#109 Seeing Angels, Near-Death Experiences & Miraculous Healing + Bruce Van Natta

Today's gonna be a different kind of conversation. I'm with Bruce Van Natta. Bruce was crushed beneath a logging truck in an accident that nearly took his life. You knew that death was coming in that moment.

Yeah, it hurt so bad, it was incredible. I literally remember my heart stopping, my spirit left my body. I looked down, I could see two huge angels. I experienced perfect peace for the first time in my life.

I felt like I was halfway to see Jesus, but that lady kept praying me back.

That's really interesting that there was a choice there that you didn't want to stay. Absolutely. How does that change your life on this earth? Hello, hello. Welcome to Biblically Speaking. My name is Cassian Bellino, and I'm your host.

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I'm your host, Kassi Mblino, and today's gonna be a different kind of conversation. I'm talking with Bruce Van Natta, an author, a speaker, and a founder of Sweetbread Ministries, and we're gonna talk today because in 2006, Bruce was crushed beneath a logging truck in an accident that nearly took his life, and he says that while he was outside his body, he witnessed two angels ministering beside him before he experienced a recovery that he describes as miraculous.

Bruce Van Natta's Near-Death Experience Under the Logging Truck

So today, we're gonna sit down, we're gonna talk with Bruce to hear what happened and examine how his experience aligns with scripture, how Christians should approach modern claims involving angels, how they should approach healing, and what we should think about near-death experiences.

Bruce, welcome to the show. Well, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. This is a very unique story. It's not often that I get to talk to somebody that has witnessed angels themselves and are experiencing a near-death experience, but I really wanna understand what happened in 2006.

Take us beneath the truck. What happened, and when did you realize this was a fight between life and death? It was a work-related accident.

That's the reason why I was underneath there. Got it. Another mechanic removed the wheel on a logging truck. I was laying underneath the axle. He got inside the truck. The truck shifted, the axle slipped, and that's when the five to six tons of weight fell through the middle of my body.

Basically crushed me flat. I ended up about an inch thick on the left side, about two inches thick on the right. Thinner than my spine. L4, L5 were both broken, spider crack, D-shaped. Everything in the middle that you can imagine underneath your belly button was crushed.

I had five places that arteries are severed, so I bled out at the scene of the accident. I literally remember my heart stopping, my spirit left my body. I had one of those out-of-body or near-death experiences that people talk about, and I just, I watched from above.

When the truck fell on me, before my heart stopped, when the truck fell on me, I said, Lord, help me, and I was referring to Jesus. I remember saying it twice for whatever reason. I said it a second time, and then when my heart did stop and my spirit left my body, it was in perfect peace.

I looked down, I could see two huge angels that got his son about eight feet tall based on a six foot tall, the other mechanic was six feet tall, and their heads were a couple feet tall on his head, so I watched them.

I didn't even know I was the guy under the truck. I was so removed from the situation. The volunteer fire department showed up, and a stranger, a lady on that volunteer fire department was, happened to be, I found out, a two-month-old baby Christian, 38-year-old woman, and she ended up praying me back to life three times at the scene of the accident.

My spirit kept coming in and out. The last two times I got in the tunnel, went towards the light, I know that I was going to heaven, know that Jesus was on the end of the tunnel, heaven was on the end of the tunnel.

Excited, happy to go there, but this lady prayed me back, like I say, three times, so it wouldn't be.

Gosh, yeah, you just, you just throw out that whole story. Okay, let's, let's dive right into that, because that was so much. So, obviously, adrenaline kicks in. It's not like you, I mean, but maybe. What happens when that crushes you, and you're praying, dear God, help me, praying, dear God, help me.

You knew that death was coming in that moment.

Yeah, it hurt so bad, it was incredible. Plus, then once the other mechanic jacked the truck above my body, and I saw the flat spot, it was, that's what made me think, absolutely, nobody could live from that, because it was cartoonish, it was flat across the middle, so, yeah, I mean, I was definitely in shock, so I'm sure there was definitely a huge shot of adrenaline running through my body.

But you knew death was coming, so you were, you were ready to say goodbye to this world.

