The Tucker Carlson Show - Lee Strobel： Possession, Miracles, Visions, and Encounters With Angels & Demons

00:00:00.000 So we're told there's no state religion in the West, certainly not in the United States, but in fact, there is. It's scientism. It's the worship of science. It's the belief, and all of us learn this at a young age, that everything around us, everything we experience can be measured by people in white coats. That's science. If it can't be measured, it's not real.

00:00:20.020 The problem with this religion is that our life, our daily experience, contradicts it. Constantly, all of us are seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling things that can't be measured by science, but it doesn't make them any less real. These are, by definition, supernatural. Supernatural experiences are a feature of everyone's life, and if we're honest, we'll admit that.

00:00:45.440 So what do they mean exactly? Well, Lee Strobel was a reporter. He worked for the Chicago Tribune and left and became a pastor. So he has religious faith, but also a grounding in empiricism, the desire to prove things.

00:01:02.300 He is the perfect person to write. He is the perfect person to write the book that he did about the supernatural. That would be dreams, mystical dreams, near-death experiences, miracles, ghosts. We sat down with him to hear just how common these experiences are and what they mean.

00:01:32.300 Lee Strobel, so you've written a book. I don't do a lot of book interviews, but I couldn't resist this one.

00:01:46.860 Seeing the supernatural, investigating angels, demons, mystical dreams, near-death encounters, and other mysteries of the unseen world.

00:01:56.580 Right. I think a lot of us sense or know on some level, in fact, I think everybody knows on some level, that there is a world that science can't measure or quantify.

00:02:07.360 Yeah.

00:02:08.020 That there is, you know, that there's stuff that we can't explain.

00:02:12.840 Yeah.

00:02:13.100 But that it's no less real for our inability to explain it. So let's go through the list.

00:02:17.960 Yeah. You know, by the way, I was an atheist. I'm trained in journalism and law. And so I'm always looking for corroboration.

00:02:24.740 Yeah. I'm looking for evidence. I'm looking for facts. And so you're right. I think there's an intuitive sense that most people have that there's something beyond what we can see, touch, and put in a test to.

00:02:33.440 Eight out of 10 Americans believe that. But how do we know? What is the evidence? And that's what I try to get into in the book.

00:02:40.480 How can we be sure through corroborated evidence that indeed there are such things as miracles, as near-death experiences, as deathbed encounters, and mystical dreams, and things like that?

00:02:52.140 Yeah. Atheism is the leap of imagination.

00:02:55.520 It is. That's true.

00:02:57.320 It's hard to be an atheist.

00:02:58.620 It's very true.

00:02:59.320 I admire them in a way, though. I feel sorry for them. But anyway, okay. Angels.

00:03:03.000 Yeah.

00:03:04.080 What's an angel?

00:03:05.160 Fascinating. You know, angels are created by God before humankind was created. They are spirit beings. So they're not omniscient like God is. They're not omnipresent like God is.

00:03:17.480 They are, they don't age because there's no physical body. They don't marry because there's no physical body. They're very intelligent, very smart. And they are, according to the Bible, they are to serve not only God, but also his people.

00:03:33.380 Is there, the Christian Bible with the Hebrew Old Testament makes references. Is there any culture in the world that doesn't believe in some form of angel?

00:03:47.400 It's pretty universal. Yeah.

00:03:48.940 It is pretty universal.

00:03:50.220 Like every culture.

00:03:51.220 Yeah. Just virtually every culture.

00:03:52.600 Yeah. The Inuit all the way to the Maya.

00:03:54.820 That's right. That's right.

00:03:55.920 Canaanites.

00:03:56.540 And what's interesting about the Christian interpretation of angels is that it says in the book of Hebrews in the Bible that we should anticipate the possibility that we would encounter an angel.

00:04:08.640 In other words, it says sometimes when you're providing hospitality to someone, unbeknownst to you, it's an angel.

00:04:14.880 And so there's an anticipation that perhaps there could be angelic encounters.

00:04:19.460 And so what I try to look at in the book are cases in which we have angelic encounters.

00:04:25.660 People actually encounter an angel.

00:04:27.780 I'll give you an example.

00:04:28.920 There was a missionary named John G. Payton, P-A-T-O-N, from Scotland.

00:04:33.200 And he went to an island in the South Pacific to be a Christian missionary.

00:04:37.440 And he and his wife were living in a cottage there.

00:04:40.180 And he's talking about Jesus.

00:04:41.740 Well, the local tribespeople didn't quite like that.

00:04:44.880 And so one day, a mob of them came to burn down their house and kill them.

00:04:49.560 So they see this mob forming.

00:04:51.660 And he and his wife are in their house.

00:04:53.900 And what can they do?

00:04:55.220 They start to pray.

00:04:56.340 It's like, God, protect us.

00:04:57.920 Help us.

00:04:59.120 They're going to kill us.

00:05:00.080 They're going to burn our house down.

00:05:01.080 What do we do?

00:05:01.860 And they prayed all night long.

00:05:04.180 And by dawn, the mob began to dissipate.

00:05:08.120 A year later, he led the head of that mob to faith in Jesus Christ.

00:05:12.700 And they're having a conversation.

00:05:15.220 And John said to him, by the way, do you remember that day when you all came to burn down our house and kill us?

00:05:20.580 Why didn't you do it?

00:05:22.660 And the man said, well, who are all those men you had there?

00:05:26.340 He said, I don't know, men.

00:05:27.620 It was just my wife and I.

00:05:28.980 He said, no, no, no.

00:05:29.720 Your house was surrounded by these muscular men in white garments with drawn swords.

00:05:35.340 There's no way we could have hurt you that night.

00:05:38.760 Well, what's the explanation for that?

00:05:41.700 I think it could very well have been an angelic encounter that God had sent angels to protect him.

00:05:47.820 And there's multiple numbers of cases like that.

00:05:52.340 Give me another.

00:05:53.020 Well, I had an encounter myself when I was 12 years old.

00:05:58.440 It was the only dream I remember as a child.

00:06:01.580 It was more of a vision than a dream.

00:06:03.840 An angel appeared to me and started extolling heaven.

00:06:07.380 How beautiful and wonderful heaven is.

00:06:09.660 And I looked at him kind of offhandedly and said, well, you know, I'm going to go there someday.

00:06:14.020 And he looked at me and said, how do you know?

00:06:16.440 And I was shocked by that.

00:06:17.520 How do I know?

00:06:18.520 And I started to kind of stumble around to justify my goodness.

00:06:22.220 I said, well, I obey my parents pretty much.

00:06:24.960 And I get good grades in school.

00:06:26.240 And my friends like me.

00:06:27.400 And I'm trying to justify why I would get into heaven.

00:06:30.040 And he looked at me and he said, that doesn't matter.

00:06:33.480 And this chill went through my spine.

00:06:35.780 How can this not matter?

00:06:38.080 And he said, someday you'll understand.

00:06:41.240 And then disappeared.

00:06:43.020 Well, I kind of wrote it off as being a bad pizza and ultimately became an atheist.

00:06:48.520 But 16 years later, as an atheist, my wife brought me to a church.

00:06:53.320 And I heard the gospel for the first time.

00:06:56.080 That salvation, that the doors of heaven are not flung open based on how nice you are to your parents or how good grades you get in school.

00:07:03.980 It's based on the grace of God.

00:07:06.000 It's not something we earn.

00:07:07.100 It's a free gift of God's grace.

00:07:09.340 And I heard that message for the first time.

00:07:11.580 And my mind flashed back to that dream.

00:07:13.640 And I thought, wait a minute.

00:07:14.600 That's what he was trying to tell me back then.

00:07:17.560 Had you thought a lot about that dream in the subsequent years?

00:07:19.280 It would come to me every once in a while.

00:07:20.720 I'd think about it.

00:07:21.240 I'd just suppress it.

00:07:22.160 It was a bad pizza, you know.

00:07:24.580 But then I thought there's two forms of corroboration there.

00:07:27.460 Number one, that angel told me something when I was 12 years old that I did not already know that salvation is by grace.

00:07:35.840 And secondly, he made a prophecy, a prediction that someday I would understand that came true 16 years later.

00:07:42.800 I think that may have been an angelic encounter that I had.

00:07:47.040 I can't prove it.

00:07:48.060 But that corroboration tells me maybe it really was.

00:07:51.260 So we see cases like this around the world.

00:07:54.980 And it's more than 200 references of angels in the Bible.

00:07:58.900 There's not—

00:07:59.900 Two hundred?

00:08:00.660 Yeah, yeah.

00:08:01.900 So lots of evidence that indeed this is part of God's creation.

00:08:05.480 Interesting.

00:08:06.160 I've been to church.

00:08:06.980 I don't know that I've—probably the wrong kind of church, but I don't know that I've ever heard anyone refer to an angelic church.

00:08:11.600 It's so funny you say that because I was giving a talk the other day and I said, you know, I've been a Christian now since November the 8th of 1981.

00:08:18.140 I have never heard a sermon on the topic of angels.

00:08:21.380 Ever.

00:08:22.240 Ever.

00:08:23.020 Why?

00:08:23.520 I don't know.

00:08:24.880 And I go—and so in this book, I delve into it and I learn some new things.

00:08:29.380 For instance, do we have a guardian angel?

00:08:31.900 Well, there's actually two passages in the Bible that suggest maybe we do have a guardian angel.

00:08:37.020 In one passage, Jesus is talking to a group and there's some children there and he said,

00:08:41.100 do not despise these little ones because their angels see the face of God every day in heaven.

00:08:47.680 Well, who are their angels?

00:08:48.800 And then secondly, Peter, when he escapes from prison, goes to a home where some Christians had gathered and he knocks on the door.

00:08:55.980 And the servant says, who's there?

00:08:57.700 And he says, Peter.

00:08:58.380 And she recognizes his voice and she calls out to the other people and says, hey, Peter's here.

00:09:02.860 Well, I said, can't be here.

00:09:04.120 He's in prison.

00:09:05.120 Peter can't be here.

00:09:06.500 It must be his angel.

00:09:08.140 So based on those two passages, there are Christians who believe that we have an angel assigned to us.

00:09:14.700 In fact, I believe in the Orthodox Christian tradition, they believe an angel is assigned to you at the time you're baptized.

00:09:21.000 I don't know there are Christians who deny that, but it could be.

00:09:26.580 But the other thing I learned in my investigation of angels, I thought, you know what?

00:09:31.360 I don't think it's appropriate to pray to angels.

00:09:34.260 I don't believe we're taught to do that.

00:09:36.020 I think there's a slippery slope if you pray to angels that it might slip into worship of angels, which would be blasphemous.

00:09:44.560 But there's nothing wrong with praying to God about angels.

00:09:48.040 Martin Luther in the small catechism has a prayer, an evening prayer that says, Lord, send your holy angels to protect me from the evil one.

00:09:58.780 And so I never used to do this, but I now make part of my prayer that God would send angels to protect me and my family, my ministry, my grandchildren.

00:10:08.900 And so I think that's totally appropriate to do.

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00:14:22.220 We're going to get to demons in a second, but you use the phrase, the evil one.

00:14:29.140 Yeah.

00:14:29.320 So, the foundational Christian prayer is what we call the Lord's Prayer, handed down by Jesus himself.

00:14:36.240 Right.

00:14:36.400 And at the end of it, after, you know, we seek forgiveness and forgive those who've sinned against us,

00:14:44.600 lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil is the way that most, I think, Americans learn the prayer.

00:14:49.700 Yeah.

00:14:50.100 But there's another interpretation that says deliver us from the evil one.

00:14:53.360 That's right.

00:14:53.940 Yeah.

00:14:54.140 And I didn't know that until later in life, but I suspect that that was kind of toned down because the evil one is a little bit too supernatural.

00:15:04.620 Yeah.

00:15:05.320 Well, you know, there is an embarrassment in American culture towards some of these supernatural phenomena.

00:15:10.820 In other words, American Christians often want to be accepted and seen as normal by their neighbors.

00:15:16.420 Oh, yes, I go to church, and yes, I believe in Jesus, but, you know, you won't catch me talking about angels or demons or miracles or any of this weird stuff.

00:15:24.060 They want to be accepted as being normal by other people.

00:15:27.740 And so, I think there's a lot of people that just don't delve into these things.

00:15:32.060 There's a de-emphasis.

00:15:32.740 There's a de-emphasis in many churches and in many Christian lives.

00:15:36.140 And yet, Jesus clearly believed not only in angels, but he was an exorcist.

00:15:40.640 You know, even skeptics will admit, according to the Gospels, that Jesus was an exorcist.

00:15:46.400 So, he believed in Satan.

00:15:48.240 He believed in demons.

00:15:49.560 Well, it was one of the primary activities of his life on earth.

00:15:53.200 Exactly.

00:15:54.180 Look at the Gospel of Mark.

00:15:55.440 I think half of his activity is related in some way to fighting demons.

00:15:59.640 So, this is something as a Christian that we ought to believe and then consider what are the implications of this.

00:16:07.660 That if this is true, if there is a demonic realm, if there is an angelic realm, what are the implications to me today?

00:16:15.280 Well, I would put it another way.

00:16:17.260 Are you aware of any society in the known history of the human race that didn't believe that there was a supernatural realm filled with good and evil?

00:16:29.780 Yes.

00:16:30.680 Virtually universal.

00:16:32.140 I've never heard of any culture that didn't believe that.

00:16:34.860 Yeah, I haven't either.

00:16:35.560 Except post-war West.

00:16:36.520 Yeah.

00:16:36.680 Drop the atom bomb, get rid of the supernatural.

00:16:39.420 Right.

00:16:39.980 Because we're God now.

00:16:40.860 Yeah, that's right.

00:16:41.700 But before then, I mean, I just think this was taken as a matter of course, right?

00:16:45.680 Of course, yeah, naturally.

00:16:47.340 So, if every society in known history reaches the same, a version of the same conclusion, it suggests maybe there's something there?

00:16:55.280 It sure does.

00:16:56.200 It sure does.

00:16:57.180 Why would you come up with that?

00:16:59.420 Exactly.

00:16:59.780 You know, it's funny.

00:17:01.020 People will say, well, you need extraordinary evidence to prove an extraordinary claim, which I don't think is legitimate.

00:17:08.040 I don't think that stands up to scrutiny.

00:17:09.620 But let's take it for a moment on face value and say you need extraordinary evidence to prove an extraordinary claim.

00:17:14.480 Well, the claim that there are demons is not an extraordinary claim.

00:17:18.320 Because 95% of humanity through history has believed in it.

00:17:22.940 So, if you're an atheist, the onus is on you.

00:17:26.420 You must present the extraordinary evidence that the demonic does not exist.

00:17:30.980 Well, there are also moments in the life of every person who's awake and not on fentanyl, maybe even people who are on fentanyl, I hope, where you know that you are being acted on by an outside force of some kind.

00:17:42.320 You have no idea what it is.

00:17:43.620 Yeah.

00:17:43.860 But there are moments when you are much better than yourself, much more empathetic.

00:17:48.100 And there are other moments where you're seized by the desire to destroy for the sake of destruction, which also doesn't make any sense.

00:17:54.360 There's no kind of evolutionary biological accounting for that.

00:17:58.480 Why would you want to destroy something for no reason?

00:18:00.280 Yeah.

00:18:00.980 Another person, an object, but the impulse to destroy, clearly, the hallmark of evil, right?

00:18:08.580 It is.

00:18:09.100 And it's consistent with the Christian teaching that the demonic realm exists, that it is intent on luring us away from him and luring us down a pathway that is dark and that is dangerous.

00:18:22.680 But people feel that.

00:18:24.400 You don't have to be a Christian to have felt that.

00:18:25.900 If you're honest with yourself, there are moments where you're like, why did I do that?

00:18:30.020 Yeah.

00:18:30.540 Yeah.

00:18:30.740 Right?

00:18:31.180 And yet, we do have cases where we have evidence that there is a demonic realm.

00:18:38.040 All right, so let me ask you one last angel question because I'm trying to faithfully go in order based on, because you can judge a book by its cover, I've decided.

00:18:47.380 So, you said that angels in the New Testament, and perhaps also in the Old, but angels are described as present in our world.

00:19:00.080 Yes.

00:19:00.340 We will mistake angels for people.

00:19:03.260 Could very well.

00:19:03.940 That's right.

00:19:04.340 That's predicted.

00:19:04.820 So, do you think that happens?

00:19:08.000 Yes.

00:19:08.160 And if so, can you give us an example, and what would be the purpose of that?

00:19:11.940 Yeah, you know, it's interesting.

00:19:13.200 In the book of Hebrews, it says that we will do it unbeknownst to ourselves.

00:19:17.440 So, in other words, the implication is that we will have angelic encounters, but we won't realize they're angels.

00:19:25.220 And I think that does happen.

00:19:27.000 And now, I have a couple of cases in my book.

00:19:28.720 One is a pastor who is driving his car in Ohio.

