Meet John Burke: From Agnostic to Believer Through NDEs | Intro to Afterlife | John Giftah Podcast

0:01 Speaker 1: Do you ever look around and think, Wow, the world

0:05 Speaker 1: is a crazy place and it just seems to get

0:08 Speaker 1: crazier and crazier. Ease your mind and take a break.

0:13 Speaker 1: This is Fuel for the Soul with John GIFTA. We're

0:17 Speaker 1: a hub for inspirational Christian sermons, practical keys for Christian living,

0:23 Speaker 1: and Christian discussions and interviews. You'll be inspired to live

0:27 Speaker 1: the life that you were created for. Your host is

0:30 Speaker 1: a top ranking podcaster, best selling author, world record holder,

0:35 Speaker 1: aerospace engineer, life coach, evangelist and founder of John GIFTA International.

0:41 Speaker 1: Welcome to Fuel for the Soul with John GIFTA.

0:49 Speaker 2: Hey, God, Vichuel, it has a joy for me to

0:51 Speaker 2: be with all of you today. Thank you so much

0:53 Speaker 2: for dropping by. I have a very special special session

0:56 Speaker 2: today and you'll be a pastor John Bug all the

1:00 Speaker 2: way from the United States of America who's joining with us.

1:03 Speaker 2: And some of you might have already heard about him,

1:05 Speaker 2: seen him, and you know, he's been a great voice

1:09 Speaker 2: and he's been such a blessing in my life. I'm

1:11 Speaker 2: going to talk about it in just a minute. He's

1:14 Speaker 2: not only a best selling author, including a New York

1:16 Speaker 2: Times best selling book which just came out imagine the

1:20 Speaker 2: God of Heaven, and he's been an important voice, especially

1:24 Speaker 2: in near that experiences people who have literally died and

1:28 Speaker 2: seen heaven or hell and come back if you didn't

1:31 Speaker 2: know what that is all about. And he also has

1:34 Speaker 2: a growing podcast and YouTube channels through which he shares

1:38 Speaker 2: these messages. And the best thing about him is that

1:41 Speaker 2: not only do we share the same first name, John,

1:44 Speaker 2: both of us had the same first name, but both

1:46 Speaker 2: of us are engineers. I'm an aerospace engineer and he's

1:50 Speaker 2: also an engineer and minister of the gospel. So it's

1:53 Speaker 2: so awesome to have you with us. Fastor, thank you

1:56 Speaker 2: so much for joining in.

1:57 Speaker 3: Hey John, I'm so glad that you invited me because

2:01 Speaker 3: I love India, have been there many times and we

2:05 Speaker 3: have very good friends in India.

2:08 Speaker 2: That's so good. Can't wait to have you here in

2:11 Speaker 2: person again. Pastor, thank you so much. And I just

2:13 Speaker 2: want to quickly start off by sharing a quick testimony

2:16 Speaker 2: on how I came to know you in the first place.

2:19 Speaker 2: The Lord uses me a lot in the aspect of,

2:22 Speaker 2: you know, the political situation in the United States of

2:25 Speaker 2: America to intercede. Have had a lot of encounters like

2:29 Speaker 2: there were moments when the Lord took me in the

2:31 Speaker 2: spirit into the White House to pray over President Trump,

2:35 Speaker 2: and you know, he let me lay my hand on

2:38 Speaker 2: his right shoulder and pray. And two days later I

2:42 Speaker 2: came to know there was another profits in India who

2:45 Speaker 2: had the same encounter on the same day as I did.

2:48 Speaker 2: You know, a lot of these kind of encounters where

2:51 Speaker 2: the Lord was clearly leading me in the prophetic to intercede.

2:54 Speaker 2: Even recently we had the elections in the US and

2:57 Speaker 2: the Lord led me to intercede, raised and says a spray.

3:01 Speaker 2: And because of that, I came to know of something

3:04 Speaker 2: that I was actually dealing with for the past a

3:08 Speaker 2: couple of months where I would suddenly wake up in

3:11 Speaker 2: the night and I would have panic attacks. I'm just

3:14 Speaker 2: sharing this because this is a personal testimony where even

3:18 Speaker 2: though I'm a minister of the Gospel, I've seen glimpses

3:20 Speaker 2: of Hell. I've had a lot of encounters and miracles

3:24 Speaker 2: out of the blue that were these attacks, panic attacks

3:27 Speaker 2: in the middle of the night where I would wake

3:29 Speaker 2: up with that fear of like what if everything I

3:32 Speaker 2: believed was wrong? What if Christianity was not the truth?

