Focus on the Family with Jim Daly

Day One

Preview

Woman #1: I think of those TV shows that I wasn’t allowed to watch as a kid.

Man #1: Ghosts and witches that I see like in pop culture and on TV.

Woman #2: I immediately think of the Lord and I think out of this world.

Man #2: Some really bad science fiction movie.

Woman #3: It’s either God doing something or Satan doing something.

End of Preview

John Fuller: Well, we see the word supernatural in a lot of different contexts, and it means many different things to different folks. Uh, you might think of ghosts or science fiction, but as Christians, as followers of God, we know that His supernatural presence is evident in every aspect of our lives. Today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, we have Lee Strobel talking about what supernatural really looks like in the Bible and in our lives. Thanks for joining us. I’m John Fuller.

Jim Daly: You know, John, I always enjoy having Lee Strobel here. I think partly because my heart is for evangelism. I mean, I think at my core I’m an evangelist.

John: You are.

Jim: And, uh, not a prophet or a teacher. And I just get excited when Lee’s here because we connect and it comes across. And I think a lot of people are wired that way. You know, we want to reach people for Christ and introduce people to Christ because of what He has done for us. And, uh, that’s the excitement. Always, you know, people I encounter, they’re like, “Oh, you Christians, all you want to do is convert us.” That’s not out of some kind of number thing, it’s because we’re enjoying a joyful life and we want you to participate. You, we want you to have that. And so here at Focus, that’s one of the things we try to concentrate on. Dr. Dobson always used to say, “We can help a family, help a marriage. But if we don’t introduce them to the author of family, we’ve kind of failed in that mission.” So that’s why we love to have guests like Lee Strobel come in and talk about, um, you know, discipleship, evangelism, those things that really buttress everything else. And we’re going to explore those things today with a new book that Lee has, Seeing the Supernatural.

John: Yeah, it’s really going to be an interesting conversation as we look for God’s, um, hand in all of life. And Lee describes himself as an atheist turned Christian. He’s a best-selling author. He is been on this, uh, show a number of times. And he’s founding director of the Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University. Now, today, uh, Jim, as you noted, we’re talking about Lee’s book, Seeing the Supernatural: Investigating Angels, Demons, Mystical Dreams, Near-Death Encounters, and Other Mysteries of the Unseen World. And you can learn more about this terrific resource and our guest when you stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim: Lee, welcome back. Always good to see you.

Lee Strobel: (Laughs). Oh, great to be here. I love you guys and your ministry here and how you touch so many lives and, um, and share Jesus with so many folks.

Jim: I’ve never said this before, but given your book title, Seeing the Supernatural, I wish I was William Shatner.

Lee: (Laughs).

Jim: That sounds like a show, that sounds, sounds like a show he would be hosting, right?

Lee: Yeah. (Laughing).

Jim: Do-do. But it is an interesting area, and so many people express that interest.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: I mean, that’s why you do have television shows that-

Lee: That’s right.

Jim: … That talk about the supernatural-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … and what’s going on. And you know, one of the things, Lee, that, that, uh, is so important for us to understand is why people are drawn to that.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: What is it that piques our interest?

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: What do you think it is?

Lee: Well, you’re right, about 8 out of 10 people believe that there is something beyond what we can see and touch. And yet we live in a scientific age, a technological age, where a lot of, um, the elites among us, a lot of the ones who form popular culture and so forth, um, try to tell us that no, no, no. Um, we can only believe in that which we can see and touch or put in a test tube. It’s called scientific materialism. Um, there’s nothing beyond what we can actually encounter personally in our world. Well, I was a skeptic for much of my life and believe that. Uh, the Bible of course talks about a whole dimension beyond the realm in which we find ourselves. But are there really, uh, bits of evidence that point toward the truth that there really is this other realm? And I think people are curious because, you know, popular culture, um, likes to delve into things like UFOs and, and ancient aliens and, and, uh, ghosts and um, uh, things like that that are… The occult, uh, very-

Jim: Sure, sure.

Lee: … very popular.

Jim: Psychics and all that kind of thing.

Lee: You know, when I was watching the, uh, Super Bowl this year, um, I’m seeing images of people in the stands with voodoo dolls, and it’s like-

Jim: Well, it was New Orleans.

Lee: … are you serious? Yeah, it was New Orleans.

Jim: Which is a little higher-

Lee: There’s a higher rate there, right?

Jim: With that whole thing, let me, I can’t believe somebody doesn’t know Lee Strobel. But again, I think your background will bring credibility to this whole discussion.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: But you were an atheist.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: You were this reporter with the Chicago Tribune.

Lee: Right.

Jim: You were the why guy.

Lee: Yeah, that’s right.

Jim: Why does it work that way? Why do you say that? I don’t believe that.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And you were an investigative, uh, reporter.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: It’s in your makeup-

Lee: Yes.

Jim: … to doubt.

Lee: I want corroboration. You know, I want facts. Give me evidence.

Jim: That sounds so romantic.

Lee: That’s just how I am.

Jim: I want corroboration.

Lee: That’s right. That’s right. You say you love me. Well, how do I know? What’s the corroboration, you know, before we get married? You know? But, um, uh, so yeah, you’re right. And you know, what amazes me is the level of corroboration there is for a supernatural realm. It is absolutely stunning. When you look at things like, uh, deathbed visions of people before they die, how common those are.

Jim: Well, we’re gonna talk about all that.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: I want to start with a couple of stories that you start with in the book on, uh, you know, supernatural experiences.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Why don’t we talk about, uh, I think it was a Secret Service agent.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: This is a guy I hope you could trust.

Lee: Yeah, that’s right. This is a guy, he’s trying to get to sleep. It’s 3:00 AM. And all of a sudden he feels gripped as if, as if his mother was hugging him. You know, this, he never had the sensation before, just in the middle of the night, 3:00 AM. Just gripping, and and it scared him. He, he literally jumped out of bed and got his gun and went hunting in the house.

Jim: It was that real?

Lee: It was that real. It was like, this is so unusual. So it’s got to be, is there somebody in the house, or what is going on? Finally, he goes back to bed. And when he went back to bed, he felt a sense of peace. And then he gets a phone call two hours later, that at 3:00 AM, when this happened, his mother died. Um, and-

Jim: So right at the same time?

Lee: Right at the same time that he had this experience of feeling hugged at that moment. Um, and he said, “You know, if I didn’t believe in God before that, I do now.”

Jim: Let me ask you though, I mean, people again, I think within the Christian community-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … many are skeptics-

Lee: Yes.

Jim: … as well. And we say, well, you know, we kind of like that idea-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … of science and naturalism and, you know-

Lee: Right.

Jim: … we need to see it, taste it, touch it. Even within the church.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: How do you explain that happening with him, but not with somebody else?

Lee: Yeah, exactly. And, and I raise the question, when I tell that story in the book, I say, “Could there be a natural explanation for this? Was it a coincidence?” Um, maybe, could have been. Or was it something supernatural? Was it a encounter with God?

