just going through space.
  • 00:17:53
    But they come to a place not unlike Earth,
  • 00:17:57
    very much like the beauty of earth,
  • 00:17:59
    of grass and trees and mountains
  • 00:18:01
    and all the beauty we see here.
  • 00:18:03
    And yet they're experiencing it
  • 00:18:05
    beyond what we've ever experienced.
  • 00:18:07
    It's really what Paul meant when he said
  • 00:18:10
    in 1 Corinthians 2:
  • 00:18:19
    So think about it.
  • 00:18:20
    You know, we experience God's beauty on this earth.
  • 00:18:25
    Why would we think the world to come would be less?
  • 00:18:28
    You know, Isaiah was taken into the throne room of God.
  • 00:18:32
    And there he says Angels were crying out.
  • 00:18:42
    And so this earth is full of God's glory.
  • 00:18:45
    All the beauty we see, all the wonders of nature,
  • 00:18:47
    all the things we love in this life
  • 00:18:49
    are a reflection of the goodness of God.
  • 00:18:52
    And yet this life is broken, it's marred, it's stained,
  • 00:18:56
    it's struggling under famine and disease and entropy.
  • 00:19:01
    Right? Everything falls apart.
  • 00:19:04
    Why would we think God's world
  • 00:19:06
    the way it was supposed to be would be any less?
  • 00:19:09
    It's more.
  • 00:19:12
    You know, Dean Braxton died of sepsis.
  • 00:19:15
    He was a court supervisor. He died of sepsis.
  • 00:19:18
    And he experienced the beauty of this world.
  • 00:19:21
    And Captain Dale Black is another one.
  • 00:19:24
    He's a commercial airline pilot
  • 00:19:25
    who was actually in an airline accident.
  • 00:19:28
    He was in a twin engine plane.
  • 00:19:30
    He was a passenger.
  • 00:19:31
    And when it took off, it stalled in Los Angeles
  • 00:19:35
    and ended up hitting a 70 foot high monument
  • 00:19:38
    at 130 miles an hour.
  • 00:19:39
    I've seen the wreckage in the LA Times.
  • 00:19:42
    Nobody survived, but Dale came back
  • 00:19:44
    to describe the beauty of this place. Listen.
  • 00:19:49
    - Things were more beautiful than I could ever imagine.
  • 00:19:52
    It was past anything that I would believe
  • 00:19:55
    that it would be like.
  • 00:19:56
    - The colors were so alive
  • 00:19:59
    that the most beautiful day on earth
  • 00:20:01
    is just a reflection of those colors.
  • 00:20:04
    - The greens were greener,
  • 00:20:05
    the yellows, the golds, the blues.
  • 00:20:08
    Everything reminded me
  • 00:20:11
    that earth is a reflection of heaven,
  • 00:20:14
    but heaven is perfection.
  • 00:20:17
    - So one of the commonalities in near-death experiences
  • 00:20:20
    is they experience beauty in new dimensions
  • 00:20:23
    of time and space, flowers, trees, mountains, forests
  • 00:20:27
    in colors more vibrant than we can imagine.
  • 00:20:30
    And they are not limited in their experience
  • 00:20:34
    of beauty like we are here.
  • 00:20:37
    - About 52% of people having a near-death experience
  • 00:20:40
    describe beauty in this heavenly realm
  • 00:20:42
    that is beyond anything on Earth,
  • 00:20:44
    things that are absolutely spectacular.
  • 00:20:47
    - It seemed like everything there was glad I was there.
  • 00:20:50
    The trees were glad I was there.
  • 00:20:52
    The flowers were glad I was there.
  • 00:20:53
    The water was glad I was there.
  • 00:20:55
    Everything was alive.
  • 00:20:56
    There was nothing dead and everything was intelligent.
  • 00:20:58
    - Everything was far more intense.
  • 00:21:00
    The colors, the aromas, the flowers were such that
  • 00:21:04
    I felt that I could not only see them,
  • 00:21:07
    but I understood them.
  • 00:21:08
    - Gorgeous, beautiful, all of the adjectives,
  • 00:21:12
    but it's beyond words.
  • 00:21:17
    - I mean, just imagine the mystery that we have
  • 00:21:21
    to explore and we're going to do it together,
  • 00:21:24
    because that's the thing, another commonality
  • 00:21:26
    that people say is that
  • 00:21:28
    there are relationships in heaven.
  • 00:21:30
    In fact, heaven was made for relationship.
  • 00:21:35
    You know, those who experience this place
  • 00:21:38
    remind us that God is love
  • 00:21:41
    and love is why He created us.
  • 00:21:43
    And I find it ironic that sometimes we're afraid
  • 00:21:47
    of the life to come because we think,
  • 00:21:49
    well, we won't know each other, we won't remember each other,
  • 00:21:51
    we won't still have our humor or our same this or that.
  • 00:21:54
    And nothing could be farther from the truth.
  • 00:21:57
    We're ourselves, they're themselves,
  • 00:21:59
    in fact, more than we've ever been.
  • 00:22:01
    And it's a great reunion people say.