Well, it looked to me like there's no way you could live like that, so, I mean, that's. It was just more of a logical outcome. I was trying to drag myself up. Once he took the truck off of me, I tried to pull myself up and get, because I was afraid the jack was gonna fall, and it was gonna crush me again, but that's, at a certain point, I couldn't breathe, and I was trying to get a next breath.

My lungs were in, collapsed, and I was trying to get that next breath, so I'm sitting there going, uh, uh, uh, when I, that's when my heart stopped, my spirit left my body.

Okay, and you mentioned a lot of injuries there. You mentioned the severing of five arteries, the crushing of your spine, your body being an inch thick. Complete the sentence. According to doctors, I should have died because?

I had five places arteries were severed.

In fact, they, doctors. And that never, that is, you're basically cut in half.

Well, I was crushed down flat, but doctors say I'm the only one they can find in the world to have lived after having arteries severed in five places,.

Is what I've been told. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. And so, it should have been pronounced on the scene. Like, this should have been a very, like, immediate death, a sudden, a fatal, a freak accident. Hi, Cass here.

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At no additional cost to you. They say about three to five minutes is about how long I should have been able to be alive before I bled out. And as soon as he took the truck off me, that's probably about what it was, was three to five minutes before I bled out.

Because the truck had all those pinched off arteries, like pinched off, you know, they're seven, but they're pinched off with the weight of the big truck on me. As soon as he took it off me, then I was able to free bleed.

And then they said three to five minutes, and that's about exactly how long it was, I'm guessing, when my heart stopped and my spirit left my body, the first time.

Okay, because you were going in and out of your body? Yeah, every time she prayed me back,.

My spirit left, and then the lady showed up and she prayed me back in. And I'm like, no, it hurts too bad, I don't want it. My spirit left. Then the tunnel opened up, I got in, and she just, she wasn't giving up, she prayed me back three times.

That's really interesting that there was a choice there that you didn't want to stay, that there was too much pain and you wanted to go, that that door wasn't automatic, that you were deciding.

Right, right. And I don't understand why. It definitely, it was a choice. It was definitely a free will situation at that point. And I don't, I'm not sure why, I don't know why.

Angels, Biblical Descriptions, and Near-Death Visions

I mean, there's so many amazing parts of the story as a whole, but seeing angels, tell me what that experience looked or felt like. Was there any surprises in what they looked like? Or now that you live on Earth back again, do you feel like you see them more often?

No, I wouldn't say that, but what I saw, they were about eight feet tall, they had white shining robes, they were emanating light, they were very muscular, they were men with really long hair that went all the way down to where the belt was on their robe.

They didn't have wings, there was a light, it's like coming off of both of them. I know I've studied the Bible on it now, and it's like angels are meant to 290 sometimes from the beginning down, and sometimes they look like normal people, sometimes they don't, sometimes they have wings, sometimes they don't.

And so again, it does a handful of times mention their white shining robes, which is exactly what I noticed.

Sure, sure, and it's interesting because we live in such a Hollywood era, it's like are you just seeing a projection of your experience on Earth, but you are actually seeing a biblically accurate angel that's already described.

Exactly. And how much about angels did you know before this experience?

Just from whatever I had read in the Bible, I had never studied them or was never into angels or anything like that. Wow.

Is there, I mean, I think the story does stop people in their tracks, but do you think that there's a detail there that continues to surprise you and surprise others? I just, I think the fact that.

Anytime somebody gets to see angels, it interests people because we usually can't see them with our Earth eyes, you know, it's just in the spirit that people see them. And I know there's people that claim to see angels all the time and stuff, but I mean, just like for the normal, average, everyday person, it's not like we're running around seeing angels.

So if somebody says they saw angels, either you think, my immediate think is, well, you know, lying, exaggerating, kooky, whatever, or maybe they did, you know? So it, again, like you said, it fits in with what I saw, fits in with the biblical description of them.

Yeah.

Evaluating Modern Miracles and the Documentary's Testimonies

And modern day miracles, I mean, some would say that that woman that came, that was a baby Christian, she was an angel that God sent. And this is a discussion within investigating the supernatural and miracles that this documentary that you're a part of, is there other stories about secondhand miracles that we discuss, that we see in that documentary?

