3 Scary Near-Death Experiences and Powerful Encounters with Jesus | Imagine Heaven by John Burke - Imagine Heaven Podcast with John Burke

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Well, I'm John Burke, author of the New York Times
best selling books Imagine Heaven and Imagine the God of Heaven,
And today I want to do something a little different.
You know, if you watched the last episode on Hellish
near death Experiences, I took you into the various realms
of evil that people experienced in their unpleasant near death experiences.

(00:25):
But I want today to let you hear from an
interview that I did with three of them about the
life change they experienced afterwards. Because you know of the
incredible life change that people I've interviewed and I've interviewed,
you know, close to fifteen hundred people having near death
experiences now and the heavenly experience have incredible life change

(00:49):
when they come back. But even more so those who
had hellish experiences. Their lives changed radically. And I think
we can learn something of about life and what matters
most as you listen to this interview. Well, today I
have three men that I'm interviewing who did not keep quiet.

(01:10):
They had hellish indes. But they are better people, actually,
they would say because of them. And I think we
can learn something from these three men and the way
their lives have changed So today I have with me
Howard Storm, who is a former college professor.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Howard you there.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Oh, good to.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Be with you, Thanks so much for being with us.
And then also paul Oheita is here. He is a
business owner. Paul you round.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
I am good to be here with you. John Burg,
God bless you.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
And finally, Kyle Hubbard was a college student at the
time that this happened to him. Kyle, thanks for joining us.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Thank you, John. I'm excited to be with you guys.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Okay, so some people have heard maybe parts or bits
of your stories, but some may be joining us just
the first time on this video. So I wanted to
give you each a chance to kind of give a
version of where you were at and what happened on
the day that you had this clinical death. Why don't

(02:11):
we start with you, Paul.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yes, So my story begins in nineteen ninety seven. I
had died from a cocaine overdose. They put me in
an ambulance. I was on the way to the hospital
when I died. I was telling people I didn't see
a bright light. I saw a black tunnel, and it
felt like somebody dropped me in an outer darkness as

(02:33):
I literally started free falling into this outer darkness and
racing down this tunnel, if you would, it seemed like
a bottomless pit, and it was going forever. I realized
that I was no longer I was no longer I
was dead, and I had left this earth. And I

(02:55):
knew that I was in eternity. I know how to
explain it, but I knew that the place where I was,
I had left this earth. And so for whatever reason,
I also knew that I was going to Hell. I mean,
the very first thought that came to me is, Paul,
You're going to hell. And so as I was racing
to Hell, I remember that the first thing I thought was,

(03:20):
you know that something went wrong. I shouldn't be going
this way because I'm a good person. And so I
started thinking, you know, God, I never killed anybody. It
did rob a bank. You know, I'm not a bad guy.
And immediately it started going faster. And as it went
down faster, I remember that I cried out with desperation

(03:41):
to the Lord and I said God Help. I just
remember saying God Help. And I wasn't a religious person.
I didn't go to church. I I just knew I
needed to call out to God. And at that very moment,
the spear of the Lord comes right next to me,
and he asked me a question I'll never forget. He's like, Paul,
what did you do with the life I've given to you?

(04:02):
And before I could answer, John Burt, my whole life
flashes right before me. Everything I did a secret and open,
good and bad. And so that's how I knew that
that was God. And I remember telling the Lord. I
was just so saddened with the life that I had saw.
And so I tell God, I said, you give me
one more chance. I'll come back and I'll tell the

(04:24):
world about your mercy, your grace, your love and who
you are. And to me, that was really really important.
Right there, hell became real. You know, I've heard about it,
but to experience it and to see that there is
a place and if I could, there was a pulling
away from God. It felt like I was being pulled

(04:47):
away from the light, if you would, from his presence.
It was like I was going to an outer darkness.
And so I think, to me that was the most
scariest part, that I was being pulled away from from
God and his presence. And so when he gave me
a second chance, and I woke up in the hospital

(05:07):
and I had the IVS and I looked and I
told Lilian, because Lily grew up in the church, that's
my wife. I told her. I said, I found that
Jesus you've been telling me about, and from this day forward,
we're going to serve him.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Well, I've got I got lots of questions to ask,
but I'll let each of you go first, and then
I'll dive in and poke in.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Prod.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Kyle, tell us what happened the day you died? Awesome?

Speaker 2 (05:38):
So it was December fifteenth, twenty twelve. I was twenty
three years of age. I had spent the last few
years in active alcohol addiction, where I would drink just
from morning till evening. So this put me in a
hospital and I was actually in the middle of a withdrawal,
a medical withdrawal, medical detox where they hook you up

(05:59):
to you anti anxiety medication, things that basically keep your
your nervous system from from going haywire when you take
When you take away this substance, your nervous system can
go haywire, and you can be susceptful to heart attacks, strokes, seizures.
You name it, and a lot of people with alcohol
addiction actually die with the withdrawal. And so I was

(06:22):
in this kind of life and death struggle in the Baylor,
Scott and White Hospital in Lake Waite, Texas, just outside
of Austin. And the second nine I was there was
most of the details were very hazy throughout the three
four five days I was there, But the second nine
I was there, all of these details that I'm about
to share were just burned into my heart, burned into

(06:43):
my memory. It was so real. It was more real
than than a lot of actual life that live now,
and so it was just heightened reality, is how I
can explain it. So that's why I'm able to remember
these details so quickly and and just so readily. So yeah,
it was the second I was there, December fifteenth, twenty twelve.