  • 00:22:05
    Jesus tried to remind His friends of this
  • 00:22:07
    the night before His crucifixion. He said:
  • 00:22:20
    Marv Besteman was a bank president that I write about
  • 00:22:23
    who died in a hospital.
  • 00:22:26
    And when he did, he said there was this welcoming party
  • 00:22:29
    consisting of his friends and his relatives
  • 00:22:31
    that came to greet him.
  • 00:22:32
    He said, both of my friends were prayer warriors.
  • 00:22:35
    We had spent many hours praying together.
  • 00:22:37
    I'm not sure if that's why God chose
  • 00:22:39
    these two guys for me to see.
  • 00:22:40
    They were significant to my spiritual life.
  • 00:22:43
    In fact, everyone I saw had been influential
  • 00:22:45
    in shaping my life in some way.
  • 00:22:48
    A woman who died giving birth said this:
  • 00:22:51
    I recognized my grandmother
  • 00:22:52
    and a girl I had known when I was in school
  • 00:22:55
    and many other relatives and friends.
  • 00:22:56
    It was a very happy occasion.
  • 00:22:58
    I felt they had come like a homecoming
  • 00:23:01
    to guide me and to protect me.
  • 00:23:04
    And a little word of warning here,
  • 00:23:06
    because Dr. Mary Neal told me as well that
  • 00:23:09
    this welcoming committee came and expressed love
  • 00:23:12
    and they were there to guide her, but also protect her.
  • 00:23:15
    And I said, "Protect you from what?"
  • 00:23:17
    She said, "I don't know."
  • 00:23:19
    And here's an important thing,
  • 00:23:21
    is that these these people having NDEs,
  • 00:23:25
    they're not seeing all there is to the afterlife.
  • 00:23:28
    So they may talk like they know it all,
  • 00:23:30
    but they don't know it all.
  • 00:23:31
    And that's why what you need to do
  • 00:23:33
    is interpret their experiences from Scripture,
  • 00:23:36
    because God's given us a bigger perspective.
  • 00:23:38
    They just have a little perspective.
  • 00:23:40
    They're not seeing everything.
  • 00:23:41
    It's kind of like Mount Rushmore, right?
  • 00:23:43
    You ever seen Mount Rushmore?
  • 00:23:45
    Everybody's seen Mount Rushmore, right?
  • 00:23:47
    But have you ever seen the other side of Mount Rushmore?
  • 00:23:53
    [laughter] Not so pretty, is it?
  • 00:23:59
    No, but in Imagine Heaven, I point out that,
  • 00:24:03
    you know, people experience another commonality.
  • 00:24:07
    There's a border or a boundary
  • 00:24:08
    they knew they couldn't cross and still come back.
  • 00:24:12
    And I believe that this border or boundary shows us
  • 00:24:16
    that near death experiences
  • 00:24:17
    are not telling us what is in eternity.
  • 00:24:20
    They're just giving us a peek
  • 00:24:21
    into the reality of eternity.
  • 00:24:24
    But this is an in-between, and I think that's why
  • 00:24:26
    they can still make choices as well.
  • 00:24:29
    But it does align.
  • 00:24:31
    All of this aligns with what Jesus was telling us
  • 00:24:34
    through the scriptures,
  • 00:24:35
    even the welcoming committee that people experienced.
  • 00:24:38
    You know, Jesus said this in Luke 16:
  • 00:24:51
    You know, listen, as a this woman,
  • 00:24:57
    Karen Marshall, who was in our church,
  • 00:24:59
    was in a coma and then died.
  • 00:25:01
    And she describes a relationship.
  • 00:25:03
    And then Don Piper, who was a pastor and an author,
  • 00:25:06
    he was literally run over by an 18 wheeler,
  • 00:25:09
    pronounced dead for 90 minutes by EMS.
  • 00:25:12
    They had to cut his body out of the car
  • 00:25:14
    with the jaws of life.
  • 00:25:15
    And yet he came back describing what relationship is like.
  • 00:25:19
    Watch.
  • 00:25:21
    - Many people who have had a near-death experience
  • 00:25:23
    say that they have this welcoming committee,
  • 00:25:25
    they call it, of friends or relatives, mainly,
  • 00:25:28
    who had died already.
  • 00:25:30
    And they come and they greet them.
  • 00:25:31
    And just imagine what that might be like.
  • 00:25:34
    - My family appeared.
  • 00:25:36
    One of them put their hand out.
  • 00:25:39
    And I knew it was my grandmother.
  • 00:25:42
    - When I looked up, there's my family.
  • 00:25:44
    Everybody that had been related to me,
  • 00:25:46
    a part of my family came to greet me in.
  • 00:25:49
    My grandmother Mary was out front.
  • 00:25:51
    She was bright, you know, she had a big smile and pure joy.
  • 00:25:55
    - I was immediately greeted by
  • 00:25:57
    a group of people, spirits, beings.
  • 00:26:00
    They were absolutely exploding with a pure love.
  • 00:26:06
    And I could be with them.
