The Case for Heaven | Special Guest Lee Strobel

Hey there Victor, listening to the great glory part just a ministry supported by harvest partners on Greg Laurie encouraging you if you want to find out more about harvest ministries. To learn more about how to become a harvest partner, just go to harvest.org hi I'm Lee Strobel welcomed the harvested home.

Thanks for joining us today and I want to take you back to something that happened to me several years ago when I almost died. My wife found me unconscious on the bedroom floor. She call the paramedics I woke up in the emergency room and the doctor looks down at me and he says one step away from a coma.

Two steps away from dying and then I fell into unconsciousness again.

I hovered over that fuzzy line between life and death for quite a while until the doctors were finally able to save me.

I had a kind of an unusual medical condition called hyponatremia, which is a severe drop in my blood sodium level. I was the kidney as part of this process and in it was in in some sense a very clarifying experience to come close to death.

Have you ever come close to death. I think most people find when they are facing the question of whether they can live for the next several hours or die.

It really helps them bring into focus. What is really important because at that moment. Nothing is more important than what happens when you close your eyes for the last time in this world are you cast into oblivion. Do you wake up in the presence of God. Are you launched on a series of reincarnations.

What happens when you close your eyes for the last time in this world. If those issues are important at times like that, they'll be important. Now with the covert epidemic. More and more people are pondering these issues of life and death. Did you know that 29% of Americans either know someone who's died of covert or a better family member died of covert. My older brother died at the beginning of the pandemic lesson I were having lunch at a restaurant not long ago, and we had this waitress is about 18 years old and it was Cameron and as we talk to her trying to share Jesus with her.

She began to cry and we said what's wrong and she said oh I'm so sorry. She said I almost didn't come into work today. We just lost a family member to covert and I thought, here's a young woman may be 18 years old never probably thought about that before she got her whole life ahead of her. Why should you think about that and yet now, death is come knocking under family store and now you could see it in her eyes. Apprehension, anxiety, uncertainty, fear over what happens in the life to come will for me is a Christian, laying in that hospital bed, not knowing if I was can live or die. I was a Christian I was a pastor and so I believe what the Bible teaches me about the afterlife about heaven and about hell. But then again I'm a skeptic by nature, you know my background in journalism and the law you put those two things together.

You can imagine what kind of a jerk that you skeptic skeptic that you get.

And so I'm I'm laying there.

My hospital bed wondering, does that does the biblical account makes sense. Is it consistent with science. Is it consistent with history and philosophy of theology does it hold together and that's what launched me on my journey to write my new book, the case for heaven, a journalist investigates the evidence for life after death, and I traveled around the country interviewing scholars and experts. Neuroscientists, historians, philosophers, and so forth trying to get at what is the evidence that, indeed, the biblical account makes sense.

It holds up to scrutiny. Now I cover a lot of stuff in this book, so there's too much for me to mention today, but I'm just going mention three lines of evidence that I pursue this part of my investigation. The first issue is whether we are merely a physical body that dies and decays at the end of our life, or do we possess an immaterial soul that can survive our physical demise course.

Christian theology teaches that we have a soul and we continue to live on after our body dies. Paul said in second Corinthians 5 verse eight that to be absent from the body is re-present with the Lord in Luke 2343 Jesus told the repentant criminal on the cross.

Truly I tell you today you will be with me in paradise. That means are actually two phases to the afterlife. The first stage is the intermediate stage or the present heaven. So when we die our soul separates from our physical body and continues to live on either with God in paradise or separated from God in Hades and then the second stage begins at the consummation of history where Jesus returns when were united with our resurrected bodies when we undergo final judgment and then we ultimately spend eternity in a very physical place whether heaven or hell. But critics say that neuroscientists been mapping the human brain for a long time.

And guess what, they haven't found a soul reminds me of the first cosmonaut from the Soviet Union back in the early 1960s who went into space and he looked around, said I don't see a God and obey laughed all over the course that means God does exist, what's a stupid comment, but they don't find the soul when they map the human brain and yet I interviewed neuroscientists with a PhD from Cambridge University.