00:19:32.520 He loses control of the car.

00:19:34.580 He hits a telephone or an electric transformer kind of a pole type of thing.

00:19:42.220 The wires fall down on his car.

00:19:44.940 The doors are jammed shut.

00:19:46.680 The electricity is coursing through the car, so much so that the windshield starts to melt, and he's trapped in this car.

00:19:54.680 He doesn't know what to do.

00:19:55.660 And he begins to pray.

00:19:58.000 God, I'm stuck.

00:19:59.660 I don't know what to do.

00:20:00.920 And a man, scruffy kind of guy, comes walking up to the car, and he opens the car, whose doors were jammed.

00:20:09.020 He opens the door.

00:20:10.520 He reaches in.

00:20:11.980 He lifts out this pastor and takes him about 50 yards away from the car, which then explodes.

00:20:19.240 And he says to the pastor, he says, you're going to be okay.

00:20:22.680 You're okay now.

00:20:23.660 But the police are on their way.

00:20:25.660 And I can't be here when they get here.

00:20:28.000 So just know that you're okay.

00:20:30.360 And he walked away and disappeared.

00:20:31.840 Now, the people, the medics who came, the emergency technicians and so forth that came as a result of the accident, and they look at the car and say, they can't explain how this is possible, that somebody could have opened that car door and not been electrocuted and rescued this pastor.

00:20:50.260 And yet, it happened.

00:20:51.720 And the pastor says, I believe it was an angel.

00:20:55.200 So, well, maybe, could have been.

00:20:59.020 How do you prove something like that?

00:21:00.980 But, I mean, how do you explain it away naturally?

00:21:03.380 How do you explain it away that he's able to come, grip the car door, and open up this car that had been jammed shut?

00:21:09.760 So, I think, yeah, there are cases where I think the logical explanation, the most reasonable explanation, if you don't rule out the supernatural at the outset, is that it was an angelic encounter.

00:21:21.880 Amazing.

00:21:23.360 Amazing.

00:21:25.140 But there are probably more subtle experiences, too.

00:21:29.860 Yes, no doubt.

00:21:31.120 Where you learn something, you encounter somebody out of nowhere who tells you something or who tests your compassion.

00:21:39.480 Yeah, yeah, could very well be.

00:21:41.640 And even the incident I had that seemed to, as an atheist, here I am in this church, nearly 30 years old, hearing this, understanding the gospel anyway for the first time.

00:21:53.460 And that encounter I had with an angel is something to help open my heart to the truth of the gospel.

00:22:00.820 Amazing.

00:22:01.280 Of course, I had to spend two years of my life investigating it from a, you know, just to kind of conclude that it really was true.

00:22:08.540 But it did propel me down that road toward God.

00:22:12.580 What are demons?

00:22:14.420 Demons are fallen angels.

00:22:16.520 The Bible is a little bit vague on this, but apparently what happened, there was a...

00:22:21.940 It's kind of funny, if I could just pause.

00:22:23.640 This is my totally ignorant read of it.

00:22:25.780 Yeah.

00:22:26.420 But when the supernatural host, you know, all these supernatural beings are referred to in the Bible, there's almost a sense in which the writer is assuming the reader already knows all this.

00:22:39.280 Yes, that's right.

00:22:40.260 It doesn't have a passage that says, by the way...

00:22:42.980 You're right.

00:22:43.780 These things are real.

00:22:44.820 Yeah.

00:22:45.040 Let me explain all this to you.

00:22:46.420 No, it doesn't do that, which is interesting.

00:22:49.340 Because, I mean, the culture at the time was familiar with this, and there was kind of no debate that there was a supernatural world.

00:22:58.200 It's sort of like the soul.

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00:23:06.920 The Bible doesn't say, by the way, you have a soul, and here's, let me define it for you.

00:23:11.300 It presumes that we have a soul.

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00:26:56.400 By the way, anyone who denies the soul exists, probably getting ready to genocide you.

00:27:02.500 It's like kind of a soulless experience.

00:27:05.320 Well, if there's no human soul, then how is murder wrong?

00:27:08.380 Well, exactly.

00:27:09.100 And they'll say free will is impossible.

00:27:10.860 So there is no free will.

00:27:12.560 Yeah, it's crazy.

00:27:13.700 It's crazy.

00:27:14.240 But demons, it started out with Lucifer, whose name means morning star.

00:27:19.640 And he was kind of first among angels.

00:27:22.080 Name means morning star?

00:27:23.280 Yeah, Lucifer.

00:27:25.600 He becomes Satan, and the name Satan literally means adversary.

00:27:30.820 And so the implication of Scripture is that this very prominent angel named Lucifer wanted

00:27:37.220 to be worshiped.

00:27:38.400 He's the one who wanted to worship.

00:27:40.300 And so his pride is what resulted in him falling from the angelic realm, becoming Satan,

00:27:47.600 becoming someone.

00:27:48.600 I mean, think about this.

00:27:49.420 When Jesus encounters Satan, what is it Satan wanted from him?

00:27:52.820 Worship.

00:27:54.020 Satan wanted Jesus to worship him.

00:27:56.600 And that's what Lucifer wanted.

00:27:58.620 It was pride that got in the way.

00:28:00.460 He becomes Satan.

00:28:02.040 And a certain percentage of the angels accompanied him in this fall.

00:28:07.020 This happened before the fall of humankind in the Garden of Eden.

00:28:10.200 So this predates that.

00:28:12.100 We don't know how many angels accompanied him, but there are a lot of angels.

00:28:15.560 In Revelation chapter 5, there's a scene of Jesus on the throne being worshipped.

00:28:21.580 And if you do the math, because it talks about it a little cryptically, it was 100 million

00:28:27.440 angels worshipping him at that time.

00:28:29.880 So there's a lot of angels.

00:28:31.320 And a percentage of them fell with Lucifer.

00:28:35.240 He became Satan.

00:28:36.480 And angels became his minions, so to speak.

00:28:41.640 Now, Satan is limited in his power.

00:28:44.320 He's not omniscient like God is.

00:28:46.360 He's not omnipresent like God is.

00:28:48.540 In other words, a guy was telling me, he said, there's probably never a time when you and Satan

00:28:53.620 have both been in the same zip code.

00:28:55.300 But because he's only in one place at a time, and so he's got things he's doing.

00:29:01.260 He's probably never been in the same zip code you have.

00:29:03.200 But his demons probably have been, and they carry out his will, which is to pull people

00:29:10.020 away from God, to discourage people in finding God, and to drag as many people to hell with

00:29:17.220 him as they can.

00:29:18.260 Now, his existence, he's sort of on a leash by God at this point.

00:29:23.160 His ultimate destination in the lake of fire is already predicted.

00:29:27.720 So he has no future, really.

00:29:29.520 But he has influence, and he has certain powers.

00:29:34.180 And he and the demons are very intuitive.

00:29:39.340 You'll think they know more than they know.

00:29:42.000 And they go after people.

00:29:44.420 I tell the story in my book about a very prominent psychiatrist named Richard Gallagher,

00:29:50.400 educated, Ivy League University.

00:29:53.520 I have a quote from the former president of the American Psychiatric Association calling

00:29:57.520 him highest integrity, totally trained and prominent in his field of psychiatry.

00:30:07.240 Of course, he's a medical doctor because he's a psychiatrist.

00:30:10.100 Just extolling him as an individual and as a scientist, as a psychiatrist.

00:30:14.980 And about 25 years ago, he had two cats.

00:30:19.040 And they got along great.

00:30:20.760 They slept together.

00:30:21.520 They played together.

00:30:22.200 Everything was fine.

00:30:22.740 Until one night, the cats started to attack each other viciously.

00:30:28.440 I mean, they're trying to kill each other.

00:30:29.920 They're clawing each other.

00:30:30.740 They're snarling each other.

00:30:31.780 They're biting each other.

00:30:32.900 It was unbelievable.

00:30:34.660 And they pulled them apart and put them into separate rooms and thought, what in the world?

00:30:38.660 What's that all about?

00:30:39.440 Now, at 9 a.m. the next day, the doorbell rings and it was a preset appointment.

00:30:45.080 A Catholic priest was bringing by a woman to be examined by Dr. Gallagher.

00:30:49.780 She claimed that she was a high priestess of a satanic cult and he wanted her to be examined.

00:30:56.020 Was she demonically possessed?

00:30:57.340 Was she just crazy or what is this all about?

00:31:00.080 So at 9 a.m., the doorbell rings for his appointment and Dr. Gallagher opens the door.

00:31:04.760 And here's this woman who claims to be a high priestess of a satanic cult who kind of looks up at him and sneers at him and says, so, how'd you like those cats last night?

00:31:15.760 Ooh, yeah.

00:31:18.680 There's something going on.

00:31:20.280 And that took him on a journey where he, as a psychiatrist who understands what mental illness is and comes to understand what demon possession and demon oppression is like.

00:31:32.620 He spends the next 25 years as kind of the go-to guy in the medical realm for exorcists of the Catholic faith and has witnessed amazing things that he documents.

00:31:47.040 And I quote him in the book, cases where we have a woman who, in front of eight eyewitnesses, levitates off a bed for 30 minutes.

00:31:55.660 Another case where people are speaking in Latin and other languages that they don't know, where they spontaneously are bruised and clawed, where one petite woman picked up a 200-pound Lutheran deacon and threw him across a room.

00:32:14.940 I mean, these are things, as he said, they go beyond psychiatry.

00:32:19.680 He believes these are actual demonic possessions.

00:32:22.680 Now, a true Christian cannot be demonically possessed.

00:32:28.040 And the reason is, a true Christian is indwelled by the Holy Spirit.

00:32:30.980 He can't be indwelled by evil and good like that in the same way at the same time.

00:32:34.900 So, Christians cannot be possessed.

00:32:37.420 But they can be oppressed.

00:32:39.400 They can be hectored.

00:32:40.480 They can be bothered.

00:32:41.580 They can be attacked by demons.

00:32:44.500 And there are some amazing examples of that.

00:32:48.680 I just mentioned a couple of people who are hectored or bothered by demons.

00:32:56.940 Now, for Christians, the book of James says, if you rebuke Satan, he'll go away.

00:33:04.400 So, if you're a Christian, you don't have to be afraid that these demons are going to somehow possess you or kill you or whatever.

00:33:11.700 Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world, the Bible says.

00:33:15.920 And so, the Bible says, if you shun Satan, he has no choice.

00:33:23.680 He's got to leave you.

00:33:26.100 So, for a Christian, you're protected.

00:33:29.600 But I fear for those that don't have that kind of protection.

00:33:35.900 There are cases of demon possession that, as Dr. Gallagher and others have documented, are corroborated in ways that I don't think they can be denied.

00:33:47.820 How can you corroborate a supernatural event?

00:33:51.060 I think when there's no naturalistic explanation for what occurs.

00:33:58.700 So, you have a woman, for instance, in front of eight eyewitnesses levitating off a bed for 30 minutes.

00:34:03.100 I don't know what the natural explanation for that would be.

00:34:05.900 That's right.

00:34:06.420 So, I think it points towards something beyond that.

00:34:10.340 For me, as I investigate, another area I investigate in the book are miracles.

00:34:13.940 And for me, if you have solid documentation, medical documentation, if you have multiple eyewitnesses with no motive to deceive, if you have no natural explanation that seems logical that it can account for the phenomenon, and if it takes place in the context of prayer, then I think it's logical to conclude that a miracle has taken place.

00:34:37.340 Yes.

00:34:37.740 And there have been miracles published in peer-reviewed medical journals.

00:34:41.920 I talk about one in my book.

00:34:44.220 Here's a woman who was blind for 12 years with incurable condition.

00:34:48.880 She went to a school for the blind.

00:34:50.660 She learned to read Braille.

00:34:52.040 She walked with a white cane.

00:34:53.920 And she married a Baptist pastor.

00:34:56.320 And one night, they're getting ready to go to bed.

00:34:58.220 She's already in bed.

00:34:59.100 He comes over to her, and he puts his hand on her shoulder, and he begins to cry.

00:35:02.700 And he begins to pray.

00:35:03.640 And he says, Lord, I know you can heal my wife.

00:35:05.360 I know you can heal her right now.

00:35:06.980 And I pray that you do it tonight.

00:35:09.860 And with that, she opened her eyes to perfect vision.

00:35:13.980 She said, I was blind when my husband prayed for me.

00:35:17.460 She prayed.

00:35:18.640 I opened my eyes.

00:35:19.600 I can see.

00:35:20.440 It's a miracle.

00:35:21.220 Well, that was researched by multiple medical researchers and published in a medical journal

00:35:27.540 as a case study.

00:35:29.000 What do you do with that?

00:35:30.860 What do you do with that?

00:35:31.760 What did they do with that?

00:35:32.860 I think it kind of leaves it up to the reader to say, what's your conclusion?

00:35:38.480 I bet they were upset by it.

00:35:39.960 Well, yeah.

00:35:40.740 But it certainly does point toward a supernatural event.

00:35:44.280 But here's what's interesting.

00:35:45.440 There's a woman with a PhD from Harvard who's a professor at Indiana University, major secular

00:35:52.980 university.

00:35:54.040 And she said, I'd like to test whether miracles are possible.

00:35:58.860 How can we scientifically test that?

00:36:01.740 So here's what she did.

00:36:02.760 Miracles tend to cluster in places where the gospel is just breaking in.

00:36:08.060 And so we see them in China, in Mozambique, in Brazil, places where the gospel is taking

00:36:12.580 root.

00:36:13.440 We see miracles taking place in a disproportionate number.

00:36:16.840 So she says, I'm going to put it to the test.

00:36:19.260 So she sends a team of scientists to Mozambique and researchers to Mozambique.

00:36:23.880 And they go into the bush and they say, bring us all your deaf and blind.

00:36:26.640 So they bring all the people deaf, blind or with severe hearing or vision problems.

00:36:31.120 They bring them and they test them scientifically right there.

00:36:34.660 What is your level of vision?

00:36:36.740 What is your level of hearing?

00:36:38.320 They get that scientifically established.

00:36:41.420 Then immediately they are prayed for in the name of Jesus by people who tend to have a track

00:36:46.800 record of God using them that way.

00:36:48.680 And then immediately after that, they're tested again.

00:36:52.940 Guess what they found?

00:36:54.240 Improvement in virtually every case.

00:36:56.220 In fact, get this, the average improvement in visual acuity was tenfold.

00:37:02.140 There was a woman named Martine.

00:37:03.920 When they first encountered her, she could not hear the equivalent of a jackhammer next

00:37:07.660 door.

00:37:09.100 After 10 minutes of prayer, she could now hear normal conversations.

00:37:13.880 Well, this team is flummoxed by this.

00:37:16.240 It's like, wait, something is going on here.

00:37:19.720 Virtually every person improves, some of them dramatically so, like Martine.

00:37:24.380 Let's see if we can replicate it.

00:37:26.220 So we'll go to another place where miracles are breaking in Brazil.

00:37:30.520 They did the same test.

00:37:32.420 They got the same results.

00:37:34.420 In fact, there was a woman in Brazil.

00:37:35.920 She couldn't see me holding up three fingers from nine feet away.

00:37:40.840 And after prayer for her healing, she could read the name tag of the person praying for her.

00:37:46.240 Tucker, Tucker, this was published.

00:37:49.120 This is a scientifically rigorous study that was published in a peer-reviewed secular scientific

00:37:56.460 medical journal, major medical journal, the Southern Medical Journal, published this.

00:38:01.600 And I interview in my book, I interviewed the scholar that did that study.

00:38:05.120 And I said, what do you make of this?

00:38:06.380 And she said, something's going on.

00:38:10.260 She said, we're not playing on people's emotions.

00:38:13.840 This is not some televangelist trying to get people to send in their money.

00:38:17.540 This is not some people at a predisposition for anything.

00:38:21.000 Something is going on.

00:38:22.660 And I think she's right.

00:38:23.920 I think it's miraculous.

00:38:25.960 It sounds it.

00:38:27.160 And I think every person who's awake has experienced something that just doesn't have a natural

00:38:32.780 explanation.

00:38:33.240 38%.

00:38:33.540 I did a study.

00:38:34.940 I hired a public opinion firm to do a scientifically accurate study of American adults.

00:38:40.340 And I asked the question, have you ever had one experience, at least in your life,

00:38:44.580 that you can only explain away as being a miracle of God?

00:38:48.000 38% of American adults said yes.

00:38:50.380 And by the way, let's say 99% of them are wrong.

00:38:56.960 Let's say they think it was a miracle, but it was just a big coincidence.

00:38:59.920 So let's just wipe out 99% and say, no, no, no, you thought it was a miracle.

00:39:03.880 It really wasn't.

00:39:04.600 Let's wipe away 99%.

00:39:06.420 Guess what?

00:39:07.260 That would still mean there would be a million miracles nearly in the United States alone.

00:39:13.240 So you're right.