  • 00:26:07
    And I knew without any doubt that I had known them
  • 00:26:10
    and loved them as long as I've existed.
  • 00:26:12
    - 57.3% of those having near-death experience
  • 00:26:16
    describe meeting other beings.
  • 00:26:18
    When a deceased loved one is encountered
  • 00:26:20
    during a near-death experience,
  • 00:26:22
    they may be around the age they died,
  • 00:26:24
    or interestingly, they may appear decades younger.
  • 00:26:27
    - I'm surrounded by people
  • 00:26:29
    that I had known and loved in life,
  • 00:26:30
    and they were all perfect in every way,
  • 00:26:34
    fully recognizable as themselves.
  • 00:26:36
    - I looked straight ahead and saw my mom and uncle.
  • 00:26:43
    - I'm looking at this man who I recognize by my heart,
  • 00:26:48
    but I knew that that was Pa.
  • 00:26:51
    He's my great grandfather.
  • 00:26:53
    Now, Pa was standing next to Ma.
  • 00:26:56
    I knew her as an old woman when I was a kid.
  • 00:27:00
    When she was in heaven, she looked to be in her 30s.
  • 00:27:04
    This was my family.
  • 00:27:07
    - On this right side of me
  • 00:27:08
    were all these animals coming in.
  • 00:27:11
    You'll be surprised when you get there
  • 00:27:12
    and your pet's there to greet you in.
  • 00:27:18
    - So imagine, you know, one of the commonalities
  • 00:27:21
    that people say is that love is what it's all about.
  • 00:27:25
    In fact, a commonality all across the globe
  • 00:27:28
    is people experience this God of light who is love
  • 00:27:33
    and in His presence they're given a life review.
  • 00:27:36
    And what they come back realizing is
  • 00:27:38
    love is what matters most to this God,
  • 00:27:40
    how we treat each other.
  • 00:27:42
    It's amazing.
  • 00:27:43
    And I've just finished a new book that's going
  • 00:27:45
    to be coming out this year really focused on God.
  • 00:27:48
    And it's amazing how people,
  • 00:27:50
    it doesn't matter where they grow up,
  • 00:27:52
    what religious background or culture,
  • 00:27:54
    they're describing the God of the Bible.
  • 00:27:57
    And you may say, "Well, like, why would someone
  • 00:28:00
    who doesn't believe in Jesus,
  • 00:28:01
    why would they experience the God of the Bible?"
  • 00:28:03
    Because He's their creator.
  • 00:28:05
    And you've got to remember what Revelation 1:7 says.
  • 00:28:08
    It says that every eye will see Him,
  • 00:28:11
    even those who pierced Him.
  • 00:28:13
    So we shouldn't be surprised that
  • 00:28:15
    everyone at some point will see God.
  • 00:28:17
    The Apostle Paul was going to arrest and kill Christians,
  • 00:28:22
    persecuting Jesus followers
  • 00:28:23
    when this brilliant God of light appears to him.
  • 00:28:26
    Remember?
  • 00:28:27
    And he said, "Who are you?" And He said, "Jesus."
  • 00:28:29
    And he still had a decision to make.
  • 00:28:31
    And by the way, just because
  • 00:28:33
    someone has a near-death experience
  • 00:28:35
    doesn't mean they're right with God.
  • 00:28:37
    Just because they see God
  • 00:28:38
    doesn't mean they're right with God.
  • 00:28:40
    God honors our free will.
  • 00:28:42
    They still have to come back and decide,
  • 00:28:44
    will they give their life to Him?
  • 00:28:45
    But all across the globe,
  • 00:28:47
    people experience the same God.
  • 00:28:49
    And what's fascinating, even blind people.
  • 00:28:52
    So, I give three examples in Imagine Heaven
  • 00:28:56
    of people who are blind from birth,
  • 00:28:58
    but when they had a near-death experience,
  • 00:28:59
    they could see
  • 00:29:00
    and they see all the same things as sighted people.
  • 00:29:04
    Like, Vicky was 22 when she died in a car accident.
  • 00:29:07
    She's there in the hospital
  • 00:29:09
    looking down on them operating on her.
  • 00:29:11
    She knows she's dead.
  • 00:29:12
    She realizes she's seeing herself.
  • 00:29:14
    And as she's adjusting to this thing called sight,
  • 00:29:17
    she takes off, travels through this tunnel
  • 00:29:19
    until she comes to this place of immaculate beauty,
  • 00:29:22
    she said, that was full of light.
  • 00:29:25
    And she said that light was everywhere,
  • 00:29:28
    in the grass, in the trees, and the birds,
  • 00:29:30
    and even coming out of the people.
  • 00:29:32
    And this light was palpable.
  • 00:29:34
    It was life and it was love.
  • 00:29:37
    She said: Everything was made of light
  • 00:29:39
    and what the light conveyed was love.
  • 00:29:42
    And it was like love came from the grass.
  • 00:29:43
    Love came from the birds. Love came from the trees.
  • 00:29:46
    It was incredible, really beautiful.