Dr. Sharon Derek's and she said emphatically that no discoveries of modern neuroscience have disproven the existence of the soul effect. She wrote a book called MI just my brain, in which he answers a question with an emphatic no. You're not just your physical brain you are a body and your soul.

See our soul or our spirit is the seat of our consciousness.

The center of our introspection, our volition, our emotions, our desires are memories our perceptions and our beliefs. The soul animates in interacts with our physical brain, but it's distinct from so while scientists can measure the electrical activity in our brain. They can't measure what's actually inside of our mind. Another words the physical brain by itself is not enough to explain our mind or our consciousness. Let me illustrate with a thought experiment. Let's say there's a woman named Mary and Mary is the world's leading expert on vision. She's a scientist.

She understands everything about vision. She understands the structure of the human eye. She understands the way the optic nerve carries impulses to the brain.

She understands how the brain transposed rates that in the images that we see. She understands the physics of site the chemistry of sight. She understands it better than anyone, but she's blind. What if one day she suddenly received her site at that moment she received her site would she learn anything new about vision yeah of course she learn something new about vision is Dr. Dierks told me what that means physical facts alone cannot explain the first-person experience of consciousness, no amount of knowledge about the physical working of the eye and brain will get Mary closer to the experience of what it's like to actually see so she said consciousness simply cannot be synonymous with brain activity are consciousness our spirit, our soul is distinct from our physical brain size point number one we have a soul that could survive our physical death, but does it survive. That brings me to my second point is there good evidence that our consciousness does indeed live on beyond our physical demise.

Why began by investigating a field that I was very skeptical about near-death experiences.

This is where people are clinically dead and yet there consciousness or spirit or soul continues to live on and they see things and hear things that would be impossible for them to see and hear. If they did not have an authentic outer body experience. Thus, I said I was skeptical about this. I thought this was merely the product of a dying brain hallucinations or something like that, oxygen deprivation, causing people to experience stuff but what I found is that there been 900 scholarly articles written in scientific and medical journals about near-death experiences over the last 40 years scientists have been studying this phenomenon for a long time now. I wasn't particularly interested in people who say oh I died I went to heaven. I met Jesus is 5 foot 10 and has brown eyes that I can corroborate that different people who've written books and made movies saying they died in with the heaven and then later confessed they made the whole thing up so I if I can corroborate it.

I'm not gonna buy into it, but what I learned is we do have many cases I document document them in my book the case for heaven. We do have many cases where there is powerful corroboration that our soul does survive our death. Another words, people are clinically dead and yet their spirit lives on and they see things and hear things they would be otherwise incapable of seeing or hearing one the most famous cases comes from a researcher by the name of Kimberly-Clark sharp. She describes an outer body experience of a heart attack victim by the name of Maria Maria is in hospital she dies of a heart attack and yet her spirit. Her soul separates her body. She watches the resuscitation efforts in her spirit floats out of the hospital and then later when her spirit returns were body and she's revived.

She says oh by the way, on the roof of the hospital on the third story ledge. There's a man's tennis shoe and its left-footed it's dark blue. It has a little wear over the the little toe and the shoelaces tucked under the heel and the researchers went to this the roof for the hospital and they found the shoe exactly as she is described how do you explain that if she didn't have an authentic experience of her soul separating from her dead body. Another example is a woman 35-year-old mother in Atlanta Georgia who underwent a very rare surgery in 1991 for a brain aneurysm for bleeding in her brains.

I had to do an extraordinary surgery where they first cooled her body to 60�. Then they drained every drop of blood from her head. There was zero brain activity three test showed zero brain activity. Her heart and breathing stopped. She was flatlined. She was clinically dead, they plug your ears with speakers submitting 100 dB of noise that's equivalent of a subway train rushing right past you.

