Remembering the Hope of Heaven

God doesn't make entrance into heaven something you earn. It's a gift. All he needs is a heart turning to him saying, I want your love. I want your forgiveness.

I want your life. Well, that's Pastor John Burke. He's on today's episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. John Burke first joined us on the show right as the coronavirus shutdown was in full force and we've had him back several times since because his content is so strong, so focused on the gospel and hope. If that shutdown taught us anything, it confirmed that we live in uncertain times and the only way we can keep going is to cling to the hope we have in Jesus Christ.

And I'm telling you what, that's who I want to cling to. As believers, we get to spend eternity with him in heaven and that is so comforting to think about that. The Apostle Paul wrote in the New Testament book of Romans 8, 18, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

We almost have to wake up every day and remind ourselves of that. We do want to today share with you some incredible stories of people from all walks of life who have had some very interesting experiences and seen little glimpses of the edge of heaven. My wife Jean also joined us for this broadcast. She and I had been going to bed each night listening to the audio version of John Burke's book Imagine Heaven where he captured so many wonderful descriptions and stories that cause us to long for eternity even though we're here in this present moment on earth. And I know this conversation is going to encourage you because every time we've had John on the program, it's been very, very well received, and I've had him speak with Focus on the Family at different public settings.

People really respond to this message. Yeah, we pray that he will speak to your soul here today. John founded Gateway Church in Austin, Texas. I think he's Pastor Emeritus there now.

And, Jim, we're going to pick up the conversation as you asked John Burke to share his personal story. As a young man, you were a skeptic of Christianity. Your background is engineering. I get that.

That's a typical combination, right? You're very science oriented. You want facts in front of you, et cetera. But you did have a major event in your life that changed your perspective. What happened? Well, my dad got cancer, and so literally death was knocking on our door. And at that time, I thought maybe there's a God.

I don't know. Jesus, probably just good man myth about Son of God. You're the pastor today. That's phenomenal. That story right there is phenomenal. So the thing that happened is a friend gave my dad the very first study on near-death experiences, and I couldn't put it down. And I was so blown away because I thought, okay, I've always asked, you know, how do you know this stuff is real?

How do you know? And here I was seeing evidence from, he categorized 100 people, and so many of them were seeing this God of love and light. So many of them saw Jesus and knew God was Jesus, and I was like, wow, could this be true? Now, I wasn't convinced right away, but I, within the next couple of years, ended up starting to read the Bible and got into a small group. I came to faith in Christ. And then, and I think it was God's providence, I kept running into more and more of these stories. And I just was curious, like, okay, how does what the Bible say correlate with what these people are saying? And initially, it doesn't always. So I am always skeptical of any one story.

And I think that's a good posture to have, actually. Let's get into some of this. What are those similarities with those experiences that you followed? And describe that research, just so people have a scope. It has been over a thousand people that you've interviewed or people that are working with you have interviewed.

So it's a big number. But what are those similarities that you did find? You've mentioned a couple of them.

Yeah, well, and in the book, I kind of focus on 12 or 13 of the commonalities. When someone dies, they say they leave their body, but they're in the room still. Many times they can see their body.

They can see the resuscitation attempts. They talk about how they're still themselves. They have a spiritual body, but they're still fully themselves. In fact, feel more themselves than they've ever been. Remember everything about their life and they're watching what's going on. Complete sense of peace.

Just feel like they've never felt so alive. Many times they travel then. Sometimes they call it through a tunnel. Sometimes it's a path, like a pathway of light.

Sometimes it's instantaneous. They're just there. And they get to this place of incredible beauty, not unlike Earth, mountains and flowers and trees and forests, but also so much beyond at the same time. And in this place, it's lit up with the most exquisite light, but the light doesn't shine on things. It comes out of everything.

Isn't that amazing? And it's not light like the light of Earth that hurts your eyes. It's light that they say is palpable. It's love. It's life and it's light all together.

And it's like it's emanating from everything. Well, we're going to get into some of the stories, but Jean, I wanted to turn to you and just tick off a few things that caught your attention as you and I read the book. Well, there are many things. There's probably 10 things, but I'll just mention the love. The overwhelming and boundless love that people experience from Jesus, that it's a love that's so incredibly full of warmth and grace. And people describe it as being fully known and fully loved, and it's something they feel. They just feel it permeating them and coming through Jesus. The light, you just mentioned that as well, the light in heaven, the beaming brilliant radiant light coming from and through Jesus. And that Jesus and God the Father literally light up heaven. And that people describe their senses as being so much more than what they have on Earth. It's so amplified. That grabbed me too.