3:34 Speaker 2: Like people in apologetics would just say that you know what,

3:38 Speaker 2: this is the truth because I'm a Christian, or somebody

3:41 Speaker 2: else would say the same about Islamic apologists. But that

3:45 Speaker 2: was the moment when I was having these panic attacks

3:48 Speaker 2: and I was like, God, if I tell somebody else,

3:50 Speaker 2: they'll say you're not fit to be a preacher. But

3:53 Speaker 2: that was when I was like, God, I want you

3:57 Speaker 2: to reveal yourself to me because I know that my

3:59 Speaker 2: heart is in the right place. I want to minister

4:02 Speaker 2: to you through you. And while I was doing that,

4:06 Speaker 2: and I was following the situation about the US political scene,

4:10 Speaker 2: I came to know about your interview with Sean Ryan.

4:14 Speaker 2: And I don't usually watch such long episodes. That was

4:19 Speaker 2: a four hour long episode. And I'm telling you a pastor,

4:23 Speaker 2: God is my witness. Ever since then, I didn't have

4:26 Speaker 2: any panic attacks. I've been completely free, like I knew

4:30 Speaker 2: without a shadow of doubt that what I preach is

4:33 Speaker 2: not theory or I've been more convincing in the preaching

4:37 Speaker 2: of the gospel now talking about heaven and Hell, and

4:40 Speaker 2: now more people are getting saved through my ministry now

4:44 Speaker 2: because I've been more fervent in preaching about Heaven and Hell.

4:47 Speaker 2: So that's the way what you shared in that interview

4:52 Speaker 2: really changed my life. And that's why I was determined

4:56 Speaker 2: to have you here because I believe there are so

4:58 Speaker 2: many people who have these quests since or they may

5:01 Speaker 2: even have these kind of panic attacks. So I'm so

5:04 Speaker 2: glad that your ministry and your words helped me, and

5:09 Speaker 2: it is helping so many people today. And I believe that,

5:12 Speaker 2: you know, as you continue to walk in this calling,

5:15 Speaker 2: it's going to be a blessing to more people. I

5:18 Speaker 2: think you also have a story of being an agnostic

5:21 Speaker 2: where you doubt it, you know, if you were on

5:23 Speaker 2: the right track. Can you just speak a word to

5:26 Speaker 2: somebody who may be in a similar spot, maybe they're

5:29 Speaker 2: anagnostic or they may be having these kind of doubts

5:32 Speaker 2: like am I really following the right path? Or is

5:35 Speaker 2: this you know, just because I'm a Christian I believe

5:38 Speaker 2: in Christianity.

5:40 Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, first of all, what a blessing to hear that. John. Wow,

5:45 Speaker 3: you know, sometimes you just you just never know, right.

5:50 Speaker 3: Sean and I have become friends, and you know, he

5:53 Speaker 3: just became a follower of Jesus, Yes, you know, and

5:59 Speaker 3: just the way the Lord is connecting us all over

6:03 Speaker 3: the world. And that is why I'm doing what I'm

6:06 Speaker 3: doing now. But I didn't start there, like you said.

6:09 Speaker 3: And I'll just give you a little background. So I

6:13 Speaker 3: was trained as an engineer. I worked in engineering for

6:16 Speaker 3: a number of years. I was, but my mind has

6:22 Speaker 3: always been very analytical, you know. So you know, I

6:25 Speaker 3: grew up in the United States hearing about Jesus, just

6:29 Speaker 3: like if you grew up in India, you grow up

6:31 Speaker 3: hearing about Vishnu or Kali or Durga or you know,

6:36 Speaker 3: you know, many many others. Right, But I always ask

6:40 Speaker 3: a question, well, how do you know? You know? How

6:43 Speaker 3: do you know Jesus is the son of God? How

6:45 Speaker 3: do you know there is a God? I mean? And

6:48 Speaker 3: I would ask people, and I wasn't getting good answers.