(07:03):
It was the middle of the night, like two or
three or four am. I don't know the exact time,
but I felt my heart racing the fastest I've ever
felt it race before. I'm an athletic guy. I was
an athletic guy before the alcohol athletic guy now, and
so I know what it's like to have a heart
that's racing after a sprint, but this was like double
if I could put beats per minute. I don't know

(07:24):
what it was, but it was super fast. And so
I realized that my heart was like kind of giving
its last hurrah. That was my understanding. And then the
next thing that I realized is that my heart was
now beating the slowest it's ever beat before. So it
just time completely slowed down, and it was kind of
measured with even my heart beat. And so I'm waiting

(07:45):
with the beats of my heart and it's like my
heart was beating like once every ten seconds, and I realized, Okay,
my heart is now giving up. It's giving its last hurrah.
Now it's giving up, and I'm waiting for the next
beat of my heart, and all of a sudden, my
vision goes black. It was a dark hospital room. My
vision instantly goes black, and I'm waiting for the next
beat of my heart and I don't feel it. I'm

(08:07):
just waiting and waiting, and so instantly the reality of
my plight comes true to me, that I have died,
and my understanding at that point I was completely atheist,
completely away from God, didn't believe there was life after death.
My understanding is that this is the end, that nothing
happens after this. So I'm thinking to myself, why am
I still conscious, Why I still have Why am I

(08:29):
still thinking if I've died, And in that moment, the
reality of heaven, the reality of Hell, the reality of
an afterlife, the reality of God, the Devil, the Bible,
everything became instantly tangibly real to me. God was real,
the Devil was real, Heaven was real, Hell was real.
But I knew, of how I lived my life that

(08:49):
there was no way a perfect, holy, righteous God would
accept me. So I knew, just like Paul, I knew
I was going to Hell and I was going to
a real place of torment. And so the next level
that I experienced John was was really scary. And it
was after the level of darkness a vision that my
vision went out, and it was this dark, dingy, kind

(09:11):
of yellow, old style hospital room, and there were people
running around trying to inject themselves with a drug, trying
to get a drink whatever gave them peace on the earth.
They were looking for that, but they couldn't find it.
They were opening drawers, there was nothing in there to
give them relief. And so peace was completely gone in
this stage and people were scrambling for anything just to

(09:34):
give them some relief. And I was right there with them,
looking for a drink, looking for something, but there was
nothing to be had. There was no relief in that stage.
And then the next next level that I went down to.
This is how I experienced it, because it was like
scenes from a movie The next.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Year, Kyle, were you also dropping like Paul was saying, or.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Is this there was a there was a descending so
like from this my vision went black. I descended to
this kind of dingy, old hospital type of like setting
where people are running around looking for for things to
give them relief. And then I dropped to this third
level now, which is it's The details are very intense,

(10:17):
but basically there was this grandmother figure who was sitting
in front of me. Half of her face was in
the light and it was the most beautiful, beautiful thing
I'd ever seen, the most peaceful thing I've ever seen.
The other half of her face was in the dark,
and that was the most grotesque, evil like flesh flesh
eaten scene I've ever seen. And so I realized when

(10:38):
she turned that she was actually not good. I thought
she was good. I thought she was there to help
me at first, but when she turned, I realized that
she was actually there to hurt me. And in that
third level.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
I mean, I'm sorry I have to interrupt because I'm
sure people are just thinking this is this is like TV?
I mean, or yeah, are you sure? Why would that be?
Why would you see something like that?

Speaker 2 (10:58):
I have no clue, but it was the most real thing.
I can see her image in my face today and
it's it's it was. She was sitting in front of me,
and I thought she was there to protect me, but
like I said, as soon she turned, it was just
the most evil thing that you could imagine. And in
another room there were sounds of basically evil people that

(11:20):
were asking if they could kill me. They said, can
we kill them now? Can we kill them now? Can
we kill them now? And she kept saying not yet,
not yet, not.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yet, but you'll dead. Why were they What does that mean?

Speaker 2 (11:33):
So somehow there was I thought I had died right
I'm in this other place, but somehow there was an
actual other other death where they would would come at
me and kind of torment me, and and whatever they
were planning on doing, it was basically to destroy me
at a at a deeper level. And I'm in my
physical body too in this stage, just completely me in

(11:53):
front of this evil grandmother figure. And so you.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Can still feel things, you feel like you're yourself, you
oh body completely.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
I knew I was kind of completely and the senses
were heightened. I mean it was the colors that I saw.
There was even these these animal figures that were kind
of at the control of this grandmother figure, and they
were the most brilliant, fluorescent, beautiful colors. But I realized
I was like, oh, they're beautiful. But then they when
they'd look at you, they'd realize, you realize, like these

(12:23):
are out out to actually torment me, and so they're
not good. And so what seemed to be good in
this third level was not good at all. I she
kept holding back the people who were wanting to destroy
me at a deeper level. And then all of a sudden,
I go to it to a fourth level, descend down,
and this is where it gets just interesting, where it
was kind of a reprieve. It was almost a chance,

(12:44):
even in that hellish experience, there was almost a chance
to repent at that stage, and in this uh fourth level,
there's a three African American ladies with the most beautiful,
joyous countenance, the most beautiful joy space. And they were
comforting me. They're saying, you're gonna make it, You're gonna

(13:05):
make it, You're gonna be okay. And they started singing
gospel music like all about Jesus. They started singing over
me and basically saying, you're gonna be okay, You're gonna
be okay. But again, my heart was condemning me so much.
I was like, why am I even deserving this reprieve,
this peace?