It was like you could see 10 feet or 100 miles. Yeah, and that's another great example. You know, the commonalities like of the descriptors, you know, I wrote about, you know, probably 12 to 15 of the commonalities typically. But they're actually I categorized over 40 descriptors of this place and what these people said across the globe and actually matched them to what the Bible says. And I've got verses for all but two.

Wow, that's amazing. And even the two. So one, and this is where when you first hear the stories as Christians, I think it does sound kind of maybe out there weird like that. They will say something like, you know, there were colors far beyond the color spectrum. And, you know, this light that is love and all that. Well, once you start to see what the Bible says, you realize, oh, well, that's what we should expect if we had imagined heaven. Right.

Right. But we don't we don't really read it and go, what would that be like? People being able to see, you know, like they'll say, I could see miles. And as if I was right up close, it's like, well, OK, well, that's not in the Bible.

Well, actually, it is. John in the Book of Revelation is taken up into heaven. He's taken in the spirit to a great high mountain. And yet he reads the words inscribed on the stones of the New Jerusalem.

No, the New Jerusalem. OK. You know, the foundation stones, their names are written there. How did he read them? That's a great question. But they commonly say this. They have their eyesight is magnified. In fact, they say that you don't just have five senses. It's more like you have 50, 100 senses and and the senses are blended. Yeah. So again, that's where it's like, oh, well, that's really amazing. Yeah. But if you think about it, you know, we are constrained by three dimensions of space.

That's right. We're constrained. This is a limited experience of this abundance of life that Jesus promised. John, I think we've done a good job kind of painting the picture of what data you collected and like you said, connecting it to scripture. We can't cover all that in 30 minutes, so people need to get the book to get into more detail.

But I do want to cover some of the stories because, again, they're profound. Let's start with Dr. Mary Neal, a physician. She had an accident, a water sport accident.

Describe what happened and what happened to her and her experience. Yeah. And Dr. Mary Neal is a spine surgeon. She was kayaking with her husband in Chile and she goes over a fall. And it was a steep drop and her kayak wedged between two boulders underneath the waterfall.

Right. So she and she couldn't get out. And she was pinned to the kayak, tried to release her spray skirt. The force of the water was holding her down. Her friends were waiting for her to come up and she's sitting there doing everything she can, calmly trying to get out. And then she starts to realize, I've been underwater too long. I can't be underwater this long.

I can't still be alive. And it's pretty clear in the book. I describe what she said. She said she she's feeling more peace and joy than she's ever felt before, more alive than she's ever felt. And yet she's also completely herself. So she's super analytical cause of person. Right. And she's sitting there watching her knees bend backwards, analyzing. Now, what's going on with my cartilage and my bones right now is but that's not what she's experiencing. Instead, she's experiencing Jesus physically hugging her, holding her and gives her a life review, which is another commonality.

Right. That's seeing your life go by. We experience our lives in a powerful, profound way. Like Mary said, not only was Jesus showing me all the experiences of my life, he was showing me how everything, the things I said were good, the things I said were horrible, how he used them in other people's lives. And he showed me sometimes 10, 20, 30 people removed. How truly good comes of all things.

It's that, you know, that verse of God uses all things to good of those who love him. And how long was she dead and what happened to her? 30 minutes. So they she finally dislodged about 15 minutes underwater. And then they were able to they saw her body come up. They pulled her up on shore. They started resuscitation.

And meanwhile, she shoots up out of the water and she's up above the water fully herself and can see them searching for her, searching for her body. And she said, and this is another commonality, this welcoming committee was there. But they, she said, were bursting with love and light like it was coming out of them toward her. It was like this.

And they were it was like this big, great party, like they were joyful and dancing and hugging and kissing. It's real life. You know, we tend to think, well, OK, there are these people with light coming out.

That's weird. But actually, that's Daniel. That's Daniel. Chapter 12, I believe, where he says everybody will die and be resurrected. Ultimately, some to, you know, eternal perdition, but some to everlasting light.

And those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever. Let's move to another story. Another doctor, actually, Richard Eby. This one is really interesting because he was dead for 10 hours. I mean, I describe that.

I mean, most and he's a medical doctor and he's a doctor, but 10 hours. How do you even survive that? I know.

And what happened? Well, so he was helping a relative move and they were moving out of a two story, I think, apartment. And he was throwing junk over, you know, the edge of the rail. I like his style of moving. That's good.

Yeah, I would have to sign it like, hey, let's just get rid of this. And he was leaning on that railing and he didn't realize the termite said basically, oh, my goodness. And it it went and he went head first into the concrete, split his skull open. And so, yes. So he revived miraculously in the morgue.

He was already in more than 10 hours, 10 hours, astounding medical doctors hearing that now are saying that it's impossible. But it happened. Yeah, it happens. And yeah.

