Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E318: He Had A Near-Death Experience and Met Jesus w/Gabe Poirot | Lila Rose Show

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E318: He Had A Near-Death Experience and Met Jesus w/Gabe Poirot | Lila Rose Show · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  What happened during this time when you felt that you were in
• 0:02
  heaven for 18 days? When I was suctioned up and
• 0:05
  brought before Jesus, he showed me the prayers that everyone was
• 0:08
  praying over. Me.
• 0:09
  What did he look like? He was about 511 six feet.
• 0:11
  He met me eye to eye. Are there actual like houses or
• 0:14
  buildings in heaven or is it like an open landscape?
• 0:17
  I describe it as a city, but it's not like a city like in
• 0:19
  America, you know, like a just a destination.
• 0:21
  This heaven that I was brought to isn't, can't be described as
• 0:24
  a location. Heaven is.
• 0:26
  Did Jesus look the same as the Jesus from the Shroud of Turin?
• 0:33
  Gabe Perot, welcome to the podcast.
• 0:35
  Thanks for having me. I'm so glad you're here.
• 0:36
  It's been honored to have you in studio.
• 0:38
  So glad to be here. So five years ago you had a near
• 0:42
  death experience that you are now traveling the country
• 0:46
  speaking out about. You have a New York Times
• 0:48
  bestselling book. Tell me about the events of that
• 0:51
  experience. Yeah, well, I'll start out with
• 0:53
  my life before this happened. I knew a lot of things about
• 0:57
  faith and, and the Bible and, and I, I did love the Lord.
• 1:01
  I, I, I had had placed my faith in Christ and Christ alone.
• 1:07
  But I always describe it like this.
• 1:08
  You know, you can hear about watermelon 100 times and
• 1:11
  everyone tells you about watermelon, but it's another
• 1:13
  thing to have watermelon in your hand and taste and see the the
• 1:17
  very presence of watermelon. And so I say that to say like, I
• 1:22
  really at the time, though, thought everything in my life
• 1:24
  was perfect. I didn't really need wisdom.
• 1:27
  I didn't need to think about things.
• 1:29
  I just wanted to live my life was how I was thinking that day.
• 1:32
  And it was about 70° and I was going about 20 mph on the
• 1:38
  electric skateboard. Could have been 25 or 30.
• 1:40
  I don't know how fast I was going, but it was too fast.
• 1:43
  And my friend was just ahead of me.
• 1:46
  We were racing. And I quickly discovered why you
• 1:49
  should wear a helmet because I hit a little light bump a little
• 1:54
  the the bump in the middle of the road that reflects light
• 1:57
  just like 2 inches. And I hit it and just flipped
• 2:01
  off my skateboard at full velocity and landed right on my
• 2:04
  head. And then my skull immediately
• 2:06
  cracked from the top down. Not to get too gory, but blood
• 2:11
  had nowhere to escape. So it's gushing out of my ears
• 2:14
  and my my body lay lay there like a plank.
• 2:18
  My friend looked back thinking that I was pranking him.
• 2:21
  He's testified of this and but I wasn't pranking him.
• 2:25
  I was lifeless. And he ran back and quickly
• 2:28
  realized how serious of a situation it was.
• 2:31
  I literally slipped out of my body and I felt like I took my
• 2:36
  first breath. And it's so ironic saying I
• 2:39
  because what I went on to experience in in this encounter,
• 2:44
  this experience was more real than anything I'd ever
• 2:46
  experienced on the earth. It like all my senses came
• 2:51
  alive. So as I slipped out of my body,
• 2:54
  I felt, I felt quite ironically alive, even though my body was
• 2:59
  gone. And doctors have testified of
• 3:01
  this and I'll send you the MRI's to show all the medical
• 3:04
  evidence, but. You could see the pavement.
• 3:07
  Was this at the moment of you on the pavement or this was after
• 3:10
  you're taken to the hospital? So when the accident happened, I
• 3:14
  left my body and I just had this vision that I was like captured
• 3:18
  by this light. And this light literally
• 3:20
  suctioned me. But the light wasn't a thing.
• 3:23
  It wasn't like this visible light.
• 3:24
  The light was a person. The light was him.
• 3:28
  What happened during this time when you felt that you were in
• 3:30
  heaven for 18 days? The reason I say 18 days is
• 3:33
  because that's how long I was in the coma for.
• 3:35
  Well, I did flatline. The doctors have testified of
• 3:38
  this. I was resuscitated, but then I
• 3:39
  was still in the coma for 18 days.
• 3:41
  They were talking about me in the past tense.
• 3:44
  My body wasn't functioning because my brain wasn't getting
• 3:46
  oxygen. It was the most dire situation,
• 3:50
  physically speaking, but I didn't experience any pain.
• 3:54
  I didn't experience any death. I was alive.
• 3:58
  Did you hear the doctors talking about you?
• 4:01
  Not not specific doctors, but I literally saw everyone praying
• 4:05
  for me. And it wasn't just in this
• 4:07
  location, it was all over the world.
• 4:10
  Because when I was suctioned up and brought before Jesus, he
• 4:15
  showed me the prayers that everyone was praying over me.
• 4:19
  And come to find out after I was miraculously sent back and
• 4:22
  healed, everyone had been praying for me.
• 4:24
  Not just in Texas, but it truly was all over the world.
• 4:28
  Tik toks were being made of people praying for me all over
• 4:31
  the world. I saw those prayers.
• 4:33
  So I want to walk through what you experienced.
• 4:36
  You you missed mentioned this incredible experience of
• 4:38
  physically seeing the prayers of of people and knowing that
• 4:41
  prayers reached the throne, throne room of God.
• 4:45
  But just more context here. You were already this creator
• 4:48
  making viral videos. So people when you had this
• 4:51
  accident, people were very much concerned like, is he going to
• 4:53
  live? Is he going to die?
• 4:54
  Was there a conversation? By the way, when you were in
• 4:56
  that coma and they had resuscitated you So you were
• 4:59
  still able to, I don't know, you were breathing with support,
• 5:02
  but. About once every 60 seconds.
• 5:04
  It was barely oxygen. They're like.
• 5:06
  So did with their conversation. We should remove life support.
• 5:10
  While they haven't exactly told me that, they have told me that
• 5:12
  there was a conversation that they were going to do a trach on
• 5:14
  me because I wasn't getting enough oxygen.
• 5:17
  So kind of is my answer to that. You were you were breathing on
• 5:20
  your own. No, I was breathing with the
• 5:23
  life support. And so there was a conversation
• 5:26
  about we don't know if he's ever going to live, if he's, if he's
• 5:29
  ever going to come back to life. And if he does, he'll be a
• 5:31
  mental vegetable. And they were talking to my
• 5:33
  parents in the past tense about me.
• 5:35
  Did he ride a last will? So it what I mean, my, my
• 5:38
  parents and family and friends, they were looking at a vegetable
• 5:41
  of a body. They were looking and they were
• 5:43
  even, you know, they were definitely thinking about how,
• 5:47
  how long are we just going to keep him on the tubes?
• 5:49
  Right, Because if I didn't come back, that would have been a
• 5:53
  conversation. I think they would have had even
• 5:54
  more, yeah. For the people that are
• 5:57
  skeptical, who might be skeptical, right, of any near
• 6:00
  death experience testimony, they don't really believe in an
• 6:03
  afterlife and they might say, OK, he's a Christian kid.
• 6:06
  He wants to like share his faith or, you know, advance this
• 6:09
  mission that he's on. So, you know, this is
• 6:13
  questionable, his medical records on this question of he
• 6:17
  was actually dead, what evidence do you have that you were dead?
• 6:21
  Yeah, well, we actually have the direct doctor testimony that
• 6:24
  they can go watch. It's from the CBN medical
• 6:27
  documentary. We did a documentary at the
• 6:28
  hospital in the same ER room and the doctors actually come out
• 6:32
  and said we had to resuscitate Gabe.
• 6:34
  And then he still was in a non responsive coma and and my brain
• 6:39
  was bleeding and it was a natural coma for three days and
• 6:42
  then a 15 day medically tube coma where I was on life support
• 6:47
  pretty much. And did they detect brain
• 6:49
  activity during that time? The brain activity was gone was
• 6:53
  regardless. I mean, so because it literally
• 6:57
  was, my life was just hanging on by one percentage, if that.
