Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - Perez Hilton, Demonic Possession, and the Reality of Spiritual Warfare

00:00:00.000 well billy thank you for joining the riley gain show i'll tell you i honestly feel like this is

00:00:09.460 a long time coming uh just in the way that the things both of us feel passionate and and you

00:00:16.140 know care deeply about they overlap so well and so your most recent documentary me and my husband

00:00:21.800 actually just got the chance to sit down and watch it and i just i had to have you on to discuss some

00:00:27.240 of these things. These are things that, of course, my audience cares about the people who watch and

00:00:32.520 listen to this show, but more broadly speaking. So thank you for the work that you've been doing

00:00:38.900 over the past few years and investigating the supernatural, which that seems like a pretty

00:00:44.140 broad term. Even myself, I learned a lot of someone who's always considered myself spiritual,

00:00:50.160 you know, spending time every single day reading scripture, of course, in prayer. I've always

00:00:54.800 written off ufos entirely like it just seems too far-fetched for me but you guys provided a new

00:01:01.080 light on on what far-fetched really means uh you spend some time kind of exploring the

00:01:07.160 unexplained phenomena of extraterrestrials and ufos and how there could be a spiritual

00:01:13.060 component to that so before we get into like the angels and demons portion of it which people

00:01:17.740 maybe have a mocked up vision in their mind of when they hear the word angel right you you

00:01:22.300 picture the glowing halo and when you hear the word demon it's like the little red horned guy

00:01:27.620 with with the pitchfork um but can you talk about specifically the extraterrestrial component and

00:01:34.360 how that pertains to being supernatural and the spiritual component to it yeah no i love that

00:01:40.060 question because i think this is something it's so wild when we were planning this and filming it

00:01:44.840 you know um investigating the supernatural angels and demons came out this year and you know last

00:01:50.120 year even the year before that we were like do we need to include angels i'm sorry aliens do we need

00:01:54.640 to include ufos is that something we should do and we had no idea obviously culture was starting

00:01:59.220 to talk about it but you have the ufo files now you have the government files there's been so much

00:02:03.680 cultural conversation we had decided to include some of that um in the film beforehand because

00:02:09.260 we thought look people might really want an explanation on this what really blew my mind

00:02:13.880 is we brought in an expert on this dr hugh ross who has looked at ufos probably more than anyone

00:02:19.900 and this is an astrophysicist, so he's incredibly smart and intelligent.

00:02:23.540 He's also a Christian.

00:02:25.000 His perspective on this is really unique, and you see this in the film.

00:02:28.600 You know, a lot of people right now, they – I'm like you, by the way, Raleigh.

00:02:31.800 I have also felt like this is not true.

00:02:34.360 There aren't aliens.

00:02:35.220 This is – like people aren't even seeing anything.

00:02:36.760 There's nothing going on.

00:02:38.400 His perspective is that 99% of the time, there's a natural explanation for what people claim they're seeing in the skies, right?

00:02:45.160 They're seeing bright lights.

00:02:46.220 They're seeing these things.

00:02:47.180 Usually, it might be something the government's doing.

00:02:49.080 Maybe there's some drones. There's something that has a natural explanation, but he calls them UAPs.

00:02:55.160 These are unidentified objects. And he said 1% of the cases in his perspective are unidentified.

00:03:02.460 You can't figure out what they are and there is no natural explanation.

00:03:05.240 So obviously we're asking him, well, what is the explanation then?

00:03:09.140 And this is really fascinating because Hugh believes that you're dealing with the demonic still,

00:03:14.780 that you're dealing with either angels or demons, mostly demons, and that when you think you're

00:03:20.220 seeing in that 1%, you know, UFO in the sky. And by the way, Riley, there are a lot of people who

00:03:25.680 claim that they've had interactions with aliens that they've been abducted, which to me has always

00:03:29.420 seemed absurd. I've always thought that's ridiculous. But he gets into some of those 0.50

00:03:33.720 stories as well. And one of the things that was really interesting in talking to him, you know,

00:03:39.520 And just to kind of, before I go into that, his summary, his thesis, just to clarify this, is that there are no aliens, that what people are experiencing is demonic, right?