And I have others who have medical records, 45 minutes, an hour. But that's that is what was his experience, given that he was so he didn't travel a path or. And that's where, you know, these commonalities, different people experience different points of these commonalities, some more than others.

I don't know why, honestly, but he just was instantly in this valley, this gorgeous valley with, you know, mountains and field and flowers and tall grasses. And as he's asking these questions, like you ask a question, can I wonder if I can pick a flower? And immediately the answer is there and he knows this is Jesus speaking to him.

John, you know, that sounds great. And I know that there are going to be listeners that are hearing this that are having horrible life experiences. I mean, I don't know what it could be, but, you know, we know the categories loss of a loved one, a terminal illness, diagnosis or other pain, loss of a son or daughter. And it's hard to imagine that it actually is going to be better in heaven because they're feeling that pain. Speak to that concept, if you can, that the hope of heaven is what we're aiming for here, even though this life is going to really dish up pain.

And then what's the purpose of that pain? Well, and Paul says in Romans eight, I am convinced and he's convinced from experience that the sufferings we go through on this earth are nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed. That's the hopeful point in heaven.

And, you know, to realize, though, that relationship is meant to last forever. I think a lot of fear that even Christians have all people, but I think even Christians have is somehow heaven will be this mystical, even the way I've described it. You might feel like, oh, that's kind of weird and scary. Like, I don't want to be a light. I don't want to be a right. But you're not.

You're fully you are. This is what people say. And that's why I put one hundred and twenty of their stories in hearing in their words what the Bible says. Jesus said, you will be with me to his friends. I will come and get you. You'll be with me. I won't eat or drink, you know, again until we eat and drink and feast together in the kingdom of heaven. That's what's going to happen. There's a great reunion. And so everything that we suffer here on earth is set straight.

John, I do want to raise the question. Some are probably asking, was it always that way? Do they always see the light?

They always feel the love. But you did have some near-death experience examples where people experience darkness. Yes. In fact, I'm thinking of Dr. Maurice Rawlings, I think is one of the stories. Describe what his situation was and what happened. So Dr. Rawlings was you know, he had grown up going to church. He was a cardiologist, but turned away from all of it.

And med school was pretty much an agnostic. And a guy comes into his office and has a heart attack. And so he's doing CPR on him. And he's trying to get a pacemaker in. And every time he stops doing CPR, you know, the guy dies, clinically dies. And every time he comes to the guy is screaming. I'm in hell.

You got to help me. And the guy's describing this hellish experience he's having. And then the guy, you know, a third time is looking at him with terror in his eyes and saying, you have to do something for me. And Dr. Rawlings said, I'm a doctor. I'm not a priest.

You know, I can't help you. And he said, well, pray for me. And he said he realized he was so distraught that he kind of grabbed back to his Sunday school days and just said, OK, say this. Lord Jesus, I give you my life. Save me from hell.

If I make it out of this, my life's on the hook for you. And the guy just said something like that with him. Dr. Rawlings didn't believe any of it. Right. So then he gets the pacemaker in. Finally, one more time, the guy clinically dies, comes back and he asked him, he said, so I want you to tell me what was it you're experiencing where you were having, you know, you said you were in hell. And the guy looks at me, said, I don't remember experiencing hell. And he described after the prayer, he ended up in this beautiful valley, the mountain valley, gorgeous, you know, like we've been describing. And he sees some of his deceased relatives and they have a conversation and he comes back. And so Dr. Rawlings then starts studying it and realizes, OK, you know, this is something real. Rawlings comes to faith in Jesus, actually, and ends up talking about it a lot. And he postulates that some of these hellish experiences are so traumatic that our mind literally shuts it out.

It's kind of like when little kids are severely sexually abused or richly abused, they block it out. Right. Right. John, you're a pastor. I mean, that's your heart coming out of that engineering background. And this is something God's given you a passion for. I'm thinking of the listener right now who doesn't have that relationship with Christ. I mean, we talk a lot about that. Oftentimes here at Focus, we say if we can help your family, that's one thing.

But if we haven't introduced you to the author of the family, we kind of failed in our Christian mission. Right. Exactly.

So we want to do both. And I'd like for you to speak to that person right now who's listening to this going, that sounds like a bunch of malarkey. You know, for me, it's excitement because I think you're putting pieces together that the Christian community, we either have lost talking about this, but it's right there in scripture.

You do a fabulous job of connecting scripture to these experiences that people have. And I think that's that's the evidence I need that the two are together. But I want you to speak to that person who's sitting there right now. They're driving down the freeway or whatever they might be doing.

They're going, what? But they're still listening because they're intrigued. But, you know, speak to their heart about what this means.