Jim: Why do these Christians tend to want to not believe it could be something that God allowed to happen for whatever purpose?

Lee: Yeah. I find a lot of Christians really shy away from delving into the supernatural realm. Um, you know, when you deal with things like near-death experiences or deathbed visions, or even, even God intervening directly in people’s lives in a dramatic way.

Jim: We should believe in this stuff.

Lee: We should believe it. Because my goodness, we see evidence of that kind of thing happening in the Bible.

Jim: I guess that that good skepticism is you can go too far.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: And everything becomes something.

Lee: That’s right.

Jim: And it’s not there.

Lee: It becomes a superstition kind of a thing.

Jim: Right.

Lee: And, and, um, what are you really believing in here and so forth? So-

Jim: Okay.

Lee: Some of these things that I talk about in the book, um, it could have multiple possibilities in terms of-

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: … could it be a natural explanation, but often the evidence is much stronger that it’s some sort of supernatural encounter.

Jim: And it’s good to keep our spiritual eyes wide open for those things-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … as believers.

Lee: That’s right.

Jim: So that we can identify what we believe to be true and what possibly is false.

Lee: I was interviewing a, uh, famous, um, theologian and, uh, kind of a staid theologian, you know how they are. And, and, um, he, he grew up in a Pentecostal home where he said there was an expectation of the supernatural. And then he told me a story. He said, uh, in my church when I was growing up, there was a, uh, family driving in their car. This is the day before seat belts. And their 10-year-old child opened the back door and fell out of the car at 70 miles an hour. Well, they, my gosh, he’s, he’s going to be dead. So they stopped, they turned around, they went back, and they find their son standing there in the street, perfectly fine. And they said, “What happened?” And he said, “Oh, you didn’t see the man that caught me.”

Jim: Wow.

Lee: And this theologian pulled out his handkerchief and started to dab his eyes. He says, “I miss that. I, I miss being in that culture where there was an expectation of the supernatural. I believe an angel caught him.” And, um, and-

Jim: Oh, wow.

Lee: Yeah. And, and-

Jim: Yeah, that’ll shape your faith real quick.

Lee: Exactly. Yeah.

Jim: Wonder what happened to that boy.

Lee: Yeah, good question.

Jim: In his life.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: You mentioned another story, and then we’ll get into some of the things you talked about. That Pastor John Boston.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: What a great name.

Lee: Yeah, I know. Yeah.

Jim: John Boston. What happened to John?

Lee: John was in a car accident. His car hit a, uh, utility pole. A electric wire fell down and electrified the car. The door of the car was jammed shut. And then there’s a scruffy man appears from nowhere and comes up and opens the car door, has no ill effect, opens the car door, takes out this pastor, takes about 50 feet away, and then the car kind of blows up.

Jim: Gee.

Lee: And, and that was it. And then he walked away and disappeared. And this guy, this pastor, said, “It must have been an angel. I believe it was an angel that rescued me.” Of course, the Bible says there are times when we provide hospitality unknowingly to angels.

Jim: Right.

Lee: And so we do have, according to the Bible, says, interactions sometimes with angels. And he’s convinced that that’s what took place. And, you know, we interview some of the, um, emergency medical people who came. They have no explanation for how this could have taken place, and how somebody could easily have opened that car door in the midst of that terrible accident and so forth.

Jim: Yeah. Sometimes the best explanation is the one right in front of you.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And especially, again, as believers, the word says that. Do we strike that from scripture?

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: We say, well, we believe all of it but that line.

Lee: Yeah. No.

Jim: The Lord told us.

Lee: Exactly.

Jim: Exactly that.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Um, let’s go to the soul. I mean, we have, uh, worldviews that compete on this idea that the human soul exists.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Describe for people that haven’t maybe thought about this. What is the soul?

Lee: Yeah. The soul or, or our consciousness, our spirit, is the locus of our introspection. It’s our first-person perspective and so forth. Um, it, it’s the center of our emotions and our thoughts and so forth. Um, now there are scientists today, many of them who will say, no, no, no, we’re just a brain. We really don’t have consciousness. That’s an illusion. You are just the product of your neurons firing in your brain and your environment. You don’t even have free will. Most of them will say, you don’t even have free will. You think you do, but you don’t. Um, and yet I think, you know, the Bible presumes that there’s a soul, that there’s a consciousness, that there’s a spirit. It never comes out and says, by the way, this is what the soul is. It just presumes it, as virtually every civilization in history has presumed we have a soul. When I interviewed a neuroscientist from Cambridge University in this book, Seeing the Supernatural, and she talks about how as a scientist, she can map things that happen in the brain, areas of the brain that light up when certain thoughts take place or whatever. She said, “Those aren’t the thoughts. Those are correlated to the thoughts.” She said, “There’s been no discovery of modern neuroscience that disproves the existence of God.” And, uh, she said, “In contrary, if there is a God, this would explain why we have a mind, not just a brain, but a mind. We’re made-

Jim: Because we’re made in His image.

Lee: We’re made in His image. God is a disembodied mind. And so it makes sense that we would have a mind as well. So yeah, I think it’s important. Because the Bible says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Um, Jesus told the other person being crucified on the cross, uh, next to him. He said, “Today you’ll be with me in paradise.” Well, you know, Christian teaching is that at the moment of death, our spirit, our soul, separates from our physical body and goes either to be with the Lord or away from the Lord until the consummation of history. Um, when Jesus returns, when our body is reunited with our soul and where we have final judgment, and then we spend eternity either in the presence of God or absent, um, his presence in hell. So it’s consistent with scripture that we would have a soul that survives the death of the physical body. And we see this in near-death experiences as well.

Jim: In fact, Lee, I think this scientist you’re quoting also-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … compared the soul to coffee.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Now we’re getting somewhere.

Lee: Now we’re getting somewhere. Actually, she was saying that, um, you know, how do you, how do you describe the smell of coffee?

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Lee: And she asked me that as a writer. And I’m saying, “I don’t, how would I describe the aroma of coffee?” And she said, “You know, we could talk about the physical makeup of caffeine, the chemical makeup of caffeine. That doesn’t get you very far. Uh, we could talk to what happens in your body when you consume coffee, but that doesn’t get us to the smell of coffee.” She said, “The smell of coffee is an example of what they call qualia, which are things that, um, we, we can’t really capture except in a first person experience.”

Jim: You have to do it.

Lee: You have to experience it. And that’s what the first person perspective and first person experience is. What the soul, the consciousness, the spirit, um, provides to us. What we see and touch can only take us so far.

John: This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. And our guest today is Lee Strobel. We so appreciate Lee and this perspective on, uh, things that maybe don’t make sense, but do make sense. Lee’s book is called Seeing the Supernatural. Uh, the full subtitle is Investigating Angels, Demons, Mystical Dreams, Near-Death Encounters, and Other Mysteries of the Unseen World. Get a copy of this book from us here at the ministry. The link is at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim: Lee, when we read the Bible, there’s many accounts of miracles in there.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: But literally, denominations have sprung up with those that believe those miracles no longer exist.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Or those that believe that’s really only, the only thing that exists.

Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: And everything in between.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: But even the idea that so many denominations or churches have risen up based on this theological difference.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Um, what should we as healthy believers look at when we read these scriptures? And the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And the lame can walk.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And you know, the routine.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And we don’t see it as often today, at least in Western culture. I hear more of this in Africa-

Lee: Um-hmm.

Jim: … and parts of Asia.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: So what, what’s going on?

Lee: Well, we do see miracles in clusters around the planet, as you mentioned, where the gospel is just breaking in. In Mozambique and Brazil and China. It’s been estimated that 90% of the growth of the church in China as a result of people either themselves have had a miracle in their life, or they know somebody who has.

Jim: Interesting.

Lee: So, but nevertheless, um, there are modern miracles that, and again, I’m a skeptic, so I, I want documentation, I want corroboration, I want investigation. And so what it does for me is it does two things. Number one, it gives me more evidence that God exists. And number two, it gives me more confidence in the Gospels and in the Bible. Because if Jesus did miracles in the first century, a lot of people find that an impediment to believing the Gospels of being true. But if we’re still seeing miracles today, then they certainly could have taken place in the first century. So it’s a way almost of corroborating, uh, what the Gospels are telling us. So, um, I look at cases that are particularly either published in peer-reviewed medical journals, uh, that are done as scientific studies. And there are cases, I’m telling you, that there is no explanation other than a supernatural event has taken place. I’ll give you an example. It’s a woman who was blind for 12 years from an incurable medical condition. She went to a school for the blind. She learned to read Braille. She walked with a white cane, and she married a Baptist pastor. So one night they’re getting ready for bed, and she’s in bed, and he comes up and he starts to cry. And he puts his hand on her shoulder and he begins to pray and he says, “Lord, I know you can heal my wife. I know you can restore her sight. And I pray you will do it right now.” And she opened her eyes and perfect eyesight. And she said, “I was blind when my husband started praying. I opened my eyes, I’ve got perfect eyesight. It’s a miracle. I can’t believe it. My life has changed.” And for 47 years since then, she’s had good eyesight.

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: Um, this is again, published in a peer-reviewed medical journal as a case study. How do you account for that?

Jim: Where did she live?

Lee: Uh, I’m not sure what town she was in.

Jim: But in the US?

Lee: In the United States.

Jim: Wow. And, you know, part of me is going, really, I need to see that.

Lee: Yes. In fact-

Jim: The same as you.

Lee: You know, there, there was, um, uh, I did a study. I hired George Barner’s organization, do a study, and I asked a cross-section of American adults, “Have you ever had at least one experience in your life that you can only explain as a miracle of God?” 38% of American adults said yes.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Lee: Now, let’s just throw out 99% of them. Let’s say, yeah, they think it was a miracle. It was just a big coincidence. Let’s throw out nine. That still leaves a million miracles just in the United States. So God is still in the miracle business. And we see scientific tests that have been done that point toward miraculous things taking place. A woman from, um, Indiana University, a professor with a PhD from Harvard, went to Mozambique to investigate a cluster of miracles. This, now here’s the thing. This is a valid scientific study that was published in a secular scientific, peer-reviewed medical journal, the Southern Medical Journal, a reputable medical journal. And I went, and in my book Seeing the Supernatural, I interviewed the scholar that did this research, and I said, “What are you, what’s your conclusion?” And she said, well, being a professor at a secular university, she can only go so far. So she said, “Well, something is going on.”

John: Hmm.

Jim: Interesting.

Lee: “Something is going on.”

Jim: You know, Lee, I’ve, now that you’re saying this, you know, I, I, uh, go to Mayo for a checkup every year.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: There is more, uh, talk about the importance of prayer.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: The importance of God.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: Even in those medical discussions.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: Because they’re seeing those that do that-

Lee: Yes.

Jim: … have quicker recovery-

Lee: Yes.

Jim: … better outcomes.

Lee: That’s right.

Jim: And so even the medical profession is noticing something in this-

Lee: It’s very true

Jim: … area of spirit.

Lee: Yep. That’s right. That’s very true.

Jim: And it’s just really kind of come out over the last decade or so.

Lee: There’s been a number of studies like that.

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: One of the problems with those studies is though they’ll divide people like they’re recovering from a heart attack, let’s say. And these people are going to pray for, and these people are not going to pray for.

Jim: Yeah. That’s tough.

Lee: And let’s… Yeah, because, you know, the people not being praying for, somebody’s praying for, right? They have family members. So it’s hard to kind-

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: … of get it. But the, you’re right. There’ve been a series of, of, uh, scientific studies published in publications-

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: … through the years that have established that something is going on.

Jim: So this is going to be, it’s going to feel like a left field question here.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: But in the book, you talk about Evel Knievel.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: I can remember being a teenager going-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: …”This guy’s crazy.”

Lee: Right.

Jim: But-

Lee: But, it’s, I tell the story in the book. He, this is an example of God, um, supernaturally intervening in a life. Uh, Evel Knievel lived a evil life in many ways. He was a gambler. He was a womanizer. He was a drunk.

Jim: Drinker, yeah.

Lee: Um, very successful financially. But he’s standing on the beach in Florida at the, toward the end of his life. And he told me, he said, “God spoke to me.” He said, “I didn’t hear Him through my ear. I heard Him in my chest, in my body. And, and God said to me, ‘Robert,’ which is his real name, ‘Robert, I’ve saved you more times than you’ll ever know. Now you need to come to me through my Son Jesus.’” And he, he freaked out. He didn’t know what to do. He, “I, I don’t even know who Jesus is.” So the only Christian he knew was Frank Gifford, remember the sportscaster?

Jim: Yeah, yeah, Gifford, sure.

Lee: And so he calls Frank, said, “Frank, I just had this experience. I, I don’t know… Who’s Jesus?” And Frank said, “Get that book The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.”

Jim: Oh, seriously?

Lee: Yeah. Yeah. “That’ll explain it.”

Jim: Oh my.

Lee: So he gets my, anyway, Evel Knievel had a radical born-again experience, 180 degree turn in his life. Um, just remarkable. When he was baptized, he shared his testimony. The pastor ripped up his sermon and said, “Y’all have heard the gospel.” This is a church that never had an altar call. He said, “Anybody wants to come up right now, receive Christ and be baptized.” 700 people came forward-

Jim: Oh my.

Lee: … in two services. It was, um, Christianity Today did an article about it. “It was like Pentecost.” I mean, and we became friends. Um, I remember the first time he called me, uh, I answered the phone. I said, “Hi, this is Lee.” And he said, “Is this Lee Strobel?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Um, this is Evel.” And I thought Satan has got my phone number.

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: “Is is this even possible?” He said, “No, no. Evel Knievel.” Oh, okay.

