Sid Roth with John Burke on It’s Supernatural! © 2019
Former-skeptic John Burke was an agnostic engineer who studied over 1,000 people that had near-death experiences. Some saw Heaven, and some saw Hell. Now he challenges anyone to disbelieve in Heaven and life after death, after examining his research. He says the stories of people who’ve come back from Heaven and Hell will change how you see life forever!
Nothing is quite like seeing life through the eyes of Heaven. Make it a priority! When he began what would amount to almost 1,000 interviews, skeptic-turned-pastor John Burke didn’t realize God had set him up. Imagine Heaven is John’s account of more than 100 moment-of-truth near-death experiences. And he compares them to what Scripture says about our biggest questions of Heaven.
Imagine Heaven will change just about anyone who reads it!
John found that common yet unique experiences shared by thousands of near-death survivors uphold the glimpses of Heaven promised in the Bible. These journeys into the afterlife will change the way you live your life today and how you view the life to come — John says make it a priority! The questions are familiar, but the answers are convincing. Among them:
• What will Heaven look like? • What do we do forever? • What is God like?
You also get John’s new Imagine Heaven Devotional with 100 heaven-focused devotions. To grow your Heaven perspective, John says to read them before bed and dream about Heaven!
And in his 3-CD series, Eyewitness to Heaven, he teaches and shares interviews of people who describe their near-death experiences. Peace comes by seeing life through the eyes of Heaven!
John Burke is a New York Times bestselling author. He and his wife, Kathy, are co-founders of Gateway Church in Austin, Texas.
Audience: [applause and cheers]
SR: Hello! Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world,
where it’s naturally supernatural! My guest
was an agnostic engineer that studied over
1,000 people for 35 years that had near-death
experiences. Some saw Heaven; some saw Hell.
Now he challenges anyone, anywhere to disbelieve
in life after death, after examining his research.
Next on “It’s Supernatural!”
Audience: [applause and cheers]
[music]
Announcer: Is there a supernatural dimension?
A world beyond the one we know? Can we tap
into ancient secrets of the supernatural?
Can our dreams contain messages from Heaven?
Is God ready to bring a tsunami wave of healing
onto planet Earth today? Sid Roth has spent
over 40 years researching the strange world
of the supernatural. Join Sid for this edition
of “It’s Supernatural!”
Audience: [applause and cheers]
SR: Well, you know I see NDE, near-death experiences,
more and more. What is your definition of
a near-death experience, John?
JB: Well, it’s when someone has a clinical
death, like their heart actually stops and
then they’re resuscitated. In some cases,
their brainwaves stop.
SR: Um hmm.
JB: Um, they’re dead, but modern medicine
resuscitates them. In some cases, they’re
on the verge of death, but what’s common is
they come back and talk about their experience
of a life beyond this life. I interview, I
interviewed doctors, bank presidents, college
professors, commercial airline pilots, pastors,
little kids, people of all socioeconomic backgrounds,
and yet they’re consistent! There are commonalities
of what they say! And that’s what I was trying
to do, writing “Imagine Heaven”, is tie them
together with what the Bible has already told
us! And you see a picture unfold before you
of the life to come.
SR: You know what the thing that just literally
blew me away, and after talking with you I
know you too, people born blind! Well, tell
me about Vicky.
JB: Yeah. Yeah, so in “Imagine Heaven” I take
about 100 of the 1,000 or so near death experiences
I studied, and I, and I’m showing through
their eyes what happened, and how it fits
with the Bible. But the ones, there are about
3 in there, of blind people. And I think this
is one of the things that have has convinced
skeptics definitely convinced me: The blind
people see! So when they die, like Vicky,
um she was in an auto accident. She had been
blind from birth, never seen.
SR: Um hmm.
JB: She leaves her body and this is common,
then she’s looking down at the site of the
accident, um, and later she’s taken to the
hospital. And then she’s above the hospital
bed, and she doesn’t know what it is she’s
experiencing, she doesn’t have words for it.