• 7:01
  So walk me through the first moment that you experienced if
• 7:05
  you believed you're experiencing Jesus in your near death
• 7:08
  experience. Yeah.
• 7:09
  And again, as I describe this, I always just clarify to people
• 7:14
  that this is an encounter that I had outside of my body, outside
• 7:18
  of the English language, in a realm that was not on the earth.
• 7:22
  And so it is almost impossible to put it back into English.
• 7:25
  But I do my best. So it's it's it's like an
• 7:30
  endless suitcase that you just translate back through our
• 7:33
  understanding. And it is limited and imperfect,
• 7:36
  but it just points to him. But yeah, so as I was suctioned
• 7:39
  up, this light just pulled me and it pulled me what through
• 7:45
  what I describe as like the spiritual warfare above the
• 7:48
  earth, and I call it the second heaven is the the term I put on
• 7:52
  it. And in the spiritual warfare,
• 7:54
  like as I'm suctioned up, I was just allowed to see chaos that
• 7:57
  was over the earth. And I truly had a revelation.
• 8:01
  We do not war against people. People are not our enemy.
• 8:06
  And I saw just these demonic forces that were like working
• 8:09
  influencing nations and presidents and just people like
• 8:12
  puppets. It was so clear.
• 8:16
  And it was just like, wow, this is wild.
• 8:18
  Is I I just remember being just in such awareness, like we don't
• 8:22
  just live in a physical world. Did you feel scared when you
• 8:26
  experienced that on your way to heaven kind of being?
• 8:29
  Well, that's what was ironic about it.
• 8:30
  It was so intense, but yet I didn't have fear.
• 8:34
  It was like just a clarity because this, this light that
• 8:39
  was like suctioning me. I knew I was just being like
• 8:41
  brought out of it. So it was and it happened in
• 8:44
  just a moment. Like, so that's what.
• 8:47
  But yeah, it was intense, but it wasn't.
• 8:50
  I wasn't afraid of it. And as this was happening, did
• 8:52
  you have a sense that you were dead or dying?
• 8:55
  And did you feel any sense of fear or uncertainty on the way
• 8:59
  to heaven? Or did you feel like you were
• 9:01
  being welcomed? That's what's wild.
• 9:02
  I didn't feel that I was dead. I didn't have any grief, pain,
• 9:06
  sorrow. It it really was just like, Oh
• 9:09
  my goodness, I'm alive. Like it.
• 9:15
  It is it. It is a moment that is still
• 9:18
  impossible to describe. So what happens next?
• 9:21
  You're on your way. You see this this.
• 9:24
  You have this sense of a vision of the revelation of the chaos
• 9:26
  on earth, the demonic that is real, the war between God and
• 9:30
  his angels, and the evil 1. Well, as I'm brought into this
• 9:35
  light, I describe it as a city, but it's not like a city like in
• 9:39
  America, you know, like a just a destination.
• 9:42
  This, this heaven that I was brought to isn't can't be
• 9:44
  described as a location. Heaven is him because like left,
• 9:48
  right in my peripheral as I'm brought before him, I'm just
• 9:51
  aware that all of heaven speaks of him.
• 9:54
  I'm I'm aware that all of heaven breathes him and sings him like
• 9:59
  it's it's beautiful. I didn't see all of heaven.
• 10:01
  I don't use that word as if I'm like some tourist or like but
• 10:06
  like I experienced heaven was Christ.
• 10:09
  Did that feel welcoming? Did that feel good?
• 10:11
  How did it feel? So welcoming, but what was so
• 10:15
  wild about it is my face was down because I was concerned.
• 10:21
  Who would I be in such a holy and reverent place?
• 10:25
  This is the King of Kings. This isn't some normal Joe.
• 10:28
  This is him, eternity, alpha and Omega.
• 10:32
  And my face is down because I'm just like the list of my
• 10:35
  mistakes is going to get pulled up.
• 10:36
  I don't deserve him. I'm not entitled to him.
• 10:39
  I didn't earn him. He picks up my face.
• 10:43
  He looks me in the eyes and he says, Gabriel, why are you
• 10:46
  concerned about that which I paid for?
• 10:50
  And then, and then. How did you feel?
• 10:53
  So welcomed, so loved. Love not because of what I could
• 10:57
  do, Love because it's who he was.
• 11:00
  It was his very nature. God's love is so great.
• 11:08
  It was it. I found the end of myself and
• 11:12
  was the start of him. Was there any fear that he would
• 11:16
  reject you? Well, that's the thing.
• 11:19
  Like there's this reverence and like there's this like fear of
• 11:21
  God where I was, but there was there was no more fear because
• 11:26
  perfect, his love was just full and complete.
• 11:30
  Like so yeah, like there, yes. Like there was this like I
• 11:34
  before this this time as I'm brought before him, there was
• 11:37
  just this like awareness of like, Oh my goodness, I don't
• 11:39
  stand a chance. I'm not entitled to him like a
• 11:42
  holiness is how I describe it. A holy fear.
• 11:44
  But his love, His love just melted me.
• 11:50
  Did you have a sense when you're beholding God, when you sensed
• 11:56
  it? I mean, you didn't, Did you see
• 11:58
  it? It sounds like you're in this,
• 11:59
  like the eye of your soul is experiencing this.
• 12:02
  But did you have, do you have a memory or recollection of what
• 12:05
  it looked like? Heaven?
• 12:07
  And also, I mean, obviously God, how can we speak of what God
• 12:10
  looks like? We can see him in his Son, Jesus
• 12:12
  Christ, who is also God. But to meet the Father, what
• 12:14
  does that even mean in a human sense, right?
• 12:17
  Yeah, well, I, you know, I always say God is one in three
• 12:19
  persons and I, I wasn't allowed to see the Father, but I saw
• 12:24
  Jesus and he represents the Father.
• 12:28
  So it's like, you know, and, and, and Holy Spirit, you know,
• 12:31
  but Jesus was can't just be described visibly though,
• 12:35
  because he's deeper than visible.
• 12:37
  And I'll say it like this on A2 dimensional sphere, this book
• 12:42
  represents 2D on this piece of paper.
• 12:44
  But a 3D hand, if it touches it, all the 2D sphere can understand
• 12:48
  is 3 circles, but the dimension is so much deeper than three
• 12:52
  circles. It's an entire hand, and that's
• 12:54
  how I describe like the dimensions of heaven.
• 12:55
  So Jesus wasn't just someone I saw, He was someone that was.
• 13:00
  And I could sense him and feel him and taste him and touch him
• 13:04
  just before him. And he didn't speak to me, just
• 13:07
  in an audible language, like his words were like Spears to my
• 13:10
  heart. He spoke without speaking, if
• 13:13
  that makes sense. Like it was, I don't use the
• 13:15
  word telepathic, but it was like that.
• 13:20
  Like it was heart to heart. He understood me and I
• 13:23
  understood him like communication and like me and
• 13:28
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• 13:30
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• 15:19
  So you were in a coma for 18 days.
• 15:22
  You have this very beautiful encounter with the living God.
• 15:26
  Did you experience time and during those 18 is it?
• 15:29
  Is this what you remember, this encounter, Or were there more
• 15:32
  like events that happened beyond this encounter?
• 15:35
  Or was it like this timeless event that filled up all 18
• 15:37
  days? It was like a timeless event.
• 15:40
  The reason I say 18 days in heaven is really just because
• 15:42
  that's how long I was unconscious on the earth and so.
• 15:46
  Not like you were skateboarding and like walking around the
• 15:49
  fairly gates, like you were in the presence of God, just
• 15:51
  experiencing His love for you. And it it really, and I actually
• 15:54
  write this, it felt like 2 minutes because time doesn't
• 15:57
  operate the same when you're outside of it.
• 16:00
  I bet. And and and like even this has
• 16:03
  really actually kind of warped my since coming back.
• 16:06
  I my perspective of time is very different.
• 16:09
  How so? I'm so thankful for every day
• 16:11
  that I have now. I don't need any more.
• 16:15
  I just am thankful for what I have because I saw how the
• 16:19
  timeline in heaven was actually what I experienced.
• 16:21
  It was like the past, the present and the future.