Jim: I was gonna say, if you went to dinner, you didn’t let him drive, did you? (Laughs)

Lee: No. (Laughs). You know what? You know, he died-

Jim: Hey Lee, let me, no, I’ll drive. I’ll drive.

Lee: He actually died about a year and a half after he came to faith. And on his tombstone it says, “Believe in Jesus.”

Jim: Wow.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Um, Tom Doyle is a mutual friend.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: He used to pastor here in Colorado Springs.

Lee: Yes, he did.

Jim: And he, and he, uh, we’ve had him on the broadcast here.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And, uh, he kind of parlayed his ministry being a pastor-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … into, uh, reaching out to those in the Middle East.

Lee: Right.

Jim: And having a ministry to the Muslims.

Lee: That’s right.

Jim: And, uh, he has got some incredible-

Lee: Oh.

Jim: … stories that again, we don’t see or experience-

Lee: That’s right.

Jim: … a lot of here in the US.

Lee: That’s right.

Jim: Describe some of Tom’s-

Lee: Yeah. I interview him in my book. Um, Tom, who by the way, just recovered from cancer.

Jim: Hmm.

Lee: Um, thank God. And we’ve been praying for Tom. He’s doing great now. But I interviewed him about this, this phenomenon in the Middle East where, uh, Muslims are going to sleep and having dreams about Jesus. These have corroboration. Here’s what I mean. I’ll give you an example. There’s a woman named Noor, and Noor lived in Cairo. She had eight children, and she’s a Muslim. She goes to sleep. She has a Jesus dream. And Jesus appears to her. She feels, this is like no other dream she’s ever had, this Jesus, she felt the grace and the love. It, it overwhelmed her. And she’s walking in her dream with Jesus along the lake shore. And she says, “Jesus, tell me more about you.” And Jesus said, “My friend will tell you.” And she said, “Well, who’s your friend?” And he points to a guy she hadn’t even noticed who was walking with them. And he said, “My friend will tell you.” She wakes up. The next day, she goes to the crowded marketplace in Cairo. And she’s walking through the crowd and she sees the man from her dream.

Jim: Oh my.

Lee: And she walks up to, “You’re the man!” He’s like, “Whoa, whoa. What are you talking about?” “You’re the man. I saw you in… Same glass, the same face, same clothes.

Jim: Wow.

Lee: And he said, “Wait a minute. Did you have a dream about Jesus?” And she said, “Yes.” And he turned out he was a missionary.

Jim: Oh my.

Lee: And he came over and he opened the Bible and shared the gospel. And this is the phenomenon we see. People don’t go to sleep as a Muslim, have a Jesus dream and wake up as a Christian. The dreams point them towards something else and something that’s corroborative. And that’s a good example of that. Um, it, this is so common in the Middle East. There’s ads sometimes in the Cairo newspaper that says, “Call this number and we’ll tell you about the man in white you encountered in your dream last night.”

Jim: Right. You know, uh, both of us have another mutual friend in John Burke-

Lee: Yes.

Jim: … who wrote The God of Heaven. Imagine the God of Heaven.

Lee: Right.

Jim: Great, and he’s a researcher of-

Lee: Yes.

Jim: … near-death experiences.

Lee: Right.

Jim: But Jean and I, we got ahold of the audio version of the book, uh, The God of Heaven. And so in there was a story about a Muslim who came to Christ.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: And through a near-death experience.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And I’m having this discussion with the Lord.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: You can’t do that with every Muslim. Is that fair?

Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: Now this is dangerous territory.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: But I said, “Lord, is that fair that, you know, some will have a vision, have a dream.”

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: “Have a near-death experience. Others won’t.”

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And what I heard in my spirit, in the middle of the night, so I didn’t concoct this.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: It was, oh, do you set the boundaries of my grace?

Lee: Mm. Yeah.

Jim: And then the immediate follow-up was, I love everyone.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Of my creation.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Everyone.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And it was such a feeling-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … of that.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: It was deeper than just a intellectual.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: It was like the immeasurable love God has for every person.

Lee: Yes. Yes.

Jim: Believer or non-believer.

Lee: Yeah. And you know, the Bible says in the Old Testament in Jeremiah, the New Testament in Hebrew, that those who sincerely seek God, uh, will find Him. And um, we had an example in our own church in Texas where I was a teaching pastor down there. We had a woman, um, who was Muslim from the Middle East. And when she was, um, about 22 years old, she had a, uh, a dream in which Jesus appeared to her because she had been in a, in a quest, she was in a crisis in her life. And she called out, “God, if you’re there, I want to meet you. I want to know you. I want to encounter you.” She has this dream about Jesus. It kind of opened her eyes to the possibilities there. They moved to Texas because her husband was in the, um, oil industry. Uh, she has another dream. And in this dream, there’s a man with her standing in a pool of water up to her waist. And he’s reading a book and he’s weeping. And she has no idea what this means. And, um, she meets a woman from our church. And the woman invites her to come to our Easter services at our church. So she comes, and she’s waiting in the auditorium for the service to begin. And she sees the man from her dream. The one with the book, the one who was, “He was the man in my dream.” He was a pastor of baptism at our church.

Jim: Mmm.

Lee: She had dreamed about baptism even though she didn’t even know what it was.

Jim: Oh, yeah.

Lee: She ended up coming to faith. And sure enough, that guy ended up in our, um, pond at the church up to their waist in water.

Jim: Wow.

Lee: With the Bible, weeping as he then baptized her as a new believer in Christ.

Jim: That’s amazing, Lee.

Lee: So there’s these incredible stories that I think are just hard to explain away otherwise.

Jim: It’s so, so good. And you know what’s interesting, right at the end here, I think it’s a good place to drop this kind of bomb. You know, people can hear the enthusiasm that we’re talking about-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … this with. And you know, you look at the root word of enthusiasm, it’s in Theo, God in you.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: So the fact that we’re talking about these expressions of angelic visits, expressions of the Lord reaching the Muslims-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … through dreams, etc. I mean, this is the spirit in us.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: This is in Theo.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: That enthusiasm. It’s rising.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: You can feel it in our discussion.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: It’s a good thing-

Lee: It is a good thing.

Jim: … to have this belief. We’ll come back next time, talk about angels-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … and some other things that you’ve covered in this great book, Seeing The Supernatural. But Lee, it’s uh, so good to get day one done. And I hope you’re catching that in Theo, that enthusiasm. And we want to get this book into your hands. I think, uh, you know, Lee’s in a, an exceptional position where he’s interviewing these people. He is following up. He’s the reporter, making sure that these things are true. And he’s compiled this great book for us as particularly believers, but also non-believers, to capture what’s happening supernaturally. Not to run from it.

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: We should be the ones explaining it to the world, not the world and psychics explaining it to us. That’s ridiculous. So get a copy today. If you can make a gift of any amount through a monthly, uh, donation or a one-time gift, we’ll send the book as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry.