Speaker 1 (13:20):
And so I didn't so that that wasn't a that
wasn't a looks good but really evil.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
And they was really good. It was there was peace.
It was basically a chance, even in that experience, I believe,
looking back at it now, to say yes to their song.
They were singing the truth of Jesus, the Truth of
God over me, and and it was it was almost
like an old gospel church service that I was in
in this fourth level. And I but I didn't.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Like And you grew you grew up in church, right.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
I did. Yeah, my dad's been a pastor for over
forty years, so I grew up every Sunday Wednesday. I
knew the songs, I knew the language, but my heart
was so far from God. I was a a pre
med major. It was all about rational thinking, science. What
you can see, what you can feel, what you can touch.
But I'm in this place where I'm seeing, feeling and
touching supernatural things and I have no grid for it.

(14:12):
And again, so my heart is condeming myself. Even when
these African American ladies are singing identity over me, I
didn't accept it. And so now I go down to
the last level, which is me just descending, really similar
to Paul's story, where I'm descending down and into deeper
and deeper darkness, deeper and deeper, torment, deeper and deeper,

(14:33):
just total fear. Like the worst anxiety attack I had
on Earth was nothing compared to the anxiety that I
was feeling in this in this moment. And so I realized, Okay,
and this is where I'll wrap up here and I'll
let our other guests share howard is I get? The
thought gets put into my heart since I'm gonna be
here forever. I knew I was going to be here forever.

(14:55):
That was without a doubt. I'm going to be in
this place of torment, I might as well get right
with the person who rules this place or the entities
that rule this place. So the thought comes to my heart,
jone to start cursing God and cursing Jesus with every
curse word I knew, because I thought, if this is
what the devil believes, I knew he hates God, he
hates Jesus, I might as well start agreeing with him

(15:18):
and agreeing with what he agrees with, because maybe I'll
have someplace authority, or they'll give me a drink of
water or a cold beer or whatever. And so I
start cursing God, cursing Jesus with every curse word I
knew for probably five minutes, and every time I'd say
a curse word, I would fall into deeper and deeper pain.
So I realized I came to the end myself, and
I was like, this isn't giving me anywhere. So now
that the last moment before God rescued me, as I'm

(15:41):
suspended in nothingness in a deep, dark void, the only
things I remember were out on the periphery of my
vision were these kind of like little furnaces, like little
furnaces you see in the log cabin, but they were
way out in the distance. That was the only light.
It was like this low glow and spend it into
nothing this and I've come to it myself. I'm not

(16:04):
cursing God and Jesus anymore because I know that's that's
got me this place. And so that a word, one
word comes into my heart or into my mind to say,
and that's the word yes, why, Yes, Just one word.
I didn't know that what I was saying yes to,
who I was saying yes to, But that's the word
that came in my heart. I knew that that's what
I needed to say, and so I yelled it. I

(16:25):
yelled the word yes into the nothingness.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
And as soon as I yelled yes, I was instantly
back on that hospital bed, in that hospital in Lake Way, Texas.
But this time there was a tangible piece in the room,
like a true like everything is okay, a true piece.
And I realized, I'm back to life and I'm getting
my bearings. And I see a little life review of

(16:51):
just a few scenes from my dad and I growing up,
where he was like throwing the football to me and
it was just me and my dad. It was some
of the greatest moments. It's from my childhood, and I
really just feel that's the father's heart over so that's
what he wanted me to remember from my life, remember
through the lens of mercy, and so I see the
kind of little old TV scenes of my dad and

(17:12):
nice favorite moments. And then I'm still getting my bearings,
realizing I'm back to life, but with this tangible peace
in my heart. Like my Grandma's house, and I look
up to the right and it's in the middle of
the night, so it's a dark room. I see written
on the wall in bright glowing like the color of
lightning is a Bible verse and it was John three

(17:33):
point sixteen. It wasn't the actual verse written out word
by word, but it was just the scripture address. And
God probably knew that was the only verse I remembered
from being away from him for so long. We had
to memorize that every vacation, Bible sool, school and everything.
So I knew that it wasn't just some mysterious thing
that brought me back. The thing or the person the

(17:55):
god I said yes to was the God of John
three sixteen, which is it's Jesus God sent Jesus because
he loved me, so I wouldn't have to stay dead,
but I would have everlasting life if I believed in him.
So like, oh, my goodness, Jesus is real. God is real.
And that peace just carried with me the next day

(18:15):
and then we can talk about the other stuff. But yeah,
the peace was so real. It was heaven on earth
even though it was that was the experience just before
it was it was night and day as soon as
I said yes to the God of John through sixteen.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
Wow. Well, you know, I'm not saying this. I hope
it's not offensive, but people probably would go, Okay, that
just feels ridiculous. That's that's got to be. You got
to be making this stuff up. I mean, this is
like you've seen too many horror movies, and I would
say it too, except I've talked to so many of

(18:52):
you have said the same thing or very similar stories. Howard,
tell us about yours, because at the time of years
you were a tenured college professor.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
You know.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
One of the things that convinced me is I look
at some of you guys, and I'm like, what in
the world would would make you want to make something
like this up. You had nothing to gain whatsoever, and
when you came back it hurt your career, right. But
tell us what happened.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
My experience happened June first, nineteen eighty five. And when
I was a teenager, I got very disillusioned with the
church and religion and all that and became an atheist.
I started studying philosophy, and when I went to college,
I got really into existentialism. All my friends at the