• 16:23
  They were wrapped up in one and it was like a piece of clothing.
• 16:26
  And he just, he held time in his hands.
• 16:28
  He wasn't limited by the time, but he redeemed it all like the
• 16:32
  cross. So my encounter with Jesus,
• 16:34
  right, Like I understand the cross differently because I see
• 16:38
  now his arms stretched wide. They weren't just stretched
• 16:40
  physically. His arms stretched from the east
• 16:42
  to the West of the entire timeline of eternity of
• 16:45
  humanity. He paid the price of all sin.
• 16:49
  What did he look like? He was about 511, six feet.
• 16:53
  He met me eye to eye. He was darker toned skinned,
• 16:58
  closer to like Middle Eastern yet eternity at the same time.
• 17:02
  So he was 33 yet eternal. His hair was medium length,
• 17:09
  slightly curly is how I would describe it.
• 17:11
  Not super curly though, not like flamboyant or.
• 17:14
  I'm sure you've seen this famous image of Jesus.
• 17:17
  I'm curious if this is how Jesus looked for you during your near
• 17:21
  death experience. I like that painting, but can I
• 17:24
  tell you there's no image you can hold in your hands?
• 17:27
  That doesn't justice. I believe that.
• 17:31
  There's nothing, nothing, nothing doesn't justice.
• 17:37
  This podcast doesn't do it justice.
• 17:39
  I can never do it justice. No book can do it.
• 17:41
  This conversation feels so completely inept.
• 17:46
  On my part, Not on your part. On my part, because we're
• 17:49
  talking about encountering the living God in a very, you know,
• 17:52
  miraculous experience. And how can you even explain
• 17:55
  that? Like you were saying earlier,
• 17:56
  you can't and I'm asking you to explain it and you're doing your
• 17:58
  best but. Yeah, it's like.
• 18:00
  It's beyond, beyond. Yeah, and it's just, and that's
• 18:09
  when I do share my testimony, I pray that people don't try to
• 18:13
  look at it as if it's like a textbook or Gabe's telling me
• 18:16
  exactly how it's going to be. No, I'm just, I'm giving you the
• 18:19
  best I can, but more importantly, I want everyone to
• 18:22
  know to know Jesus for themselves.
• 18:24
  Like I don't even need them to get my book.
• 18:26
  I want them to get a Bible. But he's, but it's not just
• 18:29
  scripture. He's, he's the scripture come to
• 18:31
  life. And it's so it's, I don't know,
• 18:33
  it's, it's so multi fold like he's not just the shepherd.
• 18:37
  He's not just the shepherd, he's the lion.
• 18:39
  He's not just the lion. He's the lion, He's the lion,
• 18:43
  but he's the stone in David's sling that killed Goliath.
• 18:46
  He's the rod in Moses's hand that split the sea.
• 18:50
  He's Genesis to Revelation. He's All in all.
• 18:53
  It's Colossians describes him. He's the substance that made the
• 18:56
  entire universe. He was the Bush that Moses saw
• 19:01
  in the fire. Did you see other people when
• 19:04
  you were having this experience of encountering God?
• 19:08
  I I really describe my encounter as with Jesus and I I was
• 19:14
  allowed to see these. When I say moments or vision
• 19:19
  revelations is what I describe it as.
• 19:21
  I don't exactly have the perfect words for it.
• 19:23
  I didn't talk to Moses or Elisha, but I did see these
• 19:26
  moments where Moses was at the burning Bush, he met the pre
• 19:30
  Incarnate Christ and all of Moses's failures were met with I
• 19:36
  am. Why?
• 19:38
  Because Moses found the end of himself and Moses was
• 19:41
  transformed from a weak, incapacitated guy to a a strong
• 19:47
  man filled with glory, God's glory, like a lumberjack.
• 19:51
  And he led the entire nation out of slavery.
• 19:53
  But he didn't do it out of his own ability.
• 19:54
  He let it with the very strength of God.
• 19:57
  And he saw the pre Incarnate Christ at that Bush.
• 20:00
  So but like when I was with Jesus, I saw let like all of the
• 20:04
  greatest biblical figures, all of them, they didn't they didn't
• 20:09
  accomplish everything they did because of their own strength.
• 20:12
  But it was it was the strength of Christ that we did all
• 20:16
  together. It's so beautiful, Elijah, when
• 20:19
  he was surrounded, when he had no hope, he wasn't just given
• 20:23
  these Chariots of fire that rescued him.
• 20:25
  Those Chariots of fire were were a picture of of Christ, the love
• 20:29
  of Christ that was rescuing him. Were there any other scenes
• 20:33
  besides Elijah and Moses that you can remember?
• 20:35
  Not that I remember. It's it's I was.
• 20:42
  I was allowed to be aware though, that like everyone in
• 20:46
  heaven is family or one like I'm family with Jesus.
• 20:51
  He's not just someone I look at. He's he's my own brother.
• 20:56
  Was there any sense that you might go back to Earth?
• 20:59
  You might come back to the temporal.
• 21:01
  Realm there was this a sense that like my time wasn't up and
• 21:05
  he did look at me and of course you never want to leave his
• 21:07
  presence. But like I and I, there was this
• 21:09
  like I call it threshold that I knew like I hadn't fully entered
• 21:13
  into all of heaven as if like I was going to be there for
• 21:16
  eternity. Like there was just this like
• 21:18
  thing where I just kind of knew, like my time wasn't up.
• 21:20
  And he and he and he communicated that to me.
• 21:23
  Gabriel, your time's not up. You must go back.
• 21:25
  Tell them, tell them about my love, who I really AM.
• 21:29
  And so like there was just this like sense of I need to go back.
• 21:33
  My time's not up. Give people a little more
• 21:36
  context about the kind of activities you were involved in.
• 21:40
  We mentioned them but before the accident and then how this
• 21:44
  really command from your Lord, our Lord changed your activities
• 21:50
  after when you would come back to life.
• 21:53
  Yeah, well, you know, I had before this encounter, you know,
• 21:56
  I, I love to talk about the Bible and faith and, and all
• 21:59
  these things, but there were a lot of things that actually it's
• 22:04
  easy to know about, but then you, you know, him.
• 22:07
  It's, it's like, it's so personal and fam family now.
• 22:11
  And so before this encounter, I, I did have ministry and I did
• 22:16
  have a YouTube channel and I did preach Jesus and I did love him
• 22:19
  really. And, you know, but there was a
• 22:21
  lot of things that I would even teach people.
• 22:25
  I, I actually, I also equated God's blessing to earthly
• 22:28
  possession, which is not OK, But at the time I, I, I would if
• 22:34
  people were going through a tough time.
• 22:35
  I thought, well, maybe if you just practice this tie there,
• 22:41
  this seed or this thing that maybe God would bless you more
• 22:44
  like a very a workspaced teachings and those things from
• 22:49
  my encounter with Christ, I realized all I all I needed in
• 22:52
  life was Jesus, Jesus plus nothing.
• 22:55
  And you know, I can be blessed even if I don't have all the
• 22:57
  things of the earth like. And so there was just a lot of,
• 23:01
  I think religious things that kind of burned off of me from
• 23:03
  this encounter and things that just were corrected, like my
• 23:08
  health or even drinking. I didn't used to think like
• 23:11
  drinking was a big deal. But since my encounter, it's,
• 23:15
  it's like I don't, it's no longer, I don't, I don't think
• 23:19
  about drinking like, oh, let me avoid drinking because I have
• 23:22
  to. I don't, I don't want to, I want
• 23:23
  to serve him. So I don't want to see how close
• 23:26
  I can get to falling or sin. I want to get as far as
• 23:29
  possible. I don't want to see how many
• 23:31
  movies and shows and songs I can listen to that are are filled
• 23:35
  with worldly things and glorifying worldly things.
• 23:37
  Like I don't want to see how close I can get.
• 23:39
  I want to just get. I just want to be with Christ,
• 23:42
  not because I have to. I get to.
• 23:44
  It's a love relationship. What's the most beautiful thing
• 23:48
  about the about God and being in the presence of God that you now
• 23:56
  feel that you have a window in that you didn't have it before,
• 23:58
  that one that you didn't have before, that you just want to
• 24:00
  make sure people know about God? Just his, his love, his we work
• 24:06
  so hard to have faith in him and we don't realize like our faith
• 24:10
  is only a gift of his grace. He gave it to us.