John: Yeah. Donate generously when you call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. And we’re especially looking for 1,000 people to join our community of monthly sustainers. These are folks who commit to a monthly gift, uh, month in, month out, that helps kind of smooth things out. Agree, Jim?

Jim: That’s how we doing it. Yep.

John: It is a wonderful way to contribute to the ministry. And, uh, if you’re not yet doing so, let me invite you to join that 1,000 people that we’re looking for and become a monthly pledge partner today. Uh, call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, and just let us know how much you’d like to commit or, we’ll have details for you online at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back next time as we continue the conversation with Lee Strobel. And once again, help you and your family thrive in Christ.

Day Two

Lee Strobel: … Nevertheless, um, there are modern miracles that… and again, I’m a skeptic, so I, I want documentation, I want corroboration, I want investigation. And so, what it does for me is it does two things. Number one, it gives me more evidence that God exists. And number two, it gives me more confidence in the gospels and in the Bible. Because if Jesus did miracles in the first century, a lot of people find that an impediment to believing the gospels as being true. But if we’re still seeing miracles today, then they certainly could have taken place in the first century.

John Fuller: Well, that’s Lee Strobel sharing his enthusiasm about seeing the supernatural move of God in life. And he’s here with us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly to share that enthusiasm with you. Uh, thanks for joining us. I’m John Fuller.

Jim Daly: Uh, John, Lee is so good at digging deeper and we talked a lot about the supernatural yesterday.

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: So if folks missed that, go back and listen to it. We covered so much territory and it really, it made me feel so buoyant-

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … spiritually. I just was into it and I know you were as well.

John: Yeah, very much so. Yes.

Jim: And you know, these things that we talk about when it comes to the supernatural, whether a dream or dreams or people being healed in Africa and other places, we tend to shy away from it, even as Christians when we should actually run to it to explain what’s happening and to be anticipating that God can still do these things.

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: I mean, we don’t want to be phony-baloneys, right? We do believe God can still do miracles. And we’re going to talk more with Lee Strobel today about his great book, Seeing the Supernatural.

John: Yeah. Lee is, uh, the founding director of the Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University. Uh, he’s written so many books and he’s done so many different things. Let’s just say, yes, the book title-

Jim: (laughs)

John: … uh, that we’re covering today is Seeing the Supernatural: Investigating Angels, Demons, Mystical Dreams, Near-Death Encounters, and Other Mysteries of the Unseen World. Get a copy of the book from us here at the ministry. We’ve got the details at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim: Lee, welcome back.

Lee: Thank you. Great to be with you again.

Jim: Good to be with you. Have you, uh, made arrangements for this to be a TV series?

Lee: (laughs)

Jim: Because it has that title. It does.

Lee: Yeah. Yeah, it’s funny. Uh, Supernatural was a name of a show, as you know, and the pilot of that show did so well, it went for 10 years.

Jim: Which really-

Lee: Shows the interest.

Jim: … begs the question, yeah, why-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … why people have an interest in this?

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: What is the appetite within us?

Lee: I think there’s a curiosity. I- is there something beyond what I can see and touch and how do I know that there really is and people… um, you know, 8 out of 10 believe in something beyond this world. A sizable percentage believe in, uh, angels and in demons and in Satan, although interestingly, that number has gone down in the last 10 years or so.

Jim: Why do you think that is?

Lee: Uh, uh, I don’t know. It’s a, a good question. There was a big outbreak of, uh, angel interest back in, a number of years ago in the United States, and that kind of juiced people’s interest in angels. Everybody was writing about angels and talking about angels, that kinda waned, and, and I think that, that caused the interest to go down a bit.

Jim: Yeah. It’s so fascinating though, because over the generations, that seems to be a consistent insight. People, you know, that have no connection to Judeo-Christian values-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … people in Asia and other parts of the world where they’re-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … certainly over the centuries, somewhat isolated-

Lee: Right.

Jim: … still have this concept of good and evil.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: Um, what is good and evil and does it exist?

Lee: Yeah, it does exist because there’s a God who provides that, um, that measuring rod of what is good and evil. It flows out of who He is. And, you know, absent God, if there is no God, then there is no standard of good and evil. You can’t call something good and evil because there is no absolute standard. Well, we know there is an absolute standard. We know that it is wrong in any culture, at any time, in any place to torture a baby for fun. Uh, so there are certain standards that, uh, find their root in God being real. So, you know, if people deny the existence of God, they’re also denying the existence of a universal right and wrong.

Jim: In that respect, when we look at supernatural, we ended last time, we didn’t quite get to angels-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … which we wanted to.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: But we’re going to, you know, start there-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … and talk about the idea of angels.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Um, what do we know about angels? They seem… in the scripture, every time an angel appears, like, people faint, people fall down-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … onto their face.

Lee: Right.

Jim: They must be ominous creatures-

Lee: Awesome. Yeah.

Jim: … and big-

Lee: Yeah, well-

Jim: … because we always have fear typically-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … when we encounter an angel.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: But describe the angelic realm.

Lee: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting in Revelation, there’s a picture of Jesus, uh, the post-resurrected Jesus on His throne, and it says is surrounded by 10,000 by, times 10,000 angels. That’s a hundred million angels they’re talking about.

Jim: Right.

Lee: Now, at that time in the Greek language, 10,000 was the highest number. So in a sense, it’s talking about-

Jim: Infinite.

Lee: Uh, yeah. It is, like, you can’t even count this number. So there is a large number of angels. They are not eternal in the sense that they always existed. God created them at some point in the past, and they will always live because they’re spirit beings. They are, uh, powerful, they are smart, they’re intuitive. Uh, God uses them, the Bible says, uh, to minister to His people and to fulfill roles for Him a- as messengers and so forth. Um, we see instances in which angels interact with human beings in biblical times, but also in contemporary times. And in fact, the Bible mentions sometimes we provide hospitality unknowingly to an angel.

Jim: Right.

Lee: Uh, so the Bible is kind of saying, “Yeah, there are times when you may interact with one, not even know that it’s an angel that you’re interacting with.”

Jim: And last time you described, and people… again, you can go listen and get the app for your phone. You’ve got access to everything there, go to the website, et cetera, uh, to hear the program yesterday. But you described, you know, a car accident where-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … uh, a man showed up and he left as quickly as-

Lee: Right. Right.

Jim: … as he showed up right after saving this man’s life.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: So they can take on that human kind of appearance.

Lee: They, apparently they can, uh, become embodied, uh, at some point. They can do, um, miraculous things if God empowers them to do that. I’ll give you an example. Billy Graham would tell the story about a missionary in the, uh, South Hebrides, I believe it was called, the South Pacific Islands.

Jim: Okay.

Lee: And he was from Scotland, and he and his wife had a little cottage there, and they were trying to share Jesus among these tribes that lived back then. And, um, the tribes got upset about this. They didn’t want to hear the gospel. And so, one night a mob came to kill him and his wife. Uh, so here they are, they’re cowering, they’re afraid in their, um, little cottage, and they begin to pray, “God, protect us. God, uh, what do we do? Save us” and so forth. And they prayed all night. And after a period of time, the crowd, this mob, dissipated and went away. And they were fine. Well, about a year later, the missionary led the head of that mob to faith in Jesus Christ.

