Across the Counter
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Across the Counter
Imagine Heaven | John Burke | Episode 59
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Join us as we sit Across the Counter from John Burke, the New York Times bestselling author of "Imagine Heaven.”
In this ATC Episode:
• John embarked on a 35-year exploration into over a thousand near-death experiences (NDEs). During our conversation, he reveals the compelling commonalities he found between these NDEs and biblical teachings, discussing the fears he faced about potential backlash and how he overcame them to publish his transformative book.
• Explore the fascinating intersection of near-death experiences and scientific skepticism with us. We delve into the debate around the adequacy of scientific theories that attempt to explain away NDEs. Highlighting key cases like Pam Reynolds', where verifiable observations were made despite no recorded brain activity, we discuss the implications of such experiences on our understanding of the afterlife and the enduring nature of the soul. These discussions are not just academic; they offer significant insights into the profound spiritual dimensions that these experiences suggest.
• What if our three-dimensional experience is just a shadow of a greater reality? In this episode, we dive into the profound implications of near-death experiences on our perceptions of life, death, and spirituality. We explore themes of unconditional love, life reviews, and the absence of judgment, sharing diverse testimonials from people of various religious backgrounds.
• Hear about encounters that transcend cultural and religious barriers, like a woman from Tehran who met a being of light she identified as Jesus. Through these compelling stories, we reflect on the inclusive nature of God's love and the transformative power of these experiences, offering a richer understanding of faith and spirituality.
Connect with John:
Instagram: @johnburkeofficial
Buy His New Book:
Imagine the God of Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God’s Revelation, and the Love You’ve Always Wanted https://a.co/d/eRnqPpyH
Unveiling Commonalities
Speaker 1Pull up a chair across the counter your one-stop shop for a variety of perspectives around Jesus and Christianity. I'm Grant Lockridge and I'm here with my co-host, jared Tafta, and today we are interviewing John Burke. John is the New York Times bestseller of the book Imagine Heaven. And John, just tell me a little bit about why you decided to start writing books.
Speaker 2Well, man, it's a weird long story. I didn't set out to do any of this. Quite honestly, I actually was trained as I studied engineering. I worked as an engineer, actually was trained as I studied engineering. I worked as an engineer.
Speaker 2Um, I got, I got kind of sidetracked on all this decades ago, when my dad was dying of cancer and I was an agnostic at the time, I thought Jesus was probably just a legend. Um, god, who, who knows and who can know? There's, there's no evidence, and so you know, I just kind of left it at that. And that's where I was when, when my, when my dad uh, gets cancer and someone gave him the very first research on that, coined the term near death experience, and I see this book on his, uh, his nightstand and I pick it up and I start thumbing through it and I couldn't put it down, because here are people who had clinically died, meaning in some cases their heart had stopped beating, they had no brain waves, and yet their modern medicine brings them back, they're resuscitated or miraculously they come back and they're talking about being more alive than they've ever felt, in a place more real than this, more beautiful than this, though not unlike it, and in the presence of a God of light and love who they never wanted to leave this unconditional love. And I'm reading it and I'm like, oh my gosh. I read the whole thing and I thought this might be evidence that this whole God-Jesus afterlife stuff is real. And so it didn't lead me to faith, it just opened my mind because I had become kind of, you know, cynical and because so many of them had talked about seeing this God of light and love, jesus, I started reading the Bible, started studying it and, um, and over the next few years I came to faith in Christ, not because of near-death experiences, but more because of the evidence I started to see and understand, even in history.
Speaker 2But it all kind of came together and over the last 35 years I've had this bizarro obsession. I mean, honestly, it's always been weird to me. You know, just kind of like. Kind of like people think, oh, that's kind of weird, and I've always thought that, yeah, it's kind of weird, but at the same time and and looking back now I I think I think this is part of God's whole plan and purpose for me uh, that I kept running into these and I started collecting them because I started to see again. I'm an engineer, so I see patterns and I'm like, well, how does that fit with this? And I've come to faith in Christ. So I'm reading the Bible and I'm studying it and I'm trying to understand how do these things fit together? So over the last 35 years, I've studied well over a thousand probably closer to 1500 near death experiences. I've interviewed people on every continent on planet earth and finally, in 2015, I wrote a book called Imagine Heaven.
Speaker 2Well, and in that process, I also went from a career in engineering to ministry and my wife and I actually started a church for skeptics like I was. So, as I told you guys, our motto was no perfect people allowed. Just come as you are, and we would say doubters are welcome, because I found that just not many churches created space for people to struggle and to ask questions and to doubt and to come with. You know all the crap that we, you know, get glommed onto ourselves over the course of a life, and you know God's not afraid of any of that. You know, I mean if you read. You know God's not afraid of any of that. Um, you know, I mean if you read the scriptures. That's where Jesus lived. He lived among people who had screwed up their lives pretty bad, and he wasn't afraid of it at all and they became his followers. Yeah and uh, and it was actually the religious who had a pro a problem with, with all of it and, and so we started a church like that.
Speaker 2Finally, in 2015, I wrote a book.
Speaker 2I'd written three other books, but they were really all more about creating the space where people can explore faith and find faith and then how do people really grow spiritually those kinds of books and I had the sense that I was supposed to write about this obsession I had had for years and years and I'd been speaking on it.