• 24:13
  What if it's his faith in US? What if what if it's truly Jesus
• 24:18
  that saves us? And what if it's the work of the
• 24:21
  cross that saves us and, and not like like me, because I think we
• 24:26
  just can focus so many times on us and it's so self-centered,
• 24:29
  like we have a very self-centered gospel in America.
• 24:31
  It's all about me and what I can get from God and how I can even
• 24:35
  we teach prayer about how I can get thing, how I can get things
• 24:38
  in prayer. And it's like just love is love
• 24:42
  removes yourself from the equation.
• 24:43
  And O involved in this really big change of mind is judgement
• 24:48
  and forgiveness specifically since this encounter, people can
• 24:52
  even look me in the face and, and call me names or say really
• 24:56
  rudely, I, I'll look at them and say, I love you, I bless you
• 24:59
  because I don't, I'm not fighting against you.
• 25:02
  And someone that is maybe just doing things to me or to someone
• 25:06
  I love, I see how it's not them, it's not them.
• 25:10
  And so, yeah, I, I, I want to walk in forgiveness because
• 25:16
  that's the forgiveness he gave me.
• 25:17
  So that's a really big change too.
• 25:20
  And I don't want to be offended by anyone, even those that I
• 25:23
  disagree with. So that's why I personally
• 25:26
  remove myself even from my own testimony.
• 25:28
  I just say, I pray you believe in Jesus.
• 25:30
  People say I don't believe you. I say, all right, that's fine.
• 25:32
  I don't, I don't need you to. I don't want you to like, I want
• 25:34
  you to just believe in Jesus. People like, I'm not going to
• 25:37
  get your book. I'm like, that's fine.
• 25:38
  Just get a Bible like so it's about him.
• 25:42
  Has it changed how you see other people's sin or sin in general?
• 25:48
  Yeah, well, there's such humility that comes right,
• 25:51
  because like you realize you were saved by his grace.
• 25:55
  And and so when I do see others maybe mess up or sin, I'm not
• 25:59
  like going to come at them yelling at them, but or judge
• 26:02
  down at them. But you know, it depends on the
• 26:04
  relationship you have with a person too.
• 26:05
  But you know, for a lot, I think sometimes a hug can speak louder
• 26:09
  than words. Sometimes just love speaks
• 26:13
  sparingly with words. So that's the biggest change is
• 26:17
  how a lot of relationships, you know, I'd rather just play
• 26:20
  basketball with a guy for five or six games at the gym then try
• 26:24
  preaching to him right away. So like, there's just this.
• 26:27
  It's about relationship. I would describe it.
• 26:30
  But yeah, a unity, finding the good in others.
• 26:33
  So even when people fall, I still want to find the good in
• 26:36
  every person because he found the good in me.
• 26:40
  He called me higher. And, and it's written in John
• 26:43
  317. Jesus wasn't sent to condemn the
• 26:45
  world, but to save the world. So if we claim to follow him, we
• 26:49
  should be looking to judge up and not judge down.
• 26:53
  And you know, of course we are called to call out of darkness,
• 26:55
  but it's into the light and so. It's getting the ego out of the
• 27:00
  way because I think a lot of the time we got invested in other
• 27:04
  people's, you know, sanctity or following the moral path or
• 27:07
  faith because of our own fear or our own worries as opposed to
• 27:12
  out of just pure love. And that becomes a possessive
• 27:16
  kind of, you know, treatment towards them.
• 27:19
  It becomes, it's not rooted in what God, the position that or
• 27:23
  the posture that God wants us to have.
• 27:25
  And it's very easy to fall into that, especially if you're out
• 27:27
  there, you know, preaching what's good and true, sharing
• 27:31
  the gospel, talking about the moral law.
• 27:33
  It's very easy to fall into a judge mental approach and a kind
• 27:37
  of fear based possessive approach instead of one that's
• 27:39
  fully free. Saying that the Lord sovereign
• 27:41
  over all of this and he's got the final word and he loves this
• 27:45
  person way more than I do. So I'm going to do my little
• 27:49
  part and then just trust in God. Yeah, and let him work it all
• 27:53
  out. Like it's kind of like, you
• 27:55
  know, marriage is a beautiful picture of this.
• 27:56
  And I've learned I got married after my encounter too.
• 27:59
  And I've, I've learned this even more.
• 28:01
  I've learned there's a lot of times where I need to bite my
• 28:03
  tongue if I want to say something to my wife and instead
• 28:06
  I should clean the living room, change a diaper, mow the yard,
• 28:12
  massage her feet and get her a cookie.
• 28:14
  And I used to think that was soft or passive or even
• 28:18
  feminine, but I've learned that is actually the love of God,
• 28:24
  right? And and us guys, I think guys
• 28:27
  sometimes in marriage when we maybe feel disrespected or we
• 28:31
  feel like something's wrong in marriage, we just want to could
• 28:34
  be right guys to handle things different ways.
• 28:36
  But I've learned that in my encounter taught me love does
• 28:40
  what the person doesn't deserve because he gave me what I don't
• 28:44
  deserve. So how hypocritical would it be
• 28:46
  for me to say, let me treat others how they deserve?
• 28:48
  Because boy, it's so hypocritical.
• 28:51
  It's like I can't do that so. That's so beautiful.
• 28:56
  It's such a good lesson for marriage, for any relationship
• 29:00
  because we often will dole out a little bit to match what they're
• 29:04
  doing or maybe go a little bit more because we want to like,
• 29:07
  you know, create a relationship or improve the relationship
• 29:09
  instead of just pouring out love unconditionally, which is what
• 29:13
  God does for us and what he is calling us to do for every
• 29:15
  person, certainly our own families and certainly our
• 29:18
  spouses. Yeah.
• 29:20
  And you know, in this forgiveness, it, it forgiveness
• 29:24
  doesn't equal trust, but forgiveness releases the person
• 29:28
  from the power they have over you.
• 29:30
  Forgiveness says my heart is the Lord's and none, none else's.
• 29:35
  And so whatever you did do to me, whatever you said to me, I
• 29:38
  release you. I bless you.
• 29:40
  And and I it's it's like forgiveness could be thought of
• 29:43
  as a picture. If a guy punches you in the
• 29:46
  face, you look at it. And I'm not saying literal, OK,
• 29:48
  if you got to physically protect yourself at times, but I'm
• 29:50
  speaking metaphorically. If a guy punches you in your
• 29:53
  face, you look at him and you say, Sir, I'm so sorry.
• 29:56
  He must have tripped there on the road.
• 29:57
  Are you all right? Did a rock hit your foot?
• 29:59
  Are you OK? That's what forgiveness looks
• 30:02
  like. Like love believes the best of
• 30:05
  others. Since my encounter, I was
• 30:07
  playing a basketball game and a guy, actually we were just
• 30:11
  playing basketball, A guy threw me to the ground, throwing a
• 30:13
  punch basically at me. The whole court stopped because
• 30:17
  they thought we were about to fight.
• 30:18
  But I looked at him right in the eyes.
• 30:20
  I said man is everything OK? I'm sorry.
• 30:22
  I must have must have crossed you somehow.
• 30:24
  Everything all right? He was speechless.
• 30:26
  He was he had his hands up ready to fight me.
• 30:29
  He walked away. 5 minutes goes by.
• 30:31
  He comes back almost tears going down his eyes.
• 30:33
  He says I don't understand why are you kind to me?
• 30:37
  Why are you forgiving me? I was about to punch you in the
• 30:39
  face and he said, and I said, man, I dealt with anger issues
• 30:43
  before in my life too. I love you brother.
• 30:45
  I, I don't fault you at all. Is everything OK?
• 30:47
  He told me you don't know this, but I just lost my passport.
• 30:50
  I don't have a job anymore and I'm not actually, I don't have
• 30:53
  an issue with you. I'm just angry at everyone right
• 30:54
  now and they are on the basketball court.
• 30:57
  He ends up praying with me in front of everyone.
• 31:00
  He doesn't even care because he prays with me and he and he, he
• 31:02
  commits his life to Christ, to faith.
• 31:05
  And that's kind of like a wild situation, right?
