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Mary
I have listened to Focus on the Family shows since I was probably a later teen, all the way through my young adult years and beyond. I guess I just found that so often whatever message was being aired was really pertinent to something either I was experiencing or it was just of such interest that it was like I was able to accumulate knowledge and spiritual wisdom.
Jim Daly
Mary is a big believer in what we're doing to help families thrive.
Mary
I feel like Focus on the Family, you know, makes deposits into my life or the soil of my life, and it's kind of like rain. It just accumulates and nourishes and can bring growth in, you know, knowledge and wisdom.
Jim Daly
I'm Jim Daly. Help us be a lifeline to more people like Mary. Join our friends of Focus on the family by calling 808family or donate@focusonthefamily.com families.
Lee Strobel
Nevertheless, there are modern miracles. And again, I'm a skeptic. So 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. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller.
Jim Daly
John Lee is so good at digging deeper, and we talked a lot about the supernatural yesterday. So if folks miss that, go back and listen to it. We covered so much territory, and it really, it made me feel so buoyant spiritually. I just was into it. And I know you were as well.
John Fuller
Yeah, very much so, yes.
Jim Daly
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. 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 Fuller
Yeah. Lee is the Founding director of the Lee Strobel center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University. He's written so many books and he's done so many different things. Let's just say yes. The book title that we're covering today is Seeing the 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 in the show notes.
Jim Daly
Lee, welcome back.
Lee Strobel
Thank you. Great to be with you again.
Jim Daly
Good to be with you. Have you made arrangements for this to be a TV series? Because it has that title.
Lee Strobel
You know, it's funny, Supernatural was the name of a show, as you know, and the pilot of that show did so well. It went for 10 years, which really shows the interest.
Jim Daly
Yeah. Why people have an interest in this? What is the appetite within us?
Lee Strobel
I think there's a curiosity. Is there something beyond what I can see and touch and how do I know that there really is? And people, you know, 8 out of 10 believe in something beyond this world. A sizable percentage believe in angels and in demons and in Satan. Although, interestingly, that number has gone down in the last 10 years or so.
Jim Daly
Why do you think that is?
Lee Strobel
I don't know. It's a good question. There was a big outbreak of 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 kind of went. And I think that caused the interest to go down a bit. Yeah.
Jim Daly
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, people in Asia and other parts of the world where they're certainly over the centuries somewhat isolated, still have this concept of good and evil.
Lee Strobel
Yes.
Jim Daly
What is good and evil and does it exist?
Lee Strobel
Yeah, it does exist because there's a God who provides that measuring rod of what is good and evil. It flows out of who he is, 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. So there are certain standards that find their root in God being real. So, you know, if people deny the existence of God, they're also denying the existence of universal right and wrong in that respect.
Jim Daly
When we look at supernatural, we ended last time we didn't quite get to angels, which we wanted to. But we're going to, you know, start there and talk about the idea of angels. What do we know about angels? They seem in the scripture every time an angel appears, like people faint, people fall down to their face. They must be ominous creatures and big, because we always have fear, typically when we encounter an angel. But describe the angelic realm.
Lee Strobel
Yeah, you know, it's interesting in Revelation there's a picture of Jesus, the post resurrected Jesus on his throne and it says is surrounded by 10,000 times 10,000 angels. That's 100 million angels they're talking about now. At that time in the Greek language, 10,000 was the highest number. So in a sense it's talking about infinite. Yeah, it's 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 powerful, they are smart, they are intuitive. God uses them, the Bible says, to minister to his people and to fulfill roles for him as messengers and so forth. 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. 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 Daly
And last time you described and people again, you can go listen, get the app for your phone. You got access to everything there. Go to the website, et cetera, to hear the program yesterday. But you described, you know, a car accident where a man showed up and he left as quickly as he showed up after saving this man's life. So they can take on that human kind of appearance.
Lee Strobel
Apparently they can become embodied at some point. They can do 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 South Hebrides, I believe it was called the South Pacific Islands. And he's 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 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. So here they are, they're cowering, they're afraid in their Little cottage. And they begin to pray. God protect us. God, what do we do? Save us and so forth. And they prayed all night. And after a period of time, the crowd of 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. 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? You all came to kill us, and we were surrounded, and yet everybody walked away. He said, what happened? And the guy responded. He said, well, we couldn't attack. And, guys, why not? Because your house was surrounded. There were 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 about? Angels. Angels can be warriors. Angels can be. We see the story in the Old Testament of Elisha, who was being threatened by troops, and yet his servant was all afraid. God opened the eyes of that servant to see the angels that had come to protect them. So one of the roles that angels can perform is protective role. Yeah.