Speaker 2I mean, I gave my first talk on this at the University of California, santa Barbara, in 1989. I spoke on the commonalities of near-death experiences and how it related to the Bible, and I just did it for students there at the university. So I've been speaking on it, but I'd never written on it. And so, imagine Heaven, I wrote showing there are about 40 commonalities of what people say they experience and they overlap. It's like it doesn't matter where they're from or what their background. They're having the same basic experience and I was showing how those 40 commonalities align with what God's been revealing through the Jewish prophets and through Jesus, you know all along. So that was Imagine Heaven. And I'll be honest, like when I went to hit send of the final manuscript, I said, well God, this might be the end of my ministry.
Speaker 1Oh, why?
Speaker 2Dang man. Well, because Christians rejected anything about near-death experiences. Really, oh yeah, I mean, the talk in most Christian circles is oh, that's just new agey or it's satanic. Don't listen to that, Don't believe that, Just stay away from it.
Speaker 3Um don't, don't listen to that, don't believe that, just stay away from it. Was that rejection specifically evident in the academic Christian community or the more? Um, I'll say, you know, the believing community has people that say we're we're people of the word, and then there's the portion of the community that says we're people of the spirit. Did you see rejection in both sides or did you see it and there's, there's a third one.
Speaker 2We're people of action.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, you know it's funny you say that because that was one of the tensions I always as a pastor. I was like because I saw that same thing. It's like you kind of group off and you ignore whole sections of what it means to follow Christ and how do you bring them all together? Yeah, but they tend to group in groups that all think alike. Right, it's hard to live in the tensions.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah. Then you begin to highlight you set metrics or standards that allow you not to fall into the ditches on the side that you see as problematic and it makes you the well, we're not like them people, but you got that attack, or maybe you got disbelief from all different sectors of the faith. Is that what you're?
Speaker 2saying, and I can see, looking back. So when I first started studying this, you got to remember this is the late 80s, early 80s too and when these stories were first coming out. You know a lot of people don't realize this, but I mean there are millions of them. So, like 2019, the European Academy of Neurology did a study, reported on a study across 35 countries, and found that 5% of the population, across 35 countries, 5% of the population has had a near-death experience. Wow, and that's millions of people all over the world. Wow.
Speaker 2And what I'm trying to show is that the commonality of what they report is right, in line with what the Bible's been revealing all along. Now, what they interpret is not always, and that's what the key is. That I found is that because early on in this research, the only people who were coming forward, for instance, had had a good near death experience. So people had had hellish near death experiences, but nobody wants to raise their hand and alone say, well, I didn't go to heaven and and, and you know they don't want to think about it Well, we kind of laugh about it.
Speaker 2But when you understand that the experience they had is more real than this, yeah, yeah, okay. Well, what does that mean? Like how do you have a more real experience? But that's what they experienced. And so when they go to tell people and even when they go to tell people the good experiences they get mocked. They go yeah, well, that was probably the drugs or that was probably the. You know, it was just hallucination or you know, and so they kind of shut up about it. Even more so if you've had a, if you and the people I've interviewed a lot of them have PTSD from the experience they had. It's that real, wow.
Examining Near-Death Experiences Research
Speaker 3You mentioned the word neurology and we were just talking about neuroscientists and how that's a buzzword nowadays as well in biohacking and just in our culture and world. Has there been any in your experience? And as a side note, I loved in your book the consistencies or the statistic. The statistic consistencies in people's experiences but not their interpretations. I really loved that like perspective of I'm looking at the data and then the interpretation you know is not necessarily all that I agree with, so I really appreciated that neuroscience.
Speaker 2has there been any avenue of trying to um offer like credit or proof in in ndes or is there nothing available there? Um, well, neuros, some neuroscientists have tried to offer alternate explanations. Okay, all right. And? And in a new book I just wrote, imagine the God of Heaven.
Speaker 2In chapter two I write about skeptics, science and NDEs. Okay, and I go through. There have been about 30 alternate explanations. Okay, they come up with a new alternate explanation pretty much every year. And, as my friend, dr Jeffrey Long, who studied more of them than I have, even he's a medical doctor and he says you know, if they had one good alternate explanation they wouldn't need 30, but they're just throwing spaghetti on the wall. And so what I show in chapter two is the 10 points of evidence that convinced me and has convinced many skeptical medical doctors who have studied this phenomena, that these are really showing evidence. I mean, dr Long says he thinks it's scientific proof that there is an afterlife, that our soul lives on after this life, and he became a believer in Jesus as a result of all that as well, but wasn't before studying it.
Speaker 2And so, anyway, neurologists have talked about the um, like the, the. The latest that was reported in I think it was CNN Um headline is you know, near death experiences are shown to be just in the brain. Well, if you actually read the whole article, that's not what they're saying and it's not what the researchers are saying. And of course they buried that lead at the very bottom. But but what they were saying is that they were trying to find a connection between REM sleep patterns and those who have near-death experiences, and they found some kind of association. The problem is you don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg, right and and, and there's no way to answer that question. So they're throwing this out there. But but I give these 10 points of evidence that I believe if you're going to have an alternate theory that sticks, you're going to have to make sense of these 10 points of evidence, and I, you know, I'll just give you a few of them because we probably don't have time to go deeply into all of them.