The surgical instruments were covered prior to surgery and her eyes were taped shut and yet she later said I was conscious the whole time during surgery during a vivid near-death experience. She said I actually watch the operation from outside my body. She described going through a tunnel and talking to deceased relatives and standing awestruck in the very light of God and being sent back to her body to wake up and here's the corroboration she correctly described the extremely unusual surgical instruments that were used during her surgery, including the fact that one of the drills had a dent in it.

These are things she had no physical way of seeing what's more, she actually remembered a conversation during the surgery where one nurse said we have a problem or arteries are too small and another male nurse, responding well try the other way. She even remembered that during the surgery, they were playing the song hotel California. While the famous Christian philosopher J.P. Moreland in response to this case said this is hard to see how an honest seeker of truth would not be persuaded by this evidence that God the soul in heaven are real one by doing her story is far from unique one.

Researchers studied 93 patients, all of whom made verifiable observations in their outer body experience a remarkable 92% of those observations were absolutely correct. Another 6% were almost absolutely correct to remarkable. In one case, is a seven-year-old girl named Katie she was found flat floating face down in a swimming pool and a YMCA in Idaho. She was dead.

She had drowned.

She had massive brain swelling. She had no measurable brain activity zero sting of a heartbeat for 20 minutes. Remarkably, they they took her to the hospital in after several days of treatment they were able to revive her.

And then when they revived her. She shot them by said I was conscious the whole time. She said the matter fact I met Jesus. Now the doctors are very skeptical about this so they said okay well it's a little test because she was dead when they brought her into the emergency room so they said once you take this Koran a piece of paper and draws the emergency room put everything where is located when you were taken there and she picked up the Koran piece of paper and she drew an exact picture of everything in the emergency room, and then she really shot them because she said you know during the time that you were trying to keep my body alive and I you know my consciousness even use that term. But she said I was still able to observe and see what was going on. She said I followed my family home from the hospital one night and she said I remember exactly what took place in their home that night my little brother pushing his G.I. old Jeep around his room. My little sister combing her Barbie's hair and singing a specific song my mother making a specific meal in the kitchen. Chicken and rice my father sitting on the couch and just staring off into space and then she described in detail the clothing that each of them were wearing that night.

How do you explain that if near-death experiences are authentic and get this.

This is most amazing of all in one remarkable study, researchers examined 21 blind people nearly half of them blind since birth and most of them said during their near-death experience they could see many of them for the first time describing things that they otherwise would not of been able to describe princes. A woman named Vicki Uma Peg was blind since birth and at the age of 26 she was in a car accident.

She was dead, and yet you know even though in her lifetime she never seen the lights she'd never seen shadows. She never seen anything in her outer body experience. She found herself watching the medical team trying to revive her. She said I floated out and and I saw trees and birds and people for the first time, including people preceded her in death and she came, she said in the very presence of Jesus. And when she was revived.

Guess what her eyesight was gone again. One medical researcher said this is impossible, according to current medical knowledge. By the way, not all near-death experiences are pleasant, about 23% range from disturbing to absolutely terrifying princes Howard storm was an atheist. He was a professor of art at a secular university was chairman of the art department and he died in the hospital, but he describes how he his spirit body is consciousness kinda got out of his body, and there were some guys in the hallway say, come with us so you okay so we followed him down the corridor on another corridor down another corridor down another corridor and they seem like nice folks, and or even know where there is they were taking him that they know suddenly started to get abusive they started to swear Adam. They started to clawed him and bite him and attack him. He said was the worst experience he'd ever undergone.

He said I was reduced to roadkill his ear was torn off his eye is torn out. He said no horror movie can even come close to the terror of what happened in that moment. And in that moment he called out to Jesus to rescue him. And Jesus came in a ball of light and rescued. This experience was so transformative for him that when he was finally revive. He not only renounces atheism. He not only received Jesus as Lord and Savior. He resigned his tenured professorship at the secular university became an ordained minister, and to this day is the pastor of a tiny rural church in Oklahoma. That's how powerful this experience affected, not as I said I've been skeptical about near-death experiences, but there's an article that appeared in the prestigious British medical journal, the Lancet, and this article analyzes all the alternative explanations try to explain away near-death experiences. All hallucinations are all oxygen deprivation. All you know all these theories to try to explain them away and the conclusion is that no alternative explanations can fully account for this phenomenon. I believe personally that these corroborated cases demonstrate convincingly that our consciousness are spirit our soul does continue in a personal way. After our physical death or clinical death. And here's the kicker for my book, I interviewed John Burke a John Burke actually a friend of mine we have been pastors together. The church probably 30 years ago.