Jim: Hmm.

Lee: And so, he became a friend. And so, one day he’s talking to him and he said, “By the way, what happened that night?”

Jim: Hmm.

Lee: You all came to kill us and, and we were surrounded and yet they walked away. He said, “What happened?” He said… and the guy responded. He said, “Well, we couldn’t attack.” And the guy said, “Why not?” “Because your house was surrounded. There were these, these, these muscular men, and they all had swords that were drawn, protecting your house so that’s why we left. That’s why we walked away.” Well, what are they talking… they’re talking about angels.

Jim: Wow.

Lee: About how angels can be warriors. Angels can be… We see the story in the Old Testament of Elisha who was being threatened by, uh, troops, and yet… and his servant was all afraid. Uh, God opened the eyes of that servant to see the angels that had come to protect them. Um, so it’s one of the roles that angels can perform is a protective role.

Jim: Yeah. And Lee, I mean, I… we have so many listeners, we’re such practical people-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … here in the West, and certainly at Focus on the Family, we want you to do your marriage well and parent well-

Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: … and you’re going, “What are they talking about?”

Lee: (laughs)

Jim: But there are kind of three types of Christians.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Those that are gonna look for it everywhere.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Those that aren’t gonna admit that it even exists today.

Lee: Right.

Jim: That was back in the apostolic state-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … when they were healing and that no longer happens.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And those in the middle where we’re going, “Wow. Okay. It talks about miracles-”

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … “Miracles can still happen. I just don’t see them that often.”

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: A- am I describing that fairly within the body of Christ-

Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: … and how we temperamentally look at it? I mean, there’s a bit of me going, “Hmm, wow, okay.”

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: We just lean more into materialism and, you know, the natural state and you know, that’s just the way it is.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: We live in it. We’re steeped in it. But to say these kind of things could happen.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Angels surrounding my home.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Really?

Lee: You know, there are, uh, what are called cessationists who are Christians who sincerely believe based on their interpretation of scripture, uh, that, uh… some of them believe that the miraculous no longer occurs, that God has stopped doing that in our midst. Some believe that, no, miracles still occur, but, um, the gifts of, the supernatural gifts of tongues and so forth are no longer operative. Now, there they’re sincere, wonderful Christians who… that’s the way they interpret scripture. Um, I, I think there are Christians though, like you say, that are kind of in the middle. I was sort of like this, embarrassed because I had an encounter with an angel, and I never used to talk about this because I was embarrassed. I remember my ordination when I was being ordained as a pastor, I thought, “Do I bring this up? Are they going to think I’m nuts?” And I told them the story and they all said, “Yeah, okay, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s-”

Jim: (laughs) It was that easy. And you were-

Lee: But, but I tell you, there were two forms of corroboration to this experience I had. I was about 12 years old, 10 or 12 years old. It’s the only dream I remember from my childhood. It was a vivid dream. I’m in my kitchen and an angel appeared to me and began talking about heaven and extolling how wonderful heaven is. And I’m listening. I’m saying, “Well, I’m gonna go there someday.” And he said, “How do you know?” And I was stunned by… “What, what do you mean? How do I know?” I’m a nice kid. I, I, I obey my parents. I’ve, I’ve actually been to Sunday school a couple of times. I’ve, I try to do good things.” And, and the angel looked at me and said, “That doesn’t matter.” And, a, a, a chill went through my body and, and he could see I was chilled. And, and he looked at me and he said, “Someday, you’ll understand.”

Jim: Wow.

Lee: 16 years later, I’m in a church. I’m an atheist because I discounted that. “Oh, it was just a dream. That wasn’t real.”

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: 16 or 20 years later, I’m in a church. My wife had brought me, and the pastor presented the gospel and said, “It’s not by our good works that we’re saved. We can’t earn our way to God. It’s not being a nice person. It is receiving this free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus purchased on the cross when He died as our substitute to pay for our sins. We receive it in repentance and faith. It’s a gift.” And as soon as I heard that, I flashed back to that angel and he was right. Someday, I would understand.

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: And it wasn’t the good deeds that I thought were going to earn my way to heaven. And so, I was always embarrassed by that. I, I never told people about it-

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: … um, until now. I’m, I’m writing this book and I’m hearing other stories that have this kind of corroboration. Like some, the, the angel told me something I didn’t know, number one, and made a prediction that came true 16 years later. So there’s two forms of corroboration there.

Jim: I do need to touch… You know, we’re talking about angels.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Of course, demons are fallen angels-

Lee: Yes.

Jim: … that went with Lucifer-

Lee: Right.

Jim: … that kind of rose in rebellion against God, against heaven.

Lee: Right. Right.

Jim: And they were, uh, excommunicated.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: And uh, that’s been the battle.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: That’s the story. That’s what we understand about good and evil.

Lee: Right. Right.

Jim: Lucifer and his pride and the angels that went with him.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Describe for us what, what that is like, this idea of demons.

Lee: Yeah. Demons are, as you say, fallen angels. They are not… Some people think Satan is the counterpoint to God. He has the same powers as God. No, he’s a fallen angel. He’s not omniscient like God is. He doesn’t know our minds. He can’t read our minds, uh, in a way that God is omniscient. He’s not omnipotent. He’s not all-powerful, but he is a powerful being. He is an angel. And, um, so, sometimes there are instances, and I document this in my book, where demons will possess a human being. And I have a story in my book that, that’s amazing from Richard Gallagher. Richard Gallagher is an Ivy League-educated psychiatrist, medical doctor. He’s a professor at major medical schools. And he got involved with some Catholic priests who were looking into the demonic. And one day he got a phone call, this is a number of years ago, and the Catholic priest said, “Do you mind if tomorrow I bring by your house at 9:00 in the morning, this woman who claims that she’s a high priestess of a satanic cult? Would you examine her as a psychiatrist and give me your opinion? Is she authentically possessed by demons or is she mentally ill or whatever?” So he said, “Yes, bring her by tomorrow morning.” His family had two cats. And they, these two cats loved each other. They were good friends and never had a problem. The night before, these two cats went crazy. They attacked each other, they’re clawing at each other, they’re trying to kill each other. And finally, he had to separate them and keep them separated. He said, “This is weird.” He never seen anything like this. The next morning, the doorbell rings at nine o’clock, he opens the door, there’s a Catholic priest, and there’s this woman who claimed to be a high priestess of a satanic cult. And this woman looked at Dr. Gallagher and said, “How’d you like those cats last night?”

Jim: Oh, my.

Lee: Yeah. The demonic is real. And through his experiences as a credentialed professor of psychiatry, um, he documents cases. And, uh, in my book, I describe some of those cases of people who speak in languages that they do not know, Latin. People who are possessed by, uh… The one case with six eyewitnesses, where a person levitated. Uh, these are authentic cases of possession. Now, Christians cannot be possessed by Satan or by demons-

Jim: Sure.

