The Eric Metaxas Show - Dr. Frank Turek (Encore)

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Dr. Frank Turek discusses the lie of 'following your heart'. https://crossexamined.org/dr-frank-turek/

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Eric Mataxis show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you can protect your wealth with noble gold investments. That's noble gold investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. Have you heard that some people have a nose for news? Well, Eric has a nose for everything. That's why this is called The Show About Everything. Now welcome your host who definitely passes the smell test, Eric Mott, Texas. One of the friends of this program is the Herzog Foundation. If you're interested in homeschooling, education in general, quality K-12, Christ-centered education, we always say go to the Hertzog Foundation.com, herdsock Foundation.com.

But Chris DeGal, who is with the Herzoghvon Foundation, and who's one of the Hurtsock Foundation, and who's one of our colleagues in the Salem Radio Network is on today to talk to us about Herzog and other things. Welcome back. Hey, Eric, it's great to see you again. I saw you in a very, very cold, frigid, uncomfortably bitter cold Washington, D.C. A couple of weeks ago for inauguration week. That was fun, was it? Well, people don't realize, because it always sounds glamorous if you're not there.

Like, ooh, it sounds great. It was like, it was just bad. It was like so cold. It was unbearable. It was unbearable. I can't remember the last time that it's been unbearably cold where you're like, I can't know. Can't do it. And couple that with the security.

I don't know how much waiting outside you did. Oh, no, no, no, no. That wasn't in any privileged class. I had to wait outside for like two and three hours just to get in places. It was nuts. It was horrifying, horrifying. So if you missed it, you hit it. It's like to go there.

I mean, my wife and I, we were all excited, like, oh, we got tickets to some ball. And we got there to the, you know, like you walk in the bitter, bitter cold because the, the Uber can't even take you because security is so tight. There's like Humvees and military stuff and security. And yeah, finally we get near the line. And I just looked at the line, I thought, not a chance that I'm going to spend. And those poor women, I mean, you know, at least we had tuxes on. Those poor women were in bald gowns and... Listen, I don't hear what you're wearing.

Nothing was what... It was forgetting. No, no, no. Anyway, let's talk about something positive. That week was so positive that the vibe in that town, despite all that, even people that couldn't get in or see what they were hoping to see. Didn't you notice that everybody, it was devoid of protesting? People seemed happy and a bullion anyway.

A different vibe there. Oh, it was stunning. It was absolutely stunning. And listen, it's not over. It's not over. here in the midst of great things are happening. It's frankly hard to believe, but we need to believe it and we need to do what we can. I mean, let's talk about, I mean, since, you know, we're talking with the Herzog Foundation, school choice. I mean, what's going on? And I want to, I want people to know

that there's a website, read lion, R-E-A-D-L-I-O-N dot, O-R-G. Yes, we keep you up to date there every day all week long, constant breaking news and updates on news related to culture, to government, to yes, certainly school choice and so much more. If you really need a site that you trust that you want to come to depend on for objective, honest journalism, truth, great opinion, great cultural insights, readline.com is one I'd come in to you. You know, we're going to be at the National Religious Broadcasters Association event at the end of the month in Dallas with you, Eric. We're looking forward to that because both the foundation broadly,

Herzog Foundation.com. I hope you'll look that up as well as the lion, our media arm and some of our podcast shows. We're going to be doing shows and introducing ourselves to the convention floor with all of our other media colleagues. So in addition to the show that we'll be doing at Salem, and I know you'll be there too. I'll be there in my capacity with the Herzog Foundation talking about the great work they do and introducing ourselves to other Christian media. We want people to know that we're a source not just to teach folks how to homeschool or develop their own Christian school or grow their Christian school, but also plug into our network of shows, our great friend, Sam Sorbo, and the news and media we provide all week long.

It's a new day in America. It's exciting. And I always say that, you know, we have to take back every one of the mountains, so to speak, and one of them is education, that if we don't, I mean, it's as fundamental as it gets. If our kids are not learning the basics about what is true, about history, you can't function. And we've basically drifted for, you know, 50 plus years. We've not been teaching this stuff to our kids, especially not in the public schools. And you can't have a functioning free, self-governing republic unless kids are learning the basics in school.

So this is absolutely vital, absolutely vital. Peggy Noonan was on with Bill Maher over the week. I don't know if you happen to catch it on Mars show, but they were discussing that very point that it used to be... Do you think I watch Mars show? Yeah. I'm sorry. You can't crack, Chris de Gaugh? No, no, no.

I caught a... The only reason I went back to review it was because the clip caught my eye... Brother, I'm teasing. I'm teasing. Please continue. No, I hear you. But he has actually... I tell you, the worm has turned with that guy a little bit. I think it's gotten so crazy.