• 31:09
  That's like not supposed to happen.
• 31:10
  If somebody throws you to the ground and tries fighting you,
• 31:13
  you know, and now you're praying with them, like, but that's how
• 31:16
  his love operates, right? So.
• 31:20
  It's beautiful, the prayers that you sensed in heaven that were
• 31:24
  in bowls. Tell me more about what you
• 31:27
  learned about the power of prayer by having this, the
• 31:31
  throne room, near death experience.
• 31:33
  Yeah. I literally saw everyone praying
• 31:36
  for me. From heaven's perspective, the
• 31:38
  prayers were more, almost more. They seemed more real than even
• 31:42
  people. So these prayers were their own
• 31:44
  structures. I describe them as or like
• 31:47
  highways or structures that join together and every prayer is
• 31:54
  gathered by Christ and and gathered by Christ and
• 31:58
  Revelations 4-5 talks about these golden bowls that every
• 32:01
  prayer is gathered by and I saw that even prayers that aren't
• 32:05
  maybe be answered on the earth. It doesn't mean they weren't
• 32:07
  answered. We can still give them to our
• 32:09
  give them to the Father. And actually there's a greater
• 32:12
  reward for a lot of prayers if we choose to rejoice even when
• 32:15
  we don't see them answered on earth, if we just keep rejoicing
• 32:17
  and keep giving them and keep praying and and never quit
• 32:21
  because our faith isn't in the answer.
• 32:23
  Our faith is in Christ. See, it's controversial, but
• 32:28
  that's the truth that I saw. But but we, we pray in faith and
• 32:32
  then we just rejoice and we trust him.
• 32:34
  But yeah, every prayer is gathered.
• 32:36
  And I saw he literally used those prayers.
• 32:39
  Like he, those prayers were the function that I was sent back to
• 32:43
  my body on or the I, I literally was like it was like a vehicle
• 32:47
  and I was like, it was, it's, it just seemed to me like I was
• 32:51
  transported back on those prayers.
• 32:54
  Not that not as if the prayers of people saved me because
• 32:57
  really it was the prayers of the word of Christ in our mouth,
• 33:00
  though. That's what why prayer is
• 33:02
  powerful. It's not just when we pray what
• 33:04
  we think or what we feel. Prayer is powerful when we pray
• 33:07
  His word. His words back to him.
• 33:09
  Exactly. It's a unity.
• 33:11
  So it's not about us. It's not a self-centered prayer.
• 33:14
  It's not a even faith in ourselves.
• 33:16
  So that's like new age stuff, you know, it's not working God
• 33:19
  like he's a slot machine or working prayer.
• 33:22
  It's praying to him, with him, for him, all for him.
• 33:29
  That's the power of prayer, him and he is so I saw this like he
• 33:33
  is the very when we pray his word, he is.
• 33:37
  It's a great mystery, but I think people listening who've
• 33:40
  had a little taste of it, it resonates so deeply.
• 33:44
  And I think what you said earlier was really convicting of
• 33:46
  me like you now, just one day at a time and you just today is
• 33:50
  enough. Today is more than enough.
• 33:52
  Because in Christ we have everything.
• 33:54
  And like the veil between this life and eternity is so it is,
• 33:58
  you know, we can't see into eternity directly, but it's so
• 34:01
  thin. I mean, we're right on the edge
• 34:03
  of eternity at every moment. And So what is there to worry or
• 34:08
  strategize for or fear or anything?
• 34:10
  Like the Lord has the whole world in his hands and our
• 34:13
  entire timeline in his hands. Yeah, like he's going to work it
• 34:16
  all out for our good. So even when failures come, just
• 34:19
  rejoice, take joy. Like I was out in New York, me
• 34:24
  and my wife and our seven month year old baby, we flew, you
• 34:26
  know, 3 1/2 hours. We get to the hotel, but then
• 34:29
  right before the show that I was scheduled to be on, we go to war
• 34:32
  with Iran. And it's like, OK, it's all
• 34:34
  cancelled, which I understood though most guys would be like,
• 34:37
  oh, that's so, oh, I can't believe we got it cancelled.
• 34:39
  It doesn't. It's not going to work out.
• 34:40
  I just said no, it's all good. Thanks.
• 34:42
  Thanks for having us out. It's all good.
• 34:44
  And I, I just rejoiced about every little conversation we had
• 34:48
  with a taxi driver with what we had that we got there safe.
• 34:52
  Well, it ended up working out, You know, we flew back home, but
• 34:55
  then the trip happened again three weeks later.
• 34:56
  And it all ended up better than it was originally.
• 35:00
  And I just, yeah, when failures happened, I just rejoice because
• 35:04
  he gets a chance to get the glory.
• 35:06
  And I also, I think that's a beautiful example that you just
• 35:09
  used. And I know it's recent, it's
• 35:11
  about part of the book tour that you're on now.
• 35:12
  But the thing that resonates with me deeply about that is
• 35:16
  there's not something that God has will to accomplish in your
• 35:20
  life that if you're open to, will not be accomplished because
• 35:23
  that's the power of God. Even if you feel like, well, as
• 35:26
  I'm, I've wasted too much time, I've made too many mistakes, I
• 35:30
  have too many setbacks. If there's something for God's
• 35:32
  will in your life and you may have a sense of a vision of it
• 35:34
  or, or, you know, a concept of it and you're kind of confused
• 35:37
  or praying the Lord's will will be done and the timeline you do
• 35:41
  not have to worry about. Yeah.
• 35:43
  Because oh can I touch on this, I saw I learned to trust him and
• 35:48
  not have to figure everything out.
• 35:50
  I can just trust him, like him plus nothing.
• 35:53
  That's my theology. I am not the creator of time.
• 35:58
  He is. And so as long as I keep trying
• 36:01
  to have everything in order and everything in place, I'm
• 36:04
  replacing him with myself. It's where anxiety is rooted in
• 36:08
  Anxiety says God, I got this. But trust says I trust you.
• 36:14
  What a freeing way to live. Yeah, it, it really is so.
• 36:20
  And even in the midst of the greatest grief and sorrow of
• 36:23
  this earth, 'cause you know, this earth is a still a broken
• 36:25
  place, but yet there's still the fingerprint of God, the breath
• 36:29
  of God, especially through his, the ones he made in his image,
• 36:34
  in his likeness, us human beings, life.
• 36:38
  Life is the very breath of God. And he allowed me to see this
• 36:43
  moment. You asked me what other moments
• 36:44
  I see. I saw the moment the very
• 36:47
  fingerprint of God touched the dirt of the earth.
• 36:51
  He had all the servants, He had creatures He had.
• 36:53
  God had everything, but he didn't have family.
• 36:56
  He wanted a son, a daughter. So he thought of you, He thought
• 37:00
  of me, and he breathed himself onto that dirt and miraculously
• 37:05
  formed humanity. That's why every human life is a
• 37:09
  miracle starting in the conception.
• 37:13
  Not what? Not when you're born.
• 37:15
  It's because every human has the breath of God, the touch of God
• 37:19
  that it made in his image. And so when you when you attack
• 37:24
  life, you're attacking the very heartbeat of God.
• 37:28
  That's why he takes it so serious.
• 37:31
  Whether you like it or not, your current healthcare dollars are
• 37:35
  likely supporting procedures that you and I don't agree with,
• 37:38
  from abortion to gender reassignments and more.
• 37:41
  But with our partner Presidio Healthcare, you can get the
• 37:44
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• 37:51
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  presidiocare.com/lila to get your quote today and stay tuned
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  as Presidio is looking to expand to Florida, Indiana, Georgia,
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  Visit presidiocare.com/lila to get started today.
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  That's presidiocare.com/lila. If you've been listening to this
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  show for a while, you know that Seven Weeks Coffee isn't just a
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  sevenweekscoffee.com. I want to ask next about when
• 39:07
  you first woke up out of the coma.
• 39:11
  What was it like to wake up and be like, oh, I'm not in heaven
• 39:15
  anymore? Well, firstly, I'll just say it
• 39:17
  was so beautiful because I saw all the prayers that were just
• 39:21
  given to Christ himself. They were the word of God spoken
• 39:26
  and and they were even like it's they were they were spiritual
• 39:30
  things implemented in the physical.
