Finding Heaven: Knowing God and His Love (Part 1 of 2)

Alyssa suffered through 11 years of her husband's addiction and she feared the worst. After we had called Focus on the Family, that was really the journey where we started to see God moving and working. I know that Focus on the Family was just an answered prayer. Alyssa's marriage was transformed so much so that she began sharing our resources with many other hurting couples. Focus on the Family was really the first resource outside of our church that was truth, that was biblically grounded, grounded in truth that we kind of were like this is something we can get behind.

I'm Jim Daly. Working together this season we can give families hope. Please consider a generous donation today and your gift will be doubled.

Our number is 800-A-FAMILY or visit focusonthefamily.com slash gift. And this is the thing that's just it's hard to imagine but it's important to imagine. What people say in God's presence is that every relationship we have on earth is just a metaphor of this relationship we were meant to have with the one who created that makes perfect sense.

Even I mean not only child to parent, friend to friend, best friend who knows you and gets you and does things with you but also spouse to spouse. Well that's John Burke and he's our guest today on Focus on the Family. Your host is Focus president and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. John I don't know about you but the thought of heaven excites me. It does me yes yeah totally. You know it's how we should be as believers. I mean I'm looking forward to it and I love the promise in the New Testament. Right there in the book of Revelation chapter 21 verse 4 he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away.

That's something to look forward to. I think it's even difficult to perceive that because this life is so full of burden and tears and disappointment but we're looking forward to when that will not be the case and John Burke is here with us and he's going to share some amazing stories that will highlight an understanding of God that I think will challenge conventional wisdom Christian wisdom particularly and maybe stretch our ability to understand the character of God. Yeah God's love is so big and deep and wide. John Burke is a popular speaker and author. He founded Gateway Church in Austin Texas and he was lead pastor there until just this past May. He's married to Kathy. They have an adult son and daughter and two granddaughters. We've already heard about the grandkids.

Let's see the photos. I love it. And today we're going to be talking about John's book Imagine the God of Heaven Near Death Experiences God's Revelation and the Love You've Always Wanted and we've got details about John and this book in the show notes. John welcome back. Well great to be back. So you've got two granddaughters. That's great.

Let's start there. I know. Do a little bragging. Grandpa bragging. Is it fun? It's the best. In fact I was on the way to the airport. I went 20 minutes out of my way because I had 30 minutes and I went to hang out with my little grandpa.

Give him a hug. Yeah. Oh man. It's the best. I think you are smitten. I am. It's a good thing. Your book Imagine Heaven was a bestseller.

We covered that. You and I that just ignited in many ways a sense of what heaven could be like for so many readers that got a hold of that book. It ended up being a bestseller.

I think a New York Times bestseller. That's an achievement and especially you know in a world that maybe isn't so open to spiritual things or certainly Christian things the way they once were. How do you explain that interest in people?

What's going on there? And of course you're covering near-death experiences in that book. Well what I find fascinating is that people who would not necessarily be open to talking about God or heaven are fascinated with near-death experiences. Right.

Yeah. And I think again for those that didn't listen to that go back in the archive and listen to those broadcasts because again there's a handful that really captured me and maybe it's my enthusiasm but it was it was profound. It was different and even in that regard I mean you came at this as an agnostic an engineer and I love that mind.

I mean Gene is chemistry and so you know you guys are very black and white you want to see the facts you want to have everything kind of in a column and I appreciated that approach. Describe that journey for yourself and then out of it I mean you became a Christian. Yeah I mean I was I was a skeptical agnostic and my dad was dying of cancer. Someone gave him the very first research that coined the term near-death experience. It's when someone clinically dies their heart stops beating their brain waves cease and yet they're resuscitated and sometimes minutes sometimes hours later.

Yeah. Which is miraculous. Yeah that's miraculous in itself. And when they come back they talk about this reality of a life to come more real than this life and the wonders the beauty the reunions this God of light and love some knew he was Jesus some you look like Jesus and what I'm really focusing on is is not just their experience of heaven but the God of heaven. Well and those are the attributes you really get into and that's fantastic so it's not the experience of what they had and that's really important and interesting but you covered many of those stories in Imagine Heaven. Imagine the God of heaven really talks about God. Exactly and I think it is proof of God's existence.

I think God is giving these testimonies all over the globe right now as a witness to our global our globally connected world that he is real that he is the God of all nations. That's well said. Let's talk about the idea and you've dealt with this sometimes in the Christian community particularly we can be very careful rightly so about you know these areas these edgy areas of experience and some people might even think well this sounds a little new agey and you and I talked before that in some ways the Christian community handed these experiences over to other philosophies new age etc but you you can find them in scripture.

