Pastor John Burke- Imagine Heaven

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Close your eyes and imagine what are the things in life that causes the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, or challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed we've been planted, and having been planted, to grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes, open your eyes to this way of viewing life.

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Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature.

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This is grief to growth. And I am your host, Brian Smith. Hey, everybody, this is Brian back with another episode of grief to growth. And today I've got with me, john Burke. And john is an author and he's a founding pastor of gateway church in Austin, Texas. He's written six books, including no perfect people allowed and soul revolution. And his latest book, which we're going to talk about today is called imagine heaven.

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And hit number one on Amazon is a New York Times bestseller. So with that, I want to keep the introduction short, because I want to have a conversation. Let him tell his story, his own words, so that I want to welcome john Burke degree to growth.

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Thanks, Brian. Great to be here.

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Yeah, yeah, you just froze.

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Okay. Yeah, we're back. Yeah, it's, I'm really looking forward to having this interview with you today. As I was telling you earlier, what I really want to do with with the show with grifter growth is give people hope and understanding. And I know your latest book, imagine Heaven is about near death experiences, which I find to be one of the most hopeful things that people can can kind of cling on to. But I know some Christians have some difficulties with it. So I want to get into that later on. But before we get there, I'd like to talk to you about what led you into into the ministry in the first place. What led you to what you do?

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Yeah, well, interestingly, it began, it began with grief for me, I was an agnostic, I was skeptical.

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You know, of all the God Jesus stuff, you know, had a little church growing up, but kind of walked away from it and just doing my own thing, party and you know, living for me, and my dad got cancer. And as he was approaching death, someone gave him the very first research on near death experiences. The Moodys life after life. And I saw it on his bed stand his dresser. And I picked it up and I just started, I began reading it and couldn't stop. And I read the whole thing in one night.

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And I said, Oh, my gosh, this God, Jesus stuff may be true.

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And it opened me up actually to.

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Because, you know, I, like I said, I studied engineering, I worked in engineering before going into ministry. And to me this was evidential. It was it was part of what I was looking for. It's like how do you know, this isn't just you know, cross your fingers, wishful thinking.

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And here you have testimonies of people. And what I've discovered since all over the world, saying common things and what what I ended up doing, I mean, that began 35 years ago. And it led me actually coming to faith in Christ. As I started to read and study the Bible, along with I've studied over 1000, near death experiences. And so what I ended up doing was writing, taking the observations and the commonalities that I've found in over 1000, near death experiences and showing how this is actually what God has been telling us all along. And so I tie the two together, you know, what, what the Jewish prophets and what Jesus was saying we should expect, and what that kind of paints, you know, like to liken it like a, a black and white drawing of the life to come. And these near death experiences, just color it in.

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And so by the end of imagine Heaven, you feel kind of like you've been there because you've seen what the Bible is saying, but you see it through the eyes of people who have had near death experiences who have clinically died, and come back.

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And yet, you know, they're they're showing you what it's saying all along. And so, you know, for me, yeah, that it's been a long journey. And I wrote, imagine heaven for two reasons. One, I wanted people who are still skeptical like myself, to see this is evidence.

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This is scientific, medical evidence that life goes on.

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After this life. This is the temporary life this is not the one we were created to live in and the one to come is The one we were created to live for. And there is great hope in that. And the second audience I wrote for were Christians, because I do think it's been an incredibly misunderstood what I think is actually a gift from God, I think the church in, in the early days of it coming out, not understanding the mystery of it, or how it ties pushed it away.

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And I think it did damage I think it It kept people from seeing really the hope and the beauty of of this gift that I think God's given now to our global world to show that the afterlife is real. God is real.

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He loves all of us. And and he wants us to have no fear at all, but hope.

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Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with everything you just said. And I think I think at the end is kind of like a kind of a little glimpse, a little peek behind the veil. But I was so excited to hear about you. And I was looking at your website earlier. And I saw that you've got other Christians that are talking about nd ease, because I know there's for some people, they get pushback. I personally know several people that have had indies and are scared to talk about it in their church have been been told by their pastors that it's either hallucination or it's of the devil. Right?

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I know. And I think the reality is, I mean, I'm kind of shocked by it, but I get it too. Because, you know, like I said, My, the beginning of my journey, I was opened up to the reality of the spiritual by looking at the first research of nd ease. Then I was invited into a, you know, small group Bible study in the home. And I was still a skeptic. So I was like, Hey, you know what, they're not they're gonna kick me out, because I got a lot of questions. I got a lot of doubts. Still, I did, you know, and, but that space allowed me I mean, because they said, Now, you know, your, your questions are welcome. By the way, it's why we started gateway church the way we did I mean, our, our motto is no perfect people allowed, because there are no perfect people, you know, but also doubters welcome. I mean, we created a gateway for a place where skeptics and doubters can come and explore and we've seen people come to faith out of every imaginable religious background, and, and agnostics, atheists, atheistic engineers, like me, lots of them in Austin.

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And but but what I find is when you give people the space to explore, with no condemnation with no judgment, but just to question and ask and wrestle, I mean, the evidence is there. And what I discovered it's there, even without in the East Indies are just, they're kind of icing on the cake. There's a lot of historical evidence as well. And that's what wrestling with it brought me to faith in Christ.

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But during that time, and I'm talking about the 80s, and 90s, more and more was being written on, on near death experiences, but But what was happening is, people would talk about it, and then they would feel it wasn't well known. And so they would get people saying, Well, that was probably the drugs you had in the operating room, or you were just hallucinating. Or Oh, yeah, pat on the head, you know, I'm sure. You know, I'm sure that was a, you know, a hopeful dream you had, and it's a sacred experience to people, right?

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Because Because what I found after, you know, interviewing so many face to face is they've never experienced something more real in their lives right. Now, how do you explain that? And actually, I, I've come up with an analogy. It's not completely mine. It actually comes from a book I read called flatland. But I think it helps understand. So imagine, if this three dimensional, you know, we live in three dimensions of space and one dimension of time, right? So imagine if we're living this life, but it's actually being lived on a flat two dimensional black and white painting in your room. Okay. And death means separation. So when we die, our spirit separates from our body.

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So imagine at death, then you're ripped off that two dimensional painting, and you're brought out into this three dimensional room. That was always all around you. And now you can look back and you can see your flat two dimensional world for what it actually is, but now you're experiencing I mean, you're yourself. But you're experiencing new dimensions of time and space and, and color.

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And in your world. You only knew black and white. Now, imagine getting Press back into that flat painting, you have to come back to your two dimensional life and explain in two dimensional language and black and white terms, what three dimensions of color is like,

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right? Right.

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That's what I'm convinced that these people are trying to do that, that truly Our world is a limited version of life limited to three dimensions of space in one dimension of time. But in the world to come, it's many more dimensions of space and time.