Speaker 2But the couple that started to convince me when I was still a skeptical engineer is one. When people first clinically die, they say they leave their body but they're still themselves. So they still have a body, but they say it's like a spiritual body and they don't just have five senses, more like 50 or 100 senses, they have new senses and so they feel super alive. But what's key is that at first they're often still in the room where the resuscitation is taking place. So they're usually up above and they're watching, which means when they are resuscitated they can report things that they shouldn't have seen or heard or been able to report because they had no brainwaves. So, in other words, if this is just anoxia, that's one idea.
Speaker 2Fighter pilot syndrome. When fighter pilots have this anoxia that happens lack of oxygen to the brain they feel like they're going through a tunnel toward a light. See, that's a near-death experience. No, not even close, not even close. No-transcript. So imagine the God of heaven I give.
Speaker 2One of the most verifiable ones, I believe, is Pam Reynolds. So she's in this intense surgery where they're removing an aneurysm, a deep brain aneurysm, and it's a last resort. Like you're going to die, we might as well do this Hail Mary surgery. And so that's what it was. They have to lower her body temperature to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, drain her head completely of all blood and make sure there's no neural activity at all. So they put a hundred decibel clickers in her ears, they tape her eyes shut so there's no stimuli. So she can't, she can't see, she can't hear and she has no brain waves. And yet halfway through surgery, an hour into it, she claims she left her body.
Speaker 2She's up above, she's watching the surgery. She sees them take out the saw that they used to cut open her head and she thought it would be like a saw, you know, like an electric saw. But she said it wasn't. It was like an electric. It looked like an electric toothbrush and the surgeon had, like this case, like a, like a case of socket wrenches, and there were all these different drill bits in it and he took one out and put it in. And then a doctor down by her legs said I can't, I can't find it, I can't find it. And the other, and it was a she um, and she didn't even know there were going to be male and female doctors. She didn't know what doctors other than Dr Spetzler that was even going to be in there. There were about 10. She could describe all of them and what happened is they couldn't find the femoral artery in her leg. So she reports all these things, what the saw looks like, what was said, what happened.
Speaker 2And then she ends up in the presence of this God of light and love and has this conversation and sees her, her grandmother and he, and he says you got to go back, um, you still have a purpose. And and as she's coming back into her body, um, they're playing hotel California. Now, again, she has a hundred decibel clickers in her ears and they did that to monitor her brainwaves and make sure there are no registered signals on the EEG. Okay, so where are these memories being stored if it's just in the brain? And they shocked her heart not once, but twice, to get her going again. She reports all of this, going again. She reports all of this. And there was actually a movie done this year on. It was based on my book Imagine Heaven, called After Death, and you can hear some of the surgeons that were there with her on duty and they say it freaked me out because she reported things she should not have known and been able to report on. So that's just one of that.
Speaker 1Yeah, what Describe it? That's just one. You know no big deal. There's another one.
Speaker 2Well, there are, and I give lots of examples, you know, in the books. I mean a lady in London who, you know, dies giving childbirth and she leaves her body. But she notices on the top side of the ceiling fan this is in London in the 90s when you know, it still had ceiling fans in hospitals she notices a red sticker. And as she comes back and she has a full-blown experience as well and she's trying to tell the nurses and doctors about this incredible experience in the presence of this God of love, she never wanted to leave and they're like you know, she's hallucinating. And then she said to one of the nurses here's what you said and here's what you did. And the nurse realized you were completely gone during that time and so it got her attention. And then mary the, the patient, said look, I can prove it to you. Go get a ladder, look on the top side of the ceiling fan and you'll see a red sticker and here's what it says on it. And the nurse gets the help of an orderly, goes up there. Sure enough, red sticker on the top side of the ceiling fan.
Speaker 2Now there've actually been studies done. Dr Jan Holden did a study, like a scientific study, of about a hundred patients who had had cardiac arrest and claimed to have a near-death experience and then a control group of cardiac arrest patients that did not have a near-death experience and then ask about the observations they made, found that 92% of near-death experience observations were completely accurate. Another 6% of their observations were completely accurate. Another 6% of their observations were mostly accurate. Only 2% were inaccurate.
Speaker 2Versus the control group which I asked, what do you think happened during your resuscitation? And it was guesswork. It was like what they'd seen on ER and it wasn't even close like 20% accurate. So that started to convince me when I was still a skeptical engineer. The other one that really blew me away is that when people blind from birth have a near-death experience, they can see and they report seeing the same things as sighted people all over the globe. So these 40 commonalities that I write about in Imagine the God of Heaven I mean in Imagine God they report the same things and things that a blind person would not have heard on earth. So you start to go okay, how do you explain that?
Speaker 1That can't just be brain-based that that that can't just be brain based. Right, that is something I appreciated about your book is you looked at like several different angles so you're like, okay, do they have a reason to lie about? This was one of them. That I thought was key, because the first thing you think about is, okay, they just wanted to be famous and they wanted to mess around and, you know, get some cloud or Some of them. It was worse for them to tell their NDE experience, which was interesting.
Speaker 2I like to point out that the people I've interviewed they're spine surgeons, married to another surgeon. They don't need money. She lives in Wyoming, the most beautiful place on earth. She doesn't need money. Commercial airline pilots, lawyers, bank presidents, ceos, like you know the CEO when, when he came forward, he was like I know I'm going to, I'm going to lose all my clients and all my business, I'm going to have to close my business. But I, but I can't not tell this is the most real thing that ever happened. So they only get discredited. It only costs them. They're not doing it for money or fame or fortune.