00:39:14.380 So many people have experienced something in their life that they can only attribute to

00:39:20.060 being a miracle of God.

00:39:21.860 The official story on 9-11 is a complete lie.

00:39:25.840 The 9-11 report is a joke.

00:39:28.100 You have the CIA following two men all over the planet and then eventually even to America,

00:39:35.280 right?

00:39:35.720 And you don't tell the FBI.

00:39:37.920 9-11 Commission, cover it.

00:39:39.800 So what did happen?

00:39:46.640 What did the government know?

00:39:48.440 What did foreign governments know?

00:39:50.380 There was a cover-up.

00:39:51.920 Why?

00:39:52.640 It's been nearly 25 years in its time Americans learned what actually happened.

00:39:56.680 We're going to tell you.

00:39:57.420 We're releasing one episode per week.

00:39:59.460 You're not going to want to wait.

00:40:00.540 If you're a member, you don't have to.

00:40:01.980 You get all five episodes the day it drops.

00:40:04.380 Right then, ad-free.

00:40:05.620 Our first episode airs Thursday, 9-11, September 11th.

00:40:09.700 You will not want to miss it.

00:40:10.640 Join us now at tuckercarlson.com.

00:40:12.900 When Jesus performs miracles healing people, making the lame walk, fixing the man with

00:40:30.360 the withered hand, even when he casts out demons from the man in the cemetery on the

00:40:36.600 Sea of Galilee, the reaction he gets from particularly religious authorities, the Pharisees, but

00:40:42.820 they hate it.

00:40:43.540 Yes.

00:40:43.840 They hate it.

00:40:44.520 Yes, they do.

00:40:45.960 It's funny you say that.

00:40:46.960 Why is that?

00:40:47.840 Well, yeah, I wrote a novel once, fiction, book of fiction.

00:40:51.780 It was like a John Grisham thriller.

00:40:53.280 Nobody read it.

00:40:54.120 It was a big bomb.

00:40:55.300 Nobody bought my book.

00:40:56.760 But in that book, I have a politically ambitious pastor.

00:41:03.120 And there's a miracle.

00:41:04.220 Is there anything worse?

00:41:05.200 Yeah, that's right.

00:41:06.640 And there's a miracle that happens in his congregation.

00:41:10.160 And a reporter comes to question him about it.

00:41:12.780 And the reporter's thinking, oh, my gosh, the evidence is overwhelming something.

00:41:16.420 And the pastor is downplaying it.

00:41:19.120 No, no, no, no, no.

00:41:20.080 That's just a coincidence.

00:41:21.160 That can't be true.

00:41:22.080 The pastor's true.

00:41:22.900 Why?

00:41:23.600 Because he wants to be, he doesn't want to be seen as being weird by the community at

00:41:28.580 large, and it would poison his political chances.

00:41:30.920 So there is something true to that in Americans that we tend to suppress it.

00:41:36.880 Yeah.

00:41:37.180 And not, I mean, but I mean, this is an account from 2000 years ago.

00:41:39.780 No Americans in the New Testament.

00:41:41.120 And they had the same reaction.

00:41:42.720 But the religion, they did not like Jesus.

00:41:45.200 They did not like his message.

00:41:46.620 They did not like who he was.

00:41:48.120 I get it.

00:41:48.780 Yeah.

00:41:49.000 I think they'd be happy that the lame man can walk after 30 years.

00:41:52.840 You know, at least they could say, hey, good for you.

00:41:55.040 That's great.

00:41:55.500 By the way, we don't like this Jesus guy.

00:41:57.180 But no, they didn't.

00:41:58.040 They just said, we don't like this Jesus guy.

00:41:59.560 No, actually, they plotted to kill the man he healed.

00:42:01.540 And they did.

00:42:02.000 Yes, exactly.

00:42:03.880 So there's a couple references, at least a couple references in the New Testament to

00:42:09.400 Satan being the ruler of the earth.

00:42:10.840 Yes.

00:42:13.620 What does that mean?

00:42:14.520 It means that in this realm, he, in many ways, has his way.

00:42:21.460 In other words, he has access to be able to influence people and point them away from the

00:42:27.760 one true hope that there is, which is God.

00:42:31.040 And so he prowls about, as the Bible says, as a lion, hoping to tear people apart spiritually.

00:42:39.260 I mean, if that's not true, then explain the First World War.

00:42:43.660 Yeah.

00:42:44.520 I mean, there is just no, there's no explanation, even now, over a hundred years later, for why

00:42:49.380 that war started.

00:42:50.880 Oh, you know, Archduke Ferdinand got shot to death in Sarajevo.

00:42:54.240 Really?

00:42:54.560 Okay.

00:42:54.820 That's not a real explanation, actually.

00:42:56.980 Why did Christian Europe commit suicide?

00:42:59.380 Yeah.

00:43:00.440 And there are many other wars and many other tragedies in all of our lives.

00:43:06.260 We're like, that doesn't make any sense.

00:43:07.940 That's clearly, you know, supernatural forces are acting on people.

00:43:13.260 I agree.

00:43:13.900 And so what I try to do is say, okay, what evidence is there that there's more than what

00:43:21.380 we can see and touch?

00:43:22.600 And because I'm fascinated by this.

00:43:24.740 And the reason I say that, Tucker, is because if this is true, if demons do exist, we ought

00:43:30.700 to be heads up about it.

00:43:32.060 Because the two biggest mistakes we can make about the demonic realm, number one, is to

00:43:35.980 deny that they exist.

00:43:37.600 And number two, to see a demon behind every bush and think they're more powerful than they

00:43:41.180 are.

00:43:41.560 Right.

00:43:41.760 They're both problems.

00:43:42.920 But I think the biggest problem in our culture is to deny that there is a demonic realm.

00:43:47.860 Pretend like there isn't.

00:43:49.000 So what are the hallmarks of it then?

00:43:51.260 Well, I think some things you mentioned, we see manifestations of it in ways that defy

00:43:56.420 natural explanations.

00:43:58.860 And I think that's probably the best way of-

00:44:02.920 Disorder, distraction, chaos, violence, hate, division.

00:44:06.920 And you think, if Satan were smart, which he is, would he go around the country and around

00:44:13.940 the world trying to possess or bother average everyday people?

00:44:18.520 Well, you know what?

00:44:19.980 Much more efficient to go to Hollywood and to influence a bunch of people there who are

00:44:25.840 very influential in, let's say, the entertainment industry.

00:44:28.920 And let's say he encourages them to create films and television shows that are funny and that

00:44:34.180 are creative and they're fun.

00:44:35.580 But there's an underlying message to them that there's a normalization of immoral activity

00:44:43.340 that makes it normal.

00:44:46.460 Because when we laugh, it opens us up to various possibilities.

00:44:50.320 When we laugh, our defenses come down.

00:44:52.260 So I'm thinking of a wonderful, funny TV show like Friends.

00:44:55.440 Remember Friends, the TV show, was on TV for years.

00:44:57.920 Very popular show.

00:44:58.720 Only American who never saw it, but yeah.

00:45:00.380 But underlying that is a very ugly sexual ethic that normalizes multiple sexual partners and

00:45:10.720 that sort of thing.

00:45:11.760 The kind of thing that Satan would love to inculcate into American culture.

00:45:16.220 And you know what?

00:45:17.400 I think it's much more efficient for Satan to influence movie makers and TV makers in Hollywood

00:45:24.140 to create products that feed us stuff that, without us even realizing it, open us up to

00:45:32.460 the occult, open us up to immoral activity, normalize it in ways that, well, if Monica

00:45:38.980 can do that on Friends, I can certainly have sex on the first date with this guy I meet.

00:45:43.700 So the way I, as a non-theological, ignorant person, try and figure out whether something's

00:45:48.960 good or bad, because it is an open question very often.

00:45:51.140 It's like, is that good or bad?

00:45:51.980 I'm not sure.

00:45:52.780 Yeah.

00:45:53.400 Are the people doing it at peace, joyful, happy?

00:45:57.260 Yeah.

00:45:57.560 Are they tormented?

00:45:58.500 Yeah.

00:45:59.400 And I know a lot of people in Hollywood, a lot of people I like actually, not too many

00:46:04.580 happy people.

00:46:05.160 Yeah.

00:46:05.560 So really tormented people.

00:46:07.260 It's true.

00:46:07.500 For real.

00:46:08.400 Yeah.

00:46:08.720 String of wrecked relationships, kids who hate them, trans kids, drug problems.

00:46:13.220 Like there's so much of that.

00:46:15.480 Do you think that's a fair way to assess?

00:46:17.820 I think because it is logical that if Satan were to try to influence a culture in a mass

00:46:24.100 way, that that is a logical way that he would do it.

00:46:28.080 And oh, guess what?

00:46:29.020 By the way, look at all the dysfunction we see in that community.

00:46:33.040 It does seem to match up.

00:46:35.140 So if evil is acting through you, you are harmed too.

00:46:41.700 Generally, I would say yes.

00:46:42.960 You're going to be someone who's trying to influence others.

00:46:46.900 You may not realize the full reason why.

00:46:49.080 But it destroys you.

00:46:49.800 Yeah.

00:46:50.180 It does destroy you.

00:46:51.780 It certainly seems to.

00:46:53.260 Yeah.

00:46:53.640 I think so.

00:46:54.680 Who would, you know, God created us so we could have a relationship with him.

00:47:00.260 So he taught us how we can live in a way that maximizes who we are.

00:47:03.940 And when we stray from that in egregious ways, as many people have and do, there are implications

00:47:12.680 for us.

00:47:13.920 If I were trying to subvert and destroy, I would go after religious leaders.

00:47:17.320 Yeah.

00:47:17.680 I'd have them like molest kids or get freaky sex lives or steal money from the church.

00:47:21.900 Yes.

00:47:22.200 And you do.

00:47:23.320 I've always noticed that the leadership of Christian churches in just like numerically.

00:47:31.200 Yeah.

00:47:31.680 Way more likely to be screwed up than the people in the pews.

00:47:35.100 Interesting.

00:47:35.640 Do you know what I mean?

00:47:36.320 You see these sex scandals with pastors and you're like, how many people who are going

00:47:39.940 to church every Sunday have sex lives like that?

00:47:41.760 Probably not very many, but a pretty high percentage of pastors.

00:47:44.460 And I feel like that is outside influence.

00:47:48.140 Like at teachers too.

00:47:49.400 Teachers who young kids look up to.

00:47:51.420 You know, you can imagine when you were kindergarten, first grade, second grade, you looked up to

00:47:54.580 your teacher.

00:47:55.320 Not one time.

00:47:55.900 There's not one teacher I liked.

00:47:57.240 Oh, really?

00:47:57.860 Nope.

00:47:58.180 Oh, I sure did.

00:47:59.040 I never know.

00:47:59.680 I felt it was an authoritarian situation.

00:48:02.420 I was totally opposed from kindergarten on until I left college.

00:48:06.120 There was not one day where I respected or liked any of them, not a single one.

00:48:11.020 That is so funny.

00:48:12.720 I'm serious too.

00:48:13.460 That is so funny.

00:48:14.220 I happened to go to public school growing up and yet back then in the fifties and sixties,

00:48:19.320 most of the teachers are Christians.

00:48:21.620 Yeah.

00:48:21.900 And so now I had some wonderful teachers that taught me great lessons about life.

00:48:27.820 So I-

00:48:28.860 You grew up in a better America than I did.

00:48:30.900 In Southern California in the seventies, I thought they were all buffoons, freaks.

00:48:35.400 I wasn't taking orders from them.

00:48:37.420 I really disliked them.

00:48:39.940 Sorry, excuse me.

00:48:41.640 It's funny.

00:48:42.500 Sorry.

00:48:43.280 But if you want to lead people astray, you subvert their leaders, I guess.

00:48:49.160 Yes.

00:48:49.580 Yes, very much so.

00:48:50.800 I mean, yeah, just put yourself in Satan's place.

00:48:53.660 How are you going to impact the maximum number of people?

00:48:56.540 You're going to want to go after leaders.

00:48:58.260 You're going to want to go after religious leaders.

00:48:59.940 You're going to want to go after children.

00:49:02.080 You're going to, you know, and influence them at a young age.

00:49:07.280 Well, you see all of that.

00:49:08.580 I often think this is such a wonderful country despite all its problems.

00:49:12.220 I'm totally convinced it's the best country having been to a lot of countries.

00:49:15.980 Yeah.

00:49:16.160 But our leadership is the worst.

00:49:18.780 Yeah.

00:49:19.160 They're the worst.

00:49:20.580 They're like the worst people I've ever met.

00:49:22.560 And maybe that's not accidental.

00:49:25.680 Yeah.

00:49:26.040 I mean, could it be, I'll just raise the question.

00:49:29.320 Could it be that some people have received some assistance from demonic?

00:49:35.420 Certainly seems that way.

00:49:36.580 In terms of achieving what they've achieved.

00:49:38.240 How many happy, I don't know how many political leaders you know, but how many happy ones have

00:49:41.820 you met?

00:49:42.240 Gosh.

00:49:43.560 Not a lot I trust, put it that way.

00:49:45.460 Right.

00:49:45.720 But they're all like tormented.

00:49:47.160 Yeah.

00:49:48.000 Sweaty and nervous and afraid.

00:49:50.480 Don't you think those are signs?

00:49:51.920 I do.

00:49:52.680 I do.

00:49:53.120 And you look at if Satan's going to go after children, what is all this stuff about libraries

00:49:57.640 doing children's readings of and drag shows to little kids?

00:50:02.440 Why?

00:50:02.980 Why would that happen?

00:50:04.300 You know what?

00:50:04.840 Because if you can capture the mind of a child very young, it could influence them for the

00:50:08.960 rest of their life.

00:50:10.980 What happens?

00:50:11.760 Because we put up with that.

00:50:12.960 Yeah.

00:50:13.720 We do.

00:50:14.400 A healthy society would not put up with that.

00:50:15.840 That's true.

00:50:16.280 For five minutes.

00:50:17.180 That's true.

00:50:18.080 Yeah.

00:50:18.740 Sorry, they'd drive them out of the temple immediately with a whip.

00:50:21.340 Right.

00:50:21.560 Yeah.

00:50:22.760 Sorry, excuse me.

00:50:24.920 So you think that you believe that demons roam the earth.

00:50:29.840 Yes.

00:50:30.500 How do you protect yourself?

00:50:31.540 The Bible talks about in Ephesians, talks about the full armor of God.

00:50:35.520 And I talk about this in a book.

00:50:37.840 I have a half a chapter that looks at ways that we can protect ourselves.

00:50:41.320 I think the key number one way is to be knowledgeable about scripture, because if the Bible is really

00:50:50.060 from God, then that is the plumb line of truth.

00:50:54.100 And if it's the plumb line of truth, we can measure everything against it.

00:50:58.480 And so if we're tempted by something that violates that plumb line of truth, then we can be assured that's not from God.

00:51:04.660 And so I think being familiar with what are the teachings of the Bible so that we can deter any effects, any attempts by Satan to lead us down a path that's clearly not biblical.

00:51:19.620 So I think that's probably the number one way.

00:51:21.380 I think prayer is important.

00:51:22.460 I think honestly, and I say this granted as an evangelist who wants to drag as many people to heaven with me as I can.

00:51:30.060 That's my life goal now as a former atheist.

00:51:32.960 I will say the best way to protect yourself is to come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

00:51:42.020 Because if you are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, you can't be possessed by Satan.

00:51:46.860 And you can tell Satan to flee, and the Bible says he will flee.

00:51:50.720 What is the Holy Spirit?

00:51:51.980 Holy Spirit, you know, the God is one what and three who's.

00:51:56.520 The Bible teaches there is one God.

00:51:58.880 That's clear.

00:51:59.500 But it also teaches that the Father is God, that the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.

00:52:05.260 And so we have three, we have one what, which is God, and three persons.

00:52:10.440 And so the Holy Spirit being disembodied and so forth comes into the life of someone when they repent of their sin, receive forgiveness through Christ.

00:52:22.240 John 1.12 says, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name.

00:52:29.500 But in practical terms, like what is the Holy Spirit?

00:52:31.700 So the Holy Spirit comes into you, then what happens?

00:52:33.820 Yeah, the Holy Spirit indwells you.

00:52:35.380 Now you've got a plumb line inside of you, so to speak.

00:52:38.960 And you recognize, I'm sure you see things in your life now as a Christian that you did before you were a Christian.

00:52:46.000 You say, why did I even do that?

00:52:47.780 What was I messing with that?

00:52:49.140 I certainly have those examples, because now being indwelled by the Holy Spirit as a follower of Jesus, I have that plumb line to tell me what's godly and what's not.

00:53:00.060 And so it aids our conscience in understanding that.

00:53:03.880 And by being indwelled by the Holy Spirit, it means we cannot be possessed by Satan as we see these demon possessions.

00:53:12.160 And those are increasing in numbers.

00:53:15.180 The Catholic Church has just added a whole bunch of people who are trained in exorcisms.