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And as a result of that, you know, people are having to, they're reporting what they experience, but they're also all of them having to interpret it as well. And they're interpreting in their own framework, right. So in the early days, I think what was happening is people were having these experiences, there wasn't much known about it in Christian circles, there'd been no attempt to do what I did, which is to understand well, what would we expect from a biblical view of the afterlife? And then how does it align or differ? And, and so as a result, people would interpret their experience. So they would say things like, well, I left my body, but I was up in the room, at the ceiling.

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And, and I was watching what was going on, and I felt this incredible peace. And, you know, this brilliant god of light was there with me. And I saw my, my family members, and everything was great. And then I went, you know, I went back. And, you know, Christians wouldn't Connect necessarily that there's anything biblical there. They would have a lot of different maybe theological paradigm, but but it's actually not a correct one, I believe. Yes. And here's why. You know, a couple of reasons. For instance, I believe the Apostle Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament actually had a near death experience.

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Yeah. So so you know, Paul, if you don't know about him, he was Saul, he was a ferrosi. So he was he was one of the Jewish elite religious leaders who ended up having Jesus crucified.

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You know, so, you know, Jesus is an all pro religion, sometimes religion, you know, many people are like, I'm not into religion.

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Well, you know, there there are, there are religious tendencies that you know, will try to kill even God. And exactly, and it's an important thing to remember, don't throw up just because religion goes astray. Don't throw out God. Right. Right, Jesus. So anyway, Paul, is actually persecuting Christians, because he believes that, you know, Jesus was this demonic false messiah. When this brilliant god of light appears to him, sound familiar? Yeah, you know, on the Damascus Road, and he says, Who are you, Lord?

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And he says, um, I'm the one you're persecuting, um, Jesus, yeah. That Jesus doesn't tell him. He doesn't preach at him.

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He doesn't tell them the gospel and tell him what he's got to do to be saved. He doesn't tell him any of that. He says, just go to the city. And then Jesus sends Anna nyas to help Paul understand what Jesus did. And by the way, Paul still had a freewill, right? Just because you have a near death experience, you still have a free will. And you can come back and you can seek the God of light and love or you can go do your own thing still. Yeah. But But here's the cool thing. So Paul, then, years later, he's now a follower of Jesus. He goes into the city of Lisandra. In modern day, Greece, I believe, maybe it's Turkey. And he ends up a crowd turns on him and it says, they stoned him to death.

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I mean, piled stones on top of them till he was dead, dragged him out of the city and left him as dead. And all his friends rally around them and start praying for him. And he gets back up and goes back into the city and tries he can. Yeah. I mean, personally, I wouldn't go back into the city that just stoned me to death. Right.

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Right. But but then Paul in Second Corinthians 12, I think is reporting on that when he says 14 years ago, and he's talking about himself 14 years ago, whether in my body or out of my body, I don't know. But I was taken up into heaven and saw and heard things inexpressible.

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Now, why did he say in my body or out of my body? I don't know.

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Well, because as Paul then later writes in First Corinthians 15, when we die we're buried our natural bodies but we're raised to life is spiritual bodies were buried in weakness, he says, but were raised in power.

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And that's in fact exactly what near death. experiencers talk about. You Yeah, that they, they still have a spiritual body but with heightened senses Not, not five senses more like 50 senses.

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And, and I found all of this is is in the scriptures. It's all there. But I mean, you know, not many people have really studied it. Let me give you one for example. Okay, so the heightened senses like telescopic vision.

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So in the ears talk about on the other side, they could see, you know, miles 1000s of miles away every blade of grass, every leaf on every tree in this beautiful place, you know, heaven. And, and so, you know, again in the early days I think Christians would say, well, that's weird.

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That's spooky. I don't get it, push it away. Yeah. But in fact, john in the book of Revelation, so john was one of Jesus disciples, the end of his life, he's exiled to the island of Patmos. And it says, Jesus appears to him. In fact, this brilliant man of light, right?

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Same as what people experienced all over the world. And he's taken to heaven. And he's given a vision of heaven. And he says, he's taken in the spirit up to a very high mountain. Now I've, I've had in the ears report, have seen this, this landscape of these incredibly high mountain ranges higher than the Himalayas, looking down at the City of God, this the New Jerusalem, and john is describing that. And he says that, you know, he describes the wall and the gates and all this and over on the archway over him are written the names of the 12 apostles. How did he read the names of the 12 apostles from up on a high Himalayan mountain?

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Yeah.

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heighten telescopic vision? Yes. And there are all kinds of things like that communications, you know, almost a telepathic, it's more than telepathic. Communication on the other side is pure, perfect.

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It's, it's full knowledge of everything that I'm thinking, but also what I'm feeling and what you are, and so there's no misunderstanding between us imagine, you know, and yet, that's exactly how, you know, in the Hebrew Prophet Isaiah and Isaiah 65. When it's talking about the new heavens and earth, what's to come? And how before they even speak, I will hear before the, the the thought is on their tongue, I will answer.

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Yeah, it's this pure thought to thought, Heart to Heart communication.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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You know, everything you just said, I just, I so resonates with me. And it's funny, because I have written in my notes, I was gonna ask you about Paul on the road to Damascus, because I do believe that Paul had had what we would, it's kind of like a near death experience. But I remember speaking with a friend of mine, and he's, he's a former pastor still in a really into Christianity. Now, Sam, you know, I get so much comfort from studying in these. And his thing was kind of like, well, everything I need to know is in the Bible. And I don't believe these are real. And I'm, like, I kind of do, because I said, I gave an example, Paul. And I said, so you believe what Paul reports, right? You were with Paul reporter about being taken up to the third heaven, you believe the story about the road to Damascus, seeing the light being struck blind, hearing a voice that sounds a lot like an N D. And I know someone that just went through that like last week, and I can talk to them.

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And so why do you think we give more credibility to a report from somebody 2000 years ago, than from somebody that we could literally speak to right now?

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Well,

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that's a big question that I mean, I can't answer for everybody. Sure. But I think so let me say this. I think that I think like I said, indie ease color in what I think that God has been revealing all along. So there's another there are two sides to it. Right? So one is, why would you believe that? Indeed, he is, which are fairly recent. I mean, there have been there been near death experiences Plato wrote about them. You know, I've got some imagine heaven from the 1800s.

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So it's not like these are brand new, but they have come to light with modern medicine, modern resuscitation techniques. I you know, and so we become more aware. But why would we think this god that people encounter all over the world, which is the same God and it's amazing, they know it, and he's this god of brilliant light of unconditional love. Who knows them intimately personally? and loves them, regardless of all their junk, right? And so why would we think that that God has only revealed anything about Himself to us and our last 50 years? Yeah,

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yeah, hasn't.