(19:45):
university were atheists, and we used to mock Christianity specifically,
not other religions, just Christianity. And I used to try
and dissuade my students who exhibited any kind of religious
sentiment that that was childish and it was the same
as believing in fairy tales, something I'm not very proud

(20:07):
of now, but that's who I was thinking that I
was going to dissuade them from the ridiculous myths. And
June first, nineteen eighty five, I was leading a group
of students around Europe on a three week our tour
and we were on the next to the last day
and at eleven o'clock in the morning, I had a

(20:27):
perforation of the small stomach. My wife called the desk
at the hotel and they called a doctor and he
came and knew immediately was wrong as I had perforated,
which means a whole in my small stomach, said that
I would die if I didn't have an operation immediately,

(20:48):
and called an ambulance and they to the public City
Hospital of Paris and it was taken to emergency seen
by two doctors. Said the same thing as the doctor
and the hotel, that I had to have surgery right now,
within the hour. So they sent me to the surgical hospital,

(21:11):
and unbeknownst to me, because it was a Saturday, there
was no surgeon available to do anything for me. So
it was actually never admitted by any doctor into that hospital.
So every doctor I've talked to said that my life
expectancy was only a few hours, and I've talked to

(21:35):
a lot of doctors about this. I was never given
to any drugs. I wasn't given a top sheet or
a pillow, nothing. I was just laid on a bed
waiting for a doctor to take me on as a patient.
This started at eleven o'clock in the morning. Eight thirty
that night, the nurse came in and said they were

(21:55):
unable to get a doctor, and I would try and
get one the next day. For hours, this pain, which
had knocked me to the floor with the most acute,
horrible pain I've ever experienced in my life, got bigger
and worse. Instead of being just a place in the
middle of my animal, now it was my entire torso

(22:21):
it was impossible to breathe anymore. And I was because
I was an atheist. I was terrified of dying, because
I knew that you know, just end of the movie,
you know the end, nothing else. I knew that for certain,
and all of my friends at the university, who were

(22:42):
all professors, they all knew that too. And I said
goodbye to my wife and told her to tell my
kids that I loved them, and all this stuff and
very tearful, painful saying goodbye, and I went unconscious. I
awoke and I felt wonderful. I was so happy, no

(23:05):
more pain, and my senses well hight in my sight,
my hearing, my smell, my touch, everything much greater than
I'd ever been. And I tried to get my wife
to acknowledge me. She, from my point of view, acted
like I wasn't there. I had a roommate in the room,
a sixty year old Frenchman, and he wouldn't acknowledge me.

(23:28):
And I also noticed that there was this piece of
meat in the bed that I had been in. That
head very disturbing resemblance to me, But it couldn't be me.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Did you realize you were dead?

Speaker 3 (23:42):
I refused to acknowledge that I was dead because I
felt great. How can you be dead and feel that good?
It's impossible. And I knew that the thing in the
bed which was dead couldn't be me because I was
standing there looking at it. You can't look at yourself,
you know, that's not possible. There and I heard people
calling me outside the room and they were saying, how

(24:04):
hard to hurry up? Come with us? So I went
over and I said, I'm sick. I need a doctor.
I'm supposed to have surgery. And they said, we know
all about You've been waiting for you a long time.
You have to come with us now. So I really,
who were these people?

Speaker 1 (24:18):
I mean, who'd you think they were?

Speaker 3 (24:20):
I thought there were hospital people to take me to
the doctor. They said, we know all about you, you know,
come with us now. So I thought, okay, walking into
my surgery. So we walked and walked and walked, and
it was a very very long journey, and it got
darker and darker and darker, and the number of people,

(24:42):
which were originally maybe eight or ten became hundreds.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
And hey, let me pause a second, because I I've
I've wondered, like, what would have happened is if your
experience had stopped right there and you'd back to life,
because some some some have experiences that are shallow, some
have experiences that are deeper in terms of these near

(25:08):
death experiences. If you had come back to life right then,
what would you have thought.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
I wouldn't be talking about it. I would have thought
that was really weird, and I wouldn't have and I
wouldn't have told people about it, and it certainly wouldn't
have changed my life.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
So initially, this is like a welcoming committee of people
who are nice and they're saying, come with us, we're
going to help you.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
But it didn't end that way, did it.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
So eventually I was terrified because they were getting very ugly,
saying really horrible things what they were going to do
to me and stuff, and I said, I'm not going
with you any for a minute, said you've got to
go further, and I refused, so they started to push
and pull and I fought back, and eventually the pushing

(25:58):
and playing turned into hit and kicking, and then that
turned into biting and claring and scratching, and then that
turned into them invading my body, which I don't like
to talk about. Eventually, I was just all ripped up
in a fetal position, just total pain. But the greater

(26:22):
pain was the emotional pain of what they had done
to degrade me. And I heard a voice say pray
to God. And I thought to myself, I don't pray.
And a voice said, pray to God, and I thought,
I don't know how to pray. I can't pray. And
the boy said, pray to God. And I thought, when

(26:46):
I was a kid and went to Sunday School, we
learned prayers. What were those? And I'm trying to think
of things, and I'm thinking of all the things I'd
memorized as a kid, like a pledge of allegiance and
Gettysburger dress and Shakespeare and stuff like that. Come upon
Lord is my shepherd, so I say it, and the

(27:06):
people around me were very, very angry and saying and
incredibly obscene, horrible language that there is no God, nobody
could hear me, and they were going to do much
worse things to me if I didn't stop that immediately,
which encouraged me to start using God and Jesus in
the crudest possible ways to eat my revenge back at

(27:29):
them and drive them. And I drove them away from me,
and then they left me there, and I had an
opportunity to go over my life. And I went over
my entire life and came to the conclusion that my
life had been a complete failure. That I thought it
was something really big and important, and I realized I
was not big and important, and that my failed relationships

(27:51):
with my parents, my sisters, my wife, my kids, students,
my colleagues was what my life really added up to.
And I had gone down the cesspool of the universe
into this home place, and the people that attacked me
were my my brothers and sisters in spirit, and they.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Were and where were you? What do you mean? They
were your brothers and sisters in spirit? And where were you?