And then she notices there’s a ring on this
body of this girl she’s looking at and it’s
her ring! and she recognized it. And she has
long hair, so she recognizes, “I must be dead”,
she didn’t know. Because you feel, they say,
more alive than you’ve ever felt before! So
this is this is not less real, this is more
real, than what we experience here. She’s
taken then through a, she didn’t know what
to call it, there was light, and color, and
then suddenly none.
She comes out on this pastoral like garden
area of beautiful grass and trees and
flowers, and a vast number of people. And
all the people, and even the flowers and the
leaves and everything was shining with this
light, but the light didn’t shine on things.
It came out of everything! And she said the
light was also love. And so it was like love,
and light, and life coming out of everything.
Now what’s fascinating to me is that blind
people consistently say what sighted people
say, that the light of Heaven comes out of
everything! Now how would a blind person ever
get that idea? You wouldn’t hear it here.
Light shines on things, not out of things,
right? And commonly, people talk about this
welcoming committee of their friends, or relatives,
or others who had gone on before. Vicky, she
grew up in in a home for blind children,
SR: Um hmm.
JB: and there were two girls, Debbie
and Diane, who had died at 9 and age 11.
SR: Hmm.
JB: She sees them, and they hug, they recognize
each other. She said they were in their prime,
and they were whole and healthy. And then
she sees Jesus, and He is brighter than any
of them, filled with love. She hugs Him. The
hug, she said, was unlike any hug you’ve [chuckling]
ever experienced. She describes Him like we
would see Jesus! And then and then Jesus tells
her, “It’s not your time yet. You must go
back”, and she goes back. And what’s fascinating,
she was able to see Debbie and Diane and herself,
but she didn’t see that, because she was blind,
and yet she was able to explain it, and the
housemother verified it.
Audience: Wow.
JB: In chapter 2 of “Imagine Heaven”, I write
about skeptical doctors in the afterlife,
of what convinced so many skeptical oncologists,
cardiologists, that I studied or that I interviewed,
was that many people, when they die, they’ll
be above the operating table. Like one doctor
I interviewed, Dr. Sabum said this one patient
was above the operating table when their heart
stopped during surgery, and noticed that the
other surgeon there had failed to wear scuffs
over his white shoes, and described the shoes.
Another patient was having um, had a brain
aneurysm. They drained their entire body of
all blood, stopped the brainwaves, covered
the eyes, put clickers in there to make sure
there were no senses, at all. And yet, she’s
above the table, and is able to describe what
went wrong with the procedure, and how they had
to put something in her artery in her leg,
could describe the saw that looked more like
a toothbrush with a socket set, she said,
not what you would think of a saw to
SR: How do these doctors –
JB: Again, I
SR: How do they – Wait, they have no grid for this!
JB: Well, and this has been written up in
the Journal of the American Medical Association,
SR: Huh!
JB: in Europe’s most prestigious medical
journal, The Lancet, 900 scholarly publications!
And so, there is incredible evidence that
there is, in fact, life after death! But what
I find even more fascinating is when you look,
everyone is a bit different, and they all
have their interpretation of it, because truly,
it’s an experience of life beyond our dimensions.
There are there’s beauty, there are mountains,
and trees, and flowers, but all of it, they
say, they experience not with 5 senses, more
like with 50 senses!
Audience: [applause and cheers]
SR: Hmh!
JB: What I’ve come to believe is that this
experience is the shadow of the real thing.
SR: Now we have it reversed! Most of us hang
on to Earth,
JB: Right!
SR: for dear life! But we should be hanging
onto Heaven
Audience: [applause and cheers]
JB: Yeah!
SR: for dear life! [laughs]
JB: Exactly!
SR: You know what I’d like to find out, when
we come back, there are so many and this is
[chuckles] the greatest apologetic that there
is a Heaven, the Bible is true, Jesus is real!