Speaker 1Yeah, exactly, and I wanted to give you a chance to say that because that was one of the things that kind of shocked me a little bit in the book, other than just the overwhelming proof that NDEs have commonalities just all over the place, which to me, it's interesting that the Christian culture would be upset by a book like this in any way, shape or form because it didn't seem like you were trying to impress your views on other people. It didn't seem like, hey, this is reality and you have to think like this and you have to believe it like this. You just gave the evidence and mountains of evidence. By the way, you did a ridiculous amount of research. You've just went through so many different NDEs and you just gave them the research and said, hey, this is what the Bible says, this is the research.
Speaker 1You didn't try to tie a bunch of dots and make your own systematic theology about what this means after death and what heaven looks like, and you were just like what, if you were just like? This is really cool. I don't have an explanation other than this is literally what people are seeing. They have no reason to lie. And can you just dream with me for a minute? Which was I loved. You weren't impressing like this is what heaven looks like, this is how it operates. You were like look at the similarities of this in the Bible, and isn't that really cool? You know what?
Exploring Spiritual Dimensions and Near-Death Experiences
Speaker 2I mean, well, and look, there's a lot of mystery to it. Yeah, I mean, I use analogy because I think analogy is the only way we can really try to understand. Analogy is the only way we can really try to understand. And the analogy I've used, even with near-death experiencers I've interviewed, is, you know, I've said, after talking to so many of you, I think about it like, okay, we're living a three-dimensional experience and death means separation. It's when your spirit leaves your body right, or your soul leaves your body.
Speaker 2But imagine if we were living this experience on a flat black and white painting on the wall in your home, right, and so you have up and down and you have side to side. You have two dimensions, but you don't even have in or out. That's not even conceivable to you. In or out there, that's not even conceivable to you. And then when you die, your flat soul, it peels off that two-dimensional world and now is brought out into this three-dimensional reality that was always there and you can even see your flat world because it's contained within it. So you can make observations in your flat world, but they don't know where you are, right. No, and then imagine getting pressed back into the flat world and you have to describe three dimensions and color, but in black and white, two-dimensional terms yep using the language you have said to me.
Speaker 2That's exactly what it's like, like that, that they are moving out beyond our finite three dimensions of space and one dimension of time, because that's what they commonly say as well. On the other side, time works differently, and you know, peter, jesus' disciple said in 2 Peter 3, 8, to the Lord, a year, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day, right? Well, near-death experiencers have said almost the same thing to me. They've said things like you know. I know I was only dead for five minutes, but I relived my whole life. So how did that work? But it seemed like it was seconds. But it also seemed like it was years.
Speaker 2Some said there was no time, others said, no, there was seconds, but it also seemed like it was years. Some said there was no time, others said, no, there was time, but there was all the time. Nothing was rushed, and so they're experiencing something that truly is beyond this world, and I think that's also why, when they come back, they're trying to describe things that are their mystery. Right, you know, deuteronomy 29,. 29 says you know the Lord. The secrets, the secret things, or the mysterion, the mysteries, belong to the Lord, our God, the things revealed belong to us so that we can fully follow his will. So there are mysteries and they're trying to describe some of these mysteries and so sometimes what they describe, they're also interpreting and they're going to interpret in their own worldview and and so sometimes that that, sometimes that goes against what scripture seems to be revealing or teaching, and so that is why a lot of Christians early on in this one is no one came forward reporting hellish experiences early on.
Speaker 2Second, a lot of people came forward early on saying that God is this incredible light and love and I had a life review in his presence and I saw all my good and all my bad, but he wasn't judging me. God just loved me. He was just supporting me and just loved me unconditionally. But I was judging myself. And so early on, a lot of people were saying, well, see, this isn't the Christian God or the biblical God, because the biblical God's this judging, harsh, punishing God who just wants to get you, and you know it's just a misunderstanding of who God's revealed himself to be, and you know it's just a misunderstanding of who God's revealed himself to be, jesus, interestingly said by your own words. Will you be acquitted by your own words will you be condemned, which, fascinatingly, is exactly what near-death experiencers say watching their life review.
Speaker 2God is love, and so God cannot not love every single person because he created them to be his child. He does love you, even if you don't love him. Still, you can't stop him from loving you, and so, of course, that's what they experience. But also it says that God sent his son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be rescued or saved, set right with God. So you know all the things that they're reporting and I've interviewed in the new book Imagine the God of Heaven. I interviewed 70 people from all around the continent, every religious background Hindus, buddhists, agnostics, atheists, christians, and on every continent, and they are experiencing the same God who revealed himself to Moses in this brilliant light that didn't burn the bush up. Remember that.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2I mean, I interviewed a woman from Tehran. She was related to the Prophet Muhammad and she has a near-death experience and in her near-death experience she was expecting to be judged by the Prophet Ali and, as Shiite Muslims believe, happens and instead this giant man of light comes to her and says one thing. He says I am he who is. And boom, she's back in her body with a peace and a joy she's never felt before and she's completely confused. And the next year she's seeking this God and the next year she realizes who this is and that she experienced the risen Jesus and that he is God, and that the same God of light said to Moses I am basically the same thing, I am he who is. That's how it was translated into English. She said it in Farsi, but I mean yeah, so you're talking about people all over the globe, and it's evidence to me again that God is the God of all nations and he loves everybody equally and what he did through Jesus, he did for all people. Yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 3That's so cool dude, you were making me think. I mean, you have a literal library shelved behind you. So I feel like there's not a chance that you haven't read this, but have you read the Weight of Glory by CS Lewis?