  • 00:29:47
    And I was overwhelmed by that experience
  • 00:29:50
    because I couldn't really imagine what light was like.
  • 00:29:53
    It's still a very emotional thing to talk about.
  • 00:29:57
    Now think about this for a second.
  • 00:29:59
    Why in the world would blind people say
  • 00:30:02
    light comes out of everything in heaven?
  • 00:30:06
    Because they would never have heard that on earth.
  • 00:30:08
    Light shines on things, not out of things.
  • 00:30:12
    And yet they describe exactly what the Bible has always said,
  • 00:30:16
    in Isaiah 60, in Revelation 21,
  • 00:30:20
    John sees the City of God, the New Jerusalem, and he said:
  • 00:30:37
    And that's exactly what they say.
  • 00:30:38
    And even the Prophet Daniel talks about in Daniel 12:
  • 00:30:53
    And many talk about how this light and life
  • 00:30:56
    comes bursting out of people.
  • 00:30:58
    Now, sometimes we are just ourselves like we are here.
  • 00:31:00
    Marv Besteman said everybody was dressed normal
  • 00:31:04
    and he was in his favorite golf clothes. Okay?
  • 00:31:07
    So, it's not always the same,
  • 00:31:08
    but sometimes we're wearing these gowns of white
  • 00:31:12
    that allow the glory of God to be shared.
  • 00:31:15
    So Vicki experiences this, and then she turns
  • 00:31:19
    and there is Jesus, and she says
  • 00:31:21
    more brilliant than the sun.
  • 00:31:23
    And she knew Him and she went to Him
  • 00:31:25
    and He hugged her
  • 00:31:26
    and she could see and feel His beard and His hug.
  • 00:31:29
    And she said, "Nothing comes close to that."
  • 00:31:32
    And then He gave her a life review.
  • 00:31:34
    Now the life review is another commonality.
  • 00:31:36
    Now, again, just like Peter says in 2 Peter 3:8,
  • 00:31:40
    to the Lord, he says, a day is like a thousand years
  • 00:31:44
    and a thousand years is like a day.
  • 00:31:45
    And NDErs say time doesn't work the same way on the other side.
  • 00:31:49
    And so in God's presence they relive their lives,
  • 00:31:53
    but not just from their own perspective.
  • 00:31:55
    They see and feel how every interaction
  • 00:31:58
    felt to the people around them.
  • 00:32:00
    And God is trying to show them the importance
  • 00:32:03
    of every little act and interaction.
  • 00:32:08
    It's just exactly what it says in 1 Corinthians 4:5:
  • 00:32:20
    And at that time each will receive their praise from God.
  • 00:32:24
    Don't miss that last part.
  • 00:32:26
    God wants to reward you
  • 00:32:27
    for every little act of kindness.
  • 00:32:29
    And I know we all, like, "Oh, I don't want Him --
  • 00:32:32
    I don't want to look with God at all my sins
  • 00:32:34
    and all my shame and all that."
  • 00:32:35
    But that's why he paid for it already 2000 years ago.
  • 00:32:39
    That's what we're about to celebrate, right?
  • 00:32:41
    So that's not what we have to worry about.
  • 00:32:44
    He wants to reward you.
  • 00:32:46
    But here's the deal, God is the God of second chances.
  • 00:32:49
    There's nothing you can do
  • 00:32:50
    that can keep Him out of your life, except your pride.
  • 00:32:53
    Don't reject God, because if you reject Him,
  • 00:32:57
    He'll give you what you want.
  • 00:32:59
    But you don't want separation from God for eternity.
  • 00:33:01
    That's hell.
  • 00:33:03
    You know, Howard Storm is a tenured college professor
  • 00:33:06
    I interviewed.
  • 00:33:07
    He was an atheist when he was in Paris
  • 00:33:10
    and his duodenum ruptured.
  • 00:33:11
    And after nine hours trying to find a surgeon
  • 00:33:14
    on Saturday in Paris, he passed.
  • 00:33:16
    Now, as an atheist, he thought,
  • 00:33:18
    you just unplug the computer, there's nothing when you die.
  • 00:33:21
    So he didn't think he was dead
  • 00:33:23
    when all of a sudden he was feeling horrible,
  • 00:33:26
    now he feels great.
  • 00:33:27
    He's standing there in the room.
  • 00:33:28
    He feels wonderful.
  • 00:33:30
    And he also has a welcoming committee
  • 00:33:32
    of nice people who convince him to go with them.
  • 00:33:36
    He thinks they're taking him to surgery,
  • 00:33:38
    but they deceive him.
  • 00:33:39
    And they lead him into exactly
  • 00:33:41
    what Jesus described as the outer darkness.
  • 00:33:43
    And they turn on him and they maul him.
  • 00:33:46
    Now because he had not crossed that border or boundary,
  • 00:33:50
    I believe is why he could still call out to God.
  • 00:33:52
    And in that place he remembered a song
  • 00:33:55
    from when he was brought to Sunday school as a child,
  • 00:33:58
    Jesus Loves Me.