00:03:48.860 So starting there, the question then to him would be, well, then what evidence do you have of that?

00:03:54.040 Because anybody could just say that.

00:03:55.660 And he started getting into some of the data.

00:03:57.720 One of the things that was so interesting is that the people who claim to have been abducted by aliens, who have had some kind of experience with them, when you break apart that experience and you look across all of those accounts,

00:04:08.700 most of those people talk about the very same things that people who are dealing with demonic

00:04:13.920 possession would recount and they're terrified they're not good experiences the they're basically

00:04:20.600 interacting with these quote-unquote aliens in the same way that people have reported interacting or

00:04:25.000 dealing with demons so there's that but i think more from a data perspective what was so interesting

00:04:30.840 is in the places in the country where there is concentrated occult activity okay in those places

00:04:37.980 meaning people are engaging in Ouija boards and magic and all these other things, right?

00:04:42.340 That again, seems strange, but the Bible talks about these things, that those locations have

00:04:47.320 a higher percentage of people who claim to have seen UFOs or have interacted with aliens.

00:04:52.260 That's really interesting because the Bible seems to indicate that when you're dealing

00:04:56.740 with psychics and all these other things that you're opening doors, you should not open.

00:05:01.800 And so if people in a geographic area are doing that more frequently and they're seeing

00:05:06.120 ufos more than his thesis of hey this is actually just a demonic deception that people are seeing

00:05:11.800 is really interesting and i would just put to put a bow on that say look you've got like four

00:05:17.460 different options here the first option is that none of this is real that people aren't seeing

00:05:21.960 anything right that's your first option your second option is that you know aliens are real

00:05:27.260 and they exist and they live on other planets and they're flying around your third option is kind of

00:05:31.820 a middle ground one which is basically that these aliens these these demons you know maybe they're

00:05:38.360 not actually demons but there's some sort of spiritual entity that god has created and that

00:05:42.800 there's some mystery there and then the fourth one is that they're potentially demonic and so

00:05:47.060 i think it's interesting people are going to fall in one of those four categories

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00:06:20.740 Yeah, you guys concluded

00:06:22.200 the documentary with talking about

00:06:24.020 spiritual warfare and how we

00:06:25.980 as Christians, but

00:06:27.700 larger as human beings, how we kind of combat the spiritual warfare that we are all, whether we even

00:06:33.940 realize it or not, actively engaging in or at least are witnessing from the sidelines. And so

00:06:40.020 I want to get to that in a minute. But to stick to the topic of demons specifically and demonic

00:06:45.700 possession, you sat down and interviewed a board-certified psychiatrist who had seen over

00:06:50.860 100 cases of demonic oppression and possession, which prior to watching this documentary, I didn't

00:06:56.800 know there was a difference between the two he had some some pretty crazy stories to tell some

00:07:02.640 pretty scary interactions at least interactions that would would leave me terrified uh what does

00:07:08.640 the bible what does scripture actually teach about demons and their activity especially in the world

00:07:15.740 that we are living in now no that that is actually a really important question because one of the

00:07:22.620 things that i spent a lot of time doing on these projects was going back to the bible and isolating

00:07:26.580 out evil, right? So, I had never done that before. I'd never read the Bible to be like, okay, well,

00:07:31.060 what does the Bible say about Satan? Well, the Bible says that Satan comes to kill, steal, and

00:07:34.860 destroy, right? He comes to confuse. All of those things are elements that we see in our culture

00:07:39.280 right now. Confusion, death, destruction, infighting, causing drama, you know, causing

00:07:45.740 people to be distracted, all of those things. You then look at, well, what do demons do? Well,

00:07:49.800 they do the same thing because they work for the enemy, right? So, when you read the New Testament

00:07:53.840 in particular it's really interesting you're never told how somebody and i love that you brought up

00:07:58.540 oppression versus possession we could talk about that in a moment you're never told how somebody