Jim Daly
And, Lee, I mean, we have so many listeners. We're such practical people here in the west, and certainly a focus on the family. We want you to do your marriage well and parent well. And you're going, what are they talking about? But there are kind of three types of Christians. Those that are gonna look for it everywhere, those that aren't gonna admit that it even exists today. That was back in the apostolic state when they were healing, and that no longer happens. And those in the middle, where we're going, wow, okay. It talks about miracles. Miracles can still happen. I just don't see them that often. Am I describing that fairly? Within the body of Christ and how we temperamentally look at it? I mean, there's a bit of me going, wow, okay. We just lean more into materialism and the natural state, and that's just the way it is. We live in it. We're steeped in it. But to say these kind of things could happen. Angels surrounding my home, really.
Lee Strobel
You know, there are what are called cessationists, who are Christians who sincerely believe, based on their interpretation of Scripture, that 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 the gifts of the supernatural, gifts of tongues and so forth, are no longer operative. They're sincere, wonderful Christians who. That's the way they interpret scripture. 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. And 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 easy routine. 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, and I'm saying, well, I'm going to go there someday. And he said, how do you know? And I was stunned by, what do you mean, how do I know? I'm a nice kid. I obey my parents. I've actually been to Sunday school a couple of times. I try to do good things. And the angel looked at me and said, that doesn't matter. And a chill went through my body, and he could see I was chilled. And he looked at me and he said, someday you'll understand.
Jim Daly
Wow.
Lee Strobel
Sixteen years later, I'm in a church. I'm an atheist, because I discounted that. That was just a dream that wasn't real. Sixteen 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. And it wasn't the good deeds that I thought were gonna earn my way to heaven. And so I was always embarrassed by that. I never told people about it until now. I'm writing this book and I'm hearing other stories that have this kind of corroboration. Like the angel told me something I didn't know, number one, and made a prediction that came true 16 years later. So that's two forms of corroboration I.
Jim Daly
Do need to touch. You know, we're talking about angels. Of course, demons are fallen angels that went with Lucifer that kind of rose in rebellion against God, against heaven. And they were excommunicated. And that's been the battle. That's the story. That's what we understand about good and evil. Lucifer and his pride. And the angels that went with him. Describe for us what that is. Like, this idea of demons.
Lee Strobel
Yeah. Demons are, as you say, fallen angels. They are not, some people think sa 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 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 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's amazing, from Richard Gallagher. Richard Gallagher is a Ivy League educated psychiatrist. Medical doctor. 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 nine 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 disappointed, 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 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 had to separate them and keep them separate and said, this is weird. He'd never seen anything like this. The next morning, the doorbell rings at 9:00. 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 Daly
Oh, my.
Lee Strobel
Yeah. The demonic is real. And through his experiences as a credentialed professor of psychiatry, he documents cases. And 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 the one case with six eyewitnesses, where a Person levitated. These are authentic cases of possession. Now, Christians cannot be possessed by Satan, by demons, because we're indwelled by the Holy Spirit. But we can be hectored, we can be bothered by demons. Sure. That's why the Bible talks about spiritual warfare and the fact we should put out the armor of God and live in scripture and protect ourselves against these kind of influences. But I think we make a huge mistake when we relegate the demonic to motion pictures like the Exorcist.
Jim Daly
Well, that's what I was going to say, that we have to be careful as believers not to discount this underworld, this hellish world that exists. I mean, we believe it to an extent, but then when it becomes real, like a manifestation of it, we kind of go, okay, that was odd. That may be a Hollywood thing, but we of all people, again, should be the ones to decipher for people what that experience is. Like this Catholic priest, that's deathbed vision. Yes, we did want to cover that. Yes, that's a spirit moment.
Lee Strobel
Yes.
Jim Daly
And explain it.
Lee Strobel
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 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. Often reaching, often reaching. And you know Jesus, when he told the story about Lazarus and the rich man who died. And the rich man goes to separated from God, but the beggar Lazarus 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. Billy Graham's pulpit partner, Charles Templeton, who lost his faith, became an agnostic, if not an atheist, wrote an ugly book against Christianity in Canada called Farewell to My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith. But on his deathbed, he said to his wife Madeline, Madeline, can you see them? They're here in the room. 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 going to be with God.