Describe that if you were talking to somebody with that attitude you know John this is all good it's a great experience but it's really new agey to me. Well I do not advocate that people go form their view of heaven or their view of hell or their view of God just from reading near-death experiences. Right. I don't and that's not what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to show and and by the way the reason for that is that every one of these is a look at it like a testimony if I went back to Jesus day and went around Jerusalem and interviewed witnesses right of Jesus raising the dead doing miracles I would hear some say he's of God he's the Messiah how else do you explain this and others who saw and experienced the same thing saying he's demonic he's a sorcerer he's dangerous. Right.

So an experience though real does not take away free will and that's a very very important thing that just because these people experience heaven or experience the God of the Bible and that's who they're describing and that's what I'm showing in Imagine the God of Heaven is that this is none other and it doesn't matter what their previous culture or even religious background. This is all over the globe. All over the globe.

Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists. So yeah and I mean some of the stories just blew me away. Let's get into Santosh. I've got one here. He's such a dear man he's become a great friend now so Santosh was a manufacturing engineer he grew up in India his father was a Sanskrit scholar Hinduism was all he knew he had gallstones that erupted into his pancreas he hears code blue code blue his heart had crashed and he's suddenly up above his body one of the commonalities like we talked about you know right that also Paul talks about that when we leave this body we have a spiritual body and they say this and and that spiritual body can go different places but we have a spiritual body and he experiences this he realizes he's dead this brilliant light comes to him and he describes and this is commonly how they describe brighter than the sun but mesmerizing to look at not hard to look at and he said I instantly knew this was a divine light this was God and this was an authority that I had to obey there wasn't question but he said but I I fell in love with this divine light he sensed this God of light is for me so then he follows and they travel and he said they traveled through and he described it as tunnels that's also a commonality many times but they come to this place this is what just Santosh said I'm this light parks over this giant enormous beautiful compound with very high very high beautiful walls and inside lush gorgeous grounds and and mansions and these buildings of other worldly material and he said it was enormous thousands of miles and it was a square and there were 12 gates he said I counted them and all these gates were gorgeous but they were closed to me and then on the outside I noticed angels guarding the gates and suddenly I knew I'm looking at the kingdom of heaven now he is describing the new Jerusalem in revelation 21 he doesn't know it right he had never read the Bible but he's seeing it but he's seeing it and and there's a lot more to it you know but he sees he sees a vision of hell and he describes it and it is an abyss of darkness and a lake of fire this is a Hindu guy and that's how he's described right and I have others from around the world describing these same things even though they wouldn't have known the Bible then he looks to his right and there he sees what he says is the almighty on his throne and he said I looked up and he said he later believes it was Jesus in his glorified state and he looks up and he sees eyes and like he said it was like lightning coming out of the eyes well Daniel described that too when he sees God so did John in revelation one right and so this is Jesus in his glorified state and he instantly knows this is the almighty he drops to his knees and he said forgive me Lord forgive me Lord forgive me Lord and he thought this is my last day there is no hope and then he hears the Lord and he said I was shocked because I heard tenderness and mercy and compassion and love in his voice and he said I'm going to send you back and when I send you back I want you to love your family especially your daughter she needs you right now wow now think about that wow here's a guy who doesn't know the Lord but the Lord knows even if we don't know him he wants to guide us but we have to turn to him let me interject this because when I was reading your first book I had this discussion I felt with the Lord on this because I was like wow Lord that's very generous that this Muslim Hindu fill in the blank yeah person would pass out of this body into some other state and have this experience with you and then he comes back and begins to follow you that's only probably going to happen to a handful of people of these other faiths is that fair I mean I actually said that it's embarrassing yeah what I heard back in my heart was oh do you set the boundaries of my grace yeah I was like Lord I don't understand it at all yeah you mean they're gonna get paid the same amount I am and I worked all day and they only worked one hour he the impression I had is Jesus he loves everyone he created look this every don't understand that I didn't get as followers of Jesus there are so many parables Jesus tried to give of this exactly the unfair workers right the brothers yeah if I want to be gracious the older brother and the younger brother and we've got to remember all the way back the Bible and this is what I'm trying to do in Imagine the God of Heaven is show this is a comprehensive book about God about his love story you know the Bible is a love story it starts with the relationship relationship broken God making a way to restore relationship and the whole thing ends in revelation with a wedding yeah if you miss that you miss so much of why God does the things he does the way he does it's the context it's the context you miss the context you're left asking a lot of like well that's not fair and