00:08:03.080 becomes possessed you meet them possessed already and then they're healed and that had never dawned

00:08:08.620 on me before i thought that has to be intentional right like you know yeah you're never told like

00:08:12.780 how did they get there how did that happen to them um and there are some hints in scripture

00:08:17.780 we talked about avoiding certain activities the old testament talks a lot about you know not

00:08:22.100 engaging with psychics and people who speak to the dead and all of that um but there are other

00:08:26.560 ways there are other things that can open you up to that but we're never told that but what we see

00:08:30.680 is that demons create chaos they like to draw attention to themselves which is a stark contrast

00:08:36.800 to what angels do and i think this is really interesting because most of the majority viewpoint

00:08:42.240 is that demons are fallen angels right that that they're angels that use their free will to turn

00:08:48.260 on God. That is the predominant. There are other theories. We could talk about that theory on what

00:08:53.060 demons are. But what we see in scripture is, you know, in one story, there's a little boy who's

00:08:58.180 possessed, which is actually a terrifying story. And that little boy is being thrown in the water

00:09:03.260 to be drowned, or he's being thrown in the fire. The demons are trying to kill him. They're trying 0.79

00:09:08.180 to destroy this little boy. And so you see that, and you see Jesus tell that little boy. You see

00:09:13.540 these two men coming out of caves. They're acting crazy. They're screaming. They're ranting.

00:09:18.120 These are the descriptions that we're given that are very terrifying in scripture and that do make

00:09:23.480 you think to yourself, goodness, I hope to never be possessed. And so, you know, I want to follow

00:09:27.340 the Lord so that doesn't happen to me. But, you know, angels, you know, you didn't ask this,

00:09:31.660 but I think it's important as we're talking about this. Contrary to that, angels actually,

00:09:36.240 they come to minister to people, they deliver a message and they leave. They don't stick around.

00:09:40.960 Demons stick around. So Richard Gallagher, Dr. Richard Gallagher, who you're speaking about, that's who we interviewed in the documentary, and he was a skeptic. He was somebody, and this kind of brings us into today, because the big question is, well, are all those crazy stories that we see in scripture, are they still happening today?

00:09:58.840 And there are a lot of people who would say no. I would say yes. I think our investigation has led us to a yes. Dr. Richard Gallagher was approached by the Catholic Church. He was asked, hey, would you come in and be a essentially be sort of the person who tells us whether or not these people are crazy? They're dealing with mental health or they're possessed. And he's like, look, I'm a skeptic. I don't think I'm the person for that. And they were like, no, no, no. You're the perfect person for that.

00:10:22.980 And so after he started investigating those stories, real life stories that were happening

00:10:26.780 today, he very quickly became a believer because the stories were so wild.

00:10:32.460 What about, did you happen to see the video of Perez Hilton recently?

00:10:37.700 I hope you did it for your own sake.

00:10:39.440 I didn't watch the video.

00:10:40.660 I saw the photos.

00:10:41.680 I saw the photos.

00:10:42.480 Oh my gosh.

00:10:42.680 It was so graphic and horrific and horrible.

00:10:45.920 But just to put it, I guess, audibly for those who didn't get the visual context, you have

00:10:51.800 pres hilton who's standing there i mean naked unclothed his body is entirely red you have to

00:10:58.320 assume it's from blood and cutting himself uh he had a knife in his hand and like i'm talking his

00:11:04.380 face his arms his his abdomen like like all over could something like that be demonic possession

00:11:11.680 because it's the first thing i thought when i saw it but i don't know as someone who hasn't

00:11:17.180 necessarily done the research and understanding what possession really is beyond what i see in

00:11:22.620 horror films that's immediately where my mind went but i don't know how rare demonic possession

00:11:27.580 really is yeah well i'll directly answer that but before i do i'll say this kind of brings it back

00:11:34.120 to the possession versus oppression conversation because there's so much there like possession is

00:11:39.860 when a person is completely overtaken by demons like they're they the demons can overtake them

00:11:45.460 can control them i do think that is much rarer it does happen it's it does happen um it's much

00:11:52.700 rarer than oppression oppression is when evil when demons are around you when they're inflicting when

00:11:59.480 they're sort of they're not in you but they're kind of pushing in on you or they're creating or

00:12:03.300 wreaking havoc that's something that i think we see in ephesians 6 we see ephesians 6 talking about

00:12:08.420 that that even christians are going to face i don't believe a christian can be fully possessed

00:12:12.180 So I think if you have the Holy Spirit, you cannot be fully possessed, but I do think you can be oppressed and that oppression might take on different forms.