00:53:20.960 You see, in charismatic ministries, deliverance ministries, I think we're seeing an increase in demonic activity and in demons hectoring and harassing and oppressing and possessing people.

00:53:34.160 I think we're seeing an increase in that.

00:53:37.240 Are there certain places?

00:53:39.380 I mean, there are physical places I have been where the hair on my arm go up.

00:53:45.140 Yeah, me too.

00:53:46.280 And without any, you know, foreknowledge.

00:53:49.520 Yeah.

00:53:50.020 Not like, this is a really spooky place.

00:53:51.880 Watch this.

00:53:52.360 Yeah.

00:53:52.440 It's like, some place, I can think of a few of them in my life where it's like, ooh, I don't know what this is about.

00:53:58.200 What is that?

00:53:58.720 Think of Haiti.

00:54:00.300 Think of Haiti.

00:54:00.800 I've been to Haiti.

00:54:01.560 Yeah.

00:54:01.720 I feel that strongly.

00:54:03.000 I have a good friend who has a ministry in Haiti, and that's a place that has opened itself up to the demonic.

00:54:08.200 Through human sacrifice.

00:54:08.980 Through voodoo, through all these things.

00:54:11.280 And it is a place where you palpably feel evil often.

00:54:16.220 I was in some remote parts of India and felt the same thing in many places.

00:54:22.180 So, I think there is, just as miracles tend to break out in a positive way in places where the gospel is breaking in,

00:54:29.900 I think we probably see pockets around the globe where Satan has a stronghold.

00:54:35.940 And I would think that—

00:54:37.860 Physical places.

00:54:38.560 Physical places.

00:54:39.540 Yeah.

00:54:40.180 Like, I think Haiti is a good example of that.

00:54:43.320 I've been to some places in the U.S. where I felt that really strongly.

00:54:48.020 I've been, I was in a house once.

00:54:50.640 I lived in a house once as a child.

00:54:52.680 We're part of the house.

00:54:53.340 There's something so wrong with it.

00:54:54.800 And every person who lived in the house knew that.

00:54:56.700 Interesting.

00:54:56.820 Does that sound—

00:54:57.740 Could be.

00:54:59.160 Could be.

00:54:59.640 Could be an occultic thing.

00:55:01.480 Yeah.

00:55:04.560 What's a mystical dream?

00:55:06.580 Mystical dreams.

00:55:07.560 I talk about these in the book.

00:55:08.560 It's so fascinating to me.

00:55:10.660 We have seen more Muslims become Christians in the last couple of decades than in the 1,400 years since Muhammad.

00:55:18.060 And it's been estimated that a quarter to a third of them, before they became a Christian, had a Jesus dream.

00:55:24.780 Now, what's interesting about that is that these are corroborated dreams.

00:55:30.740 I'll tell you what I mean by that.

00:55:32.120 First of all, a devout Muslim has no incentive, let's say, in a closed country, or it's even illegal to share the Christian gospel.

00:55:43.160 They have no incentive to have a dream as a product of their subconscious mind about Jesus, the Jesus of Christianity.

00:55:51.660 Because it might lead them to apostasy.

00:55:52.660 It might lead them to a death sentence in certain countries.

00:55:56.500 So there's no incentive for a devout Muslim to have a dream about Jesus.

00:56:00.800 And yet, we are seeing this all over the Middle East, in closed countries, in oppressive countries where Christians are persecuted and so forth.

00:56:12.140 But here's what I found most fascinating.

00:56:15.380 In these cases, people are not going to sleep as a Muslim, having a dream about Jesus, and waking up as a Christian.

00:56:22.640 That's not how it works.

00:56:23.680 There is always something that points to a phenomenon or an event or a person outside the dream that corroborates the dream.

00:56:33.860 Let me give an example to clarify it.

00:56:36.220 There was a woman named Noor in Cairo, mother of eight, devout Muslim.

00:56:41.500 She goes to sleep.

00:56:42.460 She has a dream in which Jesus visits her.

00:56:44.660 It's unlike any dream she's ever had.

00:56:47.260 And she feels the love and the grace and the beauty of Jesus in such a profound way.

00:56:53.640 She said, here I am, a woman in the presence of a man.

00:56:55.900 For the first time in my life, I didn't feel shame.

00:56:58.120 I felt love.

00:56:59.480 And she's just overwhelmed by this.

00:57:01.100 And they're walking along a lakeshore.

00:57:02.700 And she says, Jesus, why do you appear to me?

00:57:05.420 I'm just a poor mother of eight in Cairo.

00:57:08.440 And Jesus said, my friend will tell you tomorrow.

00:57:12.800 And she said, who's your friend?

00:57:14.720 And Jesus gestures to a man.

00:57:16.700 And she didn't even realize was walking with them along the lakeshore because she was so

00:57:20.640 mesmerized by Jesus.

00:57:22.220 She didn't notice this guy.

00:57:23.940 And he says, my friend will tell you tomorrow.

00:57:26.960 She wakes up.

00:57:27.940 The next day, she goes to the crowded marketplace in Cairo on a Friday afternoon.

00:57:32.340 And she sees the man from her dream.

00:57:35.060 She goes up to him.

00:57:36.260 She said, you're the one.

00:57:37.140 You're the one.

00:57:37.360 He said, whoa, what are you talking about?

00:57:38.440 You're the man.

00:57:39.080 Same glasses, same face, same clothes.

00:57:41.540 You're the one.

00:57:43.060 He said, did you ever dream about Jesus last night?

00:57:46.020 She said, yes.

00:57:48.140 Turned out he was an underground church planter.

00:57:50.960 He didn't want to go to the crowded marketplace in Cairo on Friday afternoon.

00:57:54.120 It's chaotic.

00:57:55.160 But he felt God had an assignment for him.

00:57:57.200 So he went that day.

00:57:59.140 Noor encounters him from the dream.

00:58:01.780 He pulls her aside, opens the Bible, and shares the gospel with her.

00:58:06.900 That's the external corroboration that I'm talking about.

00:58:10.340 It's not just something that takes place in your subconscious mind.

00:58:13.140 There is an external factor to it.

00:58:16.500 I'll give you another example.

00:58:17.680 There was a guy.

00:58:17.980 Can I just ask you to pause?

00:58:18.580 So one of the miracles, there are at least two in the story you just told.

00:58:22.060 Yeah.

00:58:22.500 And one of them is that the pastor felt the call to go to the marketplace on a Friday and

00:58:27.960 he obeyed.

00:58:28.740 Exactly.

00:58:29.380 Have you had that experience in your life where you just feel like you're being told to do

00:58:32.580 something and you obediently do it?

00:58:34.360 Oh, yeah.

00:58:35.320 Oh, yeah.

00:58:35.800 I remember as a new Christian, I felt a really strong urging, I believe it was from God,

00:58:44.340 to empty our bank account and send an anonymous cashier's check to a woman, a single woman

00:58:53.060 in our church.

00:58:54.860 Send it anonymously.

00:58:55.980 And to do it on Friday.

00:58:57.760 I don't know why, but to do it on Friday.

00:58:59.760 My wife and I both prayed about it.

00:59:01.720 I said, yeah, we're both feeling this.

00:59:04.260 It's odd, but we feel it's legit.

00:59:07.020 So-

00:59:07.360 Did you empty your bank account and send it to a stranger?

00:59:10.060 We did.

00:59:10.080 We emptied the bank account.

00:59:11.420 We got this-

00:59:11.760 It's odd, yeah.

00:59:12.240 Well, that is, Leah, that is odd.

00:59:13.660 Yeah.

00:59:14.240 Fair.

00:59:14.780 Hey, it was only $500, but still, for us, that was a lot of money back then.

00:59:18.540 It's all relative, yeah.

00:59:19.080 So we send this check.

00:59:20.940 Did you know the woman?

00:59:22.240 Yeah, we knew her.

00:59:23.020 Yeah.

00:59:23.380 Nice woman.

00:59:24.280 She had come to faith.

00:59:25.240 She had actually had a lot of negative experience with Christians growing up, but she ended

00:59:29.280 up coming to faith through a debate on Christianity we did in our church between an atheist and

00:59:32.820 a Christian, and so I knew who she was and so forth.

00:59:36.240 So on Monday morning, she calls me out of the blue, and she's crying.

00:59:41.880 She said, Lee, I don't know what to do.

00:59:43.320 I said, what's going on?

00:59:44.760 She said, my car broke down over the weekend.

00:59:48.020 They say it's going to cost $500 for me to fix my car.

00:59:51.360 I don't have $500.

00:59:53.020 I'm going to lose my car.

00:59:54.220 I'm going to lose my job, because I've got to have my car for the job.

00:59:57.420 Would you pray for me that I would get this $500 somehow?

01:00:02.240 And I said, absolutely, I'll pray for me.

01:00:06.240 Let's pray.

01:00:07.420 And sure enough, that afternoon, because I'd mail in Friday, Monday afternoon, she gets

01:00:11.340 this anonymous $500 check.

01:00:14.580 Did you ever tell her?

01:00:15.940 No, she doesn't.

01:00:17.100 Now, unless she's listening, maybe she...

01:00:18.820 Is she still around?

01:00:19.800 Oh, yeah.

01:00:20.320 She's still...

01:00:20.860 Yeah.

01:00:21.040 She actually quit her nursing job and joined the staff of our church.

01:00:24.220 She used to deliver my mail every day at the church.

01:00:27.320 Wow.

01:00:27.560 Yeah.

01:00:28.120 So, I guess if she's listening, now she'll know.

01:00:30.820 You've never told her.

01:00:31.800 What year was that?

01:00:32.480 No.

01:00:32.800 Oh, gosh.

01:00:33.360 This was when I was a new Christian at the church.

01:00:36.600 It was probably 1987, somewhere in there.

01:00:39.420 Yeah.

01:00:39.840 Yeah.

01:00:40.500 Almost 40 years ago.

01:00:41.580 Yeah.

01:00:41.780 Yeah.

01:00:42.060 Yeah.

01:00:42.800 So, yeah, I think that does happen, where God influences you.

01:00:47.720 Do you try to be open to that?

01:00:49.580 I do.

01:00:50.300 I do.

01:00:50.940 When I pray, I try to leave time at the end of the prayer.

01:00:54.460 Say, God, I'm just going to be quiet for a while.

01:00:56.640 If there's anything you want to tell me, anything you need to alert me to, any way you want to

01:01:01.580 lead me, I'm just going to be quiet.

01:01:03.880 I'm just going to listen.

01:01:05.760 And I just spend, and normally there's nothing.

01:01:08.220 That day there was $500.

01:01:10.640 But normally I don't feel anything that specific.

01:01:14.600 But it's okay, because what's important is saying, I'm open, God, to anything you want me to do,

01:01:20.080 or what you want me to do.

01:01:21.280 I'm open to it.

01:01:23.420 Of course, anything, the Bible says, test the spirits.

01:01:26.300 So, if I'm feeling something, I want to test it to make sure it's scriptural,

01:01:29.980 because God's not going to go tell me to poison my neighbor.

01:01:33.800 All right?

01:01:34.620 So, it's going to be consistent with Scripture.

01:01:36.980 But I want to leave myself that opportunity to open myself up and say, God, I'm listening.

01:01:42.380 And just pause for a while and see, is there something?

01:01:45.360 And on that day, there was something.

01:01:46.800 It doesn't happen that often.

01:01:48.500 But every once in a while, something will take place like that.

01:01:51.180 Amazing.

01:01:52.520 So, you, sorry for the cul-de-sac there,

01:01:57.340 you believe there has been an uptick in mystical dreams.

01:02:01.980 Oh, definitely in the Middle East.

01:02:03.000 In fact, get this.

01:02:04.480 In Cairo, there's often an ad in the newspaper.

01:02:07.200 And the ad says, call this number,

01:02:09.820 and we'll tell you about the man in white you met in your dream last night.

01:02:14.500 Really?

01:02:14.920 Because there's so many of these.

01:02:16.660 I interviewed for my book, Seeing the Supernatural.

01:02:19.260 I interviewed Tom Doyle, who's the world's leading expert on this.

01:02:23.320 And Tom said, Lee, I could pick up the phone right now,

01:02:25.940 and I could call Syria.

01:02:27.080 I could call Iraq.

01:02:28.060 I could call Iran.

01:02:29.220 And I'll give you five more stories.

01:02:31.180 They are so common.

01:02:33.220 I'll give you one from my church in Houston, Texas.

01:02:36.560 So, I'm part of a church.

01:02:38.200 I live part-time in Houston, part of a church there.

01:02:40.160 I used to be on the staff.

01:02:40.980 And there was a woman who was born in the Middle East,

01:02:46.420 in a closed country where you can't share the gospel legally.

01:02:49.880 And she had a dream when she was about 16 years old.

01:02:53.800 And she said it was unlike any dream I ever had,

01:02:55.620 because it was like a projector, was projecting an image of Jesus.

01:03:00.920 And it influenced her.

01:03:02.680 It touched her.

01:03:03.240 But she didn't know what to do with it.

01:03:04.520 And she said, I was having problems in my life.

01:03:07.820 I called out for help.

01:03:08.720 And that's what happened.

01:03:10.360 Well, she ended up marrying a Muslim gentleman

01:03:12.660 who was transferred to Houston, Texas because of the oil industry.

01:03:16.620 So, she moves into near our church.

01:03:19.460 And she has another dream.

01:03:21.560 And in this dream, she's up to her waist in a body of water.

01:03:25.860 And there's a man with her with a book that's open.

01:03:28.740 And the man is weeping.

01:03:31.240 And she's thinking, what does that mean?

01:03:33.860 What is that supposed to be about?

01:03:36.660 Well, a neighbor of hers goes to our church.

01:03:39.120 And she invited her to come to Easter services at our church

01:03:41.900 because her husband was out of town.

01:03:43.600 So, she came to Easter services.

01:03:45.360 She's sitting on the aisle in the auditorium waiting for the service to begin.

01:03:49.060 And she sees the man who was with her in the pond with the book.

01:03:53.100 And she said, that's the guy.

01:03:55.000 He was one in my dream when I was in this pond for no reason whatsoever.

01:03:59.580 But I saw him.

01:04:01.160 Well, his name is Alan Splawn.

01:04:02.600 Alan is our pastor of baptism.

01:04:06.140 Alan comes over.

01:04:07.320 They introduce her.

01:04:08.340 This woman ends up receiving Jesus Christ as her forgiver and leader.

01:04:13.100 She becomes a Christian.

01:04:14.500 And she learns about baptism.

01:04:16.520 And sure enough, Alan Splawn takes her to the pond on our property where we baptize new believers.

01:04:22.980 And with her water up to her waist and with Alan, with the Bible open and weeping at the joy,

01:04:30.920 baptizes her in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

01:04:34.060 So, there's a case in my own church in Texas like that.

01:04:38.660 What did her husband say when he got home?

01:04:40.260 He doesn't know, to this day.

01:04:42.260 He doesn't know.

01:04:43.440 He doesn't know because she can't tell him.

01:04:46.180 She said he would, who knows what he would do.

01:04:49.500 She can't.

01:04:50.460 So, she keeps, she has a Bible that we gave her.

01:04:52.920 She keeps it hidden.

01:04:54.380 And she doesn't go to church because she can't.

01:04:58.880 So, she has to keep it hidden from her husband.

01:05:02.180 Wow.

01:05:02.840 Yeah, it's sad.

01:05:03.760 But again, she didn't know nothing about baptism.

01:05:06.560 What kind of a mystical dream are you standing up to your waist in water with a guy with a book who's crying?

01:05:13.900 I mean, what in the world is that all about?

01:05:15.520 How do you tell a difference between a conventional dream and a mystical dream or are all dreams mystical?

01:05:21.160 I don't even, we don't know what dreams are just for the record as a matter of science.

01:05:25.240 I mean, no one's ever been able to explain what that is.

01:05:27.640 You know, it's interesting.

01:05:28.900 God is in control of all.

01:05:30.440 And so, in a sense, everything is spiritual, right?

01:05:33.700 Yes.

01:05:34.140 I mean, God rules and so forth.

01:05:36.040 So, in a sense, any dream is spiritual.

01:05:38.740 I think, to me, a mystical dream is one that has strong spiritual overtones.

01:05:44.680 And there's no natural explanation to say this could come from your subconscious mind.

01:05:50.000 You know, I think sometimes people will write off a dream as saying, well, that's just something that came from your subconscious.

01:05:55.600 Maybe you saw something on television, didn't even realize it, and it was in your subconscious.

01:06:00.520 But when you have examples like the one I gave, that doesn't make sense.

01:06:05.620 I'll give you another example.

01:06:06.540 There was a guy named Omar.

01:06:08.120 And Omar grew up in a refugee camp in the Middle East, hated Jewish people, hated Jewish people.

01:06:15.380 His life goal was to murder as many Jews as he could.