why do you do that right why don't you and we deal with all that but also we're showing in this book that the heart of God the character the attributes of God and how God is ultimately the love you have always wanted yes and this is so this is what Santosh because this is crazy so Santosh then asked he sees to the right of this throne a what he calls a narrow gate or a narrow door that was open to him he knew it was open to him and when the Lord was so tender and compassionate to him he said Lord when I come back I want to go through that narrow door I want to go into your kingdom and he said what must I do and he's thinking what religion must I join and go to every week and here's what the Lord said I want honest relationship I want to see how honest you are with me not not one day a week 365 days a year every day walk with me surrender daily to me the wages of sin is death so stop and walk walk with me well he didn't know what that meant and then he's back here's the crazy part he starts seeking God with all his heart he's like that was motivating yeah who is this God this is not like the Hindu gods why did he have compassion on me I knew I deserved that abyss but he was so tender and compassionate well two years later his daughter is invited to sing and acquire for an Easter service at a church Santosh and his wife go when he walks in he feels the love of that divine presence and the message is on the narrow gate and the broad highway and how Jesus is the gate through which we enter the kingdom of heaven and he goes back starts reading the Bible and he says this is everything I experienced John let's go into some of these attributes of God there's more stories we're gonna if you can stick around we'll go another day and talk more about these experiences and what people are encountering but two attributes that you've talked about and that is common in these experiences let's hit those I think one is the God of light and what's the other well I mean God is light and God is love that's a big one and those two interestingly what people commonly say all around the world and and this is one of the evidentiary parts of this is that it doesn't matter if it was a Muslim Imam in Rwanda I've got a Muslim in Tehran a woman related to the prophet Muhammad but they experienced this God of light sometimes he looks more like Jesus but brilliant light coming out of them and love that is our word love doesn't do justice right and and so here's the thing like this one guy Dr. Ron Smotherman he's a neurologist and a psychiatrist and he actually he had a a guy staying in his house while he was traveling he was traveling the world doing speaking comes back the guy had had a psychotic break and attacks him and suddenly Ron said time stopped and yes I'm on I mean Amin who's this guy as a knife aimed at his heart and is like frozen there as Dr. Smotherman sees this what he called he said imagine being five feet away from the point of a nuclear explosion huh he said the power of this light was roiling you know like a nuclear explosion but he said what was roiling even more was the love huh and he said instantly these nine qualities of God were like imprinted upon him wow one was infinite love and he he describes it like this he said imagine our love is like you're in the ocean and these gentle waves are lapping against your knees you know that's our love that's human love he said and then a tsunami comes that's God's love he said it in a good way it just blows you away but what it blows away he said is death and all fear and all worry and leaves you with he he said one of the qualities was this joy of God that he said it put me into ecstasy wow which you know that's part of what I think when people read imagine the God of heaven it's going to blow their categories yeah and we need to yeah we all put God in a box you know some of us we don't see how pure and holy and sovereign and righteous and just and you know enormous God is on the other hand some of us don't realize how relatable and loving love and well not just loving fun yeah and funny that see now that for some people are like huh what that's not right I'm gonna enjoy that well and I've got I mean I've got some stories that prove it but also scripture that proves it that we've just overlooked because what happens is we we take some scriptures and some things we've heard from pastors or preachers or others and we make our box we have to we're finite but I believe that imagine the God of heaven is going to expand your box both ways yeah and that's like so Ron you know like Ron talks about the humor of God that was one of the characteristics that just caught him off guard mixed with the purity he called it purity I think he was describing the holiness of God he said he's so pure he's so innocent absolutely and then the last thing he said to me and I didn't go through all the qualities he said the power you know was like a nuclear explosion like this is power that you if you didn't feel his love you would just fear and tremble right he said but it it elicits surrender he said yeah but then he said but you know what of all these qualities he was humble yeah when and when you read the overlapping stories like this of people experiencing God it just it blows your categories yeah uh first john 4 8 tells us God is love we've talked about that it's one of the things that is so inspirational about the Christian faith I mean he's a God of justness I get that the commandments I get that but overall he loves us and so often we forget that you have a story of Mary from London who experienced God's love in that unique way tell us that story yeah Mary was she was actually dying in childbirth or in a complication with pregnancy and she had a lot of shame she grew up catholic but she she went away from the church and wasn't sure about God she got involved in an affair got pregnant you know it's just it was a mess and then she dies and she's up above and she's watching the resuscitation so she then takes off and she goes to this beautiful place and in the presence of this God of light and she said even though I had I had turned