JB: Um hmm.
SR: By interviewing some 1,000 people, he
found patterns of things that almost all the
people had, which then give us real insight
into what Heaven is like. Do you want to find
out a few more of these?
Audience: [applause and cheers]
JB: [chuckles]
SR: Be right back.
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Audience: [applause and cheers]
SR: Now, I’ve interviewed many people that
have medically died, and gone to Heaven.
But you have interviewed so many, that you
have found certain commonalities.
JB: For 35 years I’ve studied the Bible, and
I’ve studied these experiences, and and I
want to show that these are like dots of color
on the bigger picture that the Bible’s given
us all along. And that’s the picture we’ve
got to hold to, because any one experience
can be interpreted many different ways, and
they are! But when you listen to what’s reported,
commonly, people will leave their body, they
have a body, they still are fully themselves,
more alive than they’ve ever felt, but they
are able to observe, for a little bit, what’s
going on on the scene of their accident, or
whatever it might have been, and then they’re
taken! They don’t know if it’s they some say
through a tunnel, some say down a path. There
are different ways of explaining it.
SR: Do they experience, when they’re hovering,
let’s say, over their body, do they experience
fear?
JB: No.
SR: Good! [laughs]
JB: [chuckling] Not no!
Audience: [laughs]
JB: I mean, generally, it’s a peace like you’ve
never known before, but they come to a place,
and different people see different parts.
So it’s kind of like if you landed a hundred
people across you know, North Carolina, and
then gave them 5 minutes there and said describe
it. Well, they would all describe different
bits, but you could start to piece it together,
and that’s what I try to do
SR: Um hmm.
JB: in the book, “Imagine Heaven”, is piece
together the picture of what they’re saying.
SR: Right.
JB: And what I’ve found fascinating is how
many talked about people in these white robes,
but what I discovered is they’re not white
robes like we’re talking about, they’re actually
translucent. And the reason they’re white
is it lets, I believe, the Glory of God shine
through!
SR: Hmh.
JB: Maybe the amount of light and love of
Jesus that we allow to shine through us now,
expands our capacity to experience the life
and love and light of God shining through
us there!
SR: Now, why is it that just about everyone
I’ve interviewed, that has had this type of
experience, did not want to come back?
Audience: [chuckles]
JB: [chuckles] Well, because it’s the life
we were created for.
Audience: [cheers]
JB: This life is a temporary journey. We are
finite, we are confined to
time and space here! But Jesus said it, He
said, “I am going to prepare a place for you,
and I will come back and get you, and you
will”, “There are many dwelling places in
My Father’s Home,” “and we will always be
together”! And we will eat, and we will drink!
There will be feasts! There will be – its life!
It’s not less life, it’s more life than we’ve
ever imagined!
SR: Aren’t you a little worried when people
read your book and find out how wonderful
Heaven is,
JB: [chuckles]
SR: and how verified it is, they’re going
to [chuckling] want to cut out of this life?
Audience: [laughs]
JB: I I actually
SR: [chuckles]
JB: No! I really actually am! And I would
say that if you read and you have that thought,
you’ve got to remember what God said to almost
everyone: it’s not your time, I still have
plans have for you.
Audience: [applause]
JB: And we should never short circuit God’s
plan.
SR: Tell me, what are our bodies like in Heaven?
What if you go there with pain in your body?
What if you go there with cancer in your body?
JB: Consistently, um, you know several people
I write about had loved ones. One, um, a guy
named Gary had a friend who was decapitated
in an auto accident, and he said one of the
most wonderful things was as he’s coming up
to the entrance of the gate of the New Jerusalem,
out comes his friend John, happy, whole, healthier
than he’s ever seen, gives him a big hug.
And God appointed John to take him on a tour
of the city. Our welcoming committee kind
of
SR: But
JB: introduces us!
SR: what about the head?