  • 00:33:59
    And he thought to himself, "If Jesus even is
  • 00:34:03
    and He is God, why would He love me?"
  • 00:34:05
    And yet, in his desperation, he called out,
  • 00:34:08
    "Jesus, save me."
  • 00:34:10
    And he sees a pinpoint of light come into the darkness,
  • 00:34:13
    grows brighter than the sun.
  • 00:34:15
    Arms reach out, pick him up
  • 00:34:17
    and hold him as he bawls like a baby,
  • 00:34:20
    realizing how wrong he was.
  • 00:34:22
    And then He begins to just rub his back,
  • 00:34:25
    like a mom comforting her child.
  • 00:34:28
    And listen to how Howard and others describe --
  • 00:34:30
    how Howard describes his life review
  • 00:34:34
    with Jesus in the presence of the Angels.
  • 00:34:37
    - Howard, tell us about this life review that you had.
  • 00:34:41
    - There was a number of angels, I call them angels,
  • 00:34:44
    who had been recording my entire life, all my life.
  • 00:34:47
    And Jesus wanted them to play out
  • 00:34:49
    in chronological order, the scenes of my life.
  • 00:34:53
    And the entire emphasis was on
  • 00:34:56
    my interaction with other people.
  • 00:34:58
    Of course, initially starting out with my mother
  • 00:35:00
    and father and my sisters and then school
  • 00:35:03
    and friends and --
  • 00:35:05
    - So you just saw it or you --
  • 00:35:06
    - We saw it, we felt it, experienced it.
  • 00:35:08
    It was really interesting because it was
  • 00:35:10
    the whole emphasis was on people and not on things.
  • 00:35:13
    Matter of fact, there were some instances
  • 00:35:15
    where I had won promotions, honors, awards,
  • 00:35:21
    and they skipped them.
  • 00:35:23
    And Jesus -- I said to Jesus,
  • 00:35:25
    "You're skipping the most important thing in my life.
  • 00:35:27
    This is what I live for, to get this award,
  • 00:35:29
    Kentucky Artist of the Year.
  • 00:35:31
    Big banquet in my honor
  • 00:35:33
    and a big cash prize and everything."
  • 00:35:34
    And He said, "That's not what we're here for you to see.
  • 00:35:37
    That's not important.
  • 00:35:38
    What I want you to see is how you treated the students."
  • 00:35:41
    So what I learned in my life review
  • 00:35:43
    was that the relationship with my father,
  • 00:35:48
    I had participated in the breakdown
  • 00:35:50
    of that relationship as much as he did.
  • 00:35:53
    He was not a good father to me and I resented it
  • 00:35:57
    and I was angry at him.
  • 00:35:58
    So I did everything I could,
  • 00:36:00
    subconsciously and sometimes consciously,
  • 00:36:02
    to be as rebellious and as cold hearted
  • 00:36:05
    towards him as possible, which only aggravated him more
  • 00:36:08
    and made him more of a hostile father.
  • 00:36:10
    So the things that I had seen in my life
  • 00:36:12
    that where I was the victim
  • 00:36:13
    and everybody else was the bad guy,
  • 00:36:15
    I came to find out it was a two way street.
  • 00:36:18
    We were both playing this game.
  • 00:36:19
    As my life progressed from my adolescence
  • 00:36:23
    into my adulthood, I saw myself turning
  • 00:36:26
    completely away from God, church, all that,
  • 00:36:30
    and becoming a person who decided that life was
  • 00:36:33
    all about the biggest, baddest bear in the woods wins.
  • 00:36:39
    And now I began to experience
  • 00:36:42
    Jesus' and the angels' literal pain.
  • 00:36:47
    - What do you mean?
  • 00:36:48
    - Emotional pain with watching scenes in my life.
  • 00:36:51
    And like, here's the nicest, kindest, most loving being
  • 00:36:57
    I've ever met, who I realize is my Lord, my Savior,
  • 00:37:01
    even my Creator holding me and supporting me,
  • 00:37:05
    trying to give me more understanding of my life.
  • 00:37:09
    And it was figuratively, not literally, like I was,
  • 00:37:14
    like, stabbing Him in the heart as we're watching this stuff.
  • 00:37:17
    And the last thing I wanted to do was to hurt Him.
  • 00:37:19
    And I don't want to hurt Him to this day.
  • 00:37:22
    Jesus is a very feeling man.
  • 00:37:24
    God is a very feeling creator.
  • 00:37:27
    - What were you seeing played out?
  • 00:37:30
    - I saw scenes where my sister was in bed crying
  • 00:37:35
    and I got up in the middle of the night
  • 00:37:36
    and went in and put my arms around her and hugged her.
  • 00:37:40
    And Jesus and the angels were so filled with joy
  • 00:37:43
    that I had been willing to do that to try and, you know,
  • 00:37:48
    help her a little bit --
  • 00:37:49
    - Comforter her. - In her grief.
  • 00:37:50
    But those were rare.
  • 00:37:52
    The scenes of my indifference, just seeing,
  • 00:37:55
    seeing people as objects in order to maneuver around,
  • 00:38:00
    through or, you know, to shift
  • 00:38:03
    to further my goals and my ambitions.