00:12:19.900 It may be, again, that there are things happening in your life, they're happening around you, but they're not, it's not in you.

00:12:25.140 When I saw the Perez photos and I read the story, my first thought was this feels demonic.

00:12:33.120 Now, I want to be very careful with that because we can't know.

00:12:35.880 And this is where it gets tricky. And I think a lot of people get very uncomfortable because you have a debate about mental health versus spiritual health, right? Is a person struggling with mental health or are they dealing with spiritual health? That was what Dr. Richard Gallagher was called in to determine. I do think, though, that almost every mental health affliction, just like a physical affliction, just like a or a sin that somebody is struggling with, which is different from that, it can attract evil, meaning that evil can sort of latch onto those things.

00:13:05.480 And if you have a weak point of anything, right, whatever that weak point is, I mean, think about this strategically.

00:13:10.100 Even if you're a nonbeliever and you think this is all ridiculous, if I have some issue I'm dealing with, why would Satan, who comes to kill, steal, destroy, and confuse?

00:13:18.920 Why would he not try to use that thing to get at me or to confuse me more or to destroy something in my life?

00:13:25.080 So I do think you're often dealing with situations where it's both, where a person is struggling with both.

00:13:30.140 It's like the chicken or the egg.

00:13:31.920 When I saw that with Perez, my mind went back to the story of Elijah in the Old Testament,

00:13:38.380 which I just read because I'm doing Bible in a year, where Elijah is literally going

00:13:42.840 up against the worshipers of Baal, and there's like 400 and some odd of them, and it's just

00:13:47.260 him.

00:13:47.540 He's the last remaining prophet, and they're trying to call down fire from heaven, and 0.96

00:13:52.740 he's able to do it very easily. 0.76

00:13:55.160 They're not, and they're cutting themselves to make it happen.

00:13:57.920 And it just made my mind go back to that.

00:14:00.700 But I do think it's entirely possible.

00:14:02.940 I think there are people saying a lot of things right now in culture that might be motivated by evil, and they might not even realize it.

00:14:10.140 So I've been encouraging people on the Price Hilton front, pray for this person, because I will say this, and this is really important.

00:14:16.540 He claims he had an experience with Jesus when he was in the hospital.

00:14:20.100 Everybody latched on to that.

00:14:21.480 Everybody was talking about it.

00:14:22.920 He was listening to praise and worship music.

00:14:24.560 And then you see this thing happen and you think, is this just mental health or is there

00:14:28.960 a spiritual battle going on for this person?

00:14:31.180 Either way, we should be praying for him.

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00:16:50.640 Gaines for 25% off at checkout. Okay. Now on a lighter note and talking about angels, right?

00:16:59.460 Again, we have the visual in our heads, or at least I do. I pictured that little person on my

00:17:04.440 shoulder, um, glowing the halo, the wings, all of the above. What does scripture actually tell us

00:17:11.400 about angels yeah this is so i was doing another interview earlier today and we got a chance to um

00:17:17.460 talk more about this i mean angels there are different types of angels there are different

00:17:22.660 descriptions in ezekiel there's some really wild descriptions of what they look like you know i

00:17:27.500 mean like like just a huge enormous kind of scary descriptions of what they look like but

00:17:32.520 and this is really interesting because you you know you have a young you have a young baby and

00:17:36.640 i think as we talk to little kids about angels we tend to have this image of them like these

00:17:41.260 cute little babies with wings right and it's like one of the verses that is so convicting to me and

00:17:46.720 so fascinating to me is the one that talks about you might entertain angels unaware like meaning