6:52 Speaker 3: I wouldn't get much of any answers, I think because

6:55 Speaker 3: not enough people really search, really seek. And I concluded,

7:01 Speaker 3: you know, you just can't know. And I was an agnostic,

7:05 Speaker 3: so I believe Jesus was probably just a legend, you know,

7:09 Speaker 3: maybe a good teacher. But the whole son of God

7:12 Speaker 3: thing is just like mythology and that God. You just

7:16 Speaker 3: can't know if there's a god or not. And then

7:19 Speaker 3: my dad was dying of cancer and someone gave him

7:23 Speaker 3: This is almost four decades ago, and someone gave him

7:28 Speaker 3: the very first research on what is now called near

7:32 Speaker 3: death experiences. And this is when someone clinically dies so

7:36 Speaker 3: literally their heart stops beating, they have no brain waves,

7:40 Speaker 3: and yet either modern medicine or just miracle resuscitates them.

7:45 Speaker 3: They come back, and they come back talking about being

7:51 Speaker 3: more alive than they've ever felt before, in a place

7:54 Speaker 3: more real than this has ever been, and many times

7:58 Speaker 3: in the presence of this God of light and love

8:02 Speaker 3: that they never wanted to leave his presence. And I

8:05 Speaker 3: see this book on his bedside table and I start

8:08 Speaker 3: reading it and I couldn't put it down. And by

8:11 Speaker 3: the end of the night, I'd finished the book, and

8:14 Speaker 3: I said, oh, my gosh, maybe this is the evidence

8:18 Speaker 3: I've been looking for that this is real. And because

8:24 Speaker 3: so many of them were talking about this God of

8:27 Speaker 3: light and love, and many of them saw Jesus and

8:31 Speaker 3: knew he was Jesus, like he was this man of light,

8:37 Speaker 3: brighter than the sun. And because of that, it opened

8:40 Speaker 3: my mind to consider and I started to read the Bible,

8:45 Speaker 3: and I ended up coming to faith in Christ a

8:51 Speaker 3: year after that or so, but I was always still

8:55 Speaker 3: wanting to understand, Okay, well, what are these near death

8:57 Speaker 3: experiences and how do they relate to the Bible, and

9:01 Speaker 3: how do they relate to the other world's religions. So

9:05 Speaker 3: over the last I mean, it's been thirty five forty

9:10 Speaker 3: years that I've studied close to fifteen hundred, one thousand,

9:14 Speaker 3: five hundred near death experiences. I've interviewed people from all

9:18 Speaker 3: over the globe. I ended up leaving my career in

9:21 Speaker 3: engineering because of what I was learning as I was

9:24 Speaker 3: studying the Bible and studying these and how it fits together.

9:29 Speaker 3: And I ended up leaving my career in engineering to

9:33 Speaker 3: go into ministry. And my wife and I started a church,

9:38 Speaker 3: Gateway Church twenty seven years ago, four skeptics so and

9:43 Speaker 3: we've seen people from every religious background come and explore faith,

9:49 Speaker 3: and when they're open to really seeking, they find And

9:54 Speaker 3: so in twenty fifteen, I wrote a book, like you said,

9:57 Speaker 3: called Imagine Heaven. In Imagine Heaven, what I was doing

10:02 Speaker 3: is I was taking these at that time, over over

10:06 Speaker 3: a thousand near death experiences i'd studied, and you know,

10:09 Speaker 3: the way my engineering mind works, I would I would

10:13 Speaker 3: hear another or interview someone and I'd go like, oh,

10:16 Speaker 3: I heard that over here, and I heard that over

10:17 Speaker 3: and I started to map the commonalities and then look

10:21 Speaker 3: at how how has that been revealed through the Bible

10:24 Speaker 3: throughout history. And I found about forty commonalities of what

10:29 Speaker 3: people having these near death experiences described in the Life

10:34 Speaker 3: to Come. And this is on every continent. And so

10:39 Speaker 3: I was writing about those commonalities and what the life

10:43 Speaker 3: to come is going to be like. That's Imagine Heaven.