Definitely.

Yeah, they've got other, they've got multiple testimonies, I guess is the best word to use.

And compared to the stories, compared to the other stories in this documentary, how do you feel like your story really shines in a way the other miracles don't?

I wouldn't say that. I don't know. I think anytime anybody has an experience with God, whether, whatever that experience is, it's very impactful to them and life-changing for them. So I wouldn't say mine's any bigger, brighter than anybody else's, it's just mine, and so to me, you know?

Totally. Are their stories similar to yours or how do they differ? You know what? It's pretty vast.

They've got a bunch of different things. They kind of, it's a broad spectrum of stories they're gonna have. Amazing.

I can't wait to watch it. I'm really excited to see God's work on earth because just the fact that there's a element here of prayer that I've seen in other miracles where someone is declared dead, they are on their way to the morgue and someone prays them back to life.

What was that experience with the doctors when they had to hear the story of, there was no medical intervention that was causing you to come back to life? There was no defibrillator. There was just prayer.

So what did doctors say when you woke up in the hospital?

Well, I was in an induced coma for a long time, but when I, you know, and then my lungs were collapsed, so they had me on a breathing machine, and so I ended up spending more than a year in the hospital in my life.

Oh, wow. You know, I'd get in, I'd go back, I'd get out for a little bit, I'd go back in, I'd get up, but bottom line, the doctor, the head of the trauma department, my state here in Wisconsin where I live, our state's biggest trauma center is Madison.

At that time, the guy who ran it had ran it for 15 years, and he told my wife the night of the accident, he had never seen a body so badly traumatized, and the person make it to the hospital alive, and he said, your husband must have one hell of a will to fight is what he'd said to my wife.

Wow. He had told me later that he was an atheist. Since that time, he's told, he said to somebody else since that time that my case was the first time that he felt, he knew that there was another power involved, even though he called himself an atheist, and that starting on this, because my accident, it's going to be 20 years this November, so it happened a long time ago, and so like a long time ago when he was interviewed by international television about my story, he told them he was no longer atheist, he was now agnostic because he felt like he had, he knew that in my case, there must be another, a power at work, a higher power at work.

He didn't, he said to them something along the lines of, I'm not going to name it, I don't know who that higher power is, but since that time, that was the first time I knew that I knew there was something else beyond the natural work, and since that time, you know, and he's gone on to run other trauma centers and stuff, he said he told that interviewer that he's seen other cases since that time as well that he knew that there was no explanation, there had to be a higher power.

Wow, converting people with your miracle, as we should, you know, it's not every day we get to see, you know, the power of God here on earth, and do you even mention, I don't want to let this go, you felt you were going to Jesus, you knew that he was nearby, what was that like, I would love to know.

Perfect Peace, Heaven, and a Changed Perspective on Life

The Bible has this word, shalom, means peace, and then sometimes they put the two words together, shalom, shalom, and it means perfect peace, and it's like, words can't describe perfect peace because it's perfect and it's beyond what we can experience in this human living experience, right, and so when I had the outer body experience, I just, I experienced perfect peace for the first time in my life, and it is exactly more than you can ever, ever imagine, it's the reason why the Bible says that the day a person dies is the best day of their life, and people get bent when I say that, especially young people, and it's like, no, really, the day, if you're Christian, the day you die is going to be the best day of your life, it felt the best I've ever felt times a million, so I don't even have words to describe it other than say, perfect peace, you know, times a million, the best feeling you can ever imagine, that's what I experienced, and I didn't even get to heaven, I was just like, you know, 15, 16 feet out of this flesh bag, but I, you know, and I got in the tunnel, I felt like I was halfway to see Jesus, but that lady kept praying me back, so.

How, I mean, how does, you know, how does that change your life on this earth? Because you don't walk back on this earth.

Same after experiencing that. Yeah, no, I ended up quitting my very successful business, and started a ministry, and we, for the last 20 years, have been traveling around, sharing this testimony with every door that opens, and whoever wants to listen.