Speaker 2Yeah, all right, cs Lewis is like my favorite author.
Speaker 3Yeah, you were talking, I was like he's going to say something about higher up and further in.
Speaker 3But the weight of glory.
Speaker 3Lewis tells the story of a woman that gave birth to a son while confined in a prison, in a dungeon, and since the, with no windows, and since the boy had never seen the outside world, the mother basically does pencil drawings of trees, of landscape, of everything in the outside world.
Speaker 3And the day comes of release, when the boy and the mother are going to be released from prison and the boy says I don't want to go. And in his story, basically, the boy says this world and this prison is more real than the pencil drawings you've said exist outside of this prison. And the mother comes to understand oh, this boy, in his, in his imagination, in his, in his broad, deep, wide imagination, believes that we're about to go into a world of a two dimensional plane, that we're going to move into a pencil drawing plane. And he said I don't, I mean this is prison, but it's at least three-dimensional. And so when you're talking, you're making me think of her, like telling her something like oh no, like it's not that, but her ability to transliterate, or translate what it was. There was no way for her to do anything other than him to go and experience that with her, and that is exactly why I wrote these books, and what, and, and, and.
Speaker 2So what I, what I'm trying to do, you know and, and when you, when you read it. And again, I'm nothing special, I'm just like an editor, right. So what I was trying to do is I could. I've studied so many of them and I start hearing the same things, and I know they don't know each other. I know they haven't talked to each other. They're on different continents, they don't even believe, they don't have cultures that brought them up believing the same thing, but they experience the same God, the same things about this God, you know, it's like it's just wild. And so what I was trying to do is show the overlapping testimony so you hear it through their words. What the scriptures are saying and and so, and the analogy I use is similar to what you were just talking about with CS Lewis, is similar to what you were just talking about with CS Lewis. So the scriptures like draw a pencil drawing of all this, but what their words do is not add anything to what it is, but it adds color, right, so that you begin to see a fuller picture of, oh my gosh, like God is love. Okay, what Christian doesn't know that and say I believe that, right. And even you doesn't know that and say I believe that, right. And even those who may not believe in Jesus at all, but they're probably. Oh yeah, god is love. We kind of universally would agree if there is a God, we sure hope that's God.
Speaker 2But when you hear through the words of these people what it was like to be in God's presence, when they describe this love and and they, they grapple for words, and I put that in there because then you start to experience, it's like, oh my gosh, like this one, this one guy. In fact I was. I was just on the phone with him. Again, he's a neurologist, okay, so again, why is he making that? He's a neurologist and a psychiatrist?
Speaker 2But he had a patient turn on him and stab him with a knife 13 times, trying to kill him, and right before the 14th he said it was like time stopped and there before him is an explosion of light, he said. He said there was no doubt who this was. He knew this is God and they're, and and they often say that they're like there's no question, you know who this is and but he said, imagine being five feet away from a nuclear explosion. That's what it was like. And it just kept roiling. You know, like you would imagine he said. But what was roiling was not just the light, but the love.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm it's a tsunami of love. And he said, and it washes away every concern about anything else. He said I didn't care I was being stabbed to death, it didn't matter to me at all. All that mattered is this being and um, and they say things like that. You know. Another guy, dean Braxton, said you know as he as he looks into Jesus eyes. He said guy Dean Braxton said you know as he, as he looks into Jesus eyes.
Speaker 2He said you just get lost in these eyes. They are otherworldly, mesmerizing, but they see right into the deepest parts of you and know everything about you and love you beyond what you've ever even imagined you could be loved. And that love, he said said, is growing. It's like every second. It was growing greater for me. And he said, and I felt like I was the only one he loved, like I was his only unique son. And he said it kind of shocked me and so I thought about my wife and then I realized, oh, he thinks about her like she's the only unique one.
Speaker 2And and now, you know, lots of times I'll hear, I'll, I'll hear something at first and I'll be like huh, that's interesting. But I kind of put it on the shelf Like yeah, maybe. But then I hear a CEO say the same thing. I hear a commercial airline pilot say and you know, john, what was so wild is when he looked at me I felt like I was the only one he loved, like I was the only one. And then he said and that's how he feels about you. And so you know, yeah, it's, it's just wild when you hear it over and over and over again.
Speaker 2And what it does again is it puts color onto the words of scripture. You know it, it just colors in the fullness of not just words that go into your brain but hopefully that connect with your heart, you know, and make you realize, oh, okay, you know, because I wasn't just interested in writing these books as evidence. I mean, yes, I was a skeptic and yes, I think it can convince skeptics. But more importantly, I think it can help you trust God fully because you start to realize, whoa, okay, there is evidence. But also, why would I not? Why would I not trust God? Why would I not want to follow God's will and ways when he is this joyous, enjoyable, fun being? I mean those words a lot of people are like huh, whoa, what.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2But that's true, and that's not only what near-death experiencers report. By the way, it's the last thing Jesus said his night before being crucified. He said I've told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy would overflow. But sometimes we put God in a little box and we don't let him out. And I'm trying to break open people's walls of that box and see that no, god is way more mysterious than the box you keep him in, which is often I mean, you guys what causes the wars. Right, it causes all the you're wrong and I'm right and all that. Well, god doesn't fit in many of our boxes, but people put them in the box on the other side. It's way more personable, way more relatable than you've ever imagined.