  • 00:38:09
    - And what God commonly shows people is that
  • 00:38:13
    just what Jesus said in Matthew 25,
  • 00:38:16
    when you do a tiny, small act of kindness
  • 00:38:20
    that nobody else sees, God sees,
  • 00:38:21
    and it's like you're doing it unto Him. Right?
  • 00:38:24
    And that's what He will reward you for as well one day.
  • 00:38:29
    What we do in this life really matters because
  • 00:38:31
    this life is continuous into the next one.
  • 00:38:35
    And the next one is the one really to live for.
  • 00:38:38
    Now think about it.
  • 00:38:39
    What could make Howard, a tenured college professor,
  • 00:38:44
    come back from this near death experience
  • 00:38:47
    and two years later leave his professorship
  • 00:38:50
    to become a Christian pastor?
  • 00:38:52
    His wife divorced him because she was still an atheist.
  • 00:38:56
    But he met the high light of heaven.
  • 00:38:59
    And what people commonly say is all the beauty of heaven
  • 00:39:02
    and all the relationships
  • 00:39:03
    and all the incredible mysteries of heaven,
  • 00:39:07
    nothing compares to being in the presence
  • 00:39:09
    of the one who created you,
  • 00:39:11
    the one who loves you unconditionally,
  • 00:39:14
    the one who knows you better than you know yourself,
  • 00:39:16
    and in whose presence you feel yourself
  • 00:39:19
    more than you ever have before.
  • 00:39:22
    And commonly they say He's the highlight of heaven.
  • 00:39:26
    You know, it says in Revelation of Jesus:
  • 00:39:35
    And one day we will all gather around as one big family.
  • 00:39:40
    And you know what always amazes me
  • 00:39:42
    is I've interviewed these people, you know,
  • 00:39:44
    CEOs and doctors and commercial airline pilots.
  • 00:39:48
    And when they talk about looking into the eyes of Jesus,
  • 00:39:51
    none of them can hold it together
  • 00:39:54
    because they say the memory's not up here, it's in here.
  • 00:39:56
    And as soon as they go there,
  • 00:39:58
    it's like they're there again,
  • 00:40:00
    and it's so wonderful it overwhelms their emotions.
  • 00:40:03
    Captain Dale Black, you know,
  • 00:40:04
    he has a PhD in aeronautical engineering.
  • 00:40:07
    He started several multi-million dollar businesses,
  • 00:40:10
    and yet listen to just the emotion he felt
  • 00:40:15
    thinking about being in the presence of Jesus. Watch.
  • 00:40:18
    - Did you -- Did you see Jesus?
  • 00:40:21
    - Later I did.
  • 00:40:23
    That was the last thing that happened.
  • 00:40:24
    After going through the city and asking questions
  • 00:40:28
    and going through, at the very last moment,
  • 00:40:32
    I had been ushered closer and closer toward the light,
  • 00:40:35
    toward the light, toward the light.
  • 00:40:36
    - The light that's in the center of the city?
  • 00:40:39
    - Yeah. And then there was a stairway
  • 00:40:43
    that was near the glass sea,
  • 00:40:47
    which it looked like a sea and a stairway that went up
  • 00:40:52
    and a large angel with the most power,
  • 00:40:57
    if we would say that.
  • 00:40:58
    And it was clear that he was basically
  • 00:41:01
    in charge of that stairway.
  • 00:41:02
    And I'd be just began to communicate to this angel,
  • 00:41:09
    heart to heart again, it's hard to say.
  • 00:41:11
    Did we talk?
  • 00:41:12
    It seemed like it, but then it seemed like we didn't.
  • 00:41:16
    This communication was just impeccably pure.
  • 00:41:21
    And I began to recognize I can't go up there.
  • 00:41:24
    I can't go up.
  • 00:41:25
    I can't go up and still go back.
  • 00:41:28
    And I was thinking, "Go back? Go back?
  • 00:41:33
    What do we mean? What's that mean?"
  • 00:41:35
    And as soon as I'm thinking, "Go back,"
  • 00:41:38
    the angel moved just to the side.
  • 00:41:42
    But I looked into the eyes of the warmest,
  • 00:41:45
    kindness, most wonderful,
  • 00:41:48
    I knew this was the Son of God.
  • 00:41:50
    I knew this was my Savior.
  • 00:41:52
    And all of a sudden my knees buckled,
  • 00:41:54
    my legs lost their strength, and I just went down.
  • 00:41:57
    I couldn't stand.
  • 00:41:59
    I was -- I was not worthy of this.
  • 00:42:04
    I was not worthy to stand in His presence.
  • 00:42:06
    Funny that I didn't feel worthy to be in heaven,
  • 00:42:09
    yet I knew I was worthy in the early part.
  • 00:42:12
    I was somehow given this -- granted this authority,
  • 00:42:16
    but I had this supernatural gift that I was worthy.
  • 00:42:23
    Somebody had done something for me.