Wow, it just, nothing, the things that mattered, like what is something that used to matter to you that afterwards you said, this is nothing compared to what is the last, you know, like what to you where you're like, this gravel in my pocket?

The biggest thing would be money. Because it's such a sense of safety, and you experience a higher sense of safety. Yeah, absolutely. Is there any, like, way you could describe that to someone, like, how do you impart this wisdom onto others who maybe hold close to money, and how do you put this into words?

Yeah, I mean, the Bible, Jesus told us to store up treasure in heaven. Where your heart is, where your treasure is, you know, bottom line, where our priorities are, that's where our time and attention is, where we're gonna put in our priorities.

And so he wants us to have, God wants us to have an eternal perspective. I think about, you know, things outside of this life, thing, eternal perspective. And that's so hard, because we're stuck in this body, we're stuck in this world, and we've got, you know, responsibilities, and all these things, noises and everything pulling us this way and that, and yet God says we're supposed to focus on him and focus on eternity, which, it's not easy, it's hard.

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And get started today. We'll see you soon. I was Christian, absolutely. I totally, going to church, believing in God, leading some, you know, small groups in Bible studies at my home and stuff.

Okay, but would you say, obviously stronger, but you weren't like atheist or lukewarm, like you were involved.

Yeah, yeah, I was involved. At that point in my life, I was absolutely involved, yeah. Okay, got it.

Medical Evidence for Healing and the Strongest Case for Skeptics

Going back to the documentary, obviously with miracles, people do take a very worldly lens, and I think it's healthy sometimes to come with doubt because I think it's good to test the Lord so we can see his power.

Not that we can second guess it in a way where we demean it, but within the documentary, what is the strongest evidence that is presented for your story that skeptics can examine before dismissing it?

Like, what is the key thing that shuts their mouths? Medical documentation.

Straight up, it's absolutely, so there's two huge miracles in my story. One of them is that I had five places artery severed. Now, I used to say major arteries until certain doctors looked at it, and they said, oh no, only three of them are major.

The other two aren't major, so I can't use the word major anymore, but five arteries severed, and plus other veins and other things, but anyway, so five places artery severed, and the fact that five places arteries are severed, and yet it was over two and a half hours from the point the truck fell on me until they operated with five arteries severed, and they say you're gonna bleed out in three to five minutes, but yet it was over two and a half hours with no, there's no way to put a tourniquet in your abdomen.

You can't stop the bleeding, so it was bleeding out, and it was just that in itself was a huge miracle, and the other huge miracle is the fact that they removed almost all of my small intestines. They saved two pieces, sewed them back together, wasn't just enough.

In 2006, the thinking was that you had to have 100 centimeters, you had to have at least 100 centimeters of small intestine to be able to live. Now, that's not the same number they use, but in 2006, that was the number, so the doctor, because that was the number that was out there, saved two pieces that were damaged to try to give me 100 centimeters worth of viable intestine.

He did that. Well, in March of the next year, while I was still in the hospital, one of those pieces died, so they're feeding me intravenously. I lose 65 pounds. If anybody saw me 65 pounds less than I am, I look like somebody straight out of a concentration camp.

You can see my skull, every bone in my body, and I'm literally starving to dying in the hospital when God woke up a man across the United States two mornings in a row, told him buy a plane ticket, fly to Wisconsin, and pray for me, and if he'd do that, God would do a miracle.

The first morning, he told his wife, and he told his pastor, but he didn't do it. The next morning, God woke him up again at 5 a .m., and he told me later he didn't like to get up early, and he bought the ticket for 900 and some bucks out of his own pocket back in 2006, flew to Wisconsin.

Some people from my church picked him up at the airport. They drove him down to Madison. He prayed for me in the hospital, and God did a creative miracle that I felt, and God gave me back. Doctors say I have nine to 11 feet, so approximately 1 1⁄2 of my intestines, so I went from just this little, you know, less than two feet to nine to 11 feet that came out of nowhere, so two huge miracles.