Speaker 3Tell John about our first NDE experience, both of us. That happened today, which I feel like literally.
Speaker 1Well, one, it's not our NDE, it was somebody else.
Speaker 3So yes, we did not. We did not have an NDE, we didn't die today.
Speaker 1So, john, this was nuts but also doesn't really, I'll just tell you. So we're at Barnes Noble, right, john, this was nuts but also doesn't really, I'll just tell you. So we're at Barnes Noble, right? We're dreaming up this little nonprofit company, something that helps nonprofits, whatever. And we are just sitting next to these two women at Barnes Noble, whatever.
Speaker 1And we were talking about the podcast. We were like, okay, what are we doing? You know kind of vision for the podcast, that sort of thing. And they, uh, one lady just turned around and says, hey, you know what's the podcast about. And we said, hey, it's a christian podcast, you know, we gave her the whole vision, whatever. And then we were talking about who we've interviewed, whatever. And then I basically said, hey, I'm interviewing john burke today, who? And they're like who's that? And I was like he's the guy that knows about near-death experiences. It's a really cool book, imagine heaven, you should check it out. And she says, hey, my daughter had a near-death experience. And we were like, okay, well, that's crazy, because this is like the first time I've heard somebody say something like that.
Speaker 3And it was like I was introduced to NDEs by your book, so the concept of them, so this is pretty fresh.
Speaker 1And she was like, oh yeah, no, my daughter was dead. And now?
Speaker 3She said the first time she died. And we said continue speaking.
Speaker 1Yeah, the first time. But she started with. It was like what are you talking about?
Speaker 3Whatever we were doing is not happening anymore.
Speaker 1We let her go for a little bit. But the two traits that I took away with, other than it's just crazy that she brought up in the ease you know we'd said it, and then she was like, yeah, my daughter had an NDE, so that's just kind of a weird thing. But, um, what was wild is and correct me if I'm wrong but she said that her daughter had the telepathy thing, so they weren't using words. She said that her daughter had the telepathy thing, so they weren't using words. She said that her daughter had. She knew that Jesus was there but she couldn't see him. Correct, I'm just making sure that I'm getting the facts right. And I think in your book you said something about that telepathy kind of aspect of like the minds we're connecting. Is that right or am I just making that up.
Speaker 2Yeah, that people can, on the other side, speak with like using a voice, but the more seemingly preferred way of communicating is just thought to thought, heart to heart, and that's usually the way God communicates to them. So it's complete. A lot of them use the word telepathy, but a lot of them say, no, it's way more than that. I mean, imagine if all my thoughts, all my feelings and all the associated thoughts, boom, you just understood fully. There's no misunderstanding.
Speaker 3Yeah, when you said some people say telepathy, I was like no, it's knowing. Like that's the word in my mind, but I don't even know what the language would be, because there's not a language right. Like that's kind of yeah.
Speaker 1Well, there was one more thing too that I forgot. So she said that her daughter said that she saw the unborn child. So said that she saw the unborn child. So another sister that she had, that her mom had a miscarriage or whatever, and that comes up in your book. I believe, too, there's some sort of something going on there.
Speaker 2So, yeah, well, that was another line of evidence that I saw of how many kids come back from a near-death experience reporting having met their sibling and their parents say similar things. Like you don't have a sister. They're like no, I met my sister. And he's like do you mean your cousin? Because you have a brother, you don't have a sister. And he said, no, she told me that she she died in your tummy. And then the then the parents are like, oh my gosh, we never told our child we had a miscarriage and we didn't even know it was a she.
Speaker 1That's crazy.
Mysterious Encounters With the Divine
Speaker 2And stuff like that, like consistent things like that. That's crazy and stuff like that like consistent things like that. Or this one woman reported during her near-death experience. She sees this man who is there smiling. Never talked to her, he was just smiling at her with this very loving smile. She never communicated with him. She comes back and 10 years later her mom is on her deathbed and her mom confesses to her that she, her father, was not her father. She was born out of an extramarital affair and her mom shows her the picture of her father and it was the man who was smiling at her in her near death experience and he had, he had passed away.
Speaker 2So it's like like, yeah, stuff like that, you know, if you, just if you know and this is why it took me 35 years to write it. At first I was just kind of like, yeah, right, you know. Like okay, good, you know little stories that travel on the internet. But when you hear again and again and again and again and these people that I sit across the table from listening, I'm like, okay, you have no reason to make up a crazy story like this, you know, and it fully reconciles with what these other people say and, by the way, it reconciles with scripture. You know, after a while I start going okay, there, there's something here, but there were still some confusing things and I had to find some interpretive keys. Um, that, you know, that helped me before I actually wrote the books.