Lee: … because we’re indwelled by the Holy Spirit. But we can be hectored, we can be bothered by demons.

Jim: Sure.

Lee: And that’s why the Bible talks about spiritual warfare and the fact we should put out the armor of God and live in scripture-

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: … and protect ourselves against these kind of influences. But I think we make a huge mistake when we relegate the demonic to, um, motion pictures like The Exorcist.

Jim: Well, that’s what I was going to say-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … that we have to be careful as believers-

Lee: Yes.

Jim: … not to discount this underworld-

Lee: That’s right.

Jim: … this hellish world that exists.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: I mean, we believe it to an extent, but then when it becomes real-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … like a manifestation of it-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … we kind of go, “Okay, that was odd. That may be a Hollywood thing.”

Lee: Yes. Yes.

Jim: But we of all people, again, should be the ones to decipher for people what that experience is like this Catholic priest and-

Lee: That’s right.

Jim: You know, Lee, let, let’s move… I mean, there’s so much to cover.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And we’re just getting there. But in fact, John let people know how to get a hold of the book.

John: Okay.

Jim: That’s a good place to go.

John: (laughing)

Jim: And I’m picking it up and we’re moving.

John: Yeah. Give us a call 800, the letter A and the word FAMILY, 800-232-6459 or, uh, online, we’ve got all the details for you. And that’s at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim: All right. We’ve got some ground to cover.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: So this will be like the-

Lee: Lighting round. We are moving.

Jim: … lightning round for the next 15 minutes, but deathbed visions-

Lee: Yes.

Jim: … we did want to cover that.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: That’s a spirit moment.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: And explain it.

Lee: We see this in scripture in the book of Acts where Stephen is about to be stoned to death. And he looks up and he sees heaven. He, he gets a glimpse of the afterlife. And we have tens of thousands of cases of people who right before they die, they get a glimpse of what’s to come.

Jim: Often reaching.

Lee: Often reaching. And you know, Jesus, when He told the story about Lazarus and the rich man who died, and the rich man, uh, goes to… uh, separated from God, but the beggar, Lazarus, uh, is “Escorted,” Jesus said, “by angels to paradise.” Many people will see angels as they’re about to die. I’ll give you an example. Um, Billy Graham’s pulpit partner, uh, Charles Templeton, who lost his faith, became an agnostic, if not an atheist, wrote an ugly book against Christianity in Canada called Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith. But at, on his deathbed, he said to his wife, Madeline, “Madeline, can you see them? Can, they’re here in the room. You, you, what do you mean you can’t see them? They’re right here. The angels have come. They’re beautiful. I never heard such singing. This is… I’m going to heaven. I’m gonna be with God.”

Jim: Yeah. And you know, Lee, one of the things that has come out, and I think your friend, my friend John Burke-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … has debunked this to a great degree.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And especially in the near-death experience-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … which we’ll talk about in a moment.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: But people in this phase of dying-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: So many medical professionals will say, “Well, it’s an endorphin release.”

Lee: Hmm.

Jim: … “It’s a brain chemistry thing.”

Lee: Right.

Jim: “And it’s how our bodies are eased into death.”

Lee: Right. Right.

Jim: Describe what you have found-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … to be true.

Lee: Uh, especially in the deathbed vision as well in near-death experience. They’re different phenomena, but they’re similar. Um, there was one case of 3,000, um, cases of, uh, deathbed visions that were investigated. And the conclusion of the researchers was, this cannot be accounted for by hallucinations, by a dream state, by a medical condition, by endorphins. They, they ruled those out having investigated 3,000 of these cases, that just does not add up. Especially when you see corroboration. I’ll give you another example of corroboration. There’s a well-documented case of a very prominent scholar in the United Kingdom whose wife was a medical doctor, and she was tending to a woman who was dying. And in that case, the woman saw angelic beings.

Jim: Uh-huh.

Lee: And then she saw her father in heaven who had died a number of years previously. And her father was there as if to welcome her. And then, she got perplexed. And she said, “Vita is with him. Vita is, is with my father.” And she was confused. And then she died. And they said, “Well, who is Vita?” Well, it turned out Vita was her sister who had died a short time before that. Nobody had told her because she had been ill, and they didn’t want to-

Jim: Oh, wow.

Lee: … upset her.

Jim: Hmm.

Lee: So she had not been told that her sister had died. And yet she’s seeing her in a deathbed vision.

Jim: Right, so that’s not a biochemistry thing.

Lee: Exactly. So that argues against this idea that it’s something conjured up in our own mind or produced by some sort of endorphins or whatever.

Jim: Wow. That’s really amazing.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Um, Lee, we talked about John Burke a couple of times-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … being a mutual friend.

Lee: Right.

Jim: And he’s been on the program several times. Uh, he and you talk about Mary, uh, story about this woman.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: What can we take away from her story?

Lee: Yeah. Mary’s a great story again, of corroboration. Um, and the corroboration is she was bleeding to death. She was taken to a hospital emergency room in London, and she was clinically dead. I mean, um, and yet she said, “I was conscious the whole time.” And she described how her spirit had separated from her body. She was watching the resuscitation efforts from above. She got a glimpse of the afterlife and so forth. But then she recovered and her spirit returned into her body and she said, “Uh, by the way, the ceiling fan here in the room, on the top of a blade of the ceiling fan is a red sticker.” And they said, “Well, you couldn’t see it from the room-”

Jim: Right.

Lee: … “Because it was on the top of the blade.” But she saw it from her position when her soul had separated from her body. She was looking down, she saw it. And so, they got a ladder and they went up and they… And sure enough, just as she said-

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Lee: … there’s the red sticker on the top blade of the ceiling fan. That’s the kind of corroboration.

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: When people in a near-death experience see things or hear things that were impossible for them to have seen and heard, unless they had an authentic out-of-body experience.

Jim: I think John also had that story about a child in the hospital-

Lee: Yes.

Jim: … who had an out-of-body-

Lee: That’s right.

Jim: … death, near death experience.

Lee: She followed her family home.

Jim: And the, he talked about the tennis shoe on the roof of the hospital.

Lee: That’s right. Another one.

Jim: And the nurse went up… the doctor said, “Go check that out.”

Lee: That’s right.

Jim: And they found it, a tennis shoe.

Lee: There are multiple cases and what… the contribution that, that John has made that’s so important, and others who have researched these areas of near-death experience and deathbed visions, is the correspondence with biblical teaching. In other words, um, one scholar who investigated, uh, deathbed visions found 47 points of correspondence between the Bible and deathbed visions, consistency. And as John Burke points out in his books and in his research into a thousand cases, that what we see in near-death experiences is entirely consistent with what the Bible talks about when it talks about people transitioning into the world to come.

Jim: Yeah. And I so appreciate that, he buttresses these things with scripture.