  • 00:42:27
    - He had.
  • 00:42:30
    - Yes.
  • 00:42:31
    And so I'm down on my -- just falling down
  • 00:42:35
    and I see His feet and I grab them,
  • 00:42:38
    and I hold his feet and I see the scars.
  • 00:42:43
    And I know this is the Son of God.
  • 00:42:44
    He's my savior. He's my Lord.
  • 00:42:47
    It is because of Him. He died for everybody.
  • 00:42:50
    It's so cool because the Bible even says,
  • 00:42:53
    no, I take that back, Jesus said that,
  • 00:42:59
    "I have come not to condemn the world,
  • 00:43:02
    but that the world through Me will be saved."
  • 00:43:06
    And it was because of that, He was --
  • 00:43:08
    He's not condemning anybody.
  • 00:43:10
    It doesn't matter what you've done in your life,
  • 00:43:13
    what sins you've done, including murder.
  • 00:43:16
    It doesn't matter what you've done.
  • 00:43:18
    All of it is forgivable.
  • 00:43:21
    God can forgive anybody of anything.
  • 00:43:25
    And then we have this free gift
  • 00:43:29
    that we call salvation, you and I know about.
  • 00:43:31
    - And that's what you felt at His feet.
  • 00:43:34
    - And that support.
  • 00:43:35
    I just -- But to describe this experience,
  • 00:43:38
    I just stopped at His feet and I was worshiping Him
  • 00:43:44
    and down on the ground there.
  • 00:43:47
    And I heard the voice, "Dale, do you love Me?"
  • 00:43:54
    That's it. "Do you love Me?"
  • 00:43:56
    And I'm trying to think of all these words to say.
  • 00:44:01
    And I'm getting ready to say, in a sense,
  • 00:44:05
    I'm getting ready to say, but I've said nothing.
  • 00:44:09
    And I'm getting ready to say,
  • 00:44:10
    "Of course I love You, Lord.
  • 00:44:12
    I remember who You are and what You've done."
  • 00:44:14
    I'm getting ready to say that.
  • 00:44:16
    And He bends down and whispers into my ear.
  • 00:44:21
    And... I'm now back.
  • 00:44:27
    - Do you love Me?
  • 00:44:29
    That's really the question God ask all of us, isn't it?
  • 00:44:33
    And how do you answer that?
  • 00:44:36
    Why don't we pray together.
  • 00:44:38
    God, You are a god of love.
  • 00:44:41
    And You created us for Your love.
  • 00:44:44
    And Lord, maybe there's some people here today
  • 00:44:46
    who don't know Your love.
  • 00:44:49
    And thank You that what you did 2000 years ago
  • 00:44:51
    that we celebrate at Easter, that You died on a cross,
  • 00:44:55
    Jesus, so that all of our sins, past, present
  • 00:44:59
    and future could be forgiven.
  • 00:45:01
    And if you've never just told Him,
  • 00:45:04
    "I want what Jesus did to count for me.
  • 00:45:07
    I want your love. I want your guidance, God."
  • 00:45:11
    If you want relationship with Him,
  • 00:45:13
    tell Him right now in your heart.
  • 00:45:15
    He knows your heart.
  • 00:45:17
    And God, thank You that that is a free gift
  • 00:45:19
    that You offer, relationship with You forever.
  • 00:45:22
    Heaven is a gift.
  • 00:45:25
    And Lord, some of us,
  • 00:45:27
    though we have accepted that free gift,
  • 00:45:29
    maybe we've forgotten.
  • 00:45:31
    Maybe we've forgotten how much You love us
  • 00:45:34
    and we've just been living our lives for ourselves.
  • 00:45:36
    But, Lord, today we want to tell You,
  • 00:45:38
    no, we do love You and I want to live for You,
  • 00:45:42
    knowing that this life is just the beginning
  • 00:45:45
    of the real life that You created us to experience
  • 00:45:47
    with you forever.
  • 00:45:48
    We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
  • 00:45:52
    Thank you. [applause]
  • 00:46:00
    - Wow. Great. Great.
  • 00:46:02
    I haven't read your book, but I've had --
  • 00:46:05
    listened to this a few times now.
  • 00:46:06
    I've had two parts on the Aggressive Life podcast.
  • 00:46:11
    And I know, for me, I'm just kind of --
  • 00:46:14
    I was convicted, you know, because I could always
  • 00:46:17
    answer the right true false question
  • 00:46:19
    of do you believe in heaven?
  • 00:46:20
    I know the Bible verses, all that kind of stuff,
  • 00:46:22
    but I crossed over this thing some time ago
  • 00:46:26
    where I just stopped thinking about heaven.
  • 00:46:28
    Maybe it's because I've met so many people
  • 00:46:30
    who are so heavenly minded
  • 00:46:32
    that there are no earthly good.
  • 00:46:33
    Maybe it's because I just got tired
  • 00:46:35
    of trite spiritual answers.
  • 00:46:37
    And so I've just, I mean, I've always believed it.