01:06:19.880 And so, he wanted to join Hamas.

01:06:21.700 This is about a dozen years ago.

01:06:23.700 He wanted to join Hamas.

01:06:24.940 So, he makes arrangements to meet with some leaders of Hamas.

01:06:28.520 So, he's walking down the road toward that meeting, and he's blocked by a vision of Jesus,

01:06:35.480 who stops him and says, Omar, this is not the plan I have for your life.

01:06:43.160 I want you to turn around.

01:06:44.980 I want you to go home.

01:06:46.700 This is not what I want for your life.

01:06:50.020 Well, it freaks him out, right?

01:06:52.380 And so, what does he do?

01:06:53.400 He turns around.

01:06:54.200 He goes home.

01:06:55.680 That afternoon, he lived in an apartment building.

01:06:58.380 That afternoon, an American family was moving into the apartment across the hall.

01:07:02.440 And he goes over there, and he says, I just had this vision of Jesus telling me that.

01:07:10.220 And he explained the vision.

01:07:11.600 And he said, as a Christian, can you tell me what it means?

01:07:15.320 And this Christian man said, well, let me just do this.

01:07:18.900 And he opens the Bible, and he shares the gospel with him.

01:07:22.160 And Omar not only becomes a Christian, but today, he himself is an underground church planter in the Middle East.

01:07:29.020 Omar's not his real name, by the way.

01:07:30.420 So, there you have, again, external corroboration.

01:07:35.040 The image, the vision he had pointed him ultimately towards somebody else who then explained the gospel.

01:07:43.200 That, to me, tells me this is more than a subconscious manifestation of something in our heads.

01:07:49.700 Yes.

01:07:49.980 And that's what, as someone trained in journalism and law, I'm looking for those kind of instances of corroboration.

01:08:01.160 Visions are something we associate with hallucinogenic drugs.

01:08:04.860 Yes.

01:08:06.320 What is that?

01:08:07.360 What are the visions produced by ayahuasca and LSD?

01:08:09.940 There are what I would call naturalistic visions.

01:08:14.380 In other words, visions that are caused by things that we can determine are natural.

01:08:19.560 I mean, natural, medically natural.

01:08:22.020 Chemicals.

01:08:22.500 Chemicals.

01:08:23.400 I'll give you an example.

01:08:25.240 In 2011, I had a condition called hyponatremia.

01:08:29.800 Hyponatremia is a severe drop in your blood sodium level.

01:08:34.440 And it causes your brain to expand in your head.

01:08:38.240 Well, there's no room for your brain to expand very much.

01:08:40.860 And so, you have hallucinations.

01:08:43.600 And I almost died as a result of it.

01:08:46.520 Just out of the blue, you had this.

01:08:47.860 Well, it was a combination of several things I had.

01:08:50.140 I was allergic to a drug that they'd given me because I'd lost my voice.

01:08:53.380 And they gave me a steroid.

01:08:55.240 And I was allergic to the steroid.

01:08:56.980 I didn't know I had pneumonia, which can be a factor.

01:08:59.780 I'd lost a kidney, which I wasn't aware of.

01:09:03.480 And that regulates sodium.

01:09:04.880 So, I had all these weird things going on.

01:09:06.260 This was the Job period.

01:09:07.300 Yeah, it was the Job period.

01:09:08.620 That's right.

01:09:09.420 So, here I am.

01:09:10.280 I had hallucinations.

01:09:11.020 I saw demons.

01:09:13.400 I saw weird things.

01:09:15.740 Do I believe they were from God?

01:09:17.080 No.

01:09:17.480 Do I believe they're from Satan?

01:09:18.460 No.

01:09:18.760 Do I believe they were demons?

01:09:19.760 No.

01:09:20.320 I think they were a product of the medical problem I had of my sodium dropping so low.

01:09:26.480 How long did this go on?

01:09:27.280 And where were you when you saw these visions?

01:09:28.700 I was at home, and I finally felt unconscious.

01:09:32.780 They called the paramedics.

01:09:34.180 I woke up in the emergency room, and the doctor looked down at me and said,

01:09:37.860 you're one step away from a coma, two steps away from dying.

01:09:41.540 And then I went unconscious again.

01:09:43.540 That was the message the doctor gave.

01:09:45.880 I know.

01:09:46.560 Pretty reassuring.

01:09:47.440 I know.

01:09:47.940 You'd think he could have sugar-coated it a little.

01:09:49.560 The last thing you heard was you're dying?

01:09:51.460 Yeah, I know.

01:09:52.620 It's like, hey, give me the sugar-coated first.

01:09:55.940 But the problem is they have to raise the sodium level very carefully because 25% of people with

01:10:02.340 this condition end up mentally or physically disabled.

01:10:05.420 Oh.

01:10:05.660 So they have to raise it.

01:10:06.920 So I was in the hospital about a week, and they had to gently, slowly raise the-

01:10:11.240 One potato chip at a time.

01:10:12.420 Exactly.

01:10:13.380 So do I think those were mystical?

01:10:16.980 Do I believe I really saw a demon?

01:10:18.820 Probably not.

01:10:20.040 I think that was a medically induced phenomenon.

01:10:23.900 I don't have any external corroboration other than to say it was these low sodium that is known to cause

01:10:30.640 hallucinations.

01:10:31.680 And I had hallucinations.

01:10:32.640 So I think there are medical things that can cause that.

01:10:35.500 There are drugs that can cause hallucinations.

01:10:37.500 Now, God is over all.

01:10:39.680 I get that.

01:10:40.620 But as a skeptic, I'm always looking for those cases where we have evidence that it's true

01:10:46.920 beyond the experience itself.

01:10:49.120 There are certain forms of what we refer to as mental illness.

01:10:52.400 Yeah.

01:10:52.680 Which is like a phrase invented by people pretty recently.

01:10:56.180 Yeah.

01:10:56.320 And clearly there are forms of mental illness, I think, I guess, whatever that is.

01:11:03.200 But there are certain people who have visions that are very unpleasant.

01:11:08.280 Yes.

01:11:09.220 And that bear like almost a precise resemblance to the demonic possession described in the New Testament.

01:11:15.520 And they may be demonic.

01:11:18.320 I don't know.

01:11:20.220 I have to evaluate each one to try to determine.

01:11:22.740 Of course, these are broad brushes, but you do.

01:11:26.640 Is it fair to conclude that maybe not everything the shrink tells you is mental illness?

01:11:33.780 Yeah.

01:11:34.500 They can never describe where it comes from or how to fix it.

01:11:36.780 They have no idea.

01:11:37.900 But whatever.

01:11:38.800 They know nothing, to be clear.

01:11:41.000 But is it fair to assume that maybe some of that is spiritual?

01:11:44.260 Yes.

01:11:44.640 I think it can very well be.

01:11:45.820 I would look at all of the factors involved, where we have the external corroboration like

01:11:53.260 people left with scratches on them or bruises that cannot be explained, where we have levitation,

01:11:59.980 where we have people speaking in a language they don't know, spontaneously speaking Latin,

01:12:05.020 things like that.

01:12:06.140 Then that is the external corroboration to me that there's something demonic going on.

01:12:11.060 It doesn't mean it couldn't be demonic.

01:12:12.920 I'm just saying those are the cases I'm more comfortable in concluding that they're demonic

01:12:18.460 when I've got that kind of external corroboration.

01:12:21.720 But speaking in languages you don't know can also be described as, in the Acts of the Apostles,

01:12:27.620 as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, of God indwelling.

01:12:32.300 That's right.

01:12:32.960 There are other languages people speak, but not when they're spitting at clergy who are

01:12:39.860 trying to exercise.

01:12:41.480 Oh, is that a sign?

01:12:42.260 Yeah, that could be a sign, too.

01:12:43.320 When you're cringing before a crucifix and you're trying to bite people.

01:12:47.400 But what about glossolalia?

01:12:48.920 What about speaking in tongues?

01:12:50.120 Yeah, that is a spiritual gift.

01:12:52.260 There are Christians who believe that those gifts have ended with the apostolic age and

01:12:56.640 are no longer applicable.

01:12:58.100 There are other Christians who believe they are still active in this world.

01:13:02.120 I believe they are still active.

01:13:03.340 I've met Christians who speak in other tongues and others who interpret that.

01:13:08.780 So, I believe it's a gift that still takes place.

01:13:13.320 I have not experienced that personally, but I have credible people who do and have experienced that.

01:13:21.080 There are other Christians, though, who say, no, no, no, that ended with the apostles.

01:13:25.040 So, that's one of those side issues, theologically, that when we get to heaven, we can raise our hands and ask God,

01:13:32.140 hey, what about that speaking in tongues thing?

01:13:34.120 Yeah, no, I know that there is a debate over it.

01:13:36.420 I have no idea what I think about it, but it is, I guess, just as a factual matter, it's true that there are people who,

01:13:45.260 seized by some unseen force, begin speaking in languages they have never learned.

01:13:50.400 Yes, and often this is, generally I would say, this is not a language that other people speak.

01:13:55.880 It is a—

01:13:56.460 Or have ever spoken?

01:13:57.300 Yeah, have ever spoken.

01:13:58.000 It's a spiritual language.

01:13:59.420 But then there's someone, and this is a good corroboration, someone who can interpret that,

01:14:03.460 and they understand it, this language, even though it is a spiritual language.

01:14:07.600 It's not Latin.

01:14:08.540 It's not Greek.

01:14:09.360 It's a spiritual language, and that someone else is able to hear, and they have a gift as well to interpret what is being said.

01:14:19.600 I got to take it on one other back alley here really quick.

01:14:23.740 So, there, both the Hebrews and the early Christians wrote extensively about the concept of a name.

01:14:31.200 Yeah.

01:14:31.620 God's name.

01:14:32.260 Holy be your name.

01:14:33.460 Yes.

01:14:33.680 In the name of God, the name of Jesus.

01:14:36.820 What does that mean exactly?

01:14:38.640 Why the name?

01:14:39.500 It means a couple things.

01:14:40.500 I mean, to do things in the name of God, Yahweh, in the name of God, is to do something consistent with how God is leading you

01:14:49.920 and how scriptures would suggest that you act.

01:14:53.740 So, in other words, to act in God's name is to do something consistent with his character.

01:14:59.060 So, if I do something charitable to my personal loss and yet to someone else who's in great need, I do that in God's name.

01:15:10.000 I do that because this is what the Bible teaches me, that I should be generous and helpful toward people who are hurting.

01:15:15.580 Right.

01:15:16.080 Names, you know, names in scripture, you know, you look at the name of Jesus is called Emmanuel.

01:15:25.000 Well, he's never called Emmanuel.

01:15:26.340 It said it was his name.

01:15:27.240 But what that means in the ancient language is that he is God with us.

01:15:35.640 That's what Emmanuel means, God with us.

01:15:37.640 And that was the name given to Jesus.

01:15:39.580 But that wasn't the name he was called.

01:15:40.920 But it was a name that was associated with Jesus.

01:15:45.280 So, names have all kinds of implications in ancient Judaism and early Christianity.

01:15:52.640 Sure seems that way.

01:15:53.760 Yeah.

01:15:53.980 I mean—

01:15:54.400 Now we just name people according to what everybody's—

01:15:57.660 What we see on Friends.

01:15:58.680 Yeah, yeah, that's right.

01:16:00.060 But, I mean, you know, observant Jews do not spell out the name of God, right?

01:16:04.500 No.

01:16:04.580 They leave the vowels out.

01:16:05.760 That's right.

01:16:06.100 Because the name is itself holy.

01:16:08.660 Just the name.

01:16:09.420 Yes, that's right.

01:16:10.280 The name—that's right.

01:16:11.700 They would—and they would talk around the name.

01:16:14.960 There's a verse in Luke 15 where it says that there is rejoicing in heaven.

01:16:24.360 How does it go?

01:16:29.740 Yeah, I can't think of the exact terminology.

01:16:31.720 But basically, it's a way of saying there's rejoicing in heaven whenever a person becomes a Christian

01:16:37.180 without saying the name of God rejoicing.

01:16:40.940 It kind of talks around that a bit.

01:16:43.240 So, there's a hesitation.

01:16:46.140 And, in fact, something you didn't want to do in ancient Jewish world is to use the name of God that was forbidden.

01:16:53.800 Like at all.

01:16:54.560 Yeah.

01:16:54.900 You wouldn't use it.

01:16:55.740 And you wouldn't spell it out.

01:16:57.400 You'd talk around it.

01:16:58.920 Because it's so powerful.

01:17:00.080 So holy, yeah.

01:17:00.820 It could hurt you.

01:17:01.380 So, near-death experiences.

01:17:04.100 Yeah.

01:17:04.280 Walk toward the light, Leahy.

01:17:06.620 What's a near-death experience?

01:17:08.380 A near-death experience is when a person is clinically dead.

01:17:11.240 That is, generally, no brain waves, no respiration, no heartbeat.

01:17:14.720 No brain waves?

01:17:14.800 Yeah.

01:17:15.340 They're clinically dead.

01:17:17.780 Yet, they're going to be revived.

01:17:21.020 And so, they're dead for a period of time, clinically dead.

01:17:24.480 But they're not permanently dead.

01:17:26.280 So, the body will be revived at some point.

01:17:28.620 So, by the measurements of science, they're dead.

01:17:31.000 Yeah.

01:17:31.020 That's right.

01:17:31.720 That's right.

01:17:32.040 So, maybe right there, if we just pause, like, maybe right there, we have further evidence

01:17:37.120 that science, while useful, of course, and life-improving in some ways, does not have

01:17:42.560 the tools to measure the totality of the experience.

01:17:46.200 Well, you know, it is.

01:17:47.920 So, they're actually, like, that's the failure.

01:17:49.820 Like, they're obviously not dead.

01:17:51.600 Yeah, that's right.

01:17:52.200 They are coming back.

01:17:53.080 That's right.

01:17:53.780 All the signs are that they're dead.

01:17:55.720 But, you know, the Bible says that, and Christianity teaches that when a person dies, their spirit

01:18:01.300 separates from their body.

01:18:03.180 And this is what we see in a near-death experience.

01:18:06.320 This is evidence for the soul, for the spirit.

01:18:10.220 So, the physical body is clinically dead.

01:18:13.560 There's no sign of life in the body.

01:18:16.180 They're still working on you.

01:18:17.820 Has, once again, has there ever been a culture that we're aware of in the entire span of human

01:18:23.680 history that did not believe in the soul?

01:18:25.900 They all did.

01:18:26.720 They thought that people were just meat puppets.

01:18:28.620 I quote experts in the book that talk about that, that every civilization believed in the

01:18:34.380 spirit, a spirit, a soul, that continues to live on after we die.

01:18:39.100 Our leaders don't believe that.

01:18:40.580 Well, that's not only tragic, it's dangerous.

01:18:43.300 It's very dangerous.

01:18:44.700 Because if you believe we are only our brain, we're only neurons that are firing, that means,

01:18:50.560 technically, we have no free will.

01:18:52.800 And seriously?

01:18:54.260 You're saying we don't have free?

01:18:55.140 How do you punish someone for doing something wrong if they really didn't have free will?

01:18:58.220 Well, it also means we have no inherent rights.

01:19:00.080 We have no right and wrong.

01:19:01.560 Does a rock have a right?

01:19:02.960 No.

01:19:03.400 Exactly.

01:19:04.180 Right.

01:19:04.320 So maybe that should be the acid test for leadership.

01:19:09.740 If you don't believe human beings have souls, if that's not the basis of the way you understand

01:19:14.440 other people, this is a separate person with a distinct and unique soul.

01:19:18.140 Right.

01:19:18.340 If you don't believe that, you can have no power.

01:19:21.380 Yeah.

01:19:21.820 In our society, is that fair?

01:19:23.100 I like that.

01:19:23.840 I like that.

01:19:24.280 I never thought of that before.

01:19:25.340 But I certainly wouldn't trust a person personally, morally, if they believed only that we are a brain.

01:19:31.960 I wouldn't give them a driver's license.

01:19:33.920 That's scary.

01:19:35.160 It is scary.

01:19:35.620 You don't think other people have souls?

01:19:37.020 Exactly.

01:19:37.440 What?

01:19:37.860 You're a psychopath?

01:19:39.760 Exactly.

01:19:40.780 I have an interview in my book with a PhD from Cambridge University in neuroscience who says

01:19:46.660 the evidence is so persuasive that, yes, indeed, we do have a soul.

01:19:52.060 We do have a spirit.

01:19:52.720 Thank you.

01:19:53.260 Yes.

01:19:53.780 Thank you, neuroscientist.

01:19:55.460 Yeah.

01:19:56.080 Thank you for confirming.

01:19:58.580 What's interesting is that we have cases where people are clinically dead, their spirit separates

01:20:06.080 from their body, and they see or hear things that would have been impossible for them to

01:20:11.100 see or hear if their spirit had not actually separated from their body.

01:20:15.460 So this is confirmation that the soul exists.

