Pam Farrel: The walled city was like Heaven with the pearly gates, only they were much more golden then, and the angels were above that, and they were dancing and they were glittering gold. And then it was shift and morphed to the mountains. And the mountains even were even more beautiful than any mountain range that I’ve ever seen anywhere.
John Fuller: That’s Pam Farrel sharing a bit of her incredible out-of-this-world experience on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Uh, she joins us along with John Burke. I’m John Fuller, and thank you for joining us.
Jim Daly: John, I’m really excited about the program we’re about to, uh, record, and I think people are gonna enjoy it. John Burke has been here a few times with such breathtaking accounts of people who have had near-death experiences and really a phenomenal, uh, way to approach those things, to categorize them. We’ll hear more from him in a moment, but I’ve just always been taken by that. His wonderful book, Imagine Heaven made a big difference in Jean and I’s life.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: I mean, we just were captivated by it. And, uh, we also learned one of our popular guests and good friend, uh, Pam Farrel had an experience herself. Uh, and we know that we had to bring John and Pam together, and kind of dialogue about that experience, and getting John’s expertise on what happened. Uh, I’m so excited to dig into this story. And it’s just, again, one example of thousands, literally hundreds of thousands of examples of where people have touched that perimeter of Heaven-
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: … and been able to come back and then explain it.
John: Yeah.
Jim: This is so good.
John: Yeah. We live in a world where we think, “This is it.”
Jim: (laughs) So true.
John: And the truth is, no, there’s a whole lot more beyond this. And, uh, John Burke, uh, just by way of background, uh, John founded Gateway Church in Austin, Texas, and you mentioned his book, Imagine Heaven, uh, that’s sold over a million copies and continues to be a bestseller. Pam Farrel is a speaker and author, and as you said, she’s been here a number of times as well. Uh, she and Bill, her husband, typically speak to relational issues and concerns and well-being, but she’s captured her story in a book called Glimpse of God’s Glory: One Woman’s Near Death Experience. You can learn more about our guests and their books at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: John, Pam, welcome back to Focus. It’s always good to see you.
Pam: Thank you. Such an honor and privilege to be with you all.
Jim: Yeah.
John Burke: Yeah. Great to be back.
Jim: Yeah, it’s fun. Let… Let me ask this of you, John, first before we start to unpack, Pam, your story. Uh, you’ve written Imagine Heaven, Imagine the God of Heaven, which is the follow-up, an additional excellent resource.
John B.: Mm-hmm.
Jim: But just lay the… the Christian perspective on what we call near-death experience. So, just give us that quick, uh, tutorial on it and what you’ve experienced.
John B.: Yeah. So, I… I think they are testimonies from God of the reality of Heaven and Hell and God’s reality, the triune God of the Bible. And that’s what I’m trying to show in my writing. In Imagine Heaven, I’m showing how when you look at the millions of people, and… and it’s millions who’ve had-
Jim: Not hundreds of thousands, but millions.
John B.: 2019 study, um, reported by the European Academy of Neurology across 35 countries found that 5% of the population of all those countries has had a near-death experience when they were near clinical death.
Jim: Well, I think what I’ve appreciated when we’ve talked in, uh, times past is just for the Christian, and I would say for the viewer and listener right now, just leave your mind open for a little while and just say, “Lord, show me. Let me hear this conversation.” And I think that’s what we have. We have… We line up on one side saying, even to the extreme that this is somehow demonic, or the other side, which is where you’ve written, this is a insight, it’s a… We’re looking into something that we don’t know.
John B.: Well, and it’s important to realize that what people report is not necessarily the same as how they interpret what they report. And that-
Jim: Which is your distinction.
John B.: That’s very critical. That’s why it took me 35 years of researching thousands of them to understand all these things that someone… So, in Imagine Heaven, I traced like 40 commonalities of these experiences that people report.
Jim: Right.
John B.: And showing how they all align with the expectation of the afterlife in Scripture. And what you have to understand is someone may just have a few of those. You know, they… they leave their body. They feel all these new senses, not five senses, but more like 50 senses. Um, maybe they meet people deceased on the other side, and then they come back. Well, whether you’re an atheist or a believer in Jesus or a Buddhist or a Muslim, you can… you can interpret that 1,000,000 different ways, but if you put all the commonalities together, it’s this beautiful picture of the reality of a life to come. And as many say, it is more real than this life.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
John B.: They feel more alive than they’ve ever felt. And the presence of Jesus is the highlight of it all, highlight of Heaven.