Five places, arteries severed for over 2 1⁄2 hours, and I didn't, you know, I'm not dead today, and the fact that I had almost no intestine left, and when this guy prayed, I have now half of my intestines, nine to 11 feet, which can be looked at with a CAT scan or whatever.

I mean, so medically speaking, you know, when I've given my, I used to send up my people, doctors would call up and say, hey, I don't believe it, it's a bunch of baloney. Send me your medical records, and I'll believe it, so I've got, you know, literally hundreds and thousands of pieces of being in the hospital for a year, medical records, so another doctor went through and basically picked out a sizzle reel, like the highlight forms, and I used to send that in a binder to some of these skeptics, and it was always crickets.

I never heard back, and, you know, when I would reach back up to them, like, hey, what do you think? They'd say, they knew that the records substantiated the claims, so then they'd go to the next level and go, well, you must have fabricated the records.

Well, I'm sorry, I'm not smart enough to fabricate medical records, so no, you're wrong, but, you know, bottom line on what I've come to believe is there's true skepticism, like, you know, I'm a skeptic, that's who I am.

It's because of my childhood, I had a messed up childhood, so I really don't believe anybody on anything almost. I mean, honestly, that's just who I am, and so when people think like that, I get it, because that's the way I think, but if somebody can show me facts to prove it, I'll believe it, like, okay, prove it, and I'll believe you, and a lot of the people I've dealt with, I've realized I could send them the records, and then they just go to the next thing because they already made up their mind before they reached out that it's impossible, so if somebody already has their mind made up, whether it's me, you, or the doctor down the street, nobody's gonna change their mind.

Absolutely, that creative miracle, what you just touched on, was that instantaneous, or do you feel like?

Instantaneous, instantaneous. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And the radiologist right there, the senior radiologist at that hospital, to the other radiologist, when they found it, they were absolutely blown away, and the doctor actually used the word mistake, the radiologist used the word, so I'm supposed to have this upper GI, and they're gonna do this test, after the miracle happened.

Well, the guy's looking at my upper GI, and he's looking at the records, and he's saying that I had 100 centimeters, but then that piece died, he removed it, so I'm less than 100 centimeters, and now I've got at least half my intestines, and so I hear the guy mumble the word mistake, and I'm like, hey, whoa, whoa, if the doctor made a mistake, you better tell me, because it's my body.

He's like, no, no, no, there's not a mistake in your body, so there must be a mistake in the records, because the head of the trauma, it's what I don't understand, he's like our best guy, he made the same mistake, and wrote down every time he went in you, five times through the same hole, he goes, that you had, he documented the amount of intestine you have, he said, but you have hundreds of centimeters of intestine here, he said, and I just can't understand how he would have made the same mistake over and over.

Well, he didn't, it was a creative miracle, so that's when they found it,.

That's actually how they found it, it was in an upper GI. How did that feel for you, with it instantaneously growing, was it like?

It felt like I turned to the other guy, this guy was standing on this side of the bed, the guy that prayed for me, and there was a guy from my men's Bible study at church that had brought him down, actually two guys, and Brian and Greg, and I turned to Brian, and I said to him, man, it just felt like a snake or a hose came uncoiled inside me, because I could feel something round, cylindrical, going around in circles, I was literally feeling my intestines coming back.

In fact, I had my eyes closed because he was praying, and I opened my eyes to look at my belly, because I expected to see my belly to stick out, because I could literally feel them coming back in about 20 seconds, maybe 20 seconds, something like that, I guess.

What? This is insane, and like, what if he didn't respond to God's persistence to wake him up at five, to spend $900, to fly over, when you say no to God, that's what you're saying, that's what you could be saying no to.

Right, right. You know? Like, glory to God for like, leveraging, like that is, that man did God's work, but like, what God did to like, place that man, and you don't know this man.

I'd met him one time, I'd met him one time, and you know, the weird thing is, I had this sense that if he wouldn't, like God had picked him for some reason, if he wouldn't have come, I think I would have died.

I don't think, because other people prayed for me in the hospital and nothing happened, lots of people were praying for me in the hospital, nothing happened, for whatever reason, God picked that guy to come and pray for me, and I think if he wouldn't have, I think I would have died.