JB: Yeah, he had a head. [laughs]
SR: He had a head? Okay.
Audience: [laughs]
SR: [laughing] I was just checking, you know!
JB: [chuckles] I thought that was implied
in whole and healthy,
Audience: [laughs]
SR: [laughing] Okay, okay!
JB: but maybe not. [laughs]
SR: [laughing, pounds desk]
Audience: [laughs]
SR: How about families?
JB: Yeah! I mean it is the greatest reunion
we’ve ever had. And and you know they
SR: They all get along?
JB: Yeah.
Audience: [laughs]
SR: [laughs]
JB: Well so, I write about that! I write about that.
You know, one of the commonalities is our
communication is perfect, meaning
SR: Hmh.
JB: um, we speak to one another in complete
thoughts, emotions, we understand each other
perfectly!
SR: I’m told we don’t actually speak words,
it’s like spirit to spirit.
JB: Right, but we can speak words!
SR: Okay.
JB: And in fact, we sing songs! One of the
fascinating things about the music of Heaven,
you know where Paul said things, “Eye hath
not seen” we should talk about the colors
of Heaven but, “ear has not heard” the music
of Heaven. Like Betty Malz talked about how
um, she heard all these songs, all in different
languages, but she understood all of it. Don
Piper, a pastor who’s a friend of mine, said
it was like listening to a thousand songs
from Bach to Queen, all at the same time,
and yet perfectly harmonized.
Audience: Wow.
SR: Hmh.
JB: It’s music in a new dimension! So we’re
talking about life, and this is what you need
to understand: There’s adventure! There are
mountains to climb! There’s travel that’s
not limited! So Captain Dale Black, the airline
pilot who died, I have a picture of the plane,
in the L.A. Times. Everyone died in the crash,
he resuscitated. But isn’t it just like God.
God has him flying into the New Jerusalem
above, and he describes the beauty, very much
like John did in Revelation 21. These grand
mountains behind, but he noticed they were
snowcapped, which is fascinating, I hadn’t
heard that.
SR: Hmh.
JB: And the city wall that stretched side
to side for he couldn’t he couldn’t see how
far. And and the beautiful landscape of Paradise
outside the wall, of the grass and the trees,
and he heard waterfalls and fountains. And
and this city with homes, with architecture
that was he couldn’t even describe it in words.
There was something supernatural about the
architecture, he even said. And so you hear
what they have to say, and what I try to do
is show how they show from different angles
exactly what the Bible has been telling us
all along! Colors. They commonly say colors,
like you don’t have here on Earth, so spectacular.
That makes perfect sense! The color we see
is from the spectrum of the light of the sun.
SR: Right.
JB: The color there is the spectrum of the
light of God!
Audience! [cheers]
JB: Far beyond anything we’ve ever seen!
SR: Yeah! You can’t you can’t not in the same
ballpark!
Audience: [applause and cheers]
JB: Yeah!
SR: I’ll tell you what, when we come back,
there’s just so many things to talk about,
but the most fascinating thing that you talk
about is he calls it a life review! Did you
know every one of us is going to get a life
review? Be right back.
[music] ANNOUNCER: We will be right back to
“It’s Supernatural!”
[music] ANNOUNCER: We now return to
“It’s Supernatural!”
Audience: [applause and cheers]
SR: John, tell me just one life experience
that had quite an impact on the person and
on you.
JB: One man I interviewed was an atheist college
professor, um, who was taking a group of students
on a tour of museums in Paris. His lower duodenum
ruptured. Usually within 5 hours you die.
There was no surgeon on call in the hospital.
After 9 hours, he was in the most pain he’s
ever been in. He passed. But what he finds
is, he’s standing beside the bed. He thought
when you die, it’s like unplug the computer,
lights out. But he found himself standing
by the bedside, and felt more alive than he
had ever felt before. He felt great! One minute
he feels the worst he’s ever felt, then he
feels great! Now here’s what’s fascinating.