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Right. Right.

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So that's, that isn't an equal like to throw away what God has been revealing all along, which like I said, Before, I found great historical evidence. In fact, I couldn't help myself. But in the appendix of imagine Heaven, I put the historical evidence because I put a whole appendix on what actually convinced me about Jesus revealing the God of light and love. Because God said, historically, look, here's what I'm gonna do. And we have proof evidence that we found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, that it was written before it actually happened. Because we have we have copies of 38 out of 39 books, the Old Testament, predating Jesus, one is the entire book of Isaiah, the entire thing. It's amazing. I won't get off on that, because it's a different subject. But I geek out on it, because it convinced me in my engineering mind, oh my gosh, okay. God told us how we could know it's really him. And he wrote it into history. And this is verifiable history. Yeah. So that convinced me that, okay, Jesus really did come to reveal the heart of God, in a form we can relate to. And the reason is, and this is the biggest, I think the biggest misunderstanding of God is when people think that what God mainly wants is our moral obedience. Now, don't misunderstand me he does.

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Because when we go against God's will, we're going against the will of love, and the only one who understands how it all works together. Right? And yet, God does allow that he allows all kinds of evil in this world, all kinds of brokenness. So the question is, why? Because if, if what he wanted is just for us to do what he says he could make us. Right, right, good. He's God, right. So Why? Well, because God is love, and what he wants more than anything, for children who love. That's what he's actually doing. I believe in this world, he's creating a family of freewill, spiritual creatures, who get the taste for a short amount of time. And by the way, remember, we were created I believe, with 50 to 100 senses, he's limited to five, for a season for a time, 70 100 years at best. And we are born into the knowledge of both good and evil. We experienced both we experience a taste of heaven, we experience a taste of hell. And it's a time of choosing. And I believe choosing will we seek God, will we love God, will we follow God? Or will we play God? And by the way, I think every cent in every act of evil, I think the Bible says this is that it's all rooted in me wanting to play God rather than let God be God. Okay, yeah.

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So and by the way, this is a struggle all of us have still, I mean, I've been a pastor, you know, almost 30 years now. And I still struggle, waking up every day, just thinking about what I want. What I want to get done, how am I going to get my will done? How am I going to get everyone else to do my will to?

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Yeah,

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yeah.

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And how much do I think about Well, God, what's your will in this situation?

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What do you want? Right? And am I willing to be willing and and follow your guidance? And and that's a struggle for all of us.

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Yes, yes, it is.

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swedenborg calls it the love of the South and the love of the world is it these are the two things that lead us to it's the love of the material and the love of you know, basically worshipping myself over putting myself above everyone else.

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Yeah, and I it's really interesting as I listened to your your story and how you came to Christianity, it sounds like you were an adult when you came to Christianity pretty much is that correct?

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I was young. I mean, I was still young. I was I was, you know, when I was really, you know, when I was still skeptical, like I came to a point of Okay, I think this Jesus stuff is true. But I was still in my engineering days. I still have a lot of questions.

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And so I was wrestling wrestling and trying to understand how does this really make sense?

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Yeah, I guess what I was gonna get at because I was I was my grandfather was a pastor and As parents or pastors, I was raised in the church and we were taught not to question. We were taught just to take what we were told. And the Bible is all you need. And so that's, that's the background I

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come from. Which is funny because I mean, if you read the Psalms, if you read Lamentations, they are full of like, God, where are you? What are you doing? Are you just gonna let evil pile on me? When are you gonna bring me justice?

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You know, it's like, john the baptist, right? Like, he says, oh, here is the Lamb of God who is going to take away the sins of the world. Speaking of Jesus, right? I must become less while he becomes more. Okay, great, great, great, john. Then he gets put in prison, and he's facing being beheaded. And he's doubting. He's doubting everything, and he sends his, you know, his disciples did Jesus and goes, so are you the one or should we be expecting someone else?

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Yeah, yeah, exactly.

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How about Jesus? Oh, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? How about Jesus struggling that was on the cross? How about Jesus in the garden? Like Keno? I don't want to go through this. Yes. And that's the, that's the hope, really, is that you know what near death experiencers experience is this God of love.

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And the love is unconditional?

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Well, how can God's love be unconditional when there's so much injustice and evil in the world? I mean, he's either in he's either not just or he's got another way of taking care of it. Right. And that's what he was claiming to do. In Jesus, that, that God would reach his arm. In other words, Jesus was not the full revelation of all there is of the infinite God. I mean, Isaiah, you know, in Isaiah 53, is a prophecy, like I said, written before it ever happened. And he says, the arm of the Lord. You know, Jesus is the arm of the Lord reaching in, and it it foretells everything that is going to be crucified for our sins, because all of us like sheep have gone astray, and that he's going to be buried with the thieves and robbers, but also with the rich, Joseph erema, Thea Rich faricy gave him his tomb. That's why it was buried in a tomb, which was a wealthy man's grave, and that he would see the light of life that he will be resurrected. It's all in Isaiah. proof positive written before it ever have been the Jesus. Now, I think the whole reason God did that, is because if we're honest with ourselves, we all know we screw up. We're all screw ups. I mean, just stop and think about it.

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Like, have you ever said I'll never.

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But you did. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

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So I don't even keep my own moral law. So why would I think I keep God's? And by the way, interestingly, the moral law is what all the religions of the world have in common have studied all the world's religions. And when when people say, Well, don't they basically say the same thing? Yes, they do. about right and wrong about the moral law. The problem is, what does that mean? So we've always known basic right from wrong and yet look at the history of humanity. Right for for all history, we, we we go against what we know is right and wrong. The question is, well, what does God do with that? Hmm, and too many times I think we believe the lie of evil witches, that God hates you. God is judging you is condemning you unless you get your act together, and prove you're good enough. You know, you're cast out, right? But Jesus came to tell us the opposite. That No, God actually understands. He understands every temptation, he understands every struggle, and he's actually in it with you.

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And he has paid the price to forgive us. Everything we've done wrong, past, present, and future. Now, I'll tell you, when I first heard that, my thought was, well, that's not fair.

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Like, that doesn't make any sense. You're saying a murderer can just like say, Hey, I believe in you and be forgiven.

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And yet, you know, a good person not I mean, where's the fairness in that? And again, I think we're missing the point is that what God has actually done is remove every barrier between every person and himself, except one, our pride in turn, so if we want to be self sufficient and say, I don't need God, my will be done. I think I think it breaks God's heart. But I think ultimately says, Okay, I'm not gonna force you. And by the way, hellish indie ease actually validate this.

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So

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Well, I mean, you know, there have been multiple studies done and in one done by ions 23% of people who came forward reporting in the ees actually had hellish ones. A more recent study has indicated could could be even more. Now, what does that mean? Well, I've spoken with people who in Jesus presence were, were shown both.