Speaker 3Right, Right, um, my, uh, one one caveat the family that we just met today that we uh literally like God, blessed us with their story. We're not sharing any names or anything, and they may never share their story. It's really personal in that way. So they're probably going to listen to this podcast and so just praise God for the grace that their story is glorifying him in the small amount that they've shared, that their story is glorifying Him in the small amount that they've shared. But the other thing that came to me is really related to their daughter was younger and it was the concept of there not being an ability to explain what was seen.
Speaker 3And then you've used the language like it's just weird. It's just strange. And the concept of the word strange or weird is only relative to what we find to be normal, right, like the things that we find to be consistent. And when you kept saying it's more real. If it were to be more real, then it's just more weird. And something that Grant and I talk about a lot is when we're together or with another person who the spirit I mean I don't want to like turn people off by getting too wildly charismatic, but it's just like people that the spirit is just burning alive in. Just weird things happen, like weird coincidences, weird alignments, and Grant and I have talked before about like it makes you uncomfortable. And it makes you uncomfortable because like, especially men and women of the faith, like you don't know what to do with it, if that makes sense, like you don't want to lean into this.
Speaker 3Like providential, like looking for signs and wonders, where Paul says that like Greeks look for knowledge and Jews look for signs and like, but I know only Christ and Him crucified. And like all knowledge and love and life is found like in Christ. Like we know that. But then you have these expressions of light and love and like I've experienced things like that of like miraculous encounters with a living God that I can't explain, that I don't have a framework for to help translate, and sometimes I do think of it as like God giving us a gift that you keep unpacking, like Christmas Day, but you're continuing to unpack that for the rest of your life.
Near-Life and Near-Death Experiences
Speaker 3But this is all leading to a question and we can kind of move toward the end on this. But this is all leading to a question and we can kind of move toward the end on this. But I've just been sitting here thinking about the concept of there are near-death experiences, but I wrote in my journal here taking notes like do you think there's such thing as near-life experiences, that there are Christians every day who are coming close to a reality of God and experiencing something strange and then running away because it's strange and odd and they don't feel like they have a place for it in their little box? And if so, what would you say to those people?
Speaker 2Well, I mean, in many ways I feel like I am one of those people. I've been one of those people. You know it's just fascinating because you know we started a church right for skeptics and doubters and people who and I didn't have, even though I was curious about and studied all these near death experiences for me it was more of, it was more evidence, so it bolstered my, my faith in that sense. Um, but I don't have, I didn't have lots of weird mystical experiences of God, um, and then people that had come to faith in our church start having these kind of out there, more mystical experiences. And they're asking me and this is before the internet, where you go listen to all these pastors and preachers all over the place. So I knew you know we were it, yeah, over the place. So I knew you know we were it. And so it really kind of rocked my world like, oh well, I don't know, I guess that's like when the scriptures talk about a word of knowledge or the prophetic, I guess it's that. And so what I would say, having been more in just the analytical box, is God, if you really read the Bible and you really look at Jesus' life, god's okay with us being uncomfortable and not understanding everything. Okay with us being uncomfortable and not understanding everything, and we want everything buttoned down and we want absolute certainty, because that makes us feel secure and God actually doesn't play our game. I mean, just go read the parables of Jesus and I'm sometimes blown away at how he gives near-death experiences, parables in their near-death experience, to see if they'll go back and explore and discover, like this Hindu man I interviewed. He's a manufacturing engineer, grew up in India. He thought when you die it's just lights. Out Name is Santosh or maybe you'll come back as another living thing. And he said but that's not what happened. I hear code blue. I'm up above my body. This divine light comes to me. I knew this was a divine light with ultimate authority. I had to do what it said, but I fell in love with this light. And then this light takes him to this place and he perfectly describes what John describes in Revelation 21 of the holy city of God, including 12 gates, high walls, gorgeous, otherworldly building materials. He said of these buildings, he called them mansions, buildings inside and people. And he sees angels outside the gates. And then he knows he's looking at the kingdom of God. But in that God also gives him a vision of hell and he sees an abyss of darkness that he knew you go there and there's no way out. It's hopeless. And he says a lake of fire at the bottom.
Speaker 2This is a Hindu guy. He's never read the Bible, but this is what he's saying. He saw when he had no heartbeat. Then he turns to his right because he wants to go into this city. He knows this is the ultimate destination of humanity, but these 12 gates are closed to him. He doesn't want to go to this abyss and he's looking for another way.
Speaker 2And he turns and there he sees who he later said to me he thinks was Jesus, because he was in the form of a man on a throne. And he looks into his eyes and he has a life review. He sees his whole life you know his good and his sins and he realizes you know, I deserve the abyss. And he starts to say forgive me Lord, forgive me Lord, forgive me Lord. And he's expecting God to throw him into the abyss and instead he hears tenderness and concern and love and mercy in his voice and he says santosh, I'm sending you back and when you go back you must love your family, especially your daughter. She needs you right now.
Speaker 2And then he sees, and he and, and he sees on the side of this throne what he called a very narrow gate. It was so narrow it was strange to him, but it was open and it was the only way for him to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And he says to the Lord Lord, because he felt such love and tender mercy from God, he said, lord, when I come back, how do I go through that narrow gate into your kingdom? Okay, so, just the full story's in. Imagine the God of Heaven. But he comes back and he's seeking God and he's saying this is not the gods that I grew up learning about in Hinduism. Who was this God? I knew I deserved that abyss, but he had mercy and compassion and love for me and he knew me. And he's seeking, he's praying every day, and then his daughter gets invited. Okay, so, so just pause a second. If you know the Bible, you know Jesus is giving him a living parable. Right, it's like so wild and we're like well, just tell him.