Speaker 3 (28:20):
At that point, I was in a place of nothing
but people who had lived their lives to gratify themselves,
and now they were able to live without restraint. And
the thing that made the place awful was their behavior.

(28:40):
Since there was no restraint on their behavior, it was
a world of domination and conquest and demeaning one another,
which is what was in their hearts as they lived
in this world. They lived to dominate and gratify their
desires and to meet to mean other people. So I realized.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
That this is what.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
What for me forever and ever and ever, and there
was no way out, and I sank into the deepest
despair and hopelessness. In that place, a memory of myself
as a little child in a Sunday school classroom came
to me, singing, Jesus loves Me, and it was very vivid,
and more important with the words was I felt what
I had felt as a little child, that there was

(29:21):
this great guy, this superman kind of figure named Jesus
who I used to pray to, and he used to
get me out of jams and chase the nightmares away
and things like that. And I thought I'd take a
chance on him because my memory of believing it was
so vivid as a child, and so I called out

(29:43):
to him, and when I did, a tiny light appeared
in the darkness, and it came very bright, and out
of this lightness came his hands and arms, and he
reached down and touched me, and when he did, all
of the gore that I could see for the first
time in the light that he disappeared, and he filled

(30:04):
me with his love, and his hands picked me up,
and he put his arms around me and held me
very tight against his chest, and I wept into his chest,
and he took me out of that place, and as
we were going towards heaven, I felt really bad about
my life and I thought I've made a terrible mistake.

(30:27):
I don't belong here. And he spoke to me for
the first time and he said, we don't make the mistakes.
You do belong here. And I said, how do you
know that? I didn't say that. I thought that. He said,
I know everything you've ever thought. And just for the
sake of brevity, he then called over a group of
angels and they gave me a life review and we

(30:47):
went over my life in very great detail and what
I came, which was awful experience for me, and the
life review, and at the conclusion of it, I realized
that I was here to love people, to be compassionate,
to love God and love one another. And I had

(31:07):
utterly failed. And that was done. Jesus said, you have
any questions, and I said I have a million questions,
and he said to ask whatever you want, and so
I asked everything I could think of to ask at
that time, and he answered everything clearly, patiently, and we
went places and we saw things past, president future. A
lot of my questions were personal, and at the conclusion

(31:29):
of it, I said, now I want to go to heaven,
and he said, no, You've got to go back to
your and do this the way you're created to do
it in the first place, to live a life the
way God created you to live a life, which is
very clear, which was to love, to be a loving,
kind person, loving God, loving my fellow man. And we

(31:56):
had a big argument because I didn't want to come back,
and he persuaded me that it really was the best
thing for me. So I agree to come back. And
when I came back, I was slammed back into the
body and to the pain. And immediately nurse who had
been in the room earlier came into the room said
the doctor has arrived at the hospital and we're going

(32:18):
to have the surgery. So I prepped me, and I
had the surgery.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
I mean again, like if I hadn't heard so many
of you guys say very similar things, I think I
would I would again think you've watched too many movies.
But as you've said, I mean, you also experienced these
These people's kind of like the worst prison scene on earth, right,
where people who want their will done are given free will.

(32:50):
It's kind of like victim or victimizer, right, or victimized
or or you know, victimizer. And you were in a
outer darkness as well. Yes, so I'm curious. I mean,
Jesus talked about this. He talked about this this outer darkness,
he said, where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

(33:13):
Others though, hear these hellish near death experiences, and they
talk about how, well, that's because you you had low
vibrational energy when you left this earth, and you know, love,
of course is the highest vibrational energy, they would say,
And so you go to where your your vibrational energy was,

(33:34):
and that there's a chance to get out of it.
And and I guess you guys did, But from having
experienced it, what's your interpretation of this.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah, I just I believe that God, in his mercy,
I knew what it was going to take to get
my attention and reveal to my heart that he was
real and that he was good and that he was love.
And a lot of people need to experience that rock

(34:06):
bottom experience in order to kind of have that heart
change and learn what life is really about about loving
God and loving people. And for me, I think that
this experience exposed the reality of my heart, and God,
in his mercy and his kindness, revealed what life is
really like without him. And so I believe it was

(34:27):
a just a very real open vision where the Lord
took me to places and regions in eternity where he
is not there or he is, his presence has has
been taken away, and his restraining hand or his restraint
unevil is taken away. And and yeah, so God in

(34:51):
his mercy, I believe, revealed this experience to me to
give me that kind of rock bottom experience to where
the only option I had was to say yes to him.
And even without knowing that I was saying yes to
him and him revealing it to me that it was him,
it was Jesus who I was saying yes to. And

(35:11):
I believe ultimately it was a It was a direct
answer to my dad's prayer, my dad, who's a pastor,
that God would use the least severe means necessary to
get the greatest amount of heart response from me as
as his his child and ultimately God's child. And so
this was the least severe means. Was was God showing
me this open vision of torment and the hell of

(35:33):
the Bible, at least to a certain amount of percentage
of whatever it was that I needed in order to
come to the end of myself. Kind of like the
prodigal said, he came to himself, came to himself, and
they had this this turn where they said, there is
a God in heaven. I've blown it, but you're good.
Will you give you another chance? And he did so.