Jim: Well, i- i- in addition to that, you have said in the past that those consistencies do point to scriptural references.
John B.: Oh, absolutely.
Jim: And that’s one of the great things you’ve done in your book. So, Pam, let me turn to you. Welcome in. (laughs)
Pam: Thank you.
Jim: Um, we want to dive into that story that you had. Uh, you had a health scare that landed you in the hospital, so paint the picture for us and what took place.
Pam: Right, yeah. So, it started off with I had diabetes, um, and 1.5, which is kind of a fragile diabetes. It’s hard to like manage and hard to medicate. And I went to an endocrinologist and she gave me some new, um, meds, but they were supply chain issues, so I couldn’t take them on this trip that I was going on to speak for creatives in Texas. And on the way to Texas, somehow I thought I hurt my, um, shoulder and I was in excruciating pain. And so when I landed my sweet mentee, she’s like helping me drag all my things to the car. And she’s like, “Do you need to go to the doctor?” And I’m like, “No, no, I’ll just gut it out. I just need some, you know, pain over-the-counter stuff.” So, I took various over-the-counter things, and I was in pain more and more. And then, uh, so I called Bill and I said, “Okay, uh, pick me up as close to the gate as you can. I mean, I literally can’t even pick up my backpack.”
Jim: Bill’s your husband. Yeah.
Pam: Yes, my husband Bill. And, um, so, uh, he caught me. I was like crying as I stepped out of… He’s like, “You need to get to the doctor.” I’m like, “Let me just go to sleep tonight,” and tomorrow morning, first thing, 5:30 AM we went to the neighborhood urgent care. And that physician gave me stronger painkillers. And then he happened to take like an X-ray, and he called back and he’s like, “You broke your rib. That’s why you’re in so much pain.” And then because I had broken my rib and I was in so much pain, my sugar elevated like crazy and, um, the… all the over-the-counter meds plus the new med that he had given me totally shut down my digestive system. And so I became toxic, and the doctor later explained that I had some kind of an infection. And so on Sunday that year, it was just two years ago, it was hot, but I had five blankets on me. I couldn’t get warm.
Jim: Huh.
Pam: And I stood up and I was dizzy, and I… and I grabbed the sides of the RV that Bill uses for the office. And I grabbed my heart as he walked in and I said, “I think I’m having a heart attack, Bill.” And my dad died of a heart attack at 62, and so it caught his attention. He’s like, “Taking you to the ER right now.” Five minutes later, we are at the best hospital in town. And the two doctors that were on call, one was a… a specialist in diabetes, the other was a specialist in heart. And so the diabetes specialist said, “Oh, I know what’s happening here. It’s a DKA,” which is like a really long way to say you’re gonna have a diabetic coma. If we don’t halt this, you could die. And so they put me in a medically induced coma to try to save my life.
They basically had to reset my whole body. And as they put me in to the, uh, medically induced coma, a- all I remember is, um, the doctor said, “Pam, you need to slow down your breathing.” I’m like, “Oh, I can’t.” That’s the last thing I remember is yelling at the doctor. But then the peace of God that has all understanding had surrounded me, and so I had this overwhelming peace. And then as I stepped into what I call a glimpse of God’s glory, the Heavenlies, I saw a picture of, you know, Jesus was wrapped around me. And people always say, “Did you see Jesus?” I said, “No, he wrapped me up in His presence.” And it was fully peaceful. It was fully joyful. It was fully full of love, hope, beauty, like everything you could think of. And I could see the gates of Heaven, how you picture it, and when you read the Word.
And there were angels. There’s angels of all kinds, and they were every shape and size and ethnicity, and were filled with glitter, like the kind of shining glitter you can’t even make in this world. And the angels were dancing before, um, Jesus. And I could see them. And I was asking Jesus, “Okay, so is… Like, am I like dead? Is this Heaven? Like, what’s going on here?” And we were communicating, but not with words, but rather His mind with my mind. And, um, then I… the angels would like kind of morph. After this beautiful dancing would occur, they would morph, and it turned into mountaintops with rushing rivers of gold.