• 39:32
  They were speaking life. Even though the diagnostics on
• 39:35
  me were there's no chance the prayers were he's going to live
• 39:38
  and not die by Jesus stripes. He's healed.
• 39:40
  It was life. So that's what was beautiful.
• 39:43
  And then sure enough, yeah, I knew my time wasn't up and I was
• 39:45
  sent back. I just remember waking up my
• 39:47
  first thing that I saw, I saw the calendar.
• 39:50
  You know what I said this was really funny.
• 39:53
  I said that calendar is wrong because it was November 12th,
• 39:58
  but the last time I'd been on the earth was October 25th.
• 40:00
  This is really weird, but I said that calendar is wrong because
• 40:03
  the moment I felt was just like 2 minutes time wasn't the same.
• 40:08
  So that was one of the challenges was getting oriented
• 40:12
  again to time on earth. Did you feel sad though, when
• 40:16
  you woke up because you were no longer in that perfect presence
• 40:19
  of God? There definitely was this just
• 40:21
  like it it was. It was feeling like I was in
• 40:26
  another person's body because the body wasn't me.
• 40:31
  It it was a feeling that was just like, wait a minute, this
• 40:36
  is really weird that that's just what I remember feeling.
• 40:39
  And yeah, it was miraculously my memory came back.
• 40:47
  Not just my memory of October 25th.
• 40:49
  I remember and that's what the other thing, super traumatic
• 40:52
  accidents like this that happen and, and I'll give you all the
• 40:55
  medical documents so you can show this as I say this, but on
• 40:59
  average they have about 40 days to live.
• 41:00
  If they do survive, they have no memory.
• 41:03
  Their brain, I mean, my brain was like mashed potatoes.
• 41:05
  And that's not like a normal cut that just heals the
• 41:09
  neuroplasticity of brains. Neurosurgeons will tell you
• 41:11
  this. Brains don't just heal normally,
• 41:15
  but somehow, miraculously, my brain did.
• 41:18
  I remember everything I was doing right up until that moment
• 41:20
  of the accident. But then also now I have this
• 41:23
  memory of a moment that happened outside of my body.
• 41:27
  Even the prayers, like I, I remember telling all my friends
• 41:29
  and family, I was like, oh, yeah, I knew you were praying
• 41:31
  for me. I knew you were praying for me.
• 41:32
  People coming to me and they're like, I was praying for you,
• 41:34
  Gabe. And I'm like, yeah, I know you
• 41:35
  have been. Thank you, like.
• 41:38
  And yeah. And yeah, I've been sharing my
• 41:41
  testimony for years and years and years, ever since I came
• 41:43
  back. And I'll do it for the rest of
• 41:46
  my life. There are you mentioned again,
• 41:48
  the skeptics and there are a number of people who have tried
• 41:50
  to make exposure videos like Tik Tokers and things like this
• 41:54
  saying, oh, this is a lie or it's or they say it wasn't a lie
• 41:57
  but you just have a dream like you had a cool dream.
• 41:59
  Basically, it's not real. What documented medical evidence
• 42:02
  do you have that you had a near death experience?
• 42:05
  Yeah, well, I I can show all the top of grams and then it it
• 42:09
  shows my cracked skull as well. And so it also, I also have the
• 42:13
  evidence of the doctor and the documentary we did in the
• 42:17
  hospital and that's on CBN news we filmed there.
• 42:21
  So we have direct doctor testimonials as well as again
• 42:25
  that the brain, if you look at the top of gram of the graph
• 42:28
  that I'm showing, any neuroscience Dr. will tell you
• 42:31
  that brain is not supposed to have a memory of the full life
• 42:35
  when they come back. But my brain was I, I, I'm
• 42:38
  actually, I'm going to show the before and after of the miracle.
• 42:40
  So I have the topogram of October 27th while I was still
• 42:43
  in the coma. But then I have the topogram
• 42:45
  after the miracle, just a couple months after and you can
• 42:48
  literally see the brain healed. But again, me being able to
• 42:53
  testify of an experience outside of my body and then live to tell
• 42:58
  the story. It doesn't make sense because
• 43:00
  the brain shouldn't have a recall or memory of anything.
• 43:04
  So it, it, it and ND ES John Burke, who studied thousand,
• 43:08
  more than thousands of ND ES, will tell you that more about
• 43:12
  how these nde, these ND ES should not be able to have a
• 43:17
  recall of their life, but not just before, but you know,
• 43:21
  during the moment. And so there, there really is a
• 43:25
  very supernatural evidence that this is miraculous.
• 43:28
  What is the biggest shock that you think people will receive
• 43:31
  when they see Jesus for the first time and meet him face to
• 43:35
  face? Well, I invite them before they
• 43:37
  come to that day, before they come to the end of their life on
• 43:41
  Earth, say yes to him today. Repent of their sin today.
• 43:45
  Return from your own way today and and turn to him today.
• 43:49
  He's alive. The grave is empty like so
• 43:54
  receive him today. And, and I'll say the biggest
• 43:57
  shock when, when they see him, when they see him that day,
• 44:02
  they're going to be stunned, speechless, in awe of the love
• 44:08
  that he is not he's some, not the love that he's considering
• 44:11
  to have the love he is. What would you say to somebody
• 44:16
  who's struggling with forgiveness, being able to
• 44:18
  forgive themselves or to believe that they can be forgiven?
• 44:23
  I would just invite them. Look at the wounds in his hands
• 44:26
  and the spear in his side, the crown of thorns that etched into
• 44:31
  his head. And as he there, as he lay there
• 44:33
  on that cross in excruciating pain, He lifted up his body to
• 44:38
  speak more than seven more words.
• 44:40
  Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're
• 44:42
  doing. We look at that moment and we
• 44:45
  blame the soldiers for crucifying Him.
• 44:49
  We were the reason He was on that cross.
• 44:51
  I was the reason He was on that cross.
• 44:53
  He did it for me, He did it for you, and He did it for the
• 44:57
  viewer. I was his only one.
• 44:59
  Yet you are at the same exact time, but like so intimate and
• 45:04
  so but the more you look at that and you see how you don't
• 45:07
  deserve his love out of out of that, you can choose to forgive,
• 45:11
  not because you feel like forgiving, not because it's easy
• 45:14
  or convenient, because it's not going to be, but you can forgive
• 45:20
  by the a choice. Forgiveness is a choice where
• 45:23
  you just say, you know what? Jesus, through your love, I
• 45:28
  choose to forgive that person, not even through my own ability,
• 45:32
  not through my own striving. I choose to forgive because you
• 45:36
  forgave me. So it's keeping him at the
• 45:38
  center is how we can forgive because again, He'll bear the
• 45:42
  brunt of the forgiveness, like He'll accomplish it.
• 45:45
  It's just allowing Him to do it. So it's getting over ourselves,
• 45:49
  right? Because that takes off the
• 45:50
  burden. Now when I forgive you or
• 45:52
  whoever it is that did me wrong, it's like not me trying so hard
• 45:56
  to do it, but it's just allowing Him to forgive through me
• 46:00
  because it's it's removing ourselves from the situation.
• 46:06
  For the person who feels like God has forgotten them, what
• 46:10
  would you say from your experience of God in heaven that
• 46:13
  tells you, shows you that no, he has not forgotten you?
• 46:18
  When I was with Jesus, I was I. I was the one he waited
• 46:23
  everything for. It was like he had been waiting
• 46:26
  his entire life just to see me, Like he was so excited to see
• 46:30
  me. And he's that.
• 46:33
  Yet that same way for every single person, every single
• 46:37
  person. There's no backstage or green
• 46:40
  room in heaven. It's one-on-one face to face,
• 46:45
  eye to eye. And he wants that with everyone.
• 46:50
  He's waiting. He's waiting for everyone to
• 46:52
  just meet him. There's a lot of distractions.
• 46:58
  This world will do everything it can to cloud your understanding
• 47:01
  of him. Division, strife, anger, pride,
• 47:06
  grief, tragedy. It is all just a a false
• 47:14
  blockage that is just trying to distract you from him.
• 47:18
  How do you recommend people not be so distracted and instead
• 47:24
  realize all that matters today is God, His love, and what He
• 47:29
  wants me to, how He wants me to Live Today?
• 47:31
  Yeah, I would invite them to turn to Christ.
