SID: Now, I’ve interviewed many people that have medically died and gone to Heaven, but you have interviewed so many that you have found certain commonalities.
JOHN: For 35 years I’ve studied the Bible and I’ve studied these experiences, and I want to show that these are like dots of color on the bigger picture that the Bible’s given us all along. That’s the picture we’ve got to hold to, ’cause any one experience can be interpreted many different ways, and they are, but when you listen to what’s reported, commonly they will leave their body. They have a body. They still are fully themselves, more alive than they’ve ever felt. But they’re able to observe for a little bit what’s going on on the scene of their accident or whatever it might have been, and then they’re taken. They don’t know– Some say through a tunnel, some say down a path, different ways of explaining.
SID: Do they experience when they’re hovering, let’s say, over their body, do they experience fear?
JOHN: No.
SID: Good.
JOHN: No. I mean, generally, it’s a peace like you’ve never known before, but they come to a place and different people see different parts. It’s like if you landed 100 people across North Carolina and then gave them five minutes there and said, “Describe it.” They would all describe different bits, but you could start to piece it together. That’s what I tried to do in the book, “Imagine Heaven,” is piece together the picture of what they’re saying. What I found fascinating is how many talked about people in these white robes. But what I discovered is they’re not white robes like we’re talking about. They’re actually translucent. The reason they’re white is it lets, I believe, the glory of God shine through. Maybe the amount of light and love of Jesus that we allow to shine through us now expands our capacity to experience the life and love and light of God shining through us there.
SID: Now, why is it that just about everyone I’ve interviewed that has had this type of experience did not want to come back?
JOHN: Well, because it’s the life we were created for. This life is a temporary journey. We are finite. We’re confined to time and space here. But Jesus said it. He said, “I’m going to prepare a place for you and I will come back and get you and there are many dwelling places in my Father’s home and we will always be together, and we will eat and we will drink. There will be feasts.” It’s life. It’s not less life, it’s more life than we’ve ever imagined.
SID: Aren’t you a little worried that people read your book and find out how wonderful Heaven is and how verified it is, they’ll want to cut out of this life?
JOHN: No. I really actually am
[not]
. I would say that if you read and you have that thought, you’ve got to remember what God said to almost everyone, “It’s not your time. I still have plans for you.” We should never short circuit God’s plan.
SID: Tell me, what are our bodies up in Heaven? What if you go there with pain in your body? What if you go there with cancer in your body?
JOHN: Consistently, several people I write about had loved ones. One guy named Gary had a friend who was decapitated in an auto accident. He said one of the most wonderful things was as he’s coming up to the entrance of the gate to the New Jerusalem, out comes his friend, John, happy, whole, healthier than he’s ever seen. Gives him a big hug and God appointed John to take him on a tour of the city. Our welcoming committee—
SID: What about the head?
JOHN: Yeah, he had a head. I thought that was implied in whole and healthy.
SID: Okay.
JOHN: Maybe not.
SID: How about families?
JOHN: Yeah, I mean, it is the greatest reunion we’ve ever had.
SID: They all get along?
JOHN: Yeah. Well, I write about that. I write about that. You know, one of the commonalities is our communication is perfect, meaning we speak to one another in complete thoughts, emotions. We understand each other perfectly.
SID: I’m told we don’t actually speak words. It’s like spirit to spirit.
JOHN: Right, but we can speak words.
SID: Okay.
JOHN: In fact, we sing songs. One of the fascinating things about the music of Heaven, you know, where Paul said, “Things eye has not seen,” we should talk about the colors of Heaven. But ear has not heard, the music of Heaven, like Betty Maltz talked about how she heard all these songs, all in different languages, but she understood all of it. Don Piper, a pastor who’s a friend of mine, said it was like listening to 1000 songs from Bach to Queen all at the same time and yet perfectly harmonized. It’s music in a new dimension. We’re talking about life. This is what you need to understand. There’s adventure. There are mountains to climb. There’s travel that’s not limited. Captain Dale Black, the airline pilot who died, I have a picture of the plane in the LA Times. Everyone died in the crash, he resuscitated.
But isn’t it just like God? God has him flying into the New Jerusalem above and he describes the beauty very much like John did in Revelation 21, these grand mountains behind, but he noticed they were snow-capped, which is fascinating. I hadn’t heard that. The city wall that stretched side to side, he couldn’t see how far. The beautiful landscape of paradise outside the wall, the grass, the trees, and he heard waterfalls and fountains, and this city with homes with architecture that was- He couldn’t even describe it in words, there was something supernatural about the architecture, he even said. You hear what they have to say and what I tried to do is show how they show from different angles exactly what the Bible’s been telling us all along.
Colors, they commonly say colors like you don’t have here on Earth, so spectacular. That makes perfect sense. The color we see is from the spectrum of the light of the sun. The color there is the spectrum of the light of God, far beyond anything we’ve ever seen.
SID: Yeah, not in the same ballpark.
JOHN: Yeah.
SID: I’ll tell you what, when we come back, there’s just so many things to talk about, but the most fascinating thing that you talk about is he calls it a life review. Did you know every one of us is going to get a life review? Be right back.