But John is not only a Christian pastor today of a church in Austin Texas but he studied a thousand near-death experiences over the last 35 years and here is his conclusion. He said if we look at what actually takes place in these near-death experiences, not how people interpret it.

But what actually takes place. Near-death experiences are consistent with Christian theology. This is what he told me. Sadly, even though they may bury a fair amount these accounts have a common core and incredibly it's entirely consistent with what were told about the afterlife in the Bible any back set up verse by verse. Now I don't base my theology about the afterlife on near-death experiences. I base it on the Bible. I take kind of a minimalist approach it says that I'm only going to buy into what I can actually corroborate. And yes, I believe near-death experiences prove to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that our soul endures after our clinical death.keep in mind these people are not permanently dead. You know the Bible says were pointed once to die, and then the judgment please people don't die in that sense they're not dead forever their clinically dead there can return to their body. So this is not a case of people who are our permanently deceased as the Bible talks about their so these are people work clinically dead meant some of them were literally being wheeled to the more when they wake up and and so forth. So their clinically dead but not permanently deny hope.

I think that helps explain because you wonder okay how does Jesus rescue this guy from these demons after his death. Is that really consistent with the Bible. Well, he's not dead dead permanently. He's in a state of clinical death and God was able to rescue him from that situation. So when you study these you find that they are consistent with Christian theology. So first, the existence of the soul makes our afterlife possible, then near-death experiences show the consciousness does actually live on after physical death and that brings me to my third point honey, ask a question if you had compelling evidence that someone predicted their own death and then they died a violent death and then three days later returned from the dead fully heal.

Do you think their testimony about the afterlife might be helpful to think it might be definitive yeah I think so.

That's what we have with Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus in a variety of weighed mate made transcendent and messianic and divine claims about himself. He claimed to be the son of God, but anybody could claim to be God, but he didn't just claim it. He died in the three days later rose from the dead. He proved that he is who he claimed to be, and therefore his account of the afterlife. He was an eyewitness to the afterlife. He we are to pay attention to what he says and by the way, this confirms it is a son of God.

Therefore, he may be afterlife, so he really understands what heaven is about, so I'm convinced that Jesus conquering of the grave is among the best attested events of the ancient world.

The fact I was an atheist for much of my life and I was brought to faith because for two years.

I looked at the historical data concerning the resurrection resurrection of Jesus and concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus didn't just claim to be the son of God, he backed it up by returning from the dead effect. I remember when I was an atheist attending Yale Law school, one of my heroes. At that time was a guy who was the greatest warrior in the world. He was literally in the Guinness Book of World Records for winning more murder trials than anybody in history. His name was Sir lying a lot to think about that. He must be a guy who understands what constitutes reliable evidence right he must be able to look in an airtight case against his client and find all the loopholes all the shortcomings in that case and both of those were true of Sir lying a lot to he was knighted twice by Queen Elizabeth and became a member of the highest court of his land and he was a skeptic for the resurrection of Jesus. Until one day he decided to take his monumental legal skill and apply it to the historical record for the resurrection of Jesus, and I recite to you one sentence he wrote that summarized his conclusion. He said I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt this from the most successful lawyer will ever live, and I think is absolutely right when I leader did the same thing for two years of my life I came to the same conclusion. So this means Jesus view of the afterlife is definitive.

What is he say about it.