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And it breaks God's heart never has what Jesus said, you know, hell was not created for people.

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It was created for angels. In other words, angels are just, they're just another species of God's creation, right? is God's incredibly creative if you think about he's created. I mean, we've only categorized I think 2 million species on planet Earth.

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But we have a feeling because of how many we find every year new species that they're probably 7 million. Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. Creative. Angels are just another species just like us that God created. They're eternal, though. They're not not born into this world. But they had a freewill. And so they were created to love and experience God with a free will. And in Love is the highest of God's creation, because God is love.

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And yet it says that some of the angels turn from God and decided, I know best my will be done. Now, you know, in the Bible, those are evil spirits.

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But they're angels. They're just they're not they're not God, like Satan isn't like God is created. God's allowing it for a time. Now, here's an interesting thing that I realized with near death experiences, is just about every near death experience or that encountered angels knew that they had to usually guardian angels. And those angels weren't only there to, to protect them or to minister to them. They were also there to record their lives. So many of the life reviews that people got, like Jesus would say to the angels, like I'm thinking about Howard storm, who, who actually was a college a 10 year college professor atheist, who did have a hellish experience. But in it, he cried out to Jesus, to rescue them. And into this outer darkness comes as brilliant.of light that grows brighter than the sun, arm's reach out, grab him, take him, pull them out of there. And then he said, the angels showed Howard his life.

00:32:57.690 --> 00:33:13.079
So they showed what the end so this panoramic reliving, like a life review, by the way, I'm making assumptions that a lot of your listeners know a lot about this,

00:33:13.259 --> 00:33:14.940
or they probably do. Yeah. Okay, so

00:33:14.940 --> 00:33:27.990
stop me. I can explain more. Yeah, what's the life review? But that the angels are recording that. And here's why I believe because those angels are still innocent.

00:33:28.650 --> 00:33:36.420
They're like innocent little children who have not they've not been damaged by evil yet.

00:33:32.579 --> 00:34:07.859
They haven't been become distrusting and calloused and cynical, they are completely innocent. But the Bible says angels long to look into these things. Well, what things? Well, the redemption of humanity. In other words, we start with the knowledge of good but you know, God's good gifts of love and joy and kindness and, you know, selflessness and beauty and you know, every good thing but we also experienced the the breakdown of that.

00:34:08.760 --> 00:34:14.940
We'll get back to grief to growth in just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian is an author and a life coach.

00:34:15.119 --> 00:34:47.639
If you're grieving or know someone who is grieving his book, grief to growth is a best selling easy to read book that might help you or someone you know, people work with Brian as a life coach to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian and what he offers at WWW dot grief to growth.com www.ge Ri E. The number two we have g r o WTH dot txt grow ever a tr o? Because it's 3199 it's interesting,

00:34:47.699 --> 00:35:27.478
right? Yeah, podcast people talk about how time just worked differently. Yeah, we've got for eternity. e W dot p choose to love comm slash GRC Love, you can't have love if you don't have free will. Let's say you've come to love someone, I love this woman, right? I want her to love me and marry me. I can't force her though, right? I mean, you know, I could I could hold a gun to her head and say, marry me. And I could make her go through the parrot the motions, but we all know, if I'm forcing her freewill. It's not the real thing. Right. Right.

00:35:23.309 --> 00:35:53.219
And I believe that is why God, you know, he, he gives us good gifts. But even his good gifts don't necessarily lead us to follow him. You can't force love. And so that's why God, I think it remains a bit hidden in this time as well. We are learning why and how the will and ways of God and His love is the best way. Yeah. So we'll forever choose that.

00:35:54.090 --> 00:36:24.539
So let's let's talk about a couple of these these concepts. I do want to talk about, like, what, what does happen, like what awaits us and I want to frame this in terms of I've known people that have been in church their entire lives, and they've read the Bible, and they they read things like milk and honey, and they're like, I don't like milk and honey, I'm going to sit on a cloud and play a harp. I don't know where they came from. It's not in the Bible. But we all think that right? Eternity is a long time.

00:36:18.960 --> 00:36:28.949
That sounds boring. So yeah, yeah. So what can we learn from the end D about what it's really like?

00:36:29.969 --> 00:36:41.550
Yeah, and I mean, that is exactly what I was trying to do in imagine Heaven is show that, in fact, many Christians don't know what the Bible says about what's to come.

00:36:41.820 --> 00:36:59.309
And these indie ears what they are commonly reporting fits perfectly. I mean, I, I came up with 43 descriptors from India, ease of the life to come. The Bible talks about 43 of them.

00:36:59.880 --> 00:37:22.739
Wow, wow. Yeah, I mean, it's there. It's there. And it's incredible. So yeah, so let's talk about a typical indie, right. So they leave their bodies. They, they're still themselves, right. So they're sitting there, and they're watching everybody work on them.

00:37:18.659 --> 00:37:57.869
And they know, I've died. But they're not panicked. Because it's like, I feel better than I've ever felt before, on more myself than I've ever been before. And then many times, they'll have deceased loved ones, meet them. Right? They recognize each other. You know, it, it's life. You know, sometimes they're wearing, I mean, I think about this bank president, I interviewed Marv bestimmen. And he said, I was I was dressed in my favorite golf, shorts, and, you know, t shirt.

00:37:52.409 --> 00:38:10.320
And, and he said, You know, they're at the gates of heaven, He sees people from every tribe, tongue and language, and some were dressed in their, you know, native garb from their culture.

00:38:04.980 --> 00:38:50.760
And so, we're ourselves. I think that's one of the big fears people have is, you know, I'm not going to be myself. No, the whole point of this earth is we're learning something to take with us into the life we were intended to have. So we still have our memories, we hug we kiss. Except it's deeper. It's it's more than what that means here on Earth. We communicate with one another, like we said before, but it's pure communication. You know, we we struggle in this life because our minds go four times faster than our words can go so you know, you're listening to me but you're thinking about three three other things with my wife.

00:38:51.210 --> 00:39:52.769
And so you know, I wish what I could do is just put all the things I have in my head I'm trying to get out through my words directly into your mind right? Well guess what? In heaven you can and and and so there's there's pure communication so there's no misunderstanding and all of it is connected with with the love of God know people then often travel and some talk about traveling through some call it a dark tunnel some it's a light tunnel, some it's not a tunnel at all. Some it's like a pathway through space back they can look back and see the earth going away behind them. And you know, it seems like they're they're going through physical space but in another dimension. So the travel is different. Sometimes people are just boom, instantly there. But they they come to a place that is not unlike Earth.

00:39:48.150 --> 00:40:24.360
It's gorgeous. Mountains and trees and flowers and grass and fields and palm trees and and by the way, all this is in the Bible The Book of Revelation, you know, it says john is looking at in heaven. And it says that people from every tribe and tongue and nation and language, so think about that they're all there. Yeah, somehow God got them all there. Right.