01:20:19.060 And let me give you some examples.

01:20:20.260 There's a woman named Maria.

01:20:21.600 She was dying in a hospital in London, England.

01:20:25.180 But she said, I was conscious the whole time.

01:20:29.520 And so here they are working on her body, trying to bring her back.

01:20:32.320 She said, my spirit floated out of my body.

01:20:35.020 I met a divine being, but mainly I'm looking down from the ceiling of the hospital room at

01:20:42.600 the resuscitation efforts.

01:20:44.120 I'm watching them trying to revive my body.

01:20:46.800 And then at some point, the reviving works and the spirit returns to the body.

01:20:52.440 And she says, by the way, see the ceiling fan here in this room, the hospital room?

01:20:59.720 There's a red sticker on top of one of the blades of the ceiling fan.

01:21:05.220 Now, you couldn't see it from the room because it's on the top of one of the blades of the

01:21:10.080 ceiling fan.

01:21:10.660 But she saw it because from her perspective near the ceiling, watching resuscitation, she

01:21:15.920 was looking down.

01:21:17.520 So they got a ladder.

01:21:18.940 They went up there.

01:21:19.640 Sure enough, on the top of this blade, here's the sticker exactly as she has described it.

01:21:25.860 That tells me that she really did have an out-of-body experience, just as the Bible describes.

01:21:32.120 And this is extremely common.

01:21:34.560 We have a woman, a young girl.

01:21:36.840 She was nine years old, so I recall, eight or nine.

01:21:40.000 She drowned in a swimming pool at YMCA.

01:21:43.580 Horrible, horrible.

01:21:44.360 Her brain had swelled.

01:21:46.420 She had no respiration, no heartbeat.

01:21:51.720 She was clinically dead.

01:21:53.540 So they brought her to the hospital to keep her body alive mechanically until they decided

01:21:57.480 what to do, you know.

01:21:59.580 And they continued to try to revive her.

01:22:01.640 But as it turns out, three days later, she was revived and with no brain damage.

01:22:08.500 And she said, by the way, I was conscious the whole time.

01:22:14.460 And they said, oh, that's not possible.

01:22:17.060 And so the doctors who were skeptical said, here, here's a piece of paper and a crayon.

01:22:20.740 Why don't you draw the emergency room where we took you when you were dead?

01:22:24.660 So she picks up the crayon.

01:22:25.760 She draws the emergency room exactly as it appears.

01:22:28.020 And then she said, by the way, one night when my parents visited me in the hospital, I followed

01:22:34.280 them home.

01:22:36.060 And I watched as my mom, she was making chicken soup with rice on the stove.

01:22:41.100 And my dad was sitting in a certain chair and he was looking in a certain direction.

01:22:45.320 And her brother, she said, was playing with a G.I.O.

01:22:48.560 Joe Jeep in his bedroom.

01:22:51.120 And these are the clothes that they were wearing.

01:22:53.780 Everything was exactly correct.

01:22:55.960 How do you explain that if she didn't have an authentic out-of-body experience while she

01:23:03.560 was clinically dead?

01:23:05.360 So this is affirmation that near-death experiences do point toward a spirit, a soul that separates

01:23:13.340 from our body at the time of death.

01:23:14.800 Now it can return to our body if we're revived.

01:23:17.060 And that's what happens in these cases.

01:23:18.580 Interestingly, there was a study done of 21 blind people, either blind since birth or

01:23:25.900 shortly thereafter.

01:23:27.180 They were able to see or had visual-like perceptions during their near-death experiences.

01:23:33.900 So there's a woman named Vicki.

01:23:35.380 Wait, what?

01:23:36.580 Yeah.

01:23:36.980 Vicki Umepeg, 26 years old.

01:23:39.200 She's blind, virtually since birth.

01:23:41.440 She is killed in a car crash.

01:23:43.640 She's a passenger in a car.

01:23:44.560 She's killed.

01:23:44.960 But she said later, I was conscious the whole time.

01:23:48.440 And her spirits floated out.

01:23:50.800 She was able to see the resuscitation efforts.

01:23:54.680 She was able to see childhood friends who she'd never seen in person, but she knew intuitively

01:23:59.860 who they were.

01:24:00.600 Oh, that's Mary.

01:24:01.440 That's Jimmy.

01:24:02.420 She sees birds for the first time.

01:24:04.380 She sees trees and so forth.

01:24:05.880 And then when her body is revived and her spirit returns to her body, she's blind again.

01:24:13.140 Medical researchers said, this is impossible based on current medical knowledge.

01:24:19.000 How does this happen?

01:24:19.940 Um, so there's a phenomenon here that tells me that there's corroboration, that there's

01:24:27.200 something, uh, to this idea that we have a soul, a spirit that is, um, um, different

01:24:34.400 than our physical brain and body.

01:24:36.680 And I'll add this.

01:24:38.080 This is really important.

01:24:39.780 John Burke is, I interview him for my book.

01:24:42.940 John Burke is a Christian pastor who, um, with an engineering degree and science background,

01:24:47.940 who studied 1500 cases of near-death experiences in depth.

01:24:54.000 He has video interviews with people and so forth.

01:24:56.640 And here's his conclusion.

01:24:58.580 He said, Lee, if you look at not how people interpret what happens, because we all interpret

01:25:03.940 things through our worldview.

01:25:05.180 Of course.

01:25:05.480 If you're a Muslim, if you're a Hindu, you're going to interpret things differently.

01:25:08.780 Forget that.

01:25:09.760 Set that aside.

01:25:10.800 Just look at what actually takes place during a typical near-death experience.

01:25:15.440 That is consistent with the Christian Bible.

01:25:19.500 And what is it that's consistent?

01:25:21.120 Well, uh, things like, um, um, encountering a divine being, uh, things like encountering

01:25:29.100 people who had preceded you in death, um, things like a life review where your life is reviewed

01:25:36.240 and you not only experience with this divine figure next to you who's encouraging you.

01:25:44.340 It's not a judgmental kind of a way.

01:25:46.260 It's, you're judging yourself.

01:25:47.860 You're, you're, you're, um, um, you're reviewing every little action you took, but you're able

01:25:54.320 for the first time to see the ripple effects of that.

01:25:57.240 So I may have done something that hurt you years ago, and I never realized the impact

01:26:03.060 that had on you and, and how that caused you to do this, that, and the other thing.

01:26:07.660 And yet in this life review, you, you see not only what you did and you did good and you

01:26:13.120 did bad, but the ramifications of it.

01:26:16.140 Yes.

01:26:16.600 That's, that takes place.

01:26:18.220 Now you're not permanently dead.

01:26:20.080 The Bible says in Hebrews, we're appointed once to die and then the judgment.

01:26:23.880 So you would think that biblically speaking, you would die and then you would encounter

01:26:29.600 judgment.

01:26:30.300 Well, you're not permanently dead.

01:26:32.480 You're coming back.

01:26:33.360 This is not your permanent death.

01:26:34.700 So this is kind of a, a taste, a foretaste of what death is like, but you're not permanently

01:26:39.740 dead.

01:26:40.060 You're just clinically dead.

01:26:41.460 Um, but you still have some of the attributes of what the Bible talks about in terms of,

01:26:47.180 of a judgment.

01:26:48.220 So, um, I think that's reassuring for Christians like me who used to think, oh, that's new age

01:26:53.500 stuff.

01:26:54.000 Near death experience.

01:26:54.900 That's weird.

01:26:55.300 There have been Tucker 900 scholarly articles written about near death, uh, experiences in

01:27:03.740 medical journals and scientific journals over the last 50 years.

01:27:07.480 This is a very well-researched area and they have concluded that there is no natural explanation

01:27:14.160 that can account for all of the aspects of a near death experience.

01:27:18.520 It's a fascinating area.

01:27:20.720 And, and, and so I interview, as I said, John Burke, who's an expert on them.

01:27:23.880 Uh, to give examples of this sort of thing.

01:27:26.500 What about pre-death?

01:27:28.340 Yes.

01:27:28.880 This is death vision.

01:27:30.020 This is, ah, this is, this is new.

01:27:32.980 Can I just add one editorial comment?

01:27:34.820 Yeah.

01:27:34.940 I'm so filled with rage.

01:27:36.320 I have to do it.

01:27:37.760 That our culture systematically excludes conversation, real conversations about death.

01:27:44.940 Obviously we're very pro-death.

01:27:46.900 You know, kill your baby, euthanize your parents, whatever.

01:27:49.500 We're all about death.

01:27:50.380 But the actual experience of death is kind of cloaked for most people.

01:27:54.520 And I don't, I don't think they have any idea what it is when someone dies, the process

01:27:58.400 of dying.

01:27:59.160 And, um, so this is a welcome conversation.

01:28:03.000 Um, Tucker, it's fascinating.

01:28:05.000 These, uh, deathbed visions.

01:28:06.820 The difference between a near-death experience and a deathbed vision is in a near-death experience,

01:28:10.860 a person is going to come back.

01:28:12.540 In a deathbed vision, this is a vision someone has just before they die.

01:28:16.660 They're not coming back.

01:28:17.640 I mean, they're permanently going to die.

01:28:19.620 But we see a biblical example of this in the book of Acts.

01:28:22.380 We see Stephen, who is described as being full of the Holy Spirit, who is on the verge

01:28:27.640 of being stoned to death.

01:28:29.580 And he looks up and he sees the heavens open up and he sees the Father and the Son together.

01:28:33.460 So this is, has a biblical precedent, but what is fascinating, and I think what you said is

01:28:38.640 so true, people don't like to talk about it because-

01:28:42.820 At all.

01:28:43.120 Yeah, at all.

01:28:43.640 Because you, if you have one of these experiences before you die, you think they're going to

01:28:47.560 think I'm, I've got dementia.

01:28:49.660 They're going to think I'm nuts.

01:28:51.180 They're going to, they're going to think, you know, so a lot of people don't like to

01:28:54.720 talk about it.

01:28:55.200 So there's a researcher.

01:28:56.680 He went to a huge hospice facility in New York state and they went to all the dying people

01:29:02.000 and they said, please, as a favor, if you have a vision, a dream, unlike any you've

01:29:07.900 ever had, tell us, would you tell us?

01:29:12.980 And so 88% of those dying people had a pre-death vision that they reported on before they died.

01:29:23.180 88%.

01:29:23.580 I think the other 12% probably had one, but they died before they were able to say anything.

01:29:27.620 Or they were so high on morphine, they couldn't talk.

01:29:29.960 That's true.

01:29:30.480 They get, people get drugged up.

01:29:31.900 That's true.

01:29:32.480 So there's that.

01:29:33.200 I mean, obviously you don't want people to suffer.

01:29:35.580 You want to alleviate suffering and alleviate pain.

01:29:38.080 I'm totally for that.

01:29:39.220 I'm, you know, want to be clear about it, but there's also this custom, which has grown

01:29:43.120 to ubiquity.

01:29:44.060 Now it's just, it's everybody who dies, gets from the hospice nurses.

01:29:50.160 Yeah.

01:29:50.940 They kill you with morphine.

01:29:52.120 I mean, that's, no one wants to say that out loud, but I've seen it.

01:29:54.420 They kill you with morphine.

01:29:55.700 Yeah.

01:29:55.880 And, um, okay.

01:29:58.300 First, we should just be honest about what's happening.

01:30:00.220 Yeah.

01:30:00.540 Always.

01:30:01.520 But second, we should be clear about the cost.

01:30:04.740 Yes.

01:30:04.860 So if people, if.

01:30:06.140 Yes.

01:30:06.740 Everybody on the way out is getting visions of some kind.

01:30:09.800 Yes.

01:30:10.060 Maybe there's a purpose to those visions.

01:30:12.260 Maybe we shouldn't short circuit that.

01:30:14.240 And Tucker.

01:30:15.260 Maybe.

01:30:15.960 There's also corroboration for these.

01:30:19.360 So in other words, they did one study of 3000 of these and they determined this is not

01:30:24.280 just something coming from the subconscious mind.

01:30:26.420 There is something else here.

01:30:27.960 And I'll give you the example of the corroboration.

01:30:30.400 There was a woman named Doris.

01:30:32.480 Um, she's dying on her deathbed and she has a pre-death vision and she sees the heavens

01:30:39.560 open up and she sees angelic beings and she sees her father who had died several years

01:30:44.620 earlier.

01:30:44.920 And he's kind of almost welcoming her to the next realm.

01:30:48.540 But then she gets this confused look on her face and she says, wait a minute.

01:30:52.480 Why is Vida with my father?

01:30:54.680 What?

01:30:55.300 What?

01:30:55.940 What?

01:30:56.640 Why would, why would Vida be there?

01:30:59.040 Makes no sense.

01:30:59.820 What?

01:30:59.960 Why would Vida be there?

01:31:02.480 And then she died.

01:31:04.220 Vida was her sister.

01:31:05.880 Her sister had died two weeks earlier, but no one had told Doris because she was so ill

01:31:10.140 they didn't want the news to kill her.

01:31:11.940 So they withheld the news that her sister Vida had died.

01:31:15.140 And yet on her deathbed, she sees Vida in the world to come.

01:31:20.200 That is fairly common.

01:31:21.740 It actually happened with my father-in-law.

01:31:24.060 So that to me is a corroboration.

01:31:26.600 Another form of corroboration, get this.

01:31:28.600 In the Bible, in Luke 16, there's a story of a rich man and a beggar who both die.

01:31:37.800 Yes.

01:31:38.200 And the rich man goes to a place of torment.

01:31:40.220 Yeah.

01:31:40.640 And the beggar goes to a place of bliss.

01:31:42.440 The rich man, by the way, has walked past the poor man every day.

01:31:45.360 That's right.

01:31:45.760 And ignored him.

01:31:46.280 And ignored him.

01:31:47.000 So the beggar, according to Jesus in verse 22, is accompanied by angels to heaven.

01:31:56.680 That angels accompany him to heaven.

01:31:58.800 And what's particularly fascinating is people who have pre-death visions often see angels

01:32:03.780 coming for them, just as Jesus suggested in that parable.

01:32:07.400 So, for instance, the most famous skeptic in Canada, Charles Templeton.

01:32:15.180 Charles Templeton was the pulpit partner of Billy Graham.

01:32:18.400 He was going to be the great evangelist.

01:32:20.340 But then he went to a liberal seminary.

01:32:22.120 He lost his faith.

01:32:23.440 He wrote an ugly book called Farewell to God, My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith.

01:32:29.020 And I got to know him.

01:32:30.760 He became a friend.

01:32:31.880 I actually wrote a book called The Case for Faith, where I answered all his objections to Christianity.

01:32:36.360 And we became friends.

01:32:38.160 Anyway, he ended up coming back to faith in Christ before he died.

01:32:42.380 And then he's on his deathbed.

01:32:44.620 And he calls out to his wife, Madeline.

01:32:46.500 Madeline, what, what, Chuck?

01:32:48.680 Can you see them?

01:32:49.880 What are you talking about?

01:32:50.940 They're in the room.

01:32:52.080 You can't see them.

01:32:52.860 They're right here in this room.

01:32:53.680 They're the angels.

01:32:54.680 They're coming for me.

01:32:55.560 Oh, they're so beautiful.

01:32:56.780 Look at them.

01:32:57.400 They're so, the singing is so beautiful.

01:32:59.540 They're coming for me.

01:33:00.420 I'm going to heaven.

01:33:01.220 I'm going to be with God.

01:33:02.240 And that is incredibly common, that people will see angels coming for them in that vision they had before they died.

01:33:10.700 Now, here's another bit of corroboration.

01:33:14.780 Children who are dying will see angels, but not like you would expect them to be seen.

01:33:21.380 In other words, let's say a five-year-old who's dying.

01:33:24.300 What is their image of an angel?

01:33:27.120 Well, it's a furry thing with, or feathery thing with big wings, right?

01:33:31.520 It's a cartoon, right?

01:33:33.040 It's a cartoon.

01:33:33.660 They all have big wings.

01:33:35.300 And so there's a case from a doctoral dissertation I read of a little girl who was dying.

01:33:40.700 And she says, Mommy, Mommy, can you see the angels?

01:33:44.560 They're coming for me.

01:33:45.980 Oh, they're so beautiful.

01:33:47.140 They're so beautiful.

01:33:47.980 Their eyes, look at their eyes.

01:33:50.000 And the mother didn't want to disappoint her.

01:33:51.680 So she said, Oh, yeah, yeah, I see them.

01:33:53.260 Look at their big wings.

01:33:55.800 And a little girl said, Oh, Mommy, they don't have wings.

01:33:59.660 And she was able to describe them in vivid detail before she died.

01:34:04.740 Wow.

01:34:05.200 You would think if a child of that age was going to have just a vision from their imagination of angels coming for them, they would have big wings.

01:34:14.260 They don't.

01:34:15.180 It would be the Hallmark version, yeah.

01:34:16.340 That's right.

01:34:16.900 And case after case, they don't see the big wings.