And I’m like, “What’s up with this mountaintop thing? What are these rivers of gold? It looks like people that I love are scooping up all the gold.” And I couldn’t tell by their faces. I could tell by the way I felt about those, um, that I loved. And He’s like, “Pam, every day for the past decade at 3:20, you’ve prayed Ephesians 3:20, that God would do exceedingly abundantly beyond all you can ask, think, dream or feel. I’m showing you what prayer looks like on my side of the equation.
Jim: You said you said that quickly. I wanna make sure listeners, viewers catch that. At 3:20 AM, you would set your alarm.
Pam: 3:20 PM. I’m not up at 3:20 AM.
Jim: Oh, 3:20 PM. Okay.
Pam: Yeah. (laughs)
Jim: Well, you would set your alarm for 3:20 PM.
Pam: I do.
Jim: And you would-
Pam: And every day I pray that God would do exceedingly, abundantly beyond all we can ask, think, dream, or feel, uh, Ephesians 3:20. And, um, towards the end of our… my time there, I… I said, “Okay, so I am so happy to stay here. It is beautiful. It is amazing. It is incredible, but God, I also know that I have two grandsons that are ready to be born in two months, and I have seven grandkids altogether then. I would love to pour into their life, but not my will, but yours be done.” And just then Jesus said, “Okay, so you’ve been on the outside. The gates have not opened for you. It is not your time, Pam. I want you to go back. I have more for you to do.” And just then, boom, my eyes opened. I was in the ICU. My bells and whistles that I was connected to were going off. The nurse ran in and, um, Bill had been sent home about 3:00 in the morning.
So, my nurse ran in and I’m on a ventilator, and, uh, my hands are tied down, and so I can’t talk. And I see this white board over in the corner with a pen, and I point at it. She’s like, “You wanna write me a note?” And I nodded my head. So, she brought it over and I wrote, “Thanks,” heart, happy face, and I put an arrow towards her, and she started crying. She’s like, “Nobody ever thanks us.” And in my head I’m like, “What’s wrong with people? You save people’s lives every day and nobody ever thanks you?” And just then Bill walked in. He’s like, “You’re back. You’re all the way back. You’re writing and you’re bossing people around. You’re back.”
Jim: (Laughs) I love it.
Pam: A little bit of humor. (laughs)
Jim: I love it.
John: Well, that’s Pam Farrel, and obviously a very serious, but also a very life-giving story about her experiences. And, uh, she’s captured some of that in her book, Glimpse of God’s Glory: One Woman’s Near-Death Experience. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. And, uh, we have John Burke in the studio with us as well. His book is called Imagine Heaven, and you can get both of those books. They’re bundled for you at our store. And, uh, you can find that at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. And we also have a free audio collection covering this topic with more conversations featuring John Burke, Lee Strobel and Randy Alcorn. Look for the Remembering the Hope of Heaven audio collection when you’re at our website.
Jim: John, I… I could see your eyes and the intensity. This is-
John B.: See all the like questions I wanna ask Pam.
Jim: And… And… And so I think there, you’ve done this for thousands of people, talking with them about those experiences. You come from that engineering background. You were agnostic. But speak to Pam’s experience and… and as you have interviewed other near-death experienced people, the… the spiritual connection to that.
John B.: Yeah.
Jim: What… What are we hearing? What are you hearing?
John B.: Well, so interestingly, you did you… you went into the coma, and you were instantly there at the gates of Heaven?
Pam: I was. Bill says it’s kind of unfair because I got like this beautiful hallmark Heaven, amazing experience, and he got, like, made-for-TV ER.
John B.: Yeah. (laughs)
Pam: I mean, so it was… he was like praying the whole time that I would make it. And, you know, the whole Heaven experience, um, I just felt like I was home.
John B.: Yeah. It’s interesting. Dr. Mary Neal, who I also interviewed, said she died underwater in a kayak. 30 minutes dead.
Pam: Oh, I remember her story.
John B.: Yeah.
Pam: Yeah, yeah.