00:40:18.150 --> 00:40:46.980
Yeah. And they are holding palm branches. You know, and and waving puffle palm trees and heaven. Yeah, yeah. And I had a blind kid that, you know, reported his experience and blind people, when they die, they can see, right, and he was talking about these gorgeous palm trees outside this wall with light coming out of it.

00:40:46.980 --> 00:40:53.519
Now, here's another fascinating thing. In, in heaven, it's this beauty.

00:40:54.780 --> 00:41:11.730
Just like Earth, but unlike earth to like far beyond it. So for instance, people around the globe talk about light, the light of heaven comes out of everything comes out. So Vicki is another blind person that I wrote about in imagine heaven.

00:41:12.150 --> 00:41:38.639
And she said, you know, light was coming out of the grass and out of the trees and out of the birds, and even out of the people that came to greet her in this beautiful garden light place she was in. Now again, so in the old days, Christians not really studying about this might go, Oh, that sounds New Agey, people of light and all this and they would just push it away.

00:41:38.880 --> 00:41:57.659
Right? Right. Right. But check this out. So first of all, in Daniel, chapter 12, I believe maybe chapter seven. Daniel has a vision with an angel there.

00:41:52.170 --> 00:42:11.099
And and the angel says to him, that in the last days, people when when when everybody has died, they will be raised. And those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars in in the heavens.

00:42:11.909 --> 00:42:45.179
Jesus said the same thing in Matthew 13. He said, then the righteous will shine like the stars in the kingdom of their father. Stare, right. So people that this light comes out of Now check this out. In Isaiah chapter 60. So remember, Isaiah is a Jewish prophet writing in 680 BC. Okay, now john is a disciple of Jesus writing the book of Revelation and about 100 ad, right, we're talking about almost 100 years apart, right?

00:42:45.659 --> 00:42:54.929
And yet, john, and Isaiah are saying the same thing. So Isaiah says, in heaven, there is no sun or moon, for God is its light.

00:42:55.679 --> 00:44:00.750
This is Isaiah. And then john sees the same thing. And he says, there was no sun or moon, for the glory of God was its light, and the lamb was its lamp, Jesus, the lamb was its lamp, and the nation's will walk in that light. This is revelation 21. In that light, meaning the the light is, is coming out of her now what is the light? The light is the glory of God. And what does that mean? I mean, and quite honestly, this is where near death experiences helped me understand some of the things in the Bible, the Bible said, but I had a completely different understanding. Right? Right. So glory, it's like, I don't know, you know, but But here, here's what it is. The glory of God is the love and life and light of God. That gives light and life and love to everything, everything is created. And that light comes out of everything.

00:44:00.750 --> 00:44:35.190
It fills everything. Yeah. And it makes complete sense of when Paul said, you know, in Romans chapter eight, he said, I believe that what we suffer in this life is nothing compared to the glory we will experience to come. And he said, we will share in the glory of God. If we share in his sufferings, yeah. Yeah, think about that. That means imagine the love and life and joy of God flowing out of you.

00:44:30.599 --> 00:44:35.190
Right? It's what we all want.

00:44:35.730 --> 00:44:51.150
Right? Right. And the thing is, and this is what in the years tell us why think it's so important when you hear their messages, because they will tell us everything no matter how bad it looks here, everything is okay. Everything is it's all going to be okay.

00:44:48.510 --> 00:44:51.150
It's all going to be worth it.

00:44:51.150 --> 00:44:53.909
You just just hang in there.

00:44:51.150 --> 00:45:29.280
It's going to be okay. And sometimes it's, it's hard or in this world to realize that, but someone that gets that little peak and gets them Look ahead a little bit and come back and tell us. Yeah, everything this is saying is real. And I love the fact that you'd not only allow people to have questions, but you encourage people to question I went through. I told you I was raised, like, Don't question but then I went through a real crisis of faith. And I'm an engineer, too. So I want to know, yeah, my, my degrees in chemical engineering. So I always want to know, how does this work? You know, how does it work? And I saw shut up and don't ask doesn't work for us?

00:45:25.289 --> 00:45:46.530
Not at all. So I was looking at your page earlier, I saw Lee Strobel had written you know, a endorsement of your book. And I read lead struggles. But you know, years ago, when I was going through this, and I, and I studied, and I read, I read a guy who was a cosmologists, you know, writing about things I read pure. Yeah, yeah. hubris.

00:45:46.559 --> 00:46:02.489
And I read out of you. Yeah. Oh, gee, okay. Yeah, we've spoken together and stuff at conferences. So yeah, I wanted to break all this stuff down, I really wanted to know, and it's come to the point I mentioned swedenborg. Earlier, there's a guy named Emanuel swedenborg.

00:45:58.079 --> 00:46:21.809
And swedenborg really helps me to understand what does the Bible really mean when it says this? And so I've come to a different understanding of the Bible than a traditional Christian has. But to me, it's just become much more rich, you know, and then I just said, I read Paul's account now, on the road to Damascus. And I'm like, that's how I like an NDA. To me.

00:46:18.119 --> 00:46:29.159
You know, that Paul had this experience where it was like, that sounds just like what an NDA is. So it all ties together.

00:46:24.929 --> 00:46:39.750
And you mentioned earlier, the, the moral thread that runs through the legend, CS Lewis called it the Tao. And he says, the towers, it's older than the Bible. It's and it's universal.

00:46:34.949 --> 00:46:47.130
It is. So all of a sudden, it's just like I said, it's really exciting. And I'm really excited to talk to someone who can tell people it's okay. to question.

00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:52.559
It's, it's not only Okay, God gave you a brain for a reason, you don't have to check your brain at the door when you walk into church.

00:46:52.980 --> 00:47:14.070
Now, and and in fact, now, cynicism and skepticism can also become a faith. Yes. And that's an important thing to realize, like, you can get your identity from, I never land anywhere. But that means you're just landing with self at the center. Right?

00:47:10.559 --> 00:47:29.550
That's a dangerous place to stay. But that doesn't mean questioning and doubting, and wrestling to try to say, Okay, I mean, look, ultimately, we all have to trust in something.

00:47:25.920 --> 00:47:55.829
Otherwise, we're God, we know everything. You know, so so even to an atheist, I would, I would say, Okay, let's just say that on this table, you know, say we're sitting at a table on this table represents all the knowledge of the universe, everything you can know, about, you know, how every system of the human body works, everything you can know about the millions of species we haven't even discovered yet on planet Earth.