from catholicism I knew this was God and in his presence she experiences a love that is just unconditional way beyond what a parent has for a child even or a granddad for his little granddaughters and he tells her your son is going to live and you need to go back and you need to raise him and she goes back but as she's coming back so this is going to sound bizarre but she passes through the top side of the ceiling fan as she's coming back to her body and she notices a red sticker on the top side of the ceiling fan and when she comes to she can not only describe who's in the room and what they were doing during her resuscitation she finally no one would believe her which is why a lot of these people just stay silent that's the first reaction they get she convinced a nurse and an orderly to get a ladder and go look on the top side of the ceiling fan the side you can't see and she described what was written on the red sticker and sure enough there it was right there are lots of those yeah lots of those and man Jim I'll tell you one of the most profound things that I wrote right about in Imagine the God of Heaven is several people I interviewed said in God's presence so Erica was one of them she's experiencing this love beyond measure and then God is giving her these lessons and like lessons about our uniqueness how he created each one of us unique he gave us gifts we're not to compare to each other because we are to make a unique ripple effect through humanity and our thoughts and our words and our deeds are what make that ripple effect and it all works with God's plan but then he then she said that feeling shifted and I feel this enormous sadness she said I didn't know where it was coming from at first she said imagine a sadness like you had just lost all your children and she said it was like that but even more and then she realized this sadness is coming from God and she said God why are you so sad and he said look he was giving her these lessons right and she sees the planet she sees earth and suddenly she realized oh my my children are down there she loved her children she had stopped her nursing career to homeschool her children because she loved them so much and she was a Christian and she then feels this overwhelming sadness again and she sees these flames around the planet and then the planet bursts into flames and she starts to panic like my family's there and then she sees these lights these what she realized were souls as they came by her going to heaven wow and her family and she realizes they're safe and she has this like moment of ah and she turns to God and says God why are you still sad look they're coming to heaven they're here with us and he says look again and she looks again and she sees souls who are still there they're not coming and what she really and the Lord said to her Erica with the gift of life I give the gift of free will and what he was saying is that it's real we're here in a time of choosing you know God said to Moses I've set before you life and death blessings and curses now choose life the Lord is your life choose life that you may live and right well of course and so we are we are in that time and yeah and the thing is and the thing is it it saddens the heart of God when people don't choose him when they reject him but it's real yeah no and it fits I mean that you know that the Lord gives you that choice that's why on our part it's not a panic you know God's gonna draw you or you're gonna pull away and that's your choice he wants everyone to know what he's done for them through Jesus so they can have that confidence yeah because that's the point and you know the whole last section of imagine the God of heaven is my favorite because it's walking daily with the God of joy and laughter well should we save this for next time sure let's leave a cliffhanger okay and talk about the joy of heaven that would be great and John sorry to do that too yeah but let's come back and continue the discussion because I really want people to hear what you're saying and to talk to people around them that may not know the Lord and let them read this and then ponder the what-ifs yeah and I'm so glad can we do it can you come back oh I'd love to okay we can talk about some of the mysteries of God the Trinity how the Trinity is experienced so you know I'm not sure where everybody's at but we want to make sure that you're confident in your relationship with the Lord and let me remind you that focus on the family is here for you if you've never given your life to Jesus Christ we'd like to talk with you about this important I'd say most important life decision we have so many resources available for you like our free booklet coming home you'll learn in that booklet about God's love and grace and the steps you can take to become part of God's family we also have the book we talked about today by John Burke Imagine the God of Heaven you can get it directly through us that money goes right back into ministry providing hope and help to families just like yours after a year of overwhelming financial strain social upheaval and other pressures hurting families could really use some hope right now and as we get near to the Christmas season it's the perfect time to share the hope that Jesus Christ came to give you can come alongside those facing challenges and give families hope through your support of Focus on the Family and when you give a gift of any amount today to the Ministry of Focus we'll send you a copy of Imagine the God of Heaven as our way of saying thank you donate today and get your copy of the book Imagine the God of Heaven when you stop by our website the link is in the show notes on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team thanks for listening today to Focus on the Family I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we hear more from John Burke and once more help you and your family thrive in Christ if the fights with your spouse have become unbearable if you feel like you can't take it anymore there's still hope hope restored marriage intensives have 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