This is critical. Well, stop and think about this. You're talking about millions and millions of people all across the globe. And not just Western European Christian civilization. I put studies in Imagine Heaven where they've studied 500 Indians in the continent of India and compared to 500 Americans. You know, very different cultural, religious upbringings. And yet what they're describing, the heaven and the God they're describing is the same. You know, it was like I wasn't very open minded.

It was the death of my father, you know, that made me kind of wake up. And I think it's a sad truth that many times we go through life wanting to get our will be done. There you go. Right.

That's fine. That's Christians. That's non-Christians.

We live in a world of wills at war. And Jesus taught us to pray, Father, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, because that's what's missing on earth. God, though, and this is what I think is important to realize that I started to realize God is love.

Right. He sent Jesus. The Father sent Jesus so that we would know what love looks like in our finite world. God wants relationship. And it's hard to imagine relating to a mystical spirit you can't see. And yet God remains hidden for a while because he's teaching us something. He's teaching us how to forever choose love, how to forever choose the author of love, the God of love.

But we haven't. All of us have gone our own way. All of us have chosen. I know what's best for my life.

My will be done. You know, and we've inadvertently or blatantly push God aside. And the Bible calls that sin and says the wages of sin is death, which is spiritual death, meaning separation from God. But this is the amazing thing.

And this is what these stories reiterate as well. God doesn't make entrance into heaven something you earn. He just it's a gift. All he needs is a heart turning to him, saying, I want your love. I want your forgiveness.

I want your life. Well, that was one of the challenges as I read the book, really. And I'll let you know as a reader of your book how I responded to it, because when the Muslim encountered the light and the light said to that Muslim, this one of the experiences in the book, I'm Jesus, my attitude was, well, wait a minute, Lord, you gave him a chance.

He passed it by. Now in this near death experience, you're allowing him to acknowledge you. And I'm telling you, in my heart, John, what I heard was, oh, are you going to set the boundaries of my grace? I thought that was my job. Isn't that great? And I was like, Lord, I'm so sorry.

And you know what's funny? Dean Braxton, who is a wonderful Christian man, he had one of these near death experiences. So here he is in Jesus presence. And he's experiencing this love that he said.

And many said this. It felt like I was the only one Jesus loved. Like he loved me so much and was so crazy about me and like I was his only kid. And he said, but then I would think about someone else. I'd realize, oh, no, he he loves him the same.

But I feel like I'm the only one. And then he had this thought. What about them? And what he was thinking is child abusers. And he was thinking it is in a judgment as a judge. And he said, Jesus, almost in a in a harsh kind of way, said. To his mind, to his thoughts in his heart.

Who are you to nullify what I have done? He died for everyone. He wants everyone hard to fathom that. And but that is it. It's that God has removed every barrier between us and the one who loves us except one.

Our pride and our pride. We can play God and we can say, I don't need you, God, and my will be done. Or we can just simply humble ourselves and go, Lord, forgive me. Thank you that you paid for all my wrongs two thousand years ago so that a simple I do is all God needs.

And that's the beauty of it. Getting back to that original question, if you don't know or don't have a relationship with Christ, we want to introduce you to what it means to become a Christian. And we have many resources to help you with that. That's our core goal here.

Focus on the family. John, thanks for being with us. This has been really good. Oh, I so appreciate being here.

Thanks. What a beautiful glimpse of heaven we've gotten from John Burke on today's Focus on the Family. And Jim, nice to have Jean, your wife, here along with us. This has been so encouraging and I trust you've been heartened by what he had to share. Well, I find these stories so uplifting. John's research and the accounts of the near-death experiences that he's collected over the many years he's been working on this remind us of why we have so much hope as Christians.

And you may be the skeptic. I just want to say to you, take a deep breath. This is so awesome to hear these people's experiences and then translate that from a biblical perspective. If you don't know that hope, get in touch with us here at Focus on the Family. We would love to talk to you about your faith or lack thereof and how you can know the peace that comes in a relationship with Jesus. That is why Christians are on this earth, is to introduce you to the relationship you can have with Christ. We have many resources available for you, like the outstanding book we talked about today by John Burke, Imagine Heaven.

It really gives you a strong sense of what awaits us on the other side of this life when we pass from life into the next life in the loving arms of Jesus. When you give us a gift of any amount today to the ministry of Focus on the Family, we'll send you a copy of Imagine Heaven. As always, saying thank you for being part of the ministry. If you can't afford it, let us know. We'll get a copy into your hands because we're simply trying to communicate the message of love and hope from God to you. Get in touch with us today. Donate as you can and find other help. We've got links in the show notes. And on behalf of the entire team, thanks for joining us for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. We'll see you next time.