00:47:51.420 --> 00:48:17.519
Everything you know, about life throughout the billions of stars and galaxies of the universe, you know, and how it all fits together. So all that knowledge is on this table. How much of that just draw a little circle or a big circle represent how much of it you understand currently? And if you know, unless they're crazy, they put a dot,

00:48:17.639 --> 00:48:18.599
right, right.

00:48:19.050 --> 00:48:53.519
And I said, Okay, then Isn't it just possible and I'm saying just possible, that outside your realm of knowledge, in all the knowledge of the universe, God does exist? And I mean, it, it quickly moves atheist to at least agnostics like, Well, okay, maybe I just don't know. And that's more honest. Right. Right. And, and I actually I respect agnostics who say, you know what, I just don't know. And quite honestly, I don't care. I mean, at least you're being honest.

00:48:53.519 --> 00:48:54.449
Right? Exactly.

00:48:54.510 --> 00:49:02.789
It's like, okay, so it doesn't really matter how much evidence there is, You don't care? Well, that's, that's a different deal. Right?

00:49:03.179 --> 00:49:12.628
Right. Well, I don't, I'm just thinking how can you honestly say you don't care about who you are, where you came from, and where you're going to? I mean, there's like, the most well,

00:49:13.139 --> 00:49:27.750
but see, I think, you know, and having wrestled with this myself, and then tried to help so many skeptics and doubters over the years, here's what I've come to is we do care, that's part of the issue, right?

00:49:22.710 --> 00:50:02.789
We, we are always seeking our identity, like, Who am I prove myself prove my worth, prove I'm lovable, proven valuable. And so we get very rooted into those things. And it's terrifying to let go of them. Yeah, you know, so So, you know, for many years, I mean, I was an I was a magnet kume lawdy engineer, you know, who could make my way and I was gonna start my own company and you know, all the material trappings. To prove I'm valuable, I'm worth something.

00:50:03.119 --> 00:50:25.530
Right? Well, I'll tell you, you know, when I started this, when I first I started to realize this is true. And nothing's more important. It's what gives context and make sense of all that we're going through in this life. Right. But then I had an internal battle going on, because my identity was all wrapped up in other stuff.

00:50:25.619 --> 00:50:26.278
Exactly.

00:50:26.670 --> 00:51:11.699
And, and quite honestly, that was a, that was a long, when I, when I felt like God was saying to me, I created you to teach others what you're discovering, not just for yourself, hmm. And that meant, you know, and I tried to do it while doing engineering, and I was just burning myself out. And when I when I sensed him saying, No, I want you to do this, it was terrifying to me. And so my point of all that is, it this is an important lesson in the years come back with right is many times, all of a sudden the material things, all the proving yourself to other people things, all that doesn't matter anymore.

00:51:12.119 --> 00:52:18.449
Right, they have a real clear sense that God is love. And what matters most to God is how we love one another how we treat one another. And then how we use all the gifts and resources we've been given to, to make a difference, you know, for humanity. And so many indie ears come back, and they'll change professions many times into more of a, you know, a healing or a care profession. Now, that doesn't mean always It doesn't mean those other professions are bad. Right now, I have friends who were CEOs that went through near death experiences, and they came back and they're still CEOs, but it really changed their view of what they were trying to do. In other words, instead of just running this company, and using people to make more and prove, you know, a great CEO, suddenly they started to care about the people and realize, well, the company's there for the people, not just my ego. So it does you know, it, it changes our perception of what are we here for and what, what really are we trying to do?

00:52:18.780 --> 00:52:20.940
Yeah, absolutely.

00:52:18.780 --> 00:53:23.070
And I wanted to say something you mentioned earlier, skeptics and cynics and I always differentiate between the two because a skeptic is someone who takes a while to make to come to a conclusion, but they're open to the evidence. a cynic is a different thing. a cynic is someone who says that's impossible. I don't care. I don't believe it. And I and I think those people are often and I don't mean to be judgmental, but they're often caught up in themselves. And they don't want to see that there's anything greater than themselves. They don't want to acknowledge that they don't, that they don't know everything. So they just say that's, that's impossible. And I found with myself trying to not trying to convince people because I can't convince people of anything but present evidence to people. I've had people come to these cynics and saying there's no evidence for any of this stuff. It's just wishful thinking, you're making all that up. And I'm like, go read this book, go read this book, you know, I said, I've read Lee Strobel, and all those guys, you know, many years ago, and now Gary Schwartz, who studied, you know, different things of the afterlife, there's so much evidence there. And so when I hear someone say, there's no evidence, I'm like, you're just you just don't want to see it.

00:53:23.159 --> 00:53:28.500
You. You literally do not want to say it. You're just walking around with your fingers and your ears and your eyes closed.

00:53:29.039 --> 00:54:25.409
Well, and you know what i found? Brian, I've actually I've actually found a place of compassion for those people. And here's why. Because those that did start out cynical, and and yet we're able to actually start to address it and be honest and come out of it. What I found is at the heartbeat of it almost always is hurt. Yeah, yeah. They were wounded by evil. They were disappointed with God early on many times. And they never got over it. Yeah. And as a result, they built a wall around their heart to protect their heart and to make a life with without, without having to face the disappointment they felt with God. So they just write God off.

00:54:26.039 --> 00:54:35.940
And then and then find reasons to make sure this this worldview stays intact. Yeah, they would claim the same thing about us, of course,

00:54:36.300 --> 00:54:45.510
well, you know, a lot of times and it's it's the oldest, that is the theodicy argument. It's like, if God is infinitely good, then there shouldn't be evil in the world.

00:54:45.510 --> 00:55:00.000
Because if God were infinitely good, he would solve the evil in the world. So therefore, there must not be a guide because this stuff is happening, which seems on the surface, like a logical argument until us really start to understand what's really going on.

00:55:00.869 --> 00:55:21.958
All right. And that's exactly why I think what God did through Jesus is so important. Because if in fact, what Jesus was saying, and came to do with his true, God is love. He has given us free will.

00:55:17.818 --> 00:55:25.528
Because what he wants more than anything is a loving family.

00:55:21.958 --> 00:56:21.509
That that's what Jesus was doing. He was paying for all the wrongs. So that all it takes for someone to be made right with God, no matter what they've done is just a heart turning back to them. Like how much more simple Kennedy you don't have to jump through a bunch of religious hoops. You don't have to prove you can get clean or sober or, and by the way, I mean, this is what this is what so many addicts have found, right? Who have who have gotten sober from I have a friend who had a 38 year meth addiction, one of our pastors 10 year Methodists addiction. But it was when they came to the end of themselves and said, I can't do it. God helped me. And they turned to him. And they found the power to overcome. And that's a Yeah, that's exactly that's. So it's it's all the same principles there. But you were just saying something that remind me what you just said, because I had a, I was going somewhere and I derailed

00:56:22.170 --> 00:56:35.820
what we were talking about the fact that these people have taken us on it kind of as an identity as a pride thing. So they decided that there can't be any guide because there's, you know, there's evil and they're just not gonna let go

00:56:36.059 --> 00:56:51.510
theodicy. Well, I mean, that neglects what God has been saying all along, because to Moses, the greatest commandment love God with all your heart, mind, and soul. So love is what it's all about.