So you're right, I think it is very important for us as Christians to be obedient, because we have no idea what effect our obedience is going to make, or what effect our disobedience is going to make, I guess.

When Prayers for Healing Go Unanswered

And I think that you have a very nuanced sense of sympathy and empathy for people that pray and don't hear a response, because you experienced that until you didn't. And so, do you have like a word of wisdom to people that are like, I have been praying and I have not received that miraculous, like what do you say to encourage them?

You know what, that is so hard, and I pray for people almost every day on the phone, and that is actually the hardest thing for me to deal with in this prayer ministry, is when people don't get their prayer answered and they've been praying for a long, long time, and it is heartbreaking, and it is confusing, and you know, all we can go back to is what the Bible says, that God hears our prayers, he promises to answer the best in his timing, it's not our timing, he says he knows all things, I mean, there's all those, I don't wanna say cliche answers, but all the answers that we know as Christians, and sometimes when you're in the middle of the battle, those answers honestly don't feel like they're good enough, I'm just gonna say.

You know, if your kid's dying of cancer and you're praying and God's not healing him, and somebody says, you know, God says his grace is sufficient, I mean, yeah, that's in the Bible, but man, when you're in the one in the fire, it doesn't feel good to hear that answer.

A thousand percent, I think that's really honest, that like, yes, I would love for that to be sufficient for my feelings, but my feelings aren't suddenly gone.

Right, and so again, you just hit on it, and really that's what it comes down to, because there's some things in my life that I've prayed for my whole entire life and have not, the needle has not moved, and so I think just knowing that he hears us, even if he hasn't answered the way we want, knowing that he hears us and that he knows best, and it's so hard to believe that, that's what faith is, right, believing that he knows best, despite what our circumstances tell us, that's really what faith is, and that's hard, because like I said, I've got a couple things in my life that I've prayed about my whole life that I haven't been answered, and it's stuff, it's big, it's big stuff to me, and so I totally get it, and I totally understand when people, you know, when it doesn't make sense, because there's things in my life that I will say the same thing, man, this just doesn't make sense to my emotions.

I can make sense of the Bible, and yeah, we could write down facts, write down verses, and you know, come up with theological debate to say, okay, this is why, but you know, that's sometimes a big disconnect from our feelings.

You know? I think it is, but even on the flip side, you know, we're talking about, like sometimes God doesn't answer, but when God does answer, is it because we earned it, or is it just simply mercy? You know, I think that it's like, well, were you a perfect person to receive such a big miracle?

No, so here's the answer to that. Literally, one of the first times.

Mercy, Human Weakness, and Why God Saves

I was on international television, and the host said, I'm reading in your bio here that doctors save you, the lowlands lived. After having arteries severed in five places, he said, why would God save you?

And I was like, that's a good question. Immediately, the Holy Spirit told me, 1 Corinthians chapter one, starting at verse 26, open it up and read it. Literally, I wasn't even sure what was there. I mean, literally, it was just the whisper of the Holy Spirit telling me to go to that spot.

I read it, and I'm just gonna paraphrase, but this is what it says. God chooses the weak things, the lowly things, the despised things, the things that are not, so that no one may boast before him. So for me, he literally, the Holy Spirit gave me an answer to tell everybody, and I was just ministering last night, three and a half hours from here, and I started that service, just like I start lots of them, by quoting, opening the Bible, and reading those exact verses and saying, look, God saved me to set the bar so low, to say, look, if I would save that rebellious knucklehead, then anybody is okay.

Because if I could save him, I will save anybody, because he is the last one that would ever deserve it. So my story is not about being good enough, my story is pure mercy, and mercy just means not getting the punishment we deserve.

So that's the reason why I'm spending the rest of my life telling people, look, God loves us despite us. I know despite me, I'll speak for myself. God loves me despite me. People are like, oh, now that you have this accent, I'm sure you're like a super amazing Christian that doesn't have issues.

Oh no, I've still got all kinds of issues. I mean, I could just go right through and name them off, be like, really? I mean, yeah, angry driver, anger issues, potty mouth, I mean, just fill in the blank, lots of issues.