Jim Daly
Yeah. And you know, Lee, one of the things that has come out, and I think your friend, my friend John Burke has debunked this to a great degree, especially in the near death experience, which we'll talk about in a moment. But people in this phase of dying, so many medical professionals will say, well, it's an endorphin release. It's A brain chemistry thing. And it's how our bodies are eased into death. Describe what you have found to be.
Lee Strobel
True, especially in the deathbed vision as well, in near death experience. They're different phenomena, but they're similar. There was one case of 3,000 cases of deathbed visions that were investigated. And the conclusion of the researchers was this cannot be accounted for by hallucinations, by a dream extreme state, by a medical condition, by endorphins. They rule 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, 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 with my father. And she was confused. And then she died. And they said, well, who was 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 upset her. So she had not been told that her sister had died. And yet she's seeing her in a.
Jim Daly
So that's not a biochemistry thing.
Lee Strobel
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 Daly
Wow, that's really amazing. Lee. We talked about John Burke a couple of times being a mutual friend, and he's been on the program several times. He and you talk about Mary's story about this woman. What can we take away from her story?
Lee Strobel
Yeah, Mary's a great story again of corroboration. 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, 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, 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 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 sure enough, just as she said, there's the red sticker on the top blade of the ceiling fan. That's the kind of corroboration when people in a near death experience see things or hear things that are impossible for them to have seen and heard unless they had an authentic out of body experience.
Jim Daly
I think John also had that story about a child in the hospital who had an out of body death experience. She followed her family home and he talked about the tennis shoe on the roof of the hospital.
Lee Strobel
That's right, another one.
Jim Daly
And the nurse went up, the doctor said, go check that out.
Lee Strobel
That's right.
Jim Daly
And they found it, a tennis shoe.
Lee Strobel
There are multiple cases. And the contribution 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, one scholar who investigated 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 today. Yeah.
Jim Daly
And I so appreciate that he buttresses these things with Scripture.
Lee Strobel
That's right.
Jim Daly
And even saying and suggesting that Paul, when he is stoned to death or almost stoned to death, that he had probably and out of body, because he talked about not being present in his body but being in heavenly places. And John said, you know, I can't prove that, but it's like Paul is talking about experiencing this. Let me ask you on behalf of the atheists, God loves them, therefore we should love them too. That person that might argue why, if God is a good God, why does he send people to hell?
Lee Strobel
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 the rejection 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. 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 that there should be no doubt that God exists. And yet the Bible says we suppress that our tendency because we want to be God. We don't want to be ruled by some other. We want to be God.
Jim Daly
This is Adam and Eve.
Lee Strobel
Adam and Eve. And the Greek imagery of the suppression is like a petal. So when we begin to realize, wait a minute, what about this evidence for God? We suppress it like a petal. And then later we see something else and it suggests that God exists and we suppress it again. And so we're sending ourselves to hell. And by the way, hell is not a torture chamber. There is torment, but torment comes from within. It comes from that regret we feel and so forth, not from God in a sadistic way inflicting torture on us. But it is a natural consequence of a life lived contrary to God's teachings, showing no interest in God and ending up in a place where your wish is granted. You are not going to be anywhere near God and no presence of God or influence of God.
Jim Daly
You know, it's interesting, I had never thought of this, but you know, the fact that God chose to write about that in scripture for us, to give us that warning.
Lee Strobel
Yes.
Jim Daly
I mean, not to scare us, but to say, this is the outcome if you don't come to me.
Lee Strobel
That's right.
Jim Daly
It's actually quite kind of him to do. I have never thought about it in that way. And we don't.
Lee Strobel
That's a good way to look at it.
Jim Daly
We don't relish it in that way.
Lee Strobel
Yeah. It's a holy warning, right? Yeah.
Jim Daly
You know, that's an incredible kindness of the Lord to say, here's what awaits those that don't embrace me. That's like a parent. Don't touch that flame.
Lee Strobel
Don't touch that stove. It's hot.
Jim Daly
No kidding, Lee. We're right at the end of the second day and I mean, I could just keep going forever and large. I think you could that enthusiasm because I love this context of the generosity of God, his heart for all of us, his desire that all should come to know him. 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 experience a high number of salvations through focus. I think we just did the data something like almost or just over 290,000 people in the last 12 months.
Lee Strobel
Oh, my goodness.
Jim Daly
Family is a great conduit for seeing, thinking about these deep ideas.
Lee Strobel
Oh, praise God. That's Awesome.