You know, time and space and distance work
different on the other side. So he’s confused,
he thinks he’s still alive. And he’s trying
to get his wife’s attention, but of course,
he can’t.
SR: Right.
JB: Well, a group of people are standing
in the hallway of the hospital. He can’t
quite see them, and they say, “Howard, come
with us.” And he and he thinks they’re the
hospital staff taking him to get surgery finally,
and he follows them. And make a long story
short, I write the full thing in “Imagine
Heaven”, but they lead him to an, outer darkness,
just like what Jesus talked about.
SR: Mhm.
JB: And he starts to realize, “They’re deceiving
me”, and he tries to go back, and they turn,
and they maul him. And he said he was laying
there, and he doesn’t know if it was an eternity,
or how long, thinking about his life. And
he had not been a good man. He had he had
committed adultery on his wife, he had been
self-centered, and all these things, and he
realized, “I deserve this.” And in that moment,
a song came into his mind from when a neighbor
had taken him to church, as a kid, “Jesus
Loves Me”, couldn’t even remember the rest
of the tune, and something inside of him just
cried out, “Enough! Jesus, if You’re real,
save me!” And a pinpoint of light begins,
and comes into this darkness. Ends up this
brilliance brighter than the sun, hands reach
out, pick him up and hold him, as he sobs
like a baby, realizing, “This man I have cursed
my whole life is real!”
Audience: Yeah.
JB: And there in the presence of Angels, gives
Howard a life review.
Audience: [applause and cheers]
SR: Hmh!
JB: Well one more thing. Howard, after that
life review, comes back, after 2 years leaves
his tenured college professorship, becomes
a pastor. His wife is still an atheist, she
divorces him, but he’s been pastor ever since.
Audience: [applause]
JB: Truly I mean the Damascus road.
SR: You know, so he had this life review,
we’re going back to that. What is a life review?
JB: Yeah, this is another commonality. That,
in the presence of Jesus, He replays their
lives for them. Now, what’s interesting is
um, it’s like a panoramic revisiting your
life, but from the perspective not only of
yourself, but the people you interact with.
And what’s interesting, like Howard said to
Jesus, “You’re skipping the most important
part of my life, you know, when I got this
great award for artist of the year, and professor
of the year”, and Jesus said, “That’s not
what’s important.” He said, “I want to show
you the students”, and He showed him how he
interacted with the students, and what was
going on in his mind, and what was going on
in the students’ heart. And he shows us how
our interactions – he shows us what Jesus said:
Even when you give a little cup of cold water
to a child, it matters! Every act of kindness
ripples throughout humanity, but then our
negative things ripple throughout humanity
as well. And you know one of the things that
confounds me, quite honestly, is that some
come back, in the presence of this God of
love they never want to leave, but they don’t
seek Him.
Audience: Hmh.
SR: That’s hard to believe.
JB: But others come back, and they seek Him,
and they discover He’s Jesus, and they give
their hearts to Him.
Audience: [applause]
JB: And in the latter chapters of “Imagine
Heaven” I talk about rewards in Heaven, because
I think I think it is so misunderstood. You
know, even that life review, that is not judgment.
It’s just what Jesus said, that there is no
motive or thought or deed that won’t be laid
bare. But it that’s that should not scare
us! He already sees everything. It’s all laid
bare right now! Well, it, we think we can
hide from God, we can’t hide from God, we’re
only hiding from ourselves. But here’s the
thing: [music] “There is no condemnation for
those in Christ Jesus”, and He wants us to
know that now.
SR: You know what, you have said enough,
JB: [laughs]
SR: that you should give your life to God,
right now.
Audience: [applause and cheers]
JB: Hmh.
SR: That’s what you should do.
As of now, live for Heaven, and bring
Heaven on Earth!
Audience: [applause and cheers]
JB: Absolutely.