01:34:19.960 And by the way, the Bible doesn't say that all angels have wings.

01:34:22.100 So that to me is another very interesting dynamic of these pre-death visions.

01:34:29.960 Not all people on their deathbed have joyful visions.

01:34:33.260 That's right.

01:34:33.680 Or reunited with loved ones in the next world.

01:34:37.060 Yes.

01:34:37.300 There are many people who are in terror.

01:34:40.900 Yes.

01:34:41.760 And horrified.

01:34:43.020 Yes.

01:34:43.180 And can you describe that and what is it?

01:34:46.520 Yes.

01:34:47.300 We have this in near-death experiences and in deathbed visions where people who are about to die have a glimpse, I believe, of a hellish experience to come.

01:34:57.500 And they are frightened beyond belief and scared beyond words.

01:35:03.780 I'll give you an example of a near-death vision where this happened.

01:35:07.060 There's a man named Howard Storm.

01:35:09.160 Howard was an atheist.

01:35:10.900 He was a professor of art at a secular university, chairman of the art department.

01:35:15.000 And he was visiting France.

01:35:16.920 And he died of a heart attack.

01:35:18.540 So here he is.

01:35:19.320 He's in a French hospital.

01:35:20.420 He's dead.

01:35:21.300 But he said later, I was conscious the whole time.

01:35:23.660 It was a near-death experience.

01:35:25.040 His spirit had separated from his body.

01:35:27.340 And there were some people in the hallway say, Howard, we've been waiting for you.

01:35:30.740 Come with us.

01:35:31.280 Come with us.

01:35:32.040 So he does.

01:35:33.360 And he's walking down the hallway.

01:35:35.240 His spirit is walking down the hallway with these people.

01:35:38.580 And it goes on and on and on.

01:35:40.660 And it gets darker and darker.

01:35:41.900 And then they're becoming abusive.

01:35:43.580 And they're saying, come on, come on.

01:35:44.680 Why are you so slow?

01:35:45.800 And then they start to attack him.

01:35:47.780 And he said, no horror movie can ever capture the horror of what they did to me.

01:35:59.740 I mean, he was absolutely mauled.

01:36:01.640 He said, I was roadkill.

01:36:03.700 And he said, I called out to God.

01:36:05.560 Malt, like physically mauled.

01:36:06.740 Yes.

01:36:07.540 Eyes gouged out.

01:36:09.020 Ears ripped off.

01:36:10.120 And he calls out to Jesus.

01:36:12.440 Jesus, rescue me.

01:36:14.200 And this white orb comes and brings him and rescues him from that.

01:36:20.140 And he is restored.

01:36:22.240 Well, ultimately, his body is revived.

01:36:25.960 His spirit returns to his body.

01:36:27.260 This is such a profound experience that he not only renounced his atheism, he not only

01:36:33.300 quit his tenured position as chairman of the art department at a secular university, he not

01:36:38.800 only became a Christian, he went to seminary, he became a pastor.

01:36:43.440 And today he's a pastor of this little church.

01:36:46.020 I think it's in Kentucky or Oklahoma or somewhere in the middle of nowhere, serving God.

01:36:50.960 That's how transformative this experience was.

01:36:53.840 But there are multiple cases of people having horrific.

01:36:58.240 In fact, one study of near-death experiences said it was 24 percent had negative experiences, not positive ones.

01:37:05.640 It doesn't feel like a good sign.

01:37:07.200 No, no.

01:37:08.200 I mean, what it does to me is it's affirmation that, you know what?

01:37:12.480 What the Bible tells us is true.

01:37:14.360 There is a heaven.

01:37:15.200 There is a hell.

01:37:16.880 And these are real places.

01:37:17.800 Every society ever has thought that.

01:37:19.440 Yeah.

01:37:19.740 Every society.

01:37:21.120 And I think everyone intuitively knows that.

01:37:23.300 Yeah.

01:37:23.920 I've never had a near-death experience.

01:37:25.320 But the one time I thought I was going to die many years ago, I was in a plane crash.

01:37:29.140 I was filled with sadness.

01:37:30.600 I had no peace at all.

01:37:32.020 Yeah.

01:37:32.700 Yeah.

01:37:33.980 None.

01:37:34.820 Only regret.

01:37:36.000 Yeah.

01:37:36.920 So I did take that as an indication I should change the way I was living.

01:37:42.040 And I did.

01:37:42.340 Well, God used that in your life.

01:37:43.600 Well, I felt that way.

01:37:44.920 And certainly in retrospect, I think that.

01:37:46.440 Yeah.

01:37:46.920 But I remember thinking, wow, I'm going to die.

01:37:49.140 I was certain of it.

01:37:50.120 And I thought later, I thought that when people knew they were going to die, they were filled

01:37:55.980 with like peace and warmth and walk toward the light.

01:38:00.200 That was not my experience at all.

01:38:02.600 It was like, man, I can't believe I did a few things.

01:38:06.360 Oh.

01:38:06.880 And I've really felt sad about it.

01:38:08.640 So.

01:38:09.240 Well, that's the reality.

01:38:10.700 Well, but I guess it's.

01:38:12.040 Yeah.

01:38:12.580 Well, it was the reality that I experienced for sure.

01:38:15.220 But I also think that it's what a blessing.

01:38:17.780 Yes.

01:38:18.180 To have an opportunity to, you know, to turn back and change.

01:38:25.500 That's the thing about these near-death experiences, that you have another chance.

01:38:30.540 You don't have it in deathbed vision, but you're going to be revived.

01:38:33.660 And then you have a choice to make.

01:38:34.960 Yes.

01:38:35.080 Is that the road I continue to want to go down?

01:38:37.040 The first thing I did was quit drinking and then had a fourth child.

01:38:39.460 Wow.

01:38:39.940 It's awesome.

01:38:40.700 It was.

01:38:41.140 It was awesome.

01:38:41.880 It was awesome.

01:38:42.480 It was literally awesome.

01:38:43.160 Wow.

01:38:43.500 So, yes.

01:38:45.260 So I think that there's something real there.

01:38:47.640 And it does seem like a crime of some kind to deprive people of that.

01:38:52.640 Yeah.

01:38:53.020 With drugs.

01:38:53.920 I know.

01:38:54.680 I know.

01:38:55.040 Everyone experiences it just like anything else.

01:38:57.300 Yeah.

01:38:57.420 Like, maybe there's a reason.

01:38:59.060 Yeah.

01:38:59.540 Yeah.

01:38:59.880 It's not random.

01:39:01.160 Maybe.

01:39:01.940 You know, I'd encourage people who are watching or listening to this podcast.

01:39:05.420 Next time you have a big family get together with the cousins and the uncles and the aunts

01:39:09.920 and everything, ask people, do we have any family stories about deathbed visions or

01:39:15.500 near-death experiences?

01:39:16.840 I bet you you'll find, oh, Uncle Bob had that experience or Cousin Jim had that experience.

01:39:23.680 I was having dinner with seven people in Oklahoma City and four of them, we talked about this,

01:39:29.540 four of them had relatives who had pre-death visions.

01:39:34.260 I'm not surprised.

01:39:35.420 It's incredibly common.

01:39:36.120 I've never asked that question at a dinner party, but I have asked, has anyone seen a ghost?

01:39:40.640 Yeah.

01:39:41.380 A hundred percent of the time there's someone at the table who has.

01:39:43.480 Yeah.

01:39:43.700 A hundred percent.

01:39:44.680 Yeah.

01:39:44.980 What is that?

01:39:46.160 Ghosts.

01:39:46.680 I have a chapter on ghosts and psychics in my book.

01:39:51.380 The technical definition of a ghost is someone who dies, but refuses to go into the afterlife.

01:39:57.600 Their spirit refuses to go into the next life.

01:40:00.300 I don't see that in the Bible.

01:40:02.800 So I don't think that ghosts per se are from God.

01:40:09.200 I think most likely an apparition that we interpret as being ghosts is most like a demonic apparition.

01:40:16.680 I think people feel that.

01:40:17.940 I think so.

01:40:18.720 Ghosts have a bad rep.

01:40:20.180 Yes.

01:40:20.800 Yeah.

01:40:21.500 No one is summoning ghosts.

01:40:23.740 It's not like Casper who's going to bring you some flowers.

01:40:27.120 Generally, people are anti-ghost.

01:40:28.760 Yes.

01:40:29.620 Ghost stories.

01:40:30.500 Yes.

01:40:31.000 Yeah.

01:40:31.300 Yes.

01:40:31.780 Ghosted.

01:40:32.460 Yeah.

01:40:32.640 It's not a good connotation.

01:40:34.760 Yeah.

01:40:35.240 I don't think that surprises anyone.

01:40:36.660 So I do talk about ghosts and I talk about psychics and the tricks that they use to convince

01:40:41.980 people that they're more analytical.

01:40:42.960 Are you pro-psychic?

01:40:44.080 Sorry?

01:40:44.640 Are you pro-psychic?

01:40:45.420 I'm anti-psychic.

01:40:46.580 Yeah.

01:40:46.820 I am too.

01:40:47.820 Why are you anti-psychic?

01:40:49.400 Because the Bible says do not consult mediums.

01:40:52.480 Do not consult psychics.

01:40:53.940 I mean, it's very clear.

01:40:55.120 Multiple places in scripture, do not do it.

01:40:58.640 Oh, well, among the ancient Hebrews, that was a death penalty offense.

01:41:02.580 Exactly it was.

01:41:04.100 And so you just, it's not something we want to mess with.

01:41:06.480 And I think there's got to be a reason for that.

01:41:07.900 I think it's because it opens the door to the demonic, that you're trying to consult the

01:41:12.860 dead.

01:41:13.160 You're trying to find out something apart from what God might reveal through a psychic, through

01:41:19.480 a medium who supposedly has a cultic wherewithal and is able to take you down that pathway.

01:41:26.520 It's dangerous.

01:41:29.040 And I talk in the book about the tricks that they use to, you know, there's things like

01:41:34.700 cold readings and warm readings and hot readings where people who want to fool you into thinking

01:41:39.660 they know more about you than they do will employ that.

01:41:42.620 And they think, oh my gosh, this person knows all about me.

01:41:44.560 No, they don't.

01:41:45.460 They're just very clever people who are able to read certain things about you.

01:41:49.660 No, I mean, there, of course, there's a lot of BS gypsy tricks, but I'll tell you one

01:41:54.380 case that's real.

01:41:54.600 But it's also true in the, in the Bible that, um, at least in my read of it, that, um, they're

01:42:01.460 taken seriously.

01:42:02.600 Well, there are cases.

01:42:04.660 That's why it's a death penalty offense.

01:42:05.980 Not because, not because it's fake, because it's real.

01:42:08.200 Because it can be real.

01:42:09.060 And yeah, that's a good way to argue it.

01:42:11.560 There is a case in contemporary times where President Carter was president and a, um, two

01:42:18.560 engine aircraft went down and crashed in Africa and the United States government was trying

01:42:22.840 to find it.

01:42:23.480 I don't know why, but they, they wanted to find that aircraft and they had satellites

01:42:27.600 repositioned looking for, they could not find the wreckage of this airplane.

01:42:31.640 And so, um, the Stansfield Turner, who was the head of the CIA, um, consulted a medium,

01:42:38.600 a psychic in California.

01:42:40.080 She went into a trance and she gave the longitudinal and, um, latitude of where to find the plane.

01:42:46.920 They went, they reoriented the satellites and boom, there was a wreckage of the plane,

01:42:52.080 just as she had said.

01:42:54.300 What do you do with that?

01:42:55.580 That tells me she was in connection with something there.

01:43:00.320 Now, if the Bible says, don't be connecting with psychics, it was probably demonic.

01:43:05.900 And why would she do that?

01:43:07.620 Because now she's got credibility.

01:43:09.380 Now, the next time they want to know something, let's go to that woman in California, told

01:43:12.920 us where that plane was.

01:43:13.780 She seems to have these abilities to know the future, to know things that we don't know.

01:43:18.720 And now she has credibility.

01:43:20.120 I think that was a way for Satan to give her credibility so that we'd be fooled into thinking

01:43:24.940 into the future to take advantage of her psychic power.

01:43:27.420 Yeah, best not to play with that stuff.

01:43:28.780 No, no.

01:43:29.740 It's best to stay away from that.

01:43:31.440 So, contacting dead relatives through a medium, Ouija boards, all that stuff, scary, bad.

01:43:37.060 Yeah.

01:43:37.260 On the other hand, I mean, that's my position.

01:43:40.220 Yeah.

01:43:40.420 I'm sure it's yours.

01:43:41.620 Yeah.

01:43:42.360 I came to that position through experience, not just guessing, it's bad.

01:43:46.440 However, I know a lot of decent, God-fearing people who have said, well, I really feel

01:43:52.060 like I was contacted by a dead relative, a dead loved one.

01:43:54.800 Yeah.

01:43:55.420 That's an interesting, and I have a couple of cases I talk about in the book of that, that

01:43:59.600 seemingly are corroborated.

01:44:01.060 Um, um, what do you do with that?

01:44:04.600 Because, um...

01:44:05.800 How is that inconsistent with your theology?

01:44:08.280 On the one hand, there are a couple of cases in Scripture where the dead have come back

01:44:12.400 like that.

01:44:13.100 Um, Elijah came back at the, the, um, um, uh, transfiguration.

01:44:19.940 Yeah.

01:44:20.320 Um, so there's an example of a dead person coming back.

01:44:24.100 There's the other example of, um, in the Old Testament of a, uh, going to a medium and a

01:44:30.480 dead person coming back, not because of the power of the medium, because she was surprised

01:44:34.440 it happened, but through the power of God, he allowed that dead person to come back.

01:44:38.120 So there are a couple of, perhaps, precedents in Scripture of dead people coming back.

01:44:44.840 Um, one of the reasons I'm skeptical is because when Jesus was talking about, in Luke 16, about

01:44:52.100 the rich man who died and the beggar who died, uh, he talked about a gulf between the

01:44:57.180 living and the dead.

01:44:57.920 Um, that concerns me.

01:45:00.600 Um, uh, so, uh, that raises some questions in my mind.

01:45:05.040 I think the transfiguration and the incident with what's called the medium of Endor in the

01:45:10.620 Old Testament may be one-offs, and those are unusual circumstances.

01:45:16.000 So I'm, Tucker, I don't, I'm not quite sure what to do with it, because I talk about a couple

01:45:20.420 of cases in the book where a dead relative returns, um, and a person talks to that relative

01:45:27.800 and then they disappear and then their, their child comes in, eight-year-old child and says,

01:45:34.540 I just saw grandpa.

01:45:35.520 I just talked to him.

01:45:36.980 So he experienced the same vision.

01:45:39.900 Well, that's pretty weird.

01:45:41.520 Yeah.

01:45:41.820 Um, is that corroboration and so forth?

01:45:44.900 Well, here's my concern.

01:45:46.820 So many times the people have contact with these dead people.

01:45:50.640 These are people that lived ungodly lives.

01:45:53.720 And yet they say, everything's fine.

01:45:55.580 I'm fine.

01:45:56.440 Everything's good.

01:45:57.500 Just take care of the family.

01:45:59.420 Tell everybody I love them.

01:46:00.640 I'm good.

01:46:01.280 Don't worry about me.

01:46:02.440 That's the general message people get.

01:46:04.140 Well, what does that say to someone who is thinking about what do I need to do to live

01:46:10.400 a life that will bring me to heaven and to God?

01:46:13.160 Well, Uncle Tom came and told me he's fine.

01:46:15.660 He didn't, he was a, he was a adulterer and a, he never came to faith in Jesus.

01:46:21.160 He's a, you know, bad guy.

01:46:22.640 And yet he says he's fine in the afterlife.

01:46:25.660 Wouldn't that be something that a demon might want to imitate, uh, to send a false message?

01:46:31.560 I, I think maybe.

01:46:32.840 So I guess I'm giving you two answers.

01:46:35.700 One is there is some biblical precedent for a dead coming back, but I think they may be

01:46:40.600 one-offs.

01:46:41.080 I'm not sure.

01:46:42.200 Um, I think there'd be a good motive for Satan to counterfeit that, um, you know, it says Satan

01:46:49.640 can appear as a, um, as an angel of light as a counterfeit.

01:46:54.920 Uh, he can fool us into thinking he's something he's not.

01:46:57.960 Would that be to his advantage to do to mislead people?

01:47:01.640 I think it could be.

01:47:03.260 So I'm not quite sure where I'm at.

01:47:06.720 Are UFOs what we call UFOs spiritual entities?

01:47:09.800 I don't know.

01:47:10.600 I didn't get into UFOs in the book.

01:47:12.220 It's a fascinating topic.

01:47:14.160 Maybe I'll do another book on that.

01:47:15.600 But, um, so I didn't research it thoroughly.

01:47:19.280 Having said that though, it would not be an affront to my faith.