What he said in John six verse 40 for my father's will is that everyone who looks to the son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day. Jesus uses the metaphor of a home to describe heaven. We all know home is a warm, secure, loving place. I hope at least that's what home want to be in Jesus is saying that's what your home in heaven is going to be like except beyond anything that you could ever imagine course a lot of misconceptions about heaven. A big one is that heaven is a new theory will experience earlier sort of up in the cloud.

Someplace work. Disembodied souls are kind of floating around work were playing harps on clouds and singing hymns all day that that's kind of the cartoonish version.

A lot of people draw their cues from that and think yeah must be something like that when actually heaven is not some far off place. But it's here it's here for my book, I interviewed Dr. Scott McKnight well-known theologian and pastor and he said my book.

He said Lee heaven is the complete renewal of our world. A very earthy physical place, not just for spirits or souls, but for resurrected bodies designed for the kingdom of God. John says in Revelation.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and first earth had passed away. He said heaven will resemble our present earth.

This is Scott McKnight speaking said heaven will resemble our present earth, but it will be a transform place for transform people all of creation will be set free in turn to God and praise. It will be creation on steroids. The way it was designed to be. He said the Hebrew word for good is tall. POV 12 and so whatever is truly tall of about our world today will be enhanced in the new heaven and the new earth, it will be a place of celebration and music and songs and festivals and festivities and then he looked at me and he said with a wink and most people don't know this but in heaven every year. The Chicago Cubs win the World Series black that would be a miracle. First of all, but but I love that the physical nature.

If you read I say if you read Revelation, the other animals in heaven their streams or valleys I mean is going to be a place without sin and then we resemble our current world. I especially love the way that Charles Spurgeon put a Charles verges on the great preachers of history, but he said something and it evoked an image in my mind. I never thought about before, and I bet it does for you to listen to what he said.

He said the very glory of heaven is that we shall see him, that same Christ, who once died upon Calvary's cross, that we shall fall down and worship at his feet may more than he shall kiss us with the kisses of his mouth and welcome us to dwell with him forever. If you ever dared to imagine entering heaven being greeted by Jesus Christ being overwhelmed by your love and your your gratitude for him making heaven possible for you that you fall to your feet and you he lifts you up and he kisses you with the kisses of his mouth and welcomes you to dwell with him forever. I never thought of that image before, but the love that picture. It will be an eternal heaven where Revelation 21 forces God will wipe every tear from our eyes that we no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Indeed, the Bible tells us it right now. We can't even comprehend the glory we will encounter in heaven first with these 29 says I know I have seen, no ear is heard no human mind is ever even conceived of the things that God has planned for those who love and that's the reason I believe that the Bible uses a lot of metaphors and figurative language to describe heaven because we can even comprehend that yet. Words cannot convey what glory this experience is going to bring think I mentioned that I interviewed for my book of John Burke. This pastor whose study the thousand near-death experiences over 35 years.

Well were producing a documentary based on the book the case for heaven and will be in movie theaters and streaming in 2022 at some point and so we interviewed John Burke for the documentary and want to show you just a short clip of what he talks about. He discusses how his view of heaven has evolved from his research into the Bible in his research into near-death experiences to listen to what John has to say my 35 years of research have completely changed my view from what it was earlier on of what the life to come is going to be like what I've realized is that every good thing that we experience on this earth, everything we love. First of all, God created. That's why we love it he created it for us to enjoy and to love it, but all of it is just a shadow of the real thing that he created us to enjoy. In the over a thousand near-death experiences I've studied. It's incredible picture of how when we die we are natural bodies are still ourselves.

We have spiritual bodies not with five senses. More like senses light on steroids is life beyond anything we've experienced the colors that people talk about the color spectrum is far beyond earth, but that's what you would expect because the color spectrum of earth is the color spectrum of the sun, but the color spectrum of heaven color spectrum of God. There's this great welcoming community of people who have passed on before them were there to welcome him in Jesus said you sure earthly resources to make friends so that when you die, welcome. It's going to be life, not unlike the mountains and flowers and trees streams and all that's talked about in the book of Isaiah in the book of Revelation and that's exactly what your experience is, except experience it in expanded dimensions of space more than three dimensions of space and more dimensions of time just like it says in the Bible. The greatest experience on just like case, I can't wait to discover, imagine a universe of billions of stars and planets that we thought were beyond our reach. But what if thought, we can go explore the endless, endless exploration friends the best news about heaven is that it's real.