John B.: So, she said Jesus was… As soon as she said, “God, your will be done-”
Pam: Yep.
John B.: .. she physically felt Jesus holding her, surrounding her.
Pam: Enveloping her.
John B.: And… And I asked, “How did you know it was Jesus?” And she said, “I- I- It’s like if I saw my husband in the grocery store. I don’t have to ask, ‘Who are you?’ or, ‘Are you my husband?’ He’s like, ‘I just knew.'”
Jim: That’s something.
John B.: Yeah.
Jim: Uh, John, in that… in that way, I mean, the… the critics who will say… some doctors, in fact, will say, “Well, this might just be a near-death situation where our brain is excreting, uh, certain hormones in order to help us cope.”
John B.: The neurotransmitters flooding your brain.
Jim: Right. Hit some of that. Talk about what you’ve done in research to combat that, and… and keep it more on a spiritual plane.
John B.: Well, yeah, in… in the new book, in Imagine the God of Heaven, Chapter Two, I talk about science skeptics and NDEs. And I go through… Because there… there are lots of alternate explanations, other than what people like Pam typically say, which is, “I was more alive than I’ve ever been in a place more real than this. This is the shadow. That’s the real thing.”
Jim: Huh.
Pam: Yeah.
Jim: That’s common.
John B.: That’s common.
Jim: Yeah.
John B.: So, that’s the simple explanation. You know, there’s a scientific principle called Occam’s razor, which is, you know, in the complexity of options, go with the simplest explanation. Well, that’s the simplest explanation, but there are lots of alternatives like oxygen deprivation to the brain, anoxia, something called fighter pilot syndrome, where they get narrow tunnel and there’s a bright light at the end and they say, “Well, see, that’s a near-death experience.” But interestingly, so some go through a tunnel to this place.
Pam: I was just there.
John B.: But she was just there, and so was Don Piper. He was just there. Um, so it’s… And… And others, they go out of our atmosphere, and accompanied by angels through outer space.
Jim: Yeah.
John B.: It’s… It’s wild.
Jim: (laughs) Yeah. Right.
John B.: So… So, for me, you know, I put 10 points of evidence in this Chapter Two, but just three of ’em real quick. One is people often do see… They’re… They’re in a spiritual body, just like Paul talks about in First Corinthians 15, which he says is, “buried in brokenness but is raised in dunamis.” That’s the word. We get dynamite, uh, raised in power. And these new powers of the spiritual body are thought to thought, heart to heart, perfect communication, eyesight that’s telescopic. You can see for thousands of miles. I mean, and… and experiencing sensations of even how things grow, a connectedness.
Pam: Everything’s beautiful. Like, um, if you picture a pastorial scene, it would be the most beautiful painting you’d ever… ever seen. Um, God puts the most beautiful experiences, whatever I think He wants you to see.
John B.: Did you see that?
Pam: Um, so, that you draw closer. Yeah. Like, I mostly saw the gates of glory and experienced Him, but anything I looked at, whether it was like the angels or whether it was the mountains, they all were the most amazing beauty. Like, you can’t even describe the colors.
John B.: Did you see mountains of… So, this is all… Is this a city? Is this a walled city?
Pam: So, the mountain range, it… So, the walled city was like Heaven with the pearly gates, only they were much more golden then. And the angels were above that, and they were dancing and they were glittering gold. And then it was shift and morph to the mountains. And the mountains even were like… We’re… We’re right here in Colorado Springs. I mean, these are beautiful mountains. They were even more beautiful than any mountain range that I’ve ever seen anywhere with the rushing golden rivers. So, I think that God can’t help Himself. It’s just gonna be beautiful.
John: (laughs)
Jim: You know, at the end here… I mean, this… there… this is so much to take in. People are going, “What?” (laughs) But when Jean and I read your book, John, particularly, both of them, in fact, the… the thing that it did for us both practically, like intellectually, but also emotionally, is almost like a preparation. And I remember a- at the end of reading that just feeling like the way I want to go into this is, “Yahoo,” not fearful.
John B.: No.
Pam: Yes.
John B.: Makes you hopeful.