  • 00:46:40
    But when you talk about it, it just brings a,
  • 00:46:42
    like, freshness and a, like, centrality
  • 00:46:47
    to looking at life this way.
  • 00:46:49
    Why do you think it is that many of us
  • 00:46:51
    may believe in heaven,
  • 00:46:53
    but it doesn't really impact us at all?
  • 00:46:55
    It's like a cloak of -- a cloak of whatever over us.
  • 00:46:59
    - I mean, that is why I wrote Imagine Heaven, finally,
  • 00:47:02
    because I wanted skeptics like I was
  • 00:47:05
    to see this evidence,
  • 00:47:06
    but also to Christians to realize that, you know,
  • 00:47:10
    and Jesus teaches this,
  • 00:47:11
    but this life is continuous into the next.
  • 00:47:15
    It's not like these two different things.
  • 00:47:18
    And He very much tells us that the way we live
  • 00:47:21
    our lives does affect what happens in the life to come.
  • 00:47:25
    Relationship with God, heaven is a gift,
  • 00:47:28
    but how we live our lives really does affect
  • 00:47:31
    how we move into the life to come and how we experience it.
  • 00:47:35
    - What about the possibility that
  • 00:47:36
    these great interviews you showed
  • 00:47:39
    are people who are Christians,
  • 00:47:41
    they've read Bible verses,
  • 00:47:42
    and so something happens Neurochemically where, bam,
  • 00:47:45
    they're having things of Jesus
  • 00:47:47
    just because they know about Jesus before they die?
  • 00:47:50
    - Well, you'll have to wait for my next book because --
  • 00:47:55
    [laughs]
  • 00:47:58
    - Come on.
  • 00:48:00
    - Not that you'll read it anyway.
  • 00:48:02
    [laugther]
  • 00:48:03
    He doesn't read. - Have you read any of my books?
  • 00:48:05
    - Yes. I'm reading one of them right now.
  • 00:48:09
    - Oh! All right. Sorry.
  • 00:48:11
    - Yeah. - Sorry.
  • 00:48:12
    - His men's devotional. It's good. It's good.
  • 00:48:15
    So, but --
  • 00:48:17
    - I'm setting a softball.
  • 00:48:19
    You said people in other countries,
  • 00:48:20
    Hindus and stuff who'd never heard of Jesus are seeing this.
  • 00:48:23
    - I've interviewed Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists.
  • 00:48:27
    They don't experience the gods they should.
  • 00:48:30
    They experienced the God of light and love who is Jesus.
  • 00:48:34
    And many of them come back
  • 00:48:35
    and find Jesus and they follow Jesus.
  • 00:48:37
    - Amazing. Amazing.
  • 00:48:38
    - So, yeah, it's -- it is, believe, you guys,
  • 00:48:41
    that God is doing this in this time
  • 00:48:44
    and it's a global apologetic.
  • 00:48:46
    It's a new version of evidence of testimonies
  • 00:48:51
    from around the globe that He's real.
  • 00:48:52
    And in our age of both modern medicine
  • 00:48:56
    bringing so many people back and, you know,
  • 00:48:59
    global media, for the first time we can see.
  • 00:49:02
    - It's just crazy with all of the people talking about this,
  • 00:49:05
    the Gallup polls, the actual scientific reviews,
  • 00:49:10
    you mentioned 900.
  • 00:49:11
    It's just amazing to me that this isn't
  • 00:49:13
    more in the forefront of our mind.
  • 00:49:14
    So I'll just close this and say, hey, hey, friends,
  • 00:49:17
    let's not buy into the lie that this life is all there is.
  • 00:49:20
    Let's not get deluded by everybody else
  • 00:49:23
    who gets so upset about everything that's in this life
  • 00:49:25
    because that's all people live for.
  • 00:49:26
    I'm not living just for this life.
  • 00:49:28
    I'm living for a life that starts now and goes on.
  • 00:49:31
    So you've done an amazing job.
  • 00:49:32
    Thank you, my friend. Thank you. [applause]
  • 00:49:36
    - Let's go back to all of our sites
  • 00:49:38
    with a final instruction from our community pastors.
  • 00:49:42
    - Hey, my guess is that John's talk today
  • 00:49:44
    might have brought some things up for you
  • 00:49:46
    or even blown your mind a little bit.
  • 00:49:48
    Hey, we are not just content.
  • 00:49:50
    We're a community of people.
  • 00:49:52
    And if there's anything that we can do to support you,
  • 00:49:54
    if we can pray for you about something specific
  • 00:49:57
    or you just want to process through
  • 00:49:58
    some of what you felt or heard today,
  • 00:50:00
    we would love to do that.
  • 00:50:02
    You can go to Crossroads.net, hit the chat button
  • 00:50:04
    or you can just even email me directly.
  • 00:50:06
    Andy.reider@crossroads.net.
  • 00:50:08
    I'd love to pray for you.
  • 00:50:09
    I'd love to chat with you.
  • 00:50:11
    And hey, next week we kick off Holy Week.
  • 00:50:13
    You don't want to miss it.

Mar 26, 2023

Recent Series