01:47:24.500 If indeed we found intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, the Bible doesn't say that

01:47:29.320 we are unique in that.

01:47:30.900 No, it doesn't.

01:47:31.940 But, but I wonder, um, could they be spiritual is the question?

01:47:35.960 Yeah.

01:47:36.280 Yeah.

01:47:36.540 It could be.

01:47:38.200 It could be.

01:47:39.320 Yes.

01:47:40.120 Is it?

01:47:40.620 I don't know.

01:47:41.180 I, I, I just not as knowledgeable on that to be able to give a strong opinion.

01:47:46.700 Uh, last question.

01:47:48.500 Miracles.

01:47:49.280 Yeah.

01:47:50.560 Um, what is a miracle?

01:47:51.700 A miracle is an event brought about by the power of God that is a temporary exception

01:47:57.720 to the ordinary course of nature for the purpose of showing that God has acted in history.

01:48:03.080 So in other words, a lot of people, skeptics.

01:48:05.080 Nice definition.

01:48:06.480 Thank you.

01:48:06.640 That's from Robert Pertill, who was a philosopher.

01:48:08.820 He, he, uh, I thought that was the best definition I'd heard.

01:48:12.320 Here's the problem.

01:48:13.260 A lot of skeptics will say, I don't believe in miracles because you can't violate the laws

01:48:18.860 of nature.

01:48:19.320 So by definition, a miracle is impossible.

01:48:22.580 We haven't even settled on the laws of nature.

01:48:24.720 They're so dumb.

01:48:25.420 Well, here's how I answer it.

01:48:26.460 We don't even, like the laws of nature, really?

01:48:28.860 Well.

01:48:29.400 Science every day challenges the laws of nature.

01:48:32.220 And especially with quantum physics and everything.

01:48:34.100 Exactly.

01:48:34.900 But I say, look, I have this glass of water here.

01:48:37.240 If I were to drop it, the law of gravity would say it would hit the floor.

01:48:41.440 Yeah.

01:48:41.820 But if I drop it and you reached in and grabbed it before it hit the floor, you're not violating

01:48:45.900 the law of gravity.

01:48:46.840 You're not overturning the law of gravity.

01:48:48.620 You're just intervening.

01:48:50.560 And that's what a miracle is, is God intervening temporarily into his creation.

01:48:56.260 He brought it about.

01:48:57.180 So of course he could intervene.

01:48:59.680 And, um, man.

01:49:01.860 But again, our understanding of nature and its laws changes every day.

01:49:07.840 And it's so shallow.

01:49:09.040 It's so shallow what we know.

01:49:10.420 Yeah.

01:49:10.740 But I mean, our, I mean, our view of what is natural is different now from what it was

01:49:17.460 five years ago.

01:49:18.540 Yeah.

01:49:19.160 And what it'll be five years from now.

01:49:20.800 Exactly.

01:49:21.480 Yeah.

01:49:21.640 So that's just the silliness and the shallowness of claims like that kind of shocked me.

01:49:27.140 It does.

01:49:27.900 So miracles, um, but you know, to the extent we can know, like, this is so unusual, like

01:49:33.700 this couldn't have happened accidentally.

01:49:34.920 Yeah.

01:49:35.120 Can I give you an example?

01:49:35.920 Yeah, please do.

01:49:36.660 And this one I personally investigated and it's been, um, widely documented.

01:49:41.180 A woman named Barbara, um, she, uh, was diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic.

01:49:45.840 So we've got all those records with multiple sclerosis, uh, as a teenager and it was progressive.

01:49:51.080 She started, she got worse very quickly.

01:49:53.160 Yeah.

01:49:53.620 So she just got worse and worse and worse, multiple hospitalizations to the point where

01:49:59.740 the doctor said, look, and her parents said, look, next time she gets pneumonia, which

01:50:04.180 she would get on a regular basis, we're just going to let her die.

01:50:07.020 Let her go.

01:50:07.520 Yeah.

01:50:07.620 Because we're just postponing the inevitable.

01:50:09.600 So here she is on her deathbed.

01:50:12.000 She hadn't walked in seven years.

01:50:13.700 So her muscles had atrophied.

01:50:15.500 Her fingers were, she was curled up like a pretzel.

01:50:18.120 Her fingers were touching her wrists.

01:50:20.620 Um, her feet were permanently extended.

01:50:23.660 Uh, her diaphragm was, um, one diaphragm was, um, paralyzed.

01:50:28.080 So her one lung was collapsed.

01:50:30.500 The other lung was at half full.

01:50:32.760 She had a tube in her throat that went to oxygen canisters in the garage.

01:50:36.340 She was in hospice at home so she could breathe.

01:50:38.780 So she got a tube in her throat.

01:50:40.280 She, um, had lost, uh, her urination and bowels and control of those.

01:50:44.840 She'd lost her eyesight.

01:50:46.080 So all she saw was gray shapes.

01:50:48.960 Um, and, and she's on her deathbed.

01:50:51.660 She's dying.

01:50:52.120 Well, some people said, wait a minute.

01:50:54.240 Um, let's call WNBI, the Christian radio station at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and

01:51:00.060 ask people on the radio show to pray for poor Barbara.

01:51:03.160 She's dying.

01:51:03.940 So they did.

01:51:05.300 Well, we documented that at least 450 people began praying for Barbara because they wrote

01:51:09.780 letters to Barbara saying, I'm praying for you and encourage her.

01:51:13.160 So here we are in Pentecost Sunday, 1981, she is in her bedroom and her aunt and two girlfriends

01:51:19.640 are reading her some of these encouraging letters from people praying for her.

01:51:23.200 And from the corner of the room where nobody was, she heard the voice of God and the voice

01:51:28.940 said, my child, get up and walk.

01:51:33.640 Well, she hadn't walked in seven years.

01:51:35.540 She had no muscle tone in her legs.

01:51:37.680 She, she pulled out the tube so she could talk.

01:51:41.400 And she said, I don't know what you're going to think of this, but God just told me to get

01:51:44.600 up and walk, go find my parents.

01:51:46.440 I want them to be here.

01:51:47.480 So they ran out, but she couldn't wait.

01:51:49.300 She jumped out of bed.

01:51:51.000 She told me, she said, Lee, the first thing I noticed, my feet were flat in the floor and

01:51:56.640 they hadn't been flat for years.

01:51:57.980 They've been rigidly extended, but they were flat in the floor.

01:52:00.280 Second thing I noticed, my hands had opened up like flowers and they hadn't opened up in years.

01:52:06.520 And then she said, the third thing I noticed, I could see.

01:52:10.960 I said, she said, wouldn't you think that'd be the first thing I noticed?

01:52:13.740 It was actually the third thing I noticed.

01:52:15.740 She was instantaneously completely healed of multiple sclerosis.

01:52:19.900 Her mother came running in, fell to her knees and grabbed her calves and said, your muscle

01:52:24.220 tone has come back.

01:52:26.780 It was Pentecost Sunday.

01:52:27.940 There was a service at their church, Wheaton Wesleyan Church.

01:52:31.380 They went, they decided to go and thank God that she was fine.

01:52:34.500 She's dancing, literally dancing around the house with her father.

01:52:38.760 So they go to church.

01:52:40.200 They're in the back.

01:52:41.520 The pastor gets up and says, does anybody have any announcements?

01:52:45.900 Barbara comes walking down.

01:52:47.720 Yeah, that's a good announcement.

01:52:49.100 Barbara comes walking down the center aisle.

01:52:51.820 People freaked out because they hadn't seen her except in a wheelchair for seven years.

01:52:56.180 They began singing spontaneously, amazing grace.

01:52:58.980 I once was blind and now I see.

01:53:01.280 Totally healed.

01:53:01.920 She goes the next day to her doctor, one of her doctors.

01:53:05.140 He said later, he said, I saw her walking down the hallway toward my office.

01:53:09.420 My first thought was, oh, she died and that's a ghost.

01:53:12.880 He said, this is medically impossible.

01:53:15.980 And it is medically impossible.

01:53:17.920 She was instantaneously totally healed of multiple sclerosis.

01:53:21.440 She ended up marrying a pastor, that little Wesleyan church in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

01:53:25.860 And I got to know her, sweetest woman.

01:53:29.360 Is she still alive?

01:53:30.260 She just recently, this happened in 1981, lived perfectly healthy all these years.

01:53:34.940 She just died in Florida.

01:53:36.240 They just retired just a few months ago.

01:53:39.640 That's incredible.

01:53:41.200 But completely healed.

01:53:42.460 So, okay, that's a-

01:53:44.040 What do you do with that?

01:53:45.700 What do you do with that?

01:53:46.680 Well, that's a challenge to like the most basic understanding of everything.

01:53:50.440 Right.

01:53:50.900 Yep.

01:53:51.920 So, if she's on her deathbed from MS, which is a well-studied disease, you know, like you

01:54:01.080 would think that, you know, Harvard Medical School would just like cease operations until

01:54:06.980 they figured out what that was.

01:54:08.260 I know.

01:54:09.040 You know, I mentioned to my doctor, I said, I told him the story.

01:54:12.060 He said, it'd be interesting to know, because there's plaque that develops in the brain in

01:54:17.060 multiple sclerosis.

01:54:17.920 It'd be interesting to know, did that plaque disappear?

01:54:21.220 And I said, which is the greater miracle that the plaque would disappear or that God would

01:54:26.000 totally heal her with the plaque still there?

01:54:28.320 I don't know which a greater miracle would be.

01:54:30.100 I guess my question is, how could we in an advanced country allow a case like that-

01:54:35.880 To go unnoticed.

01:54:37.400 And unstudied.

01:54:38.180 I know.

01:54:38.740 It was the next day.

01:54:40.020 It was in the Chicago Tribune, which most newspapers don't cover stuff like that.

01:54:45.380 I mean, it's too speculative.

01:54:46.620 But did she get-

01:54:47.540 Yeah, but that's not speculative.

01:54:48.820 No.

01:54:49.160 I mean, so she had a team of physicians saying it's time for her to go and then she's dancing

01:54:53.540 and singing Amazing Grace and marrying a pastor.

01:54:56.120 So like, but were doctors calling in to say, I want to study this case?

01:54:59.740 There are two doctors who wrote books about it.

01:55:01.960 Wrote books about it?

01:55:02.320 Yeah.

01:55:02.540 Oh.

01:55:02.780 Well, they wrote books and in the books, they talked about her case.

01:55:06.300 Yes.

01:55:06.480 So two of her physicians actually wrote about it in their books.

01:55:10.060 That's incredible.

01:55:10.820 I know.

01:55:11.500 I know.

01:55:11.840 And it's not the only one.

01:55:13.320 I don't know.

01:55:13.960 We don't have much time.

01:55:14.920 Give you a real quick one.

01:55:15.820 Yeah.

01:55:16.000 There's a kid who was born, a little baby, kept vomiting, couldn't keep down food, kept

01:55:21.580 vomiting, vomiting.

01:55:22.540 And they realized this baby has what's called gastroparesis, which is a paralysis of the

01:55:27.360 stomach.

01:55:28.380 It's an incurable condition.

01:55:29.620 It happens from time to time.

01:55:31.080 You can't live that way.

01:55:32.860 No.

01:55:34.020 So they operated and they put tubes in so that the food would go directly into the small

01:55:41.260 intestine.

01:55:43.220 I don't know if it went through the stomach that was paralyzed or whatever, but that way

01:55:47.220 it's able, he was able to live.

01:55:48.980 And he lived that way until, for 15 years, 16 years.

01:55:52.260 He lived that way.

01:55:52.900 There were restrictions on what he could eat.

01:55:54.440 It was uncomfortable, but at least he was alive, right?

01:55:56.820 They bring him one day to a church and they asked the pastor, would you pray for him?

01:56:03.140 Pastor puts his hand on his shoulder, begins to pray.

01:56:05.560 And the kid said later, I felt an electric shock go through me at the time he was praying.

01:56:11.640 And he was instantly healed of gastroparesis.

01:56:14.940 There has never been a documented case of anyone ever healed of gastroparesis, a paralyzed

01:56:21.940 stomach.

01:56:23.240 He was totally normal.

01:56:24.600 They went in, they took the tubes out.

01:56:26.820 And today he's totally healthy.

01:56:29.380 He's a business guy, doing great.

01:56:31.300 I just emailed with him the other day.

01:56:34.660 That, again, this was researched by multiple medical researchers and published as a case

01:56:39.720 study in a medical journal.

01:56:42.620 And in the medical journal, it's probably like, here's what happened.

01:56:48.260 So that's an incredible story.

01:56:51.500 The girl being cured of MS is an incredible story.

01:56:54.200 Everything you've said is amazing.

01:56:55.660 But so many of the things you've said are also instantly recognizable to everyone listening,

01:57:03.040 whatever their religious faith or lack of religious faith as things that do happen,

01:57:06.500 actually.

01:57:06.980 It's real.

01:57:07.500 We all know that there are things that happen to us and people we know well and love that

01:57:14.140 are outside the ability of science to explain.

01:57:17.680 God is still active.

01:57:18.600 Supernatural.

01:57:19.200 Supernatural.

01:57:19.560 Yeah.

01:57:20.020 So my final question to you, Lee Strobel, and this has been amazing.

01:57:23.360 Thank you.

01:57:23.780 Oh, my pleasure.

01:57:24.480 Is why do we keep ignoring it?

01:57:26.980 Yeah.

01:57:27.760 I think it goes back to what I said earlier.

01:57:30.420 I think we're embarrassed sometimes by the supernatural.

01:57:34.020 That we're going to think, people are going to think we're nuts.

01:57:36.360 But if that's real and it clearly is real, then, like, it puts everything else into perspective.

01:57:44.960 Yeah.

01:57:45.840 And when you take it seriously and when you look at it like I do.

01:57:48.700 How could you not take it seriously?

01:57:50.200 Well, I agree.

01:57:50.820 If you grew up in a culture that tells you none of it's real and yet it's super obvious

01:57:55.000 that it is super obvious.

01:57:56.600 Yeah.

01:57:56.780 That it's real in some most general sense.

01:58:00.180 Yeah.

01:58:00.240 Like, the supernatural is real.

01:58:01.660 Yeah.

01:58:02.120 Sorry.

01:58:02.800 Yeah.

01:58:03.420 Then why don't people talk about it all the time?

01:58:06.040 Yeah.

01:58:06.580 Yeah.

01:58:06.900 I think the fact that I've been a Christian since November the 8th of 1981 and I've never

01:58:11.140 heard a sermon on the topic of angels in my life tells you something.

01:58:16.100 I think we shy away because we want to be accepted as normal.

01:58:25.220 I don't know why else.

01:58:26.320 Why don't you get out of bed on Sunday to sit in a church where they're, like, pretending

01:58:31.320 that nothing they say is true?

01:58:34.820 It's a good point.

01:58:35.880 If we believe—

01:58:36.640 If it's not supernatural, like, why are you bothering?

01:58:39.120 Exactly.

01:58:39.500 If you believe in Jesus, you've got to believe in angels.

01:58:41.420 You've got to believe in demons.

01:58:42.460 You've got to believe in Satan.

01:58:43.340 You've got to believe in heaven.

01:58:44.240 You've got to believe in hell.

01:58:45.240 Because if you believe in Jesus, he taught on all those things.

01:58:48.060 So, my goodness, how could you not?

01:58:50.240 I agree with you.

01:58:51.040 How could you not?

01:58:52.120 Yeah.

01:58:52.560 I mean, go on.

01:58:53.260 Move on to something else.

01:58:54.380 Yeah.

01:58:54.560 Go play tennis or something.

01:58:55.580 And if 40% of Americans have had an experience that they can only attribute to a miracle

01:59:00.080 of God, that means the other 60% probably know one of those 40%, right?

01:59:04.580 And, oh, my brother had this experience.

01:59:06.500 My cousin had this.

01:59:07.500 And we kind of say, what do we do with that?

01:59:09.520 And I think what we ought to do is look for that which is corroborated and which is consistent

01:59:18.440 with what we trust to be true, which for me are the Christian scriptures.

01:59:22.700 If you just fight against distraction consistently for just a day or two, like, I'm not going

01:59:31.500 to be distracted.

01:59:32.280 I'm just going to notice.

01:59:33.320 That's it.

01:59:33.840 That's all you do is just notice.

01:59:35.700 I'm just going to notice stuff.

01:59:36.760 Yeah.

01:59:37.500 If you do that as an exercise, literally for 48 hours, you will experience the supernatural.

01:59:43.920 I think you're right.

01:59:44.700 It's hard to do that.

01:59:45.700 Yeah.

01:59:45.940 Lee Strubel, thank you.

01:59:47.100 Hey, I enjoyed it.

01:59:47.840 Wonderful.

01:59:48.380 Great to meet you.

01:59:49.900 Thank you.

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The Tucker Carlson Show - September 01, 2025

Lee Strobel： Possession, Miracles, Visions, and Encounters With Angels & Demons

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