Speaker 3God's okay with it. It sounds like he didn't get an answer.
Speaker 2God's okay with mystery. God wants to know. Will we seek him with all our heart? Because when we seek him with all our heart we do find him. So Santosh is seeking with all his heart and he is for about two years. And his daughter gets invited.
Speaker 2She was a choral major in college. She gets invited to sing with her friend in a church choir. It was like an Easter deal that they were doing. Santosh and his wife go to hear her. He walks in the church and he feels the loving presence of that same God of light and the message that day is on the narrow gate and how. Jesus is the gate through which you must enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Speaker 2He goes home and starts reading the Bible and he and he said to me, john, everything I experienced was in this book and he comes to faith in Jesus. Wow, but I can tell you, god does that, he so. He's not. He doesn't play by our rules and he is okay with struggle and questions and mystery and things that don't always fit our box. Be demanding that God do it your way, but you also should really study the scriptures, really know and read about the teachings of Jesus so that you understand how you know, I put in Imagine the God of Heaven.
Speaker 2What convinced me that the Bible really is a revelation of God and that we really should trust it. And so I don't believe just any one near-death experiencer. And what they tell me I look to see are there overlaps with others? And then how does that fit with what God has already claimed to reveal? Because I have reason to believe that that's trustworthy. And so I would not say depart from the scriptures, but I would say open your heart and your mind to some of the mystery of God. That doesn't contradict scripture, but it goes beyond, maybe, what you have framed how God is supposed to work.
Speaker 1Amen to that. So you had a hard stop at 4.30-ish, but I do want to leave a little bit of space to give you a chance. Is there anything like you're working on now or anything that you want to promote? We like to give people space at the end for that.
Speaker 2Well, I mean right now, I'm just trying to continue to get the word out. I really, you know, I'm super excited about this new book. Imagine the God of Heaven. Because I interviewed 70 people. An imam, a Muslim imam in Rwanda, you know, who gets rescued from a hellish experience by this man of light who comes in and he sees holes in his hands and he says I died for mankind, you're among those I died for. Never deny it and tell it to everybody. And today he's had seven attempts on his life because he won't shut up about Jesus. You know, and you know 70 others like that, in Australia, in Singapore, all over the planet.
Speaker 2And you know, I believe that this is God's testimony to the nations. I am the God of all nations. I always have been. I don't play favorites, but hey, come to me. You know, because you know I, I just don't. I think this is a unique time. When else could we do this and the whole world could hear about it? And when else could I interview people all over the world? And, you know, people could hear about it and see it. But but that's the day we're in and I think it's God's testimony. Like you know, come to me and and and. Be confident that you're right with me, because nobody cares more about you. So that's imagine, the God of heaven, and you know, I'm just doing everything to get the word out about that right now.
Speaker 3Awesome. I want to just hear if these words are something that you would confirm from your experience, because it's what I've taken away. We can end it with your feedback From a redeemed or being redeemed skeptic. Skepticism is not solved by understanding, but the doubt and fear overwhelmed in the mental, complete mental, emotional and physical or mental, emotional and spiritual experience of God's love.
Speaker 2Like would you say that skepticism is overwhelmed by the experience itself. That's a great question.
Speaker 3You know, yes, it's not that your understanding is no longer worthwhile. I don't want to say that.
Speaker 2Well, here's you know, as a pastor, people coming from all walks of life. What I've seen is that there's not one Jesus, I believe, is the way and the truth in the life, but there are many paths to the way the truth in the life.
Speaker 2So I had to wrestle with my mind right and I had to come to a place where I was like I think this is true, but that didn't do anything in my heart. My heart still had to go. Oh, so now you want me to give you my life Like, oh, that's a whole different deal.
Speaker 3You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2But I had to come through my mind first because of the way I'm wired. But I meet other people that you know. Their baby is born and they look at their newborn baby and they didn't believe in God at all and they have a love that they can't explain and all of a sudden they're like there must be a God. Well, I don't know, I would have never come that way. And then there are others, like some of these near-death experiencers, who have a spiritual experience that they can't explain. Maybe they don't die, but maybe some coincidental thing happens and it's God getting their attention and they're like I can't deny it, there must be a God, I can't deny it, there must be a God.
Choosing to Accept or Reject God
Speaker 2But the same turn in their heart happens and I think, at the end of the day, I believe that what God did for us all through Jesus is he made a way to remove every barrier between himself and every person on earth except one, and that's our pride. If in our pride, we say, no, I'm good, you know I don't need you, god, you know my will be done, I don't need your forgiveness, I don't need you, then I think that is the only thing that God does not violate, because God is love and love requires freedom. And if, in our free will, we choose consistently to reject him, I think at the end of the day he won't violate our free will in that. But he has removed every barrier other than that. So if you want his love, if you want his forgiveness that he paid for a dear price in Christ, you can have it. And he knows the human heart and a heart turning to him is all he wants.
Speaker 1Thanks for listening to the Across the Counter podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate us five stars, wherever you got this podcast. Thanks, y'all.