Jim: And you know, again, as Christians, we… we sometimes behave like we’re not entirely sure, and some of that is understandable. I mean, we’ve not… Many of us have not had that experience, Pam, that you’ve had.
Pam: Right.
Jim: And I think in that context with so many people that you have interviewed, you have to be going, “Wow, this is just a transition.” Like you just said a moment ago, this is the shadow. What’s to come is the for real.
John B.: I mean, what they’ve commonly said to me is, “I was alive and then I was more alive.”
Pam: Yes.
John B.: I was conscious, and then I was super conscious.
Pam: Yes.
John B.: Like, I don’t… There wasn’t death. It… Jesus said, “God is not a… the God of the dead, He’s the God of the living.” And yet we somehow picture the life to come a little bit less than this. It’s not gonna be less.
Pam: Right.
John B.: No.
Pam: And Jesus says that, “I’m the way, the truth and the life,” and that word life is Zoe. That life that is created and sustained by God. Zoe, I mean, that’s how I experienced it. And shortly after that, I went to a conference and they wanted me to share my experience, and I did that. And a friend of mine said, “I just picked up this little book, it’s by an author that seems to really know what he’s talking about, Pam, um, John Burke.” So, the first book that I read wanting God’s theology of what had just happened to me was Imagine Heaven–
Jim: Yeah.
Pam: … by John.
Jim: Well, that’s good.
Pam: And I’ve since given that to so many people who, um, found comfort when they got bad news about, you know, a terminal illness, or maybe they’ve walked somebody through to Heaven, and they wanted to know, “Why did my mom reach up and say, ‘Do you see them?'” You know, um, “Why did it seem like they could see a glimpse of God’s glory at the end of their days?” And John’s book has been a huge comfort-
Jim: Yeah.
Pam: … to many people through some really, um, hard times.
Jim: Totally.
Pam: It’s given them a glimpse of God’s glory.
Jim: That’s what we… what we fell in love with. And John, you know, don’t let these accolades go to your head.
Pam: (laughs)
John B.: (laughs)
Jim: But let me… let me say this, you know, e- every year we measure the impact Focus has had. Uh, last year for that 12-month period, we had about 193,000 people make a decision for Christ.
Pam: That’s awesome.
Jim: And we’re right at… It is awesome. And it was never… We never measured it before, and I never… We just didn’t think about it in that way, but family is a great-
John B.: Yeah.
Jim: … evangelistic tool because we’re mostly coming from broken feelings and emotions, and the Lord can use that to rescue His people-
John B.: Yeah.
Jim: … from that pain.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: And pain probably starts in the family, to be honest.
John B.: Yes.
Jim: But in that context, John, as a pastor who has done this now… You came from that engineering agnostic place, but I so respect the diligence in which you have done this work and the way you’ve applied it. Hearing a story like Pam’s and then doing that thousands of times and then correlating this into scriptural references and all. What is the pitch to the nonbeliever where you used to be and now where you’re no longer? (laughs) Because you have seen this and heard this-
John B.: Yeah.
Jim: … so consistently, so vibrantly, I know you don’t fear the next step.
John B.: No.
Jim: And speak to that nonbeliever.
John B.: Well, yeah, Jim, there is so much evidence, if evidence is really what you want. And you know, I… I didn’t even get into it, but verifiable observations. So, I… What I was saying is when people are out their bodies, they can see what’s happening in their resuscitation. I interviewed cardiologists who said, “I started interviewing these patients, and they described the resuscitation I did in a way that they couldn’t possibly have known. I could have used the recording to teach other physicians how to do resuscitation.”
Jim: Huh.
John B.: Um-
Jim: They were that alert?
John B.: Well-
Jim: And seeing.
John B.: I- I- It’s… It’s that they somehow had a perspective out of their body. They had no brainwaves, and yet they’re able to report on things that there’ve been studies done that show their observations are 92% completely accurate.
Jim: Wow.
John B.: Now, that’s-
Pam: That’s huge. (laughs)
John B.: … that’s unbelievable. Okay, that’s one. Second, when people blind from birth have a near-death experience, they can see. And they report seeing things like the light of Heaven. And… And we’re talking about consistent reports of blind people and sighted people, that the light of Heaven comes out of everything. And it’s not like light on earth. It’s love and it’s life altogether. And they know it and feel it. They see it-
Jim: And see it.