• 47:34
  I like the chapter of the book of John a lot and and just just
• 47:41
  open the word of God and and invite him.
• 47:47
  Give him open that door of your heart and you can have
• 47:52
  encounters with him in so many different ways.
• 47:54
  It's beautiful. Like he's so close, Closer than
• 47:57
  you realize. I love the prayer.
• 47:59
  Jesus, I surrender everything to you.
• 48:01
  Jesus, I give everything to you. Jesus, I trust in you.
• 48:04
  Just like even if you're not feeling it or you're distracted
• 48:06
  or you're chaotic or you're feeling anxiety or whatever, it
• 48:09
  is like just saying those words and making a movement of your
• 48:12
  heart towards that in your weakness and let God just do it
• 48:16
  what He will. Because in our weakness, he's
• 48:19
  strong, yes. One of the things that you do,
• 48:22
  Gabe, is that you travel around the country and you go to
• 48:25
  campuses to speak up for life. Can you share more about that
• 48:29
  work? Yeah, well, you know, I just, I
• 48:33
  ever since, I mean, I was pro-life before this, but you
• 48:37
  know, it's wild because my encounter with Christ, while I
• 48:39
  don't describe it as like necessarily, he showed me like a
• 48:41
  pro-life thing or something. The more, the closer I got to
• 48:46
  Jesus, especially from this encounter, the more just
• 48:48
  naturally I'm even more passionate about being pro-life.
• 48:52
  So like it's, it's so common sense to me.
• 48:54
  It's like if I'm with Jesus, of course I am.
• 48:58
  Like. And so it just, it has given me
• 49:00
  even more of a fire. And, you know, I just have ideas
• 49:03
  that come and I'm just like, why don't we just go do this?
• 49:06
  And so we go to college campuses and, and film videos where we
• 49:09
  like, have them sign a petition to ban abortion for puppies.
• 49:13
  And then we just flip the page. It's the same exact petition.
• 49:15
  And it just says babies and, and we show them content and, and
• 49:20
  like what live action shows about what an abortion looks
• 49:23
  like. And, and then they are stunned
• 49:25
  because they realize they're caught in their own hypocrisy.
• 49:27
  And some students walk off and say puppies are cuter.
• 49:32
  Other students are like, wow, I didn't realize that's what an
• 49:34
  abortion is. And they change their mind.
• 49:36
  So things like that. But also we go to abortion
• 49:38
  clinics like in Virginia, and we see babies saved in Arlington,
• 49:43
  TX. So yeah.
• 49:45
  You've seen babies saved outside an abortion clinic by doing
• 49:48
  sidewalk counseling. Yeah, for sure.
• 49:50
  And I've seen babies saved on Instagram from the videos I saw.
• 49:54
  I saw babies saved in from across across Atlantic in, in a
• 50:00
  country in Africa, Eritrea, I think was the country's name.
• 50:05
  A guy just reached out and said my girlfriend's about to have an
• 50:07
  abortion, but I just saw your video tell me what to do.
• 50:10
  And we counseled him through that.
• 50:11
  And yeah, we've still been. Yeah.
• 50:14
  I'll send you a photo of the baby, actually.
• 50:15
  It's so beautiful, amazing. We block out the baby's face
• 50:18
  though. That's so beautiful though, that
• 50:20
  there's, there's literally people right now that just need
• 50:23
  an intervention. They need prayer.
• 50:25
  We can all pray no matter where we are for these babies and for
• 50:27
  their families. But even that person standing on
• 50:30
  the sidewalk can be such a sign from God to them that they
• 50:34
  should not have this abortion. I remember the first time that
• 50:37
  happened to me where someone turned away was we were outside
• 50:39
  the clinic with some high school kids.
• 50:41
  And this was when I was, I think a freshman in college or
• 50:44
  something. So I was right out of high
• 50:45
  school, but we were with other high school kids, and we were
• 50:48
  praying for the mothers and children going in.
• 50:52
  And then afterwards, a woman came to us and said I was on my
• 50:57
  way to have the abortion, and I was praying to God for a sign.
• 51:00
  And you were my sign. And so then she went to the
• 51:03
  Pregnancy Community Pregnancy Center instead.
• 51:06
  And it's just all you did. All we did was show up.
• 51:09
  Showing up is sometimes all that you need to do and pray.
• 51:12
  Show up and pray. Yeah.
• 51:14
  People say I'm just praying and I tell them no, you're not just
• 51:18
  praying like prayers matter. If this was the last interview
• 51:23
  that you ever give and you had only 30 seconds to tell somebody
• 51:27
  about Jesus, what is the most important thing that people
• 51:30
  should know? He's the way, the truth, and the
• 51:33
  life, and His love is eternal, infinite.
• 51:38
  But the grace of this earth is finite, and the time we do have
• 51:43
  is short. We should never count on
• 51:45
  tomorrow, but we should give Him our life today.
• 51:49
  Everything. And giving Him our life doesn't
• 51:51
  mean we have to be good enough for Him.
• 51:53
  Giving Him our life just means we give Him what we have.
• 51:55
  However little or much of A failure, we feel like we are.
• 51:58
  Give it to Him. However broken you feel, give it
• 52:03
  to Him. He'll save you.
• 52:07
  Amen. All right, let's do our quick
• 52:09
  rapid fire. So some of these are kind of
• 52:14
  fun, but did you see pets in Heaven?
• 52:17
  I did not see pets in heaven, but from my time with Christ I
• 52:23
  was so aware that he is every color, He's every sight, He's
• 52:26
  every sound, He's all. So heaven is not a secondary
• 52:31
  place. Heaven is not like, if we
• 52:33
  experience anything good on earth, we shouldn't think of
• 52:35
  heaven as if like we're going to lose it.
• 52:39
  And I, I, and so I just, I speak scripturally.
• 52:41
  Now scripturally there is a very scriptural evidence of, of
• 52:45
  animals above, here and below all praising the Father at the
• 52:49
  same time. So I would say scripturally
• 52:51
  speaking, you can make a very good case for animals and pets
• 52:54
  in heaven. And I would say from my
• 52:55
  experience, I conclude that there are pets in heaven.
• 53:00
  I love that. My little 4 year old asked me
• 53:03
  just the other day, mom, do ants go to heaven?
• 53:05
  And I said, well, kind of, I think they might.
• 53:08
  I mean, I'm not sure exactly how it's going to look, but God has
• 53:11
  all the ants in the world. And then he said I want to be an
• 53:14
  Ant because I guess he had just smashed what he said and I want
• 53:16
  to go to heaven. I said, well, I don't want you
• 53:18
  to be an Ant, but I do. I think you'll go to heaven.
• 53:21
  Yeah, it's like, I don't know all the answers and I don't want
• 53:23
  to speak as if I'm some authoritative figure telling
• 53:25
  people what heaven is like, because I'm not.
• 53:27
  I just had a moment with Jesus, but it wouldn't surprise me if
• 53:30
  pets are in heaven if if I could say it like that.
• 53:34
  Did Jesus look the same as the Jesus that we can gather from
• 53:39
  the Shroud of Turin? I like the Shroud of Turin a
• 53:41
  lot. The Shroud of Turin is a cloth,
• 53:45
  yet it's not just a cloth. It represents the supernatural
• 53:48
  light of Christ because the light of Christ touched that
• 53:52
  cloth. And so I love the Shroud of
• 53:57
  Turin. I like talking about a lot
• 53:58
  actually. However, I as with any other
• 54:02
  miracle, it I always emphasize the shot of turn is not awesome
• 54:06
  because it's the shroud of turn. It's the shroud of turn because
• 54:08
  it it points of Christ. So it's about him and I I just
• 54:12
  don't think any cloth can ever even still do him justice, just
• 54:15
  like we talked about that painting.
• 54:16
  So I love the shot of turn, but I still am just like, it's
• 54:20
  awesome because of Christ, not as a separate thing.
• 54:23
  So. Do you think it generally
• 54:24
  matches though? I would say it it still a cloth
• 54:29
  can't do him justice though, So it's like I would say it does
• 54:33
  better than others, but still I'm I'm like, sorry, I just I I
• 54:37
  would say it does better than others.
• 54:38
  It's. Just a very faint poor because.