Lee: That’s right. That’s right.

Jim: And, uh, even saying and suggesting that Paul, when he is stoned to death or, uh, almost stoned to death, that he had probably an out-of-body… ’cause he talked about-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … not being present in his body, but being in heavenly places.

Lee: Yeah.

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: And John said, “You know, I can’t prove that-”

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … “but it’s like Paul is talking about experiencing this.”

Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: Let me ask you on behalf of the atheists.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: Um, God loves them-

Lee: Yes.

Jim: Therefore, we should love them too.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: Um, that person that might argue, “Why, if God is a good God-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … why does He send people to hell?”

Lee: Hmm. Yeah. I think there’s a misnomer there about Him sending people to hell. There’s a lot of misunderstandings about hell. God doesn’t send people to hell. We go there because of the life that we have lived. And, um-

Jim: And the rejection.

Lee: … and the rejection of God, the fact that we have turned our back on Him, and He allows us to make that choice and make that decision. Um, so He’s not sending people as much as people… it’s an outcome of a person’s life, of rejection of God and His ways. You know, Romans 1:20 says that there’s plenty of evidence from our world to see, uh, that there should be no doubt that God exists. And yet the Bible says we suppress that, our tendency… ’cause we want to be God. We don’t want to be ruled by some other God. We want to be God.

Jim: Right. This is Adam and Eve.

Lee: Adam and Eve, and the, the Greek imagery of the suppression is like a pedal. So when we begin to realize, “Wait a minute, what about this evidence for God?” We suppress it like a pedal, we… And then later, we see something else and it suggests that God exists and we suppress it again. Um, and so, uh, we’re sending ourselves to, uh, hell. And by the way, hell is not a torture chamber. Um, there is torment, but torment comes from within. It comes from that regret we feel, um, and so forth, not from God in, in, in a sadistic way, inflicting torture on us. But, uh, it is a natural consequence of a life lived, uh, contrary to God’s teachings, showing no interest in God. And, uh, ending up in a place where, you, you know, your wish is granted. You are not going to be anywhere near God.

Jim: Right.

Lee: And no presence of God or influence of Him.

Jim: You know what’s interesting? I had never thought of this, but you know, the fact that God chose to write about that-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … in scripture for us-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … to give us that warning.

Lee: Yes.

Jim: I mean, not to scare us-

Lee: Right.

Jim: … but to say, “This is the outcome if you don’t come to me.”

Lee: That’s right. That’s right.

Jim: Um, it’s actually quite kind of Him to do that.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: I have never thought about it in that way.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And we don’t-

Lee: It’s a good way to look at it.

Jim: … we don’t relish it in that way.

Lee: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a holy warning and-

Jim: Right.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: You know, uh, that’s an incredible kindness of the Lord to say, “Here’s what awaits those that don’t embrace me.”

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: That’s like a parent.

Lee: Yeah, that’s right.

Jim: Don’t touch that flame.

Lee: Don’t touch that stove. It’s hot.

Jim: Yeah, no kidding. Lee, we’re right at the end of the second day.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And I mean, I could just keep going forever-

Lee: (laughs)

Jim: … but I think you could feel that enthusiasm because I love this context of-

Lee: Yeah, yeah, me too.

Jim: … the generosity of God, His heart for all of us. Um, His desire, that all should come to know Him.

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: I mean, I think of that person watching on YouTube or listening on the radio, or listening on the app, whatever it might be. And, you know, we, uh, experience a high number of salvations through Focus. I think we just did the data, something like almost, or just over 290,000 people-

Lee: Oh, that’s awesome.

Jim: … in the last 12 months.

Lee: Oh, my goodness.

Jim: Family is a great conduit for thinking about these deep ideas that-

Lee: Sure. Oh, praise God. That’s awesome.

Jim: Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, we never talked about it in that way, but I’m thinking of the person who’s tipping into this conversation-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: … who doesn’t know the Lord-

Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: … likes the concepts, likes what we talk about.

Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: Is a decent person perhaps-

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: Everything we’ve shared today, but really doesn’t know the Lord.

Lee: Right.

Jim: Can I ask you to pray for that person?

Lee: Yeah.

Jim: And then we can make some suggestions on follow-up that they can do.

Lee: Yeah. You know-

Jim: Let’s do it.

Lee: We, we can summarize the gospel in, in one verse, 21 words, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord.” The consequence of a life of sin, uh, is ultimate separation from God forever. But the free gift that we have of salvation, of eternal life, of heaven, uh, it comes when we pray a prayer of repentance and faith and receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: I, I just, can I offer a prayer for those that want to say-

Jim: Yes, absolutely.

Lee: Yeah, Just if, if that’s your inclination, God knows your heart. So just in your heart, say, “Lord Jesus, as best I can, I do believe that you are the son of God. You proved it by returning from the dead. And right now, I confess the obvious. I’m a sinner. I know that. I’ve done things. I knew they were wrong before I did them. I did them anyway. I’ve sinned. And right now, I confess that and I want to turn from that. And in an attitude of repentance and faith, I want to receive. I want to receive that free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that, Jesus, you purchased for me on the cross when you died as my substitute to pay for all of my sin. Thank you for loving me so much that you endured the torture of the cross so that we can be reconciled forever. Help me, Jesus, to live the kind of life that you want me to live. Because from this moment on, I am yours.”

Jim: Yeah.

Lee: And now, for those that pray that prayer, Father, we, we pray that you would… now that they’ve been adopted into your kingdom forever, that, uh, you would guide them and lead them. That they would become part of a vibrant church. That they would grow in their faith. That they would be baptized. That they would become your deep and devoted followers to change their life and the lives of those around them. And we’ll give you all of the glory in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Jim: Amen. Lee, thank you so much. Thanks for the last two days-

Lee: Yeah, I enjoyed it.

Jim: … and all the great research that you did for this book, Seeing the Supernatural. Get a hold of us. If you can make a gift, be part of the ministry. Let’s change the world together. Let’s help a soul that’s not going in the right direction in their marriage, maybe in their parenting, whatever it might be. Uh, join us and we’ll send you a copy of Lee’s book a- as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry.

John: Yeah. Join the monthly support team if you’re in a spot to do so. Uh, we welcome you as, uh, a member of friends of the Focus on the Family team. And, uh, you can make that monthly pledge very easily when you call 800-A-FAMILY or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. And when you have us, uh, online, if you just prayed that prayer with Lee, we have a free little article for you called Coming Home: An Invitation to Join God’s Family. It really describes what it means to walk in faith with Christ and have life everlasting in Jesus. And you’ll find that at the website. Well, plan to join us next time. We’ll hear from Rich Griffith. He’ll help parents teach their kids to listen to the right voices.

Rich Griffith: God does fire and He does the earthquake, and He does a great wind. And it says, “God’s not in any of those things. He’s in the whisper.” And I think this is part of adopting kids and kids learning trust. We gotta mind ourselves to allow God to be heard through a whisper, not our noise.