John B.: … and experience it. But… But a blind person wouldn’t have heard that. And that’s what John says in Revelation 21: “There’s no sun and moon in Heaven for the glory of God is it’s light, and the lamb, Jesus is its lamp, and the nations will walk in that light.”
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Pam: In First Corinthians it says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has even imagined what God has prepared for those.” And so it is beyond our comprehension, because isn’t that the kind of God we want? Yes. That’s the God of the Bible that is bigger and stronger, more beautiful than anything we can imagine.
John B.: And… And that’s the third thing I’d say to, uh, an atheist or an agnostic is that, you know, I interviewed people personally, 70 from every continent for this new book, Imagine the God of Heaven, and they’re from every spiritual background, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic, H- Hindu, they are testifying to the God of the Bible. And-
Jim: ‘Cause they see the same or similar things.
John B.: And I’m… I’m showing it. I mean-
Pam: He’s the creator God.
John B.: I’m showing it. He’s the only God, but He’s always been the God of all nations.
Pam: Mm-hmm.
Jim: Yeah. John, in that respect, this feeling… You know, so many people that don’t believe in Jesus have sometimes really, you know, uh, a bad perception or perspective about the church. And I was treated bad by Christians once. Speak specifically to them, that God loves them, God loves you and cares about you. And we know that as Christians, sometimes we don’t demonstrate it to those nonbelievers attitudinally.
John B.: Yeah.
Jim: But just touch on that aspect of it, that as you’ve talked to these people, the love of God is something we cannot comprehend.
John B.: Yeah. And I mean, Pam could tell you firsthand, I’m sure, but what they commonly say is just what she said, there… there aren’t enough adjectives.
Pam: Synonyms.
John B.: There just aren’t. Yeah. I’ve… I’ve had people tell me, “Imagine standing in the ocean and the best human love is like waves gently lapping against your knees, and then here comes God’s love and it’s a tsunami-
Jim: (laughs).
John B.: “… that just washes away all fear, all concern, all worry.” And another thing that many near-death experience-
Pam: And it gives you all peace.
John B.: Yeah. And… And a peace that’s not even like our peace.
Pam: Right.
Jim: Right.
Pam: It’s beyond comprehension.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
John B.: One of the things that I was kind of shocked at how many near-death experiencers told me is that in Jesus’ presence, they said, “You know, I know it wasn’t true, but I felt like I was the only… like His only child, like the only one He loved.”
Jim: Wow.
Pam: Yeah.
Jim: I love it. Uh, I think you’re getting the feeling here and the, uh, intellectual observation of what these people have gone through. And I wanna encourage you to get in touch with us. I mean, we are here for you. We want to express that light, that life that you will have in Jesus. If you’re there and you know the Lord, but you’re not sure about this life after, man, get a copy and a bundle of these two great books. And we’ll make it easy. Just make a gift of any amount, we’ll send them to you. If you can’t afford it, get in touch with us. We’ll trust others will cover the cost of that because this is so important to know the Lord in this life, so you have everlasting life.
John B.: Mm-hmm.
Pam: You have the hope of Heaven. And I think that… that John being on the bestsellers list consistently since you wrote that book (laughs), Imagine Heaven, shares the hunger that we have for the hope of Heaven.
John: Yeah. Find answers and get help from us here at Focus on the Family when you call 800 the letter A and the word FAMILY. 800-232-6459. You can also go online for so much more in the way of resources. We have the bundle of books that Jim mentioned, Imagine Heaven and Glimpse of God’s Glory. And then we also have a free audio collection that you can download. It’s called Remembering the Hope of Heaven, which contains more conversations with John Burke and Lee Strobel and Randy Alcorn. And you’ll also get this episode, of course, that you heard today with some extra bonus content. All of this and much more at our website, and that’s focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. And as we close out, let me remind you that Focus on the Family is listener-supported. Uh, at this point, uh, we really need your help to continue providing powerful faith-building programs like the one you’ve heard today and to offer resources and other tools to strengthen families. If Focus on the Family has helped you in any way, please consider a generous donation today. And you can make that financial contribution online or over the phone. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