00:17:52.540 you might be talking to a person or helping somebody or you might see somebody on the side

00:17:56.880 of the road and you might i don't know like is it an angel is it not like that they look like people

00:18:02.200 we see in the story of sodom and gomorrah which is obviously a heavy story um but with a lot you

00:18:07.500 see these these angels and the way the story goes it sounds like they look like people and so angels

00:18:14.020 take on different forms they look different but but i think that for little kids telling that story

00:18:19.360 about like even how do we treat other people because i was at a gas station in the middle of

00:18:23.820 dc in the middle of the night recently at an event i had to get gas it was like 4 a.m and i see this

00:18:28.560 guy like walking around he was clearly homeless and i'm like he's going to come over to me i know

00:18:33.340 he is. He ends up coming over to me and asking for food, not for money, for food. And we ended

00:18:39.340 up going into the gas station, getting food. And I prayed with him after. And I felt like, okay,

00:18:43.900 God, the whole, this full interaction was said, I would pray with this guy. Like I knew that,

00:18:47.340 like I could feel that I knew it. So I did. And that doesn't happen to me very often.

00:18:50.980 But as I drove away, I felt like, I wonder where that guy's going from here. And it did cross my

00:18:55.300 mind. And I'm not saying I think he was an angel, but I thought like, what if he was right? Like

00:18:59.100 these opportunities that we have to serve other people, that verse about entertaining angels

00:19:05.120 unaware, I think is a great one for us to teach our kids because it kills like 10 birds with one

00:19:09.880 stone, what angels might look like, also how we treat people. But the purpose of angels, Riley,

00:19:14.940 I think is really interesting. I hinted at this earlier, but the Bible tells us that angels are

00:19:20.440 here as ministering spirits, right? That they, I think there's a lot that they do that we don't

00:19:25.100 see. There's a lot of help they give us. I've heard so many stories of people in horrific

00:19:30.320 accidents, bad things happening where they were protected in miraculous ways. It could have been

00:19:35.300 God directly, or maybe he sent his angels to do it. We tell some interesting stories in the film

00:19:39.600 about both life and death and also simple things that angels have done. The point is they're there

00:19:45.420 to glorify God. They show up, they deliver a message, and they leave. They're not sticking

00:19:49.520 around. They're not like demons. They behave very differently. If anybody bows down to worship

00:19:54.480 them and this is really important because there's a whole new age movement out there there's these

00:19:58.380 angel cards which you essentially you're trying to they're basically tarot cards for angels

00:20:02.660 people trying to connect with angels and we don't pray to angels we don't communicate with them if

00:20:06.980 anybody in scripture tries to worship them they tell them to stop and to glorify god that's really

00:20:12.200 interesting demons they want they want to be seen and glorified all right you guys if you've watched

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00:21:34.700 Riley Gaines show sent you. Yeah, it's unexplainable. I guess my, my next question for

00:21:41.620 you is, how do we know? It might be, you know, this might be, there might not be an answer for

00:21:47.900 this, but how do we know if we're encountering angels or demons? Is there a way to know for sure?

00:21:56.320 Yeah, that's a really good question because the Bible tells us to test every spirit. And I think

00:22:01.660 that's a really interesting Bible version, test every spirit. And so I think you can know, 0.99

00:22:08.600 And by the way, this is, again, really important.

00:22:10.180 We never pray to angels.

00:22:11.520 We don't need to seek communication with any of these beings, right?

00:22:15.500 I think one of the challenges that the new age has, when people pick up a Ouija board

00:22:19.600 or they pick up tarot cards or they go to a psychic, a lot of times people are doing

00:22:23.380 that because they're desperate.

00:22:24.440 They want to connect with a loved one.

00:22:25.800 They feel like, so they're seeking out this communication.

00:22:28.620 We're never supposed to seek out that communication.

00:22:31.240 And what they don't realize is that they're often dealing with the demonic.

00:22:35.220 You know, I have a number of friends who are former psychics, ex-psychics, and they will tell you that when they were working, they're now Christians, in that realm, they really believed that they were talking to good spirits.