10:45 Speaker 3: And then recently I actually passed the baton of leadership

10:52 Speaker 3: of the church that my wife and I founded, and

10:56 Speaker 3: I wrote, I wrote a new book called Imagine the

10:58 Speaker 3: God of Heaven. And that's where I interviewed seventy new

11:02 Speaker 3: people from all over the planet in India. You know,

11:07 Speaker 3: on every continent literally except Antarctica, there are no penguins

11:12 Speaker 3: having near death experiences, but every other continent. And I'm

11:17 Speaker 3: showing that the God they are encountering in their near

11:22 Speaker 3: death experience is the God of history who revealed himself

11:25 Speaker 3: through the Jewish prophets and ultimately through Jesus. And interestingly,

11:32 Speaker 3: you know, I trace how in the Old Testament all

11:35 Speaker 3: the way back, you know, four thousand years ago, before

11:40 Speaker 3: the founding of any of the of the world's religion

11:43 Speaker 3: sacred scriptures. God says that this isn't recorded in Genesis twelve.

11:49 Speaker 3: He raises up two people, Abraham and Sarah, and he says,

11:53 Speaker 3: I'm going to make you into a nation, and through you,

11:57 Speaker 3: I'm going to bless all nations. And that is a

12:01 Speaker 3: common theme you see throughout the Jewish prophets. What Jesus said.

12:06 Speaker 3: The last thing he said after his death on the

12:10 Speaker 3: cross and his resurrection, he said, tell this message to

12:14 Speaker 3: all the nations. There's forgiveness offered in my name. And

12:19 Speaker 3: then the very last book of the Bible, John, one

12:21 Speaker 3: of jesus disciples, who was taken in a vision to heaven,

12:26 Speaker 3: sees people from every every nation, tribe, language, and people group.

12:33 Speaker 3: They're around the throne of God, worshiping God. So if

12:38 Speaker 3: you look at and I have now studied and read

12:42 Speaker 3: a good portion of much of the world's sacred scriptures,

12:46 Speaker 3: in the world's religions, you won't find another deity who

12:53 Speaker 3: is consistently speaking to all people, to all nations. This

13:00 Speaker 3: is the God of all nations, and that's what near

13:02 Speaker 3: death experiencers are revealing. That's what they're testifying to, that

13:07 Speaker 3: that they are experiencing, not the God necessarily that that

13:11 Speaker 3: they would have expected, but this God of light and love,

13:17 Speaker 3: who is personal, knows them intimately, and so I'm tracing

13:22 Speaker 3: that in imagine the God of heaven.

13:25 Speaker 2: Okay, okay, it's so good, like because like you said

13:30 Speaker 2: about you know how God can X. First of all,

13:32 Speaker 2: it's amazing because I don't know if you heard of

13:35 Speaker 2: someone called Megan Kelly.

13:38 Speaker 3: I was on her show.

13:40 Speaker 2: You were on her show too? Yeah, okay, okay, yeah.

13:44 Speaker 3: I just I just sent I just sent her my

13:47 Speaker 3: new book.

13:51 Speaker 2: So I was following her and it was Sean Dryana

13:55 Speaker 2: was interviewing her and told her to take out your

13:58 Speaker 2: videos and because he was doubting or something like that.

14:02 Speaker 2: And then that see see the way God connects right

14:06 Speaker 2: like like you just shared about how you know God

14:09 Speaker 2: has been so consistently speaking and how God is connecting.

14:13 Speaker 2: It's it's amazing because guys, even if you do have

14:17 Speaker 2: doubts or questions, don't feel bad on yourself. You may

14:20 Speaker 2: go through seasons like that. Like the reason I wanted

14:24 Speaker 2: Pastor to share his stories. I want you to understand

14:26 Speaker 2: that you know there is a lot of evidence. There

14:29 Speaker 2: is a lot of proof, but even if you go

14:31 Speaker 2: through questions and doubts, don't feel bad on yourself. You

14:35 Speaker 2: know you can be a minister, you can be a Christian,

14:38 Speaker 2: you can go to church, but you can still go

14:40 Speaker 2: through questions and doubts. So so that's why you're here,

14:44 Speaker 2: and that's why I want you to stay.

14:45 Speaker 1: To Youned you've been listening to Fuel for the Soul

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15:39 Speaker 1: See you on the next episode of the Fuel for

15:42 Speaker 1: the Soul with John Gifta. God bless you.