(35:54):
It was a merciful but yet painful way back to
to have another chance to live a life of love.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
You know, it's interesting because Howard you and Paul had
you cried out to God And people sometimes ask me, well,
do we does that mean we get a second chance?
You know after we die? And you know, sometimes people
will quote Hebrews nine twenty seven people are destined to
die once then comes, then you know, then they faced judgment.

(36:29):
But it's interesting because kind of like Kyle was saying,
I mean, howard you were. You told me you were
fighting even in that outer darkness with those people. Kind
of still your pride of Am I really going to
pray to God? Is that right?

Speaker 3 (36:44):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (36:46):
The problem with the theory that you mentioned beginning of
this was we are not the masters of our own creation.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
We didn't create ourselves. There is a creator. We're not
the source of our being, and our life is to
live in relationship with the source of our being, also
known as the Supreme Being, who is the Master of
the universe, who is the Lord of Lords, sometimes known
as God many names. But our life is to be

(37:21):
in relationship with that. It's a collaborative experience that we're
having here. And the cool thing is is that when
you begin to realize that, you can actually experience God
in your life. In Christianity, we call it through the
power of the Holy Spirit, which is living within us,
and work with God to live a life that God

(37:43):
created us to live in the first place. Or we
can reject that spirit, we can reject that voice we
can reject the Creator and think that we are the
masters of our own fate and the masters of the universe,
and we can do whatever we want to do, including
now I go to Hell, get out of hell, do
whatever we want to do. I believe that these experiences

(38:04):
are a gift from God, even the negative ones, and
God gives these gifts according to God's incredible knowledge of
what people need at the time. And I'm thankful for
the gift that I was given, although I wouldn't wish
it upon anyone. And I've been leading my life trying

(38:25):
to get people to consider having a relationship with God.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
And you said that one of the things you realize, well,
you realize that there was a journey away from God
that was a long journey, or a journey toward God
on the other side. Talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
I don't believe that there's anything in between those two choices.
We're either moving towards God or we're moving away from God.
Lots of people think that they can be indifferent to God,
and that's okay. You know, in difference, there's another word
for indifference. It's called apathy. And I believe that apathy

(39:08):
is really an ultimate form of hate, of contempt, when
we don't care, when we have no passion, no compassion
for somebody, you know, it doesn't matter whether they live
or die, to say, well, I don't know if there's
a God. You know that apathy towards God is a

(39:29):
form of hatred. People that are really angry at God
actually have more love of God than people that are
indifferent to God. Frankly, you're either moving towards God or
you're moving away from God. And I've been living a
life for over thirty five years now. I'm trying to
move towards God every day in any way that I can,

(39:51):
sometimes successfully, sometimes not. But that's been my intention, and
it's a wonderful journey. It is and the most excellent,
joyful experience in my life.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Well, and I wanted to ask you guys each about that,
And part of the reason I wanted to interview you
together is because of the change that actually happened when
you came back. Why didn't you each talk about that
and what you've been doing since.

Speaker 4 (40:20):
So I'll jump in here.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
John.

Speaker 4 (40:25):
I want to say that when I came back after
experience in Hell, one of the things that stood out
to me was. Like I said in the beginning, I
didn't grow up in the church. I grew up out
of the church. As a matter of fact, I told
people we were drive by Christians. We'd drive by and
do the side of the Cross. I grew up Catholic,

(40:46):
and so I told people were bad Catholics, as we
didn't even go to the church. But when I experienced Hell,
because I heard a lot about Heaven and it's rarely
that I heard about Hell. And when I did hear
about Hell, I remember that when I was partying and
drugging and hanging out in the world, to me, Hell
was just going to be this big old party where

(41:07):
everybody's going to be hanging out, and so it was
gonna be a great place to go. But it was
completely opposite of that. And so when I experienced Hell,
and I recognized that I was separated, and I was
in an outer darkness and pulled away from everything that
God is, God is love, God is light, and I

(41:28):
was pulled away from all that. When I made that
promise to the Lord and I asked him if I
could come back, my number one purpose and my number
one goal was that no one would ever come to
this place called hell because to me, it was real
and it existed, and it wasn't a fairy tale, and
it was just it was just as real as Heaven

(41:52):
is to me, if not even more real. And so
my goal was to come back and tell the world
that that Jesus loved them, that he died on that cross,
that he rows on the third day and sits at
the right hand of the Father. He redeemed us. He
made a way for us to come back. And so

(42:12):
when I came back, I'm a master plumber, and I
would go to people's houses plumbing all day long. And
so I just everywhere I went, and God gave an
opportunity I would share the Gospel and share the love
of Christ and tell people. I never set on my
way back to hey, I want to be a pastor,

(42:32):
or I want to pastor a church. That was never
my goal. My go has always been even to this day,
that if I could just pull once so out from
the flames of Hell and bring them back to the light.
I mean, that's all my goal was. And so in
two thousand and four, we were living in Houston, Texas.

