For greater than three a long time, John Burke has studied hundreds of near-death experiences (NDEs) and found a exceptional commonality amongst them: Each particular person, no matter their non secular background, experiences the God of the Bible.
“I interviewed 70 folks on each continent and located that all of them met the identical God; it didn't matter their tradition, ethnicity or non secular background. God is the God of all nations,” Burke instructed The Christian Submit.
Burke, who along with his spouse Kathy based Gateway Church, a multi-site church primarily based in Austin, Texas, tells a few of these tales in his e-book,Think about the God of Heaven: Close to-Demise Experiences, Divine Revelations, and the Love You've At all times Needed from a Hindu engineer who meets the “nice god of lightning” to a nurse in Brownsville who’s instructed by Jesus himself to unfold the message of affection and redemption.
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These tales, Burke mentioned, are a part of his bigger argument that NDEs are God's “new international apologetics” to affirm His existence, the fact of the afterlife, and His want for a relationship with each individual.
“All people says, 'I by no means needed to go away His presence, and of all the wonder I've skilled, all these great reunions with folks I really like who’ve gone earlier than me, nothing compares to only being in that presence,'” Burke mentioned.
He clarified that even when every particular person encounters the God of the Bible throughout an NDE, it doesn’t point out that they are going to find yourself in heaven. Burke mentioned he doesn't imagine these individuals are experiencing an “entrance to eternity” or a “tunnel of demise”, somewhat they’re experiencing “one thing in between”.
“That will confuse some Christians,” he mentioned. “However I prefer to remind them that the apostle Paul didn’t imagine in Jesus, he arrested Christians and had them imprisoned and killed when the identical God of sensible gentle appeared to him on the Damascus street in Acts 9. When Paul asks, 'Who’re you, Lord?' He says, 'I’m Jesus.' However Jesus didn’t inform him what to do or clarify the gospel message to him.
“I imagine God is saying to the world, 'I’m actual. Heaven is actual. Hell is actual. And I really like each individual from each nation, I would like you to be my baby by what I’ve completed by Jesus, so you possibly can flip your coronary heart again to me and be made proper with me.'”
Burke, as soon as an agnostic engineer, started to seek for the reality in essentially the most private of settings—a hospital room subsequent to his dying father. It was there, within the midst of combating impending loss, he mentioned, that he encountered the primary seeds of what turned a lifelong investigation of proof for the afterlife and the fact of God.
“For the final 35 years, I've had this insatiable curiosity to determine, OK, what are these near-death experiences and the way do they line up with what the Bible says all alongside?” he mentioned.
Think about the God of heavenbacked by Lee Strobel, Carey Nieuwhof and Medical doctors, follows Burke's New York Instances bestseller Think about heavenwhich offered greater than 1 million copies.
His newest e-book, he instructed CP, is the end result of three a long time of painstaking analysis and addresses frequent misconceptions and questions in regards to the authenticity of NDEs — particularly as some accounts have been broadly discredited.
For this e-book, he underwent rigorous evaluation of the experiences reported by people from quite a lot of backgrounds, together with medical professionals comparable to backbone surgeons and anesthesiologists, who, in keeping with Burke, “have lots to lose by making up wild loopy tales about entering into and seeing. Jesus.”
“What I'm making an attempt to indicate is just not the one-offs, however the commonalities,” he mentioned.
These near-death experiences, Burke argues, provide not solely perception into the afterlife, but additionally profound implications for the believer's current life.
“As evil will increase, God tends to extend His testimony on earth, and I feel He's doing the identical immediately,” he mentioned. “I attempt to present how it’s in keeping with Scripture, to persuade skeptics, but additionally to assist Christians see what God is de facto like.”
“All of us put God in a field as a result of we’re finite,” he added. “And but the reality is that God is much extra mysterious and wonderful and exquisite and sumptuous and sovereign, omnipotent, all-knowing, than we are able to think about. However what does that imply? And the way does it have an effect on us immediately? God can also be nice, likeable, pleasant and humorous. Nonetheless, Christians typically don’t suppose so. I'm making an attempt to indicate, 'It's within the Scriptures, but it surely's additionally what these individuals are experiencing.'”
Nonetheless, Burke cautioned towards forming theological beliefs primarily based solely on NDEs and famous the danger of encountering “controversial” accounts as they acquire reputation. As a substitute, he distinguished what folks report from their private interpretations, influenced by their cultural and spiritual backgrounds.
Burke, for instance, instructed the story of Nia, an adolescent from Africa who, after a near-death expertise, described an encounter with a light-weight being she recognized because the goddess Durga, regardless of the expertise carefully mirroring the Christian understanding of God.
“I don't suppose we must always draw our theology of the afterlife or God solely from near-death experiences,” he mentioned. “I truthfully suppose it's very harmful. The extra standard NDEs grow to be, the extra doubtful will seem. Regardless that that individual could have had a sound expertise and what they report could also be correct, they return and interpret what they noticed with their very own worldview.”
Because the world grapples with questions of non secular actuality and the afterlife, Burke mentioned he hopes his e-book serves as a well timed contribution to the continued dialog, inviting readers from all walks of life to discover the opportunity of love and life past.
“The identical God has not simply appeared in our age of recent medical resuscitation and near-death experiences; it's the identical factor that God revealed by the Jewish prophets and thru Jesus and gave unimaginable proof in historical past,” Burke mentioned. “Scripture have to be the interpretive key to near-death experiences, not the opposite means round.”
Think about that the God of heaven is accessible now.
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Submit. You’ll be able to contact her at: leah.klett@christianpost.com