• 54:41
  It's so faint. Yeah, it's so faint.
• 54:43
  It's like taking a very poor Polaroid picture of your like
• 54:46
  newborn and then your newborn is so much more amazingly perfect
• 54:50
  and beautiful than this, like, you know, grainy picture.
• 54:52
  Exactly. That's exactly how I describe
• 54:54
  it. It's like taking a 1900s.
• 54:57
  But it's consistent is the point.
• 54:58
  Yeah, yeah, I would say. It points to it points to the
• 55:01
  truth, yeah. Does everyone in heaven look
• 55:04
  like they are really young or old?
• 55:06
  Or what was your sense of people's ages in heaven?
• 55:10
  You know, I really, I, I have to be honest, I don't know.
• 55:13
  And there's some, but, but there's only beauty in heaven.
• 55:17
  There's only glory and there's no death or decay.
• 55:20
  There's only beauty. So with that, I would I would
• 55:25
  conclude that there there is no even age in heaven because it's
• 55:30
  beauty. It's it's beauty.
• 55:33
  Are there actual like that you could perceive houses or
• 55:36
  buildings in heaven or is it like an open landscape?
• 55:40
  I just saw a slight glimpse and and the slight glimpse that I
• 55:43
  saw was like even the mansions, they only speak of him.
• 55:47
  The houses, the buildings, the monuments, the libraries, they
• 55:50
  still speak of him. The books in the libraries.
• 55:52
  You read, you open the pages and he is, he is the page, He is the
• 55:56
  letters. And it's beautiful.
• 55:59
  The libraries are beautiful, Flowers are beautiful.
• 56:02
  You look at the flowers, you say, Jesus, you're beautiful.
• 56:06
  Did you sense that people were just sitting on clouds, or did
• 56:10
  everybody have like a job or an assignment in heaven?
• 56:14
  I know people are not sitting on clouds.
• 56:16
  And also, no, people don't have jobs.
• 56:19
  As if like you could clock into a nine to five.
• 56:22
  And again, I'll, I'll just say I'm not the authoritative
• 56:25
  figures. I'm not going to tell you
• 56:26
  exactly what you're doing in heaven.
• 56:28
  But scripturally speaking, what we're faithful with on the
• 56:31
  earth, Jesus said we are rewarded with more in heaven.
• 56:34
  So I just like to talk about Jesus's words and you can see a
• 56:38
  very scriptural case for actually how you are called to
• 56:41
  rule and reign with him in heaven.
• 56:43
  And you know, what you are doing on the earth is actually going
• 56:46
  to be a slight preview of what you'll be given in heaven.
• 56:50
  So, but obviously much more glorious.
• 56:52
  So that's how I describe it. Was there any sense of external
• 56:55
  light like there was a sun, or was the light all emanating?
• 56:57
  From the throne was him. He is the light.
• 57:00
  There's no need for sun or moon. And like I said at the beginning
• 57:04
  of this interview, it wasn't a light like that.
• 57:06
  It was a light. As I was suctioned into this
• 57:09
  light, I wasn't taken to the light I was becoming.
• 57:12
  AI was literally being enveloped by the light.
• 57:16
  It was like it was my very nature was part of the light and
• 57:21
  he was a part of me. It was beautiful.
• 57:25
  What were you wearing? Was it like white robes that we
• 57:27
  see in the movies or something else?
• 57:30
  I I really, you know, honestly, I don't know.
• 57:32
  I just remember him. That's the other thing.
• 57:35
  When people try to really get me on details, they get mad because
• 57:38
  they're like, why don't you have all the details?
• 57:40
  And I'm like, because all the details just pointing back to
• 57:42
  him, like angels, people ask me about angels and I'm like, I
• 57:46
  don't remember all the details. But then other times I'm like,
• 57:48
  well, the eyes of the Seraphim, they point to him like it's, I
• 57:52
  don't know, like, yeah, it's, it's like all the details just
• 57:55
  point to him. Angels don't even want you to
• 57:58
  look at them. There's a, a great holiness
• 58:03
  because they don't want you to be in awe of them.
• 58:05
  You're in awe of Christ. That's such an amazing concept.
• 58:10
  And I think that's why I believe we all have guardian angels and
• 58:12
  that's what's scriptural. But a lot of people don't talk
• 58:14
  about them, think about them, ask for their prayers.
• 58:16
  But that's in part because the guardian angels are so humble.
• 58:19
  They just like, well, we're just around to help out.
• 58:21
  You talk to Christ, but you can still like talk to your guardian
• 58:24
  Angel, I believe. But the reason that they don't
• 58:26
  like push to get talk to is because they're like, we don't
• 58:28
  really care. We're just going to help you out
• 58:30
  no matter what. And you can just pray to Christ
• 58:32
  and that's what matters in the end.
• 58:34
  That's one of my working theories.
• 58:36
  Was there food in heaven? I again, I didn't, I'm not going
• 58:42
  to speak from experience because I, I didn't necessarily have a
• 58:46
  memory of, of food, but I will just say scripturally speaking.
• 58:50
  And from my moment with Christ, I understood this.
• 58:53
  My food was not to live. My food was him.
• 58:58
  He is the very food of heaven. So in heaven, I hold the
• 59:01
  standpoint that you don't eat to survive, but you eat as worship
• 59:06
  and everything is we're just worship.
• 59:08
  I love that. So I, I'm not going to speak
• 59:10
  from experience, but I'm going to speak from Scripture that we,
• 59:14
  we do eat in heaven, but we eat to give him worship and praise.
• 59:18
  And I wouldn't say that eating is going to be the same like it
• 59:20
  is on earth, but I, I certainly believe that anything good on
• 59:24
  earth is just a slight preview of what it's like in heaven.
• 59:27
  So I always describe answers through that lens.
• 59:30
  Last one for a rapid fire questions here.
• 59:32
  Does Jesus have a sense of humor?
• 59:35
  Did you ever get a sense that he was joking or smiling while you
• 59:38
  were with him? Definitely he has a personality,
• 59:42
  you know, like he knew that obviously on the earth, you
• 59:46
  know, I on the earth I was a broken Sinner, but to him I was
• 59:54
  forgiven. And so when he asked me why are
• 59:57
  you concerned about that which is paid for, he knew that I was,
• 1:00:00
  you know, that I was being concerned.
• 1:00:01
  But to him, my sin was gone. It was forgiven.
• 1:00:05
  So like there was this, just like this personality, like
• 1:00:08
  Gabriel, you're forgiven. The case is shut.
• 1:00:11
  Like he almost said that with almost like a smile on his lips.
• 1:00:13
  Like like, like Hebrews 812 tells us their sins and
• 1:00:18
  iniquities. I will remember no more.
• 1:00:23
  But he said it. With a personality like Gabriel,
• 1:00:25
  you're forgiven, see. But this sets you free.
• 1:00:30
  Now I don't live trying to freely sin.
• 1:00:33
  I live because I don't sin's not in my divine setup.
• 1:00:36
  I'm forgiven. So I don't want to see how close
• 1:00:39
  I can get to sin anymore. I want to run from it.
• 1:00:44
  Gabriel, amazing that you have been given this experience.
• 1:00:48
  I'm so glad you brought back to life, but that you can share now
• 1:00:52
  this encounter with the living God.
• 1:00:54
  And I know that it's edifying to people and the person listening
• 1:00:59
  that needed to hear this to be reminded that we are just on the
• 1:01:02
  edge of eternity and God loves you so much.
• 1:01:07
  Eternity is a lot closer than people realize.
• 1:01:09
  Yes, how can people find you in your book and follow along?
• 1:01:14
  Just they can search 18 Days in Heaven, Everywhere books are
• 1:01:18
  sold and youtube.com/gay Pearl. Amazing.
• 1:01:23
  Gabriel, thank you so much for joining the show.
• 1:01:25
  Thanks for having me. A big thank you to our channel
• 1:01:28
  partner EWTN. EWTN is the world's largest
• 1:01:32
  religious broadcast network, reaching millions of people
• 1:01:35
  every single day with the beautiful truth of the gospel.
• 1:01:38
  You can be the first to watch new Lila Rose Show episodes 24
• 1:01:42
  hours before YouTube over at ewtn.com, slash on demand and on
• 1:01:47
  the EWTN app.