(42:56):
I had a thriving plumbing company and we were doing
great and everything was fine. And at that time we
were going to a nice, big church and leadership. We
would have a home group. We had anywhere from forty
five to seventy five people coming, and they were drug dealers,
they were from the cabaret, they were dancers, they were

(43:18):
just all kinds of centers and people that were lost.
And so we just reached back out to those people
that we knew and where we had come firm. And
so in two thousand and four, the Lord told me,
he says, Paul, that he loved me, and I said,
I love you, And he said, well, if you love me,
I want you to give up all this your business,
your money, your house, everything, and I want you to

(43:39):
move to Austin. I want you to start all over
from scratch and open a church called Austin Powerhouse. In
two thousand and four, my wife and I we did that.
We came to Austin, Texas, we opened the church. And
you know, quite honestly, I was just doing the very
thing that did I the promise that I kept or

(44:02):
made when I was pulled out of hell. And from
that day forward, I have always had open arms for
the Center. My heart bleeds and is I always I'm
the one that goes leaves the ninety nine and goes
for that one. You know, I don't think anybody's too
lost for God to find them. And you know, Hebrews

(44:23):
nineteen twenty seven says it's an appointed time for every
man to die and then comes judgment. You know, when
I came back and I started reading Scripture and I
read that, I was like, well, I mean, if I died,
how did that come back? But I realized that I
was on my way to the place, and on the way,
God gave me an opportunity to repent. And when I

(44:46):
repent it wholeheartedly and sincerely before the Lord, God gave
me another chance. And so I just feel like, if
if you're breathing, even in your last breath, even on
after you die, God's mercy is so rich and so great.
And so I just feel like that's why we can

(45:07):
never give up on anybody. And this part of this
hell segment, I feel like, right now you're talking to Shadrack,
Meshack and a Bendigo. All three of us went through
the fire and we made it out because Jesus showed
up in that flames. So thank you for allowing us
to share. I will say this, after my experience, I

(45:30):
was hesitant to open my mouth, and I was kind
of like I had never read the Bible, so I
didn't know there was an outer darkness. I didn't know
there was a bottomless pit. All I ever heard people
talk about was heaven and a bright light. But I
never heard anybody talk about hell. And so as I
began to research and look and I heard other people

(45:52):
talk about that outer darkness and being cast out, I
realized what I had experience was real. And the other
people confirmed the very same thing because they had experienced
this same thing as well. So today we have a
beautiful church in Austin, Texas, and God has blessed us.
We've seen many people get delivered from drugs, alcohol, all

(46:14):
kinds of stuff. Many people have come to Jesus and
given their life to the Lord.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
And so.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
I'm happy that I didn't go to heaven. Maybe I
wouldn't have been as passionate as I am. Maybe that's
what the Lord knew, that that's what I needed, was
a hellish experience so that I would be very compassionate
for the loss. And that Lily and I my wife,
Lilian goes into the cabarets and ministers to women and

(46:42):
there we've helped drug addicts. For my job, my company,
I've hired people that one of my best employees has
seven years of sobriety, has not drank, and came out
of prison and it's turns life around.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Today.

Speaker 4 (46:59):
He's married, he has his children, and so we've just
seen God do great things through that. So I'm grateful
to the experience. I wasn't grateful at the moment. It
scared the hell out of me literally literally, yeah, literally,
But I'm so grateful for the experience. It's what's kept
me for the last twenty three years chasing the love

(47:19):
and passion of Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Well, and that was one of the things that I
wanted to have all three of you, because Howard, you
came back as well, having experienced and you told me
Jesus came into that out of darkness, brighter than the sun,
and these arms take you out, he sends you back.

(47:42):
But you're a tenured college professor and yet you made
a radical life change.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
Why as soon as I was able, I was very
very ill in the hospital for many months, and I
came back to the United States second took me a
long time to recoversion, as I was barely ambulatory. I
went to a church and I was like, yeah, these
people are looking for what I'm looking for a relationship

(48:11):
with Jesus, you know, and some of the people that
had a real relationship with Jesus. And I wanted more,
and so went back to the university when I got
well enough, and I loved being a professor, but I
felt that I needed to help build up the church,

(48:33):
and so I started going to seminary and I loved seminary,
went for three years and got my Master Divinity and
became an ordained pastor and served churches for thirty years.
The same thing that Paul said, I don't want anybody

(48:55):
to go to help, even people that hate me and
mock me and have wanted nothing to do with me.
But more, even more importantly, that I want to know
Jesus today. I don't want I'm not selling fire insurance, Okay,
I'm not interested in that. I want people to know

(49:16):
Jesus today because life is so much better when you
have a relationship with Jesus and God's You can't even
begin to I can't compare before and after knowing the
love of God.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
I think I think it's important too, your experience of Jesus.
Talk about that, because he rescues you out of this darkness.
But what did you experience in his presence?

Speaker 3 (49:49):
One of the things that the love is beyond description,
and really the word that we use is love doesn't
begin to describe what I felt in his presence. But
something I like to tell people is that he really
likes me, and he, by extension, he really likes all
of us. He made us. You know, your nose, your ears,

(50:10):
your hair, your thoughts. You didn't You didn't create any
of that.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
He did.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
And he loves us the way we are because he
is our creator. He's the Jesus is the creative activity
of God, and he very much wants us to have
the best life possible. He says in the Bible, which
you never hear anybody say this, he says in the

(50:35):
Gospel of John, may my joy be in you, and
may your joy be complete. And that's what he's given me.
He's given me. In French they called juada vive joy
of life because he fills me with his spirits. So
we're not a part. People ask me, do you still
see Jesus and said, we're buddies. We're tight.

Speaker 5 (50:57):
You know.