00:22:46.840 They really believed they were talking to the dead. 0.85

00:22:48.600 They're even deceived.

00:22:49.620 So you have to test the spirits because it can often feel like something good when it's actually not and when it will turn out to not be good later on.

00:22:57.680 And, you know, so I don't think we have to obsess over whether or not, you know, we're

00:23:02.780 talking to an, you're dealing with an angel or a demon, but it will become very apparent

00:23:06.140 because demons, all those attributes of them, they just like Satan, kill, steal, destroy, 0.57

00:23:11.420 confuse.

00:23:12.120 You see those things when people talk about their houses being haunted, right?

00:23:15.220 We hear this a lot.

00:23:15.960 I don't, I don't believe that people die and remain behind.

00:23:18.820 I don't think there's, you know, human spirits floating around.

00:23:21.360 I think you're dealing with good and evil.

00:23:22.780 You're dealing with angels and demons.

00:23:24.700 That's what you're dealing with.

00:23:25.840 and they're masquerading as though they're ghosts.

00:23:29.520 And so, you know, whenever you're dealing with an angel,

00:23:31.180 it's going to be something positive.

00:23:32.500 It's going to be something, you know, helpful.

00:23:34.740 When you're dealing with a demon,

00:23:36.220 it's going to be something that ends up in the end

00:23:38.520 being very damaging.

00:23:40.480 You've kind of alluded to the cultural battles

00:23:43.060 that we've been fighting over the past,

00:23:45.680 I mean, for me personally, a few years,

00:23:48.360 but of course that have existed

00:23:49.360 since the beginning of humanity.

00:23:52.280 How do you think, I guess, politics and religion intersect

00:23:56.260 Because one of the things that has disappointed me tremendously over the past few years, I think, at least in what I've noticed really since 2020, is the amount of pastors who don't engage in the cultural battles because they say they don't want to get political.

00:24:12.580 What's kind of your response there?

00:24:14.240 And how do politics and religion overlap and intersect with one another?

00:24:18.760 Well, I'll tell you who loves this narrative that politics shouldn't be present anywhere.

00:24:24.020 I think that it shouldn't be present in the church.

00:24:27.280 I think it's probably the enemy who loves it, because guess what?

00:24:30.220 If you don't talk about politics, and I'm not saying you have to tell people to be a

00:24:33.740 Republican or a Democrat, you talk about the issues.

00:24:35.840 You talk about the issues.

00:24:37.420 Riley, it took you, and I'm so grateful for you, for your platform.

00:24:41.320 As a friend, I'm very grateful to you that you have stood up and you have told the truth

00:24:45.900 about things that a lot of pastors weren't willing to do.

00:24:49.040 And it takes a certain boldness.

00:24:51.200 And I'm not just saying this because I'm talking to you right now to do that.

00:24:53.640 We see it with Sophie Cunningham. We see people who are willing to step up and do what churches sometimes are not willing to do. Again, this is not about having a get out the vote drive and say you have to go out and be a Republican or a Democrat or whatever. It's about actually dealing with real issues. These issues, gender, abortion, identity, all of these things, they're actually biblical issues.

00:25:17.520 They're very real issues. Even the borders. Yes. The economy, all of these things. These are biblical issues. They matter. And it's such a lie. And it's such a trick. I think the secular left loves it because guess what? Their religion is very much a part of their politics and they have every right for it to be. But they're out there telling Christians, oh, you know what? You know, separation of church and state, right? This whole lie of the separation of church and state.

00:25:44.300 you shouldn't have any involvement of your faith in any of this it is nonsense and so the role i

00:25:49.220 think is to talk about real issues and to be bold and to do it the way that you have and i think we

00:25:53.900 are seeing more pastors do that because here's the thing look at what's happened you have young

00:26:00.560 people who are irreparably harmed as a result of the gender lie everyone looked the other way

00:26:05.080 because they didn't want to deal with what you had to deal with they didn't want to deal with

00:26:08.060 any pushback and you know we see that on a lot of other issues so i would say that you know

00:26:13.160 the issues politics need to be a part of what churches are addressing and talking about

00:26:18.440 there was a line um towards the end of the documentary um that you guys put together and

00:26:25.660 it convicted me honestly because i feel like so much of the news cycle the news that we consume

00:26:31.280 on a daily basis whether it's it's global news uh u.s news even happening in our local communities

00:26:38.000 what tends to take the headlines is the outrageous things.