Jim Daly
Yeah. You know, we never talked about it in that way, but I'm thinking of the person who's tipping into this conversation who doesn't know the Lord, likes the concepts, likes what we talk about, is a decent person, perhaps everything we've shared today, but really doesn't know the Lord. Can I ask you to pray for that person and then we can make some suggestions on follow up that they can do.
Lee Strobel
Let's do it. We can summarize the gospel in 1 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 is ultimate separation from God forever. But the free gift that we have of salvation, of eternal life, of heaven comes when we pray a prayer of repentance and faith and receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Can I offer a prayer for those that want to take just 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 Daly
Yeah.
Lee Strobel
And now for those that pray that prayer. Father, we pray that you would, now that they've been adopted into your kingdom forever, that you would guide them, 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.
John Fuller
Amen.
Jim Daly
Lee, thank you so much. Thanks for the last two days and all the great research that you did for this book. Seeing the supernatural get ahold 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. Join us and we'll send you a copy of Lee's book as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry.
John Fuller
Yeah. Join the monthly support team if you're in a spot to do so, we welcome you as a member of Friends of the Focus on the Family team. And you can make that monthly pledge very easily when you call 800 a family or we've got details for you in the show notes. And when you have us online, if you just prayed that prayer with Lee, we have a free little article for you called Coming 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 your kids to listen to the right voices.
Lee Strobel
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 to allow God to be heard through a whisper, not our noise.
John Fuller
Thanks for joining us today For 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.
Focus on the Family
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Podcast Information:
The episode opens with Mary sharing her long-term connection with the Focus on the Family podcast, highlighting how its messages have provided her with “knowledge and spiritual wisdom” applicable throughout her life (00:02). Jim Daly acknowledges Mary's commitment, emphasizing the podcast's role in nurturing familial growth.
Notable Quote:
Lee Strobel, a renowned skeptic-turned-believer, delves into the existence of modern miracles. He discusses how contemporary miracles serve as evidence for God's existence and bolster confidence in biblical accounts of miracles performed by Jesus in the first century.
Notable Quote:
John Fuller introduces Lee, highlighting his enthusiasm for the supernatural and his contributions through his book, "Seeing the Supernatural."
A significant portion of the discussion centers on angels. Lee Strobel describes angels as powerful, intelligent, and intuitive spirit beings created by God to minister to humanity. He references biblical passages, such as Revelation, which depicts angels surrounding Jesus in immense numbers, symbolizing their infinite nature.
Notable Quote:
Strobel shares a story about missionaries protected by angels, illustrating angels' ability to take on human form and perform miraculous deeds when empowered by God.
Notable Quote:
Transitioning to the topic of demons, Strobel clarifies that demons are fallen angels who rebelled against God. Unlike God, demons lack omniscience and omnipotence but remain powerful beings capable of influencing and possessing humans. He shares a compelling case involving Dr. Richard Gallagher, a psychiatrist who encountered inexplicable events linked to demonic activity, reinforcing the existence of a spiritual battle.
Notable Quote:
The discussion shifts to near-death experiences (NDEs) and deathbed visions, with Strobel presenting research that challenges purely biochemical explanations. He cites cases where individuals reported accurate observations during NDEs that were later verified, suggesting experiences beyond mere hallucinations or brain chemistry.
Notable Quote:
Examples include Mary’s experience of witnessing a red sticker on a ceiling fan while clinically dead, a detail she accurately recalled after recovery.
Notable Quote:
Jim Daly and Strobel explore the concepts of salvation and hell from a biblical perspective. Strobel emphasizes that hell is not a punishment inflicted by God but a consequence of individuals' rejection of Him. He explains that God provides a standard of good and evil, and hell represents the natural outcome of living contrary to God's teachings.
Notable Quote:
Daly reflects on the kindness of God's warnings about hell, likening it to a parent's admonition to avoid danger.
Towards the episode's conclusion, Strobel offers a concise summary of the gospel, encouraging listeners to accept the free gift of salvation through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. He provides a prayer for those seeking to embrace faith, highlighting the transformative power of God's love and the promise of eternal life.
Notable Quote:
Strobel's prayer includes confessing sin, acknowledging Jesus as Lord, and committing to a life aligned with God's will.
Jim Daly and John Fuller express gratitude to Lee Strobel for his insights and meticulous research. They highlight the impact of the podcast in fostering over 290,000 salvations in the past year alone, underscoring the ministry's dedication to helping families thrive in Christ.
This episode offers a profound exploration of the supernatural from a biblical standpoint, blending personal testimonies, scholarly research, and theological discourse. It serves as both an affirmation of faith for believers and an informative guide for those curious about the unseen spiritual realm.