Speaker 3 (50:57):
No, I don't see him, you know, but he's me
all the time, and he's talking to me. Whether I'm
listen or not, he's talking to me.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Well, and I you know, again, if I were a skeptic,
I would go, oh, well, you know, okay, So you
guys are all pastors, because Kyle, you came back and
you became a Christian pastor as well. And some people
would then just discount it all because, oh, well, you're
Christian pastors. But what's intriguing is that's not where you

(51:30):
guys were. So this is a radical how in the
world you explained? This is like Paul on the Damascus
Road who's killing Christians, and then he encounters this brilliant
light who turns out to be Jesus, God of Light,
and then he changes his whole life and writes much
of the New Testament. I feel like in some ways,
I'm I'm I'm friends with three Pauls of today. Kyle,

(51:56):
wh why did you know what was the journey for
you come back?

Speaker 2 (52:01):
Yeah? Just getting emotionally even here in Paul and Howard's stories,
just everything they said is I could say the same thing.
They said it beautifully. And my journey from that December
fifteenth hospital experience. About seven months later, in July July
twenty third, actually twenty thirteen, I was still struggling with

(52:23):
identity and kind of the temptation to go even drink again.
I hadn't really started reading the Bible yet. I had
that crazy experience, but there was just a lot of
rough edges that were getting worked out, and I came
in just under kind of a cloud of depression. One day,
came into my parents' bedroom and there was praise and
worship music playing, and the words and the music just

(52:47):
sang over me, and I felt that that liquid love
that's beyond description that Howard just described, that love that
you can't put words to it just filled me, filled me.
I knew that the Lord Jesus was in that room.
I didn't see him, but his presence was so close,
it was so tangible that that experience, just the feeling

(53:08):
of his liquid love just running through me, completely delivered
me from that addiction. From that day forward and every
day since, it's been that journey towards Him through the
power of the Holy Spirit, through yielding to him through
saying yes to them every day, just growing in that relationship.
And ultimately that's what I live for. I live for
the moments where it's just me and Jesus. I'm in

(53:30):
his word, I'm praying, I'm worshiping, and from that place
of receiving his love. He's given me such a great
love for people, to where every person I see I
know just the way that I've experienced the love of Jesus,
he feels that way about them and ten thousand times
more because his love is infinite. And so the Lord
has done just amazing things of the last seven eight

(53:53):
years since He's delivered me and given me purpose. And
so my biggest kind of mission field right now is
the youth, the young people. Just I weep over the
youth in prayer, and when I get to speak to
him and just share the Bible, my heart comes alive
and I see that God is using me to deliver
the truth of the Bible. For me, it's all about

(54:15):
the Bible first and foremost, because those are that's the
absolute truth. And so He's given me entrance to have
three Bible studies a week with young people and just
teach him faithfully. The Bible and watch God work through that.
So I really want to see the next generation fall
in love with Jesus first and foremost, and then when
I know they do that, they're going to fall in

(54:35):
love with their fellow man and just vectors have change.
I can just see it going through these young people.
And so that's my biggest pray every day is that
I would the Lord will use me to lay down
my life, pour out my life kind of like Paul
talked about poor in his life, I could drink offering
at the end of each day, could put my hand
on the pillow, known that I loved him and I
love people, that my life is successful because of that love,

(54:57):
and I'm just so thankful.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
And yeah, well, and I think I think it is
such an encouragement knowing that you guys, you guys came
back from you know, literally the worst experience you could
possibly imagine, and yet God has used it for good
in your lives and that has had a ripple effect

(55:21):
through many more lives. And I and I think you
know what happened that very first Easter is Jesus is
dying on a cross. One guy mocks him and demands
that he do his will and get them all down.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
Off the crossing.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
The other guy just says, hey, I deserve this, Jesus.
When you come in your kingdom, will you remember me?
And Jesus said, you'll be with me today. And you
guys are evidence of that mercy, that love that God has,
that what Jesus did was pay the price of justice
so that literally the last second, in the worst place,

(55:59):
anyone can call out to him and know that we're
right with him for eternity. Well, I just want to
thank you guys so much for taking the time. I could.
I could talk to you forever because I know that
there's so much more to talk about. But thank you
for just the way you love people so well and

(56:20):
are such a good, really representation of the God of
light and love that you experienced. Well, I hope you
enjoyed that interview that I did several years ago with
Howard and Paul and Kyle, who have become good friends
of mine. They're wonderful people, and it's always a good

(56:40):
reminder that you know, no matter what we've been through,
God is the God of second chances. God is the
God who's just waiting for anyone to turn to him
and cry out to him, and he's there and he
wants to walk with us through life, you know, just
like I think many times we have to hit rock

(57:03):
bottom before we turn up. But it doesn't have to
be that way. We can be people who turn to
God throughout the moments of the day in gratitude and
walk with him because He wants to walk through life
with us. And I want to encourage you. If you
are liking these podcasts, be sure to subscribe and comment

(57:23):
and ring the bell and do all that. But subscribe
because I'm going to be writing a new book, so
I'm going to take a break. We'll show some clips
on YouTube and all that. We'll keep that going, but
so that you can know when season two comes out
later in the fall, if you subscribe, you'll get notification
to that.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Well.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
Thanks again for joining. Until the next time, be blessed.

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3 Scary Near-Death Experiences and Powerful Encounters with Jesus | Imagine Heaven by John Burke

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}3 Scary Near-Death Experiences and Powerful Encounters with Jesus | Imagine Heaven by John Burke