00:26:41.460 And when you consume outrage, you feel outrage, right?

00:26:45.160 It's so much doom and gloom.

00:26:46.600 But there was a line in there in talking about how we combat this spiritual warfare.

00:26:52.180 I think he said something to the effect of you'll live your life very differently

00:26:56.260 if you live like you're on vacation as opposed to living like you're in a war zone.

00:27:01.320 And so I guess my question for you is if angels and demons are real,

00:27:05.900 like we know they are because the Bible tells us they are, if spiritual warfare is real and there

00:27:11.200 truly is a world beyond what we can physically see, then how should we change the way that we live?

00:27:21.020 Oh, gosh. I mean, it's convicting to me, too, because I think I've spent, you know, I told you

00:27:25.580 I'm 42. I've spent the bulk of my life trying to build a career for myself, trying to build things

00:27:29.680 that I want to build, trying to acquire things for myself, trying to get ahead, right? I think we all

00:27:35.060 do that um and yet there's people who need to hear the truth that are desperate to hear the truth

00:27:40.560 people who and i believe this as a christian i don't mean this to be offensive you know people

00:27:45.220 who if they don't hear the truth won't get to be with the lord after won't get like all the things

00:27:49.620 we think that matter they kind of matter but they don't really matter the things that matter should

00:27:54.600 be the things that we're living the things that we're doing in our lives trying to reach other

00:27:58.020 people so i've tried to shift my focus in the last couple years to yeah i would love to make that

00:28:03.220 movie or do that thing or do that media project, but is that what God wants me to do? We should

00:28:08.100 be living our lives. And again, this is convicted of me even now at moments, because I'm not perfect

00:28:12.240 at this, living our lives for him, not for ourselves. When Jesus is asked, what are the

00:28:17.860 two most important commandments, right? You know, in the 10 commandments, he talks about love God,

00:28:23.260 love others. It's like, are we doing that? Loving God isn't just this fluffy thing. It's

00:28:27.240 dying to yourself, putting God first. Maybe you have feelings and thoughts and practices and

00:28:31.740 behaviors that don't line up with what God says is true, push those to the side, live for him,

00:28:36.800 love other people. You know, if we're in this battle that is going on, which I believe we are,

00:28:41.880 we have to lead with that and then help other people find the truth. So I think that's what

00:28:47.720 this is really about. You know, I didn't take an extra penny from these documentaries, honestly,

00:28:53.520 and I haven't, you know, outside of my, what I do. And I don't even know why I'm sharing that,

00:28:57.500 but I'm sharing because I think it's important. You know, we devoted a lot of time to this. I,

00:29:00.580 to me at the end of the day when all is said and done what is our legacy going to be our legacy

00:29:06.400 should be pointing people to him that's all that really matters all right you guys i know that

00:29:11.640 electrolyte brands are everywhere right now so i get the skepticism but real light is the one that

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00:30:03.700 That is redmond.com slash hydrate.

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00:30:11.620 You can scan the QR code on your screen or you can check the pinned comment.

00:30:16.860 Oh, that's good.

00:30:18.480 And I think you, I don't know, for me at least, once you have a child of your own.

00:30:24.200 Yeah, this one, I think, out of the three, I mean, I've said this with everyone, but then you get into the next one, you're like, this is so interesting, has been the most interesting to me.

00:30:31.780 Because over the years, I've covered many stories of people who have claimed to have had heaven experiences.

00:30:36.800 They've clinically died.

00:30:38.480 Some people haven't clinically died, which is also interesting, but they've claimed to have had this experience of going up to heaven, interacting with Jesus even.