And the worst news about hell is that it's real, but the greatest news of all is that God's grace is available to anyone anywhere in any culture at any time who want to spend eternity with him in a place of joy and satisfaction, fulfillment, adventure, exploration in heaven with him forever. So let me and with a question. What if what happened to me several years ago happen to you tonight.

What if your spouse or your children or your friends found you unconscious on your floor. What if they call the paramedics. What if you open your eyes on that examining table in the emergency room and looking down at you is a doctor who says you're one step away from a coma.

Two steps away from die what if that happened you tonight which you have confidence. Would you be sure that if this were the day that you were to leave this world that you would walk into heaven with God forever. Do you know are you confident are you sure so many people aren't and that's why they live in a state of anxiety and apprehension will the Bible says you can know with confidence where you stand with God. And so if if you're uncertain if you've got anxiety and apprehension. If you're not quite sure. Let's be sure you know the Bible says in John 112 but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name and that verse forms an equation what it means to become a child of God and thus spend eternity with God in heaven believe plus receive equals become if you believe that Jesus is who we claim to be the unique son of God, and you believe you're a sinner that's great but it's not enough. You need to receive receive what receive this free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus purchased for you on the cross when he died as her substitute. When you receive that free gift in repentance and faith then you will become a child of God, and you will spend eternity with him in heaven. Are you ready to believe if you believe as best you can. Then let's make now the moment you make sure that you're going to heaven. So let's just close our eyes and bow our heads on you can say this out loud, or you can say it in your heart. God knows your heart. Just pray these words just say Lord Jesus as best I can. I do believe that you are the son of God, that you proved it by returning from the dead, and I admit the obvious I'm a sinner. I know that I've done things I knew they were wrong before he did him and I did them anyway of sin, and I want to turn from that an attitude of repentance and faith. I want to receive this free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that you purchase for me on the cross. Help me, Jesus, to live the kind of life that you want me to live because from this moment on, now that I've received your free gift of grace from this moment on I am yours, a father, we thank you for every person that has pray that prayer just now invented. We know that in the nano second, you have come to live within them. Your Holy Spirit is going to change their lives and the inside out and we look forward to spending eternity together in heaven effect. I love to have a reunion party someday in heaven, maybe under that huge oak tree where all the people today come to faith in you will get together will sit under the tree and will talk and laugh about all the things that you brought into our lives. As a result of following you. We pray for those that are still on the journey that someday will be able to celebrate their rebirth as well. Father for the rest of us who been your followers for a long time. We thank you that you give us an assignment to share this message of hope and grace far and wide to be strong salt and bright light. We thank you for harvest fellowship. We think about how Greg and his team have proclaim the gospel all over the world. I picture this church like a city on a hill, shine your light of hope and grace and love and redemption eternal life far and why we thank you for the honor and the privilege of being part of a movement like this. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ who is our forgive her and our leader and our very best friend a man of friends if you prayed that prayer with me today.

We want to give you a gift to help you begin to grow in your spiritual life. Greg has put together a new believers Bible.

It's a very readable translation of the New Testament, but Greg is added notes in the margins that help illuminate some of the passages, it may be otherwise will difficult understand such a great guide to how you can begin your life as a follower of Jesus Christ. We like to send you this for free to get you launched in your new journey saw your see a phone number on the screen. If you give us a call will send you the Bible not to share your name and number with anybody else. If you're on a computer or phone or an iPad or whatever. A tablet you see little box, so just click that box and will send you this Bible as well so call the number. Click the box. Let us know that you decided to follow Jesus. God bless you. It's been a pleasure to be with you today everybody thinks you're listening to this podcast to learn more about harvest ministries follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest.org and find out how to know God personally go to harvest.org and click on know God