00:56:48.570 --> 00:57:15.420
That's what he said, the 10 commandments are the first six are how to love God, the or the, the first four, how to love God, the next six are how to love people, you know, and he was just defining what love is not yet right, but help us love. So, you know, don't, don't hit your child. Okay, that's a command.

00:57:10.199 --> 00:57:54.150
But that doesn't keep the rage out of your heart that needs to be cured, so you won't react and hit your child. Right? So what will help that? Well, if the problem, in fact is that we're disconnected from the very source of love, and light and life, right, the glory of God, then that's what we need. We need to be reconnected to the source. And this is exactly what Jesus said, Jesus said, You know, I have not come to abolish the law on the profits, meaning the Old Testament, and what was written there, I've come to fulfill it. What does that mean?

00:57:48.449 --> 00:58:14.250
Well, then he goes on, this is in Matthew chapter seven, and eight. And he says, you know, the law says this, but I say, and what he's saying is, the law says, Don't murder someone, but I, but I say meaning I've come to help you not even hate your brother, right? Not say Raka. So you know, cut your brother out.

00:58:10.710 --> 00:58:30.960
Why? Well, because you don't murder someone, unless there's something going on in your heart that would actually hate them to that point. And so Jesus is, his whole point was he's come to reconnect us, to the God who loves us, and is always with us.

00:58:28.199 --> 00:59:38.519
And that's what he said, I'm with you always. It's what the IRS tells us, right? God, God tells him that message over and over, always be with you. And he's there to help us in our time of need. And as we learn to walk with God, in this very personal way, he actually starts to grow our hearts from the inside out. And that's what Jesus was saying. So, you know, he made it real simple as last night on earth. He said, Guys, look, I'm going away. But don't worry, you trust in God, trust also in me, my Father's house are many dwelling places, and I'm going to prepare a place for you. He's talking about having, instead I'm going to come and get you. And you'll always be with me where I am, and we're going to eat and we're going to drink wine. We're gonna it's life. I mean, it's all it's all life, but it's so much more life. And then he said, I'm like the vine, and you're like the branches. And a vine. All it has to do is stay connected to the trunk of the tree and fruit grows naturally. Right?

00:59:39.449 --> 01:00:01.170
disconnected from the tree, nothing grows. Right? And so he said, You stay connected to me, and you will bear fruit. And what do you mean? Well, he said, the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace, patience and kindness and goodness and self control, you know, faithfulness.

00:59:54.599 --> 01:01:46.650
And so that is at I think Christianity at the core, it's not trying to be a good moral person. It's not trying to do the religious deeds. It's actually this incredible, beautiful thing of turning back to God and knowing that we're not condemned, there is no condemnation. God's paid for all our wrongs. So that we can just like, I mean, doesn't mean we won't do wrong. But when we do wrong, we start to realize why it is not God's will, because it either hurts us or hurt someone else. So we don't want to so we just reconnect, we stay connected to the source. And that I find is how people actually they actually grow into the kind of life giving people we all want to be, and we all want to be around. Yeah. Now the difficult thing is that there are a lot of people who sit in churches for years and, and they're actually playing the faricy game. I wrote a whole book called unshockable love about this, because oh, yeah, because I'll tell you, Brian, I mean, Ferris Aiko Christians almost destroyed this beautiful thing I saw God doing in our church, where people from every background of walk of life and struggle, you know, were coming and finding love and acceptance and freedom, and God was actually doing something and not just them, me and all of us, right? It's this beautiful. But, you know, I did find not many, but Christians who would would grow up in a different culture.

01:01:41.489 --> 01:02:04.860
That quite honestly, what I did is I was just showing, here's the culture of the Pharisees that crucified Jesus, here's the culture of Jesus, are your attitudes and actions more like the Pharisees are more like Jesus? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, we're the same people that, that we were back then at the core. Right,

01:02:04.980 --> 01:02:08.250
right. Exactly.

01:02:04.980 --> 01:02:35.010
Yeah. Yeah, that's actually the point. I just made just someone literally like last week, you know, and I and I've seen that I when I I used to have a blog and I called it the the church of Latter Day Pharisees there the coal piece. Because I unfortunately, there's a lot there's, there's a lot is relative, there is some of that in Christianity day and a lot of people will read the Bible and they think they're they were the cult of Jesus. They're actually in the culture of the Pharisees.

01:02:31.409 --> 01:02:50.369
And that's what's turned a lot of people off. So I love I love your heart. I love your encouraging people to question I love the fact that you're saying, no study these, these nd ease these will actually validate what the Bible says, they'll bring it more to life.

01:02:50.369 --> 01:02:57.599
And I get so disappointed. I can say I was talking to a friend of mine, we said, well, everything I need to know is in the Bible.

01:02:57.599 --> 01:03:02.730
I don't need to read in the other book, because I was asking, have you read this book?

01:02:59.190 --> 01:03:55.260
Have you read this? No, I just I read the Bible. And the Bible is great. But you know, it was written 2000 years ago. And there are things now God is still speak, I was part of the United Church of Christ for a long time. One of the things I love about them is to say, God is still speaking and never place a period where God has placed the comma, there's guys still talking to us. And through these nd ease for whatever reason. You know, it's we say it's medical resuscitation, maybe it's because we need it more, you know, maybe maybe God's saying, You guys need some help. So let me give you these these messages. And I look at people have entities to me, they're kind of like profits. I mean, they come back and they said, they're like, you know, the guy that went to the mountaintop and looked over in the promised land and said, let me tell you, I've seen it. And it's real. And it's and it's there. And we're headed there. I think it's, it's awesome. So I applaud you for doing

01:03:55.829 --> 01:04:38.969
well. And I totally agree with maybe one caveat. And here's the caveat is another commonality of indie ease, is that they experience a border or a boundary, they knew they couldn't cross over and still come back to Earth. And this is incredibly common. And in some cases, God will tell them, like, what do you want to do? And they and they know and it's interesting, because the border boundary is different for each person. It's represented a different way. But they intuitively know that's crossing into eternity. So what that means is, we can't just study in the ease and get a full understanding of what's beyond that border or boundary. Right?

01:04:39.358 --> 01:05:10.528
Jesus alone claims that he came from there to reveal things to us. So I do think I do think, start with Jesus. Start with Jesus and then work out from there. And as you study the indie ease, you know, the other thing you'll realize is they there are They're reporting again, they're reporting something truly, like trying to talk about three dimensions of color in two dimensional black and white terms. Right.