00:30:45.200 There are many people who struggle with these stories.

00:30:48.140 There are some Christians who believe they're not biblical, that they don't align with scripture.

00:30:52.240 One of the things that I have found deeply compelling, Lee Strobel and others in the Christian world have also been looking at these stories.

00:30:59.580 John Burke has probably spent more time.

00:31:01.860 He's a pastor and an author.

00:31:03.540 He wrote a book called Imagine Heaven, looking at these stories than anyone else.

00:31:07.440 And both of them are in our film, both Lee and both John Burke and Lee.

00:31:12.840 You know, we really wanted to go in and look at the veracity of these claims.

00:31:17.220 How do you do that?

00:31:17.960 I think you just asked the question, like, how can you verify whether or not people have actually gone to heaven or hell, which is why the film is called Investigate the Supernatural, Heaven and Hell.

00:31:27.700 One thing that we could do, and this is very intriguing and has stuck with me, is we can look at the details.

00:31:33.840 Okay, was this person legally, clinically deceased when these things happened?

00:31:39.640 That's actually a really important detail.

00:31:41.280 Can a hospital verify that?

00:31:43.060 So we know there was no brain activity when they claimed they were having this experience.

00:31:47.000 That's one thing we looked at.

00:31:48.320 The other thing is, were they able to come back and explain things or tell us things

00:31:54.160 that they couldn't have known otherwise?

00:31:57.140 So I'll give you an example of that.

00:31:59.680 And we unpack this a lot more in the film, but both actually Lee Strobel told this story

00:32:03.520 in his book, Seeing the Supernatural.

00:32:06.980 There was a woman who was having surgery in a hospital and something happened.

00:32:11.560 She flatlined, she dies on the table.

00:32:13.560 she claimed to rise above her body and go out of the hospital okay had this near-death experience

00:32:19.320 now people can dismiss that but when she came back she told the hospital staff that there was

00:32:23.600 a pair of white shoes on the roof of the hospital and she described the color and the location of

00:32:28.480 those shoes this is not a person who had ever been on the roof of the hospital how many of us

00:32:31.880 have been on the roof of a hospital she described exactly what was on that roof there was another

00:32:37.140 example of a ceiling fan in a hospital room that had a red tag on the top of it you couldn't see

00:32:42.520 the red tag unless you were risen above your body and you were able to see it. Those are minor

00:32:47.900 details, small details, but they're important. In our film that we're talking about today,

00:32:53.360 Investing in the Supernatural Angels and Demons, Bruce Venata, he had an experience like that

00:32:58.580 where he was crushed by a truck. It's a crazy story. You know it, Riley, because you watched.

00:33:03.340 He was crushed by a truck. He died underneath that truck. He claimed that he rose 15 feet above

00:33:07.300 his body okay well he could be lying but here's the thing he was able to identify in a lineup the

00:33:13.240 two emts who came through that building while he was dead he's dead under a truck the only way he

00:33:20.020 could identify them coming through the back door is if he were 15 feet in the air watching them

00:33:26.020 when they came through so that just gives you a hint of sort of what we're looking at in those

00:33:30.580 stories and again i have said this in multiple interviews i'm going to say in this interview

00:33:34.840 we have we've had two movies that have already come out investigating the supernatural miracles

00:33:39.520 and then angels and demons if you watch those films you can go to cbn.com forward slash supernatural

00:33:45.540 and you walk away with another explanation of what is going on email me go to billyhalwell.com

00:33:51.720 i read every email email me and let me know to this day nobody has challenged these stories which

00:33:57.040 i find really funny and like i'm happy like bring your objections on and so i think you'll find in

00:34:02.780 that next film, even more of those kinds of stories that are hard to sort of dismiss.

00:34:09.220 Thank you guys for watching the Riley Gaines show. You can subscribe right here. We have

00:34:13.360 new episodes every single Tuesday and Friday at 10 a.m. Eastern time, and we are covering

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Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - September 08, 2026

Perez Hilton, Demonic Possession, and the Reality of Spiritual Warfare

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