01:05:10.559 --> 01:05:10.949
Right.

01:05:11.068 --> 01:05:17.668
So that means everyone is interpreting as well. Exactly. And their interpretations are not all the same.

01:05:18.150 --> 01:05:20.429
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

01:05:18.150 --> 01:05:20.429
So

01:05:20.429 --> 01:05:32.728
So anyway, that's, you know, I like to think about it like the first question, really? And I say this, because of all the evidence is, who is Jesus? Did he really reveal God?

01:05:33.148 --> 01:07:03.179
In a form we can relate to? and answer that question first, and then work out from there. And you'll start to see that, you know, one, don't put them in a box. And I think that's what you're saying. Is that, yeah, I so I believe that God has really revealed what we the basic things we need to know about who God is who we are, and, and God's characteristics in the Bible. I do. And it's through history. However, there is way more truth to be known. God didn't put every truth in the Bible. In fact, I think it's Deuteronomy 2929. He said, you know, the laws been given, so that we can know and understand these things, but the mysteries of God have not been given. So there's more truth, right? I mean, you know, we science has taught us. I was, I was a mechanical engineer and a geologist. So, you know, it's like, I, when, when I hear Christians talk about things, like, you know, the Bible is all the knowledge we need, and they, they basically neglect to try to reconcile, okay, what is science, teaching us with? what the Bible teaches us? Well, I think we've got a history of bad mistakes. doing that. Yeah.

01:06:58.829 --> 01:07:11.219
Right. So I don't think it's an either or it's, it's all God's truth, but not all of God's truth and mystery is revealed in the Bible. And he says that,

01:07:11.429 --> 01:07:56.969
right. Exactly. No, I I completely concur. As I said, I think it's, the Bible is fantastic. The more you study it, the more you understand the language, the more you understand the history, the more you understand what's metaphor, and what's to be taken literally, yeah, more powerful it becomes and then you take that and you take the end, the ease, which are also a partial message, as you said, it's a glimpse, you know, it's not it's not a full picture of what it's like, once you cross that barrier. And we but we add all these things together. And once you have the reconciled and no, even the person of Jesus, which I don't have time to, to get started on that right now. But it's fascinating to me how many people have no belief in Jesus, and they see Jesus in there and D. Tell you can I tell you one?

01:07:52.619 --> 01:07:56.969
Yeah, sure.

01:07:57.300 --> 01:08:21.960
Yeah. So um, you know, I told you, Howard Stern, but when I was I was on Megyn, Kelly, Fox, when when Megyn Kelly was big, and I have this lady reach out to me from Los Angeles, and she emails me and says, Hey, I saw you on Megyn Kelly, and I don't know who you are. I've never read your book.

01:08:21.960 --> 01:08:25.260
But that happened to me. I was talking about, imagine heaven.

01:08:25.260 --> 01:08:36.090
And this, all this. She said, when I was 16. I grew up in a Jewish family. My father, and mother were atheists, agnostics.

01:08:36.329 --> 01:08:49.829
But when I was 16, my horse landed on me and crushed me. And I died. And Jesus was there with me. I've never told anyone that thanks. Wow, that's what she said. Wow. And I was like, whoa.

01:08:49.829 --> 01:09:12.750
And so Heidi, and I started talking, she's actually a hospice nurse now. And so anyway, we we started talking and it's, yeah, it's amazing. So even though her father told her, you know, you are no more significant than a speck of dust, you know, on the ground.

01:09:07.859 --> 01:09:15.989
And Jesus Christ is the biggest hoax ever foisted on humanity.

01:09:12.750 --> 01:09:15.989
So that's what she grew up with.

01:09:16.229 --> 01:09:24.659
But she said, and quite honestly, it was kind of a not a great family situation for him.

01:09:19.500 --> 01:09:36.000
But she said, I always believed in God and I, as a little girl, especially when things were difficult, I would pray to God at night, and I felt this piece I felt this presence with me.

01:09:32.699 --> 01:09:51.840
Hmm, well, when the horse crushes her, she said, she left her body. She's up 30 feet above, seeing her sisters freak out. But she's an incredible piece. And there's the light comes over her right shoulder, and she turns and looks back and she said, it was Jesus Christ.

01:09:52.109 --> 01:10:14.729
Wow. Just as she would, you know, like, the robe, the beard everything and she said, but I wasn't like What's a good Jewish girl like me doing with a guy like a rabbi like you? Because you know that that wasn't supposed to be? She said, No. I knew him. And I had always known him. And she knew he was God.

01:10:15.060 --> 01:10:18.420
Now, here's what's fascinating.

01:10:15.060 --> 01:10:18.420
Jesus gives her a life review.

01:10:19.439 --> 01:10:39.539
And in the life review, she sees herself in her room praying as a kid. And Jesus is sitting there by her bed. Oh, wow. He was showing her he was the presence there with her. She was praying, and she always knew it. Yeah, now that's totally unexpected.

01:10:39.539 --> 01:10:59.850
But I've had the same thing. I had a woman from Tehran in Farsi. Tell me how she came to faith in Christ as a Muslim. And it was when she had a near death experience and the exact same thing Jesus appears to her. And she comes back following Jesus.

01:10:59.939 --> 01:11:02.819
Yeah. Told me told it to me in Farsi. Wow.

01:11:02.970 --> 01:11:16.109
Wow. I know, it's, it's incredible. Well, I could talk to you all day, we probably should. Pretty soon. tell people where they can find out more about you more about your book, your church, everything else?

01:11:16.680 --> 01:11:27.930
Well imagine heaven.net is the website. More about about imagine heaven?

01:11:21.750 --> 01:11:49.649
gateway church.com. And its gateway church, Austin, there are other gateway churches. So we're not affiliated with with others. I've had people go out and search gateway church, and then they're disappointed because it doesn't allow doubts or questions or necessarily but but we do and and so you know, that's the environment we're trying to create. So yeah, we have an online campus as well.

01:11:49.649 --> 01:11:51.720
So people are welcome to check things out.

01:11:52.498 --> 01:12:03.298
Well, it's been fantastic getting to meet you and and to see your enthusiasm and your love for people and the way you're sharing this, this, I think, very important message.

01:12:03.658 --> 01:12:13.048
That is, I think really needed right now. So it's been an honor. Thank you very much for being here today. Thanks for having me on the podcast, Brian.

01:12:09.628 --> 01:12:32.878
All right. Have a great rest of your day. So that does it for another episode of grief to growth. I sure hope you enjoyed it. If you like this content, make sure you subscribe. So click on the subscribe button here, and then click on the bell to receive notifications and click on all that way you'll be notified whenever I release new content. Thanks for watching and have a great day.

Pastor John Burke- Imagine Heaven

John Burke

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