It's actually whipsawed on him a little. But Noonan was making the point, and I thought it was a solid. one that once upon a time, and they were really kind of broadly making the point for school choice, but I don't think they realized it, you were growing up in an impoverished community or something, and you thought, well, this country is so great, I can bring myself out of my circumstances. And Noonan was making the point that kids aren't even taught the greatness of the country. In fact, they're taught that quite literally anything outside of your own neighborhood where it might already kind of stink is even worse, that America is just rotten to its core.

And even people like Bill Maher, along with Peggy Noon, were discussing that we're teaching our kids to grow up hating this country, hate the flag. And that, I'm sorry, it just largely stems from public education. That's not to castigate everyone in public education, but we know that's where it comes from. And something's got to change there. You said it so well. If we don't teach her... It comes from Bill Maher and the liberal left and the Hollywood left. So thank you, Bill Maher, because you're a big part of the problem.

And frankly, Peggy Noonan, she used to be a friend. but she was very anti-Trump. A lot of these people have unwittingly participated in destroying the country. Because attacking Trump, you know, that's the classic virtue signaling among, you know, whatever, certain conservative elite groups. But Trump was always pro-America. And we're at a day now where I think even Peggy Noonan and even God forbid, Bill Maher are understanding, oh, yeah, this is common sense. And this is to me

what's amazing is that so many people are coming around. So many people, they're not coming around on everything, but they're coming around in a lot. And I think people like Bill Maher, nobody was more anti-Trump than he was. But common sense is common sense. And I think some people still have some common sense. I mean, the people leading the Democratic Party don't have common sense. You're still in a, I don't know, in a fevered dream, I don't know what world they live. That bizarre thing they put on this weekend trying to pick their new leader. They clearly haven't gotten the memo yet as to why they lost as badly as they did. But you see with Trump and the OMB, I know you've talked about this, this surgical strike that he's doing with Elon Musk, looking at

our nation's finances, you know, when you have mid-air collisions outside Reagan and he says, there's something wrong with the way our government is functioning, or these government apparatchiks that say, I don't want to come to work, and I'm mad at Trump. The American public, you, me, people, Eric, who report for duty every day and have bosses and budgets and timelines and metrics, welcome to Realville government workers. And that's not to say that everybody in government doesn't work well and work hard, but a lot of them don't. And yeah, we don't have an appetite for it anymore. Eric, we want results. We want answers. We want accountability.

That's an education. That's in air travel. That's in the way we spend our taxpayer dollars. Yeah. Well, and again, things had to get this bad for many people to wake up. But enough people are waking up. And it gives me hope, frankly. It's just so interesting that, you know, again, Bill Maher is the ultimate example.

when he recognizes some of this stuff. Yes. So we're in a new day. Yeah, John Federman and Pennsylvania is another one that I think is coming around or realizing he's up, his first term is up, you know, in 2026. And suddenly he's starting to sound kind of Mansion, populist, kind of like Joe Mansion of West Virginia used to. He was elected with the help of some really radical left-wing,

progressive Marxist socialist types. Now, as he approaches 2026, he sounds like he could easily be a Trump Union vote. I think they're getting the message. I mean, and listen, just to be clear, he's still enough out of his mind that he shows up at the inauguration wearing a hoodie and shorts. To me, that's not funny. That's utterly disrespectful to the nation, to our traditions, to the Office of the Presidency. Chris de Gaulle, we're out of time. God bless you.

God bless you for your show. Look forward to seeing you in the weeks ahead in person. and folks don't forget, HerzogFoundation.com. HerzogFoundation.com. So you're putting money away, saving for the future, for retirement, for your family. You're doing what you're supposed to do, right? Well, what if I told you that your 401k, IRA, and other investments are probably paying for gambling, abortion, and LGBT causes?

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As I hope I warned you, my guest is a friend, Dr. Frank Turrick. He's not a medical doctor. So if you have a rash, don't come to him looking for him to prescribe, you know, unguinsing creams. That's not the kind of a doctor he is. He is an apologist for the Christian faith. He's written many, many wonderful books. He's the president of cross-examined.org, cross-examined.org.

And maybe his most popular book is titled, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, Dr. Frank Turek. Welcome back. It's great being with you. When people say, does this look infected to you? I always say, yes, I'd have that thing cut off immediately. I have five. I want to be very clear. I have five honorary doctorates, which along with like three or four dollars can get you a cup of coffee. So it's a pretty, it's a pretty sweet deal. Five honorary doctorates. Yes, I do. Five. So technically I'm supposed to be called. I'm supposed to be addressed as Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr.

Dr. Dr. Metaxus. But, you know, I don't really require that. Three or four is enough. Three or four doctors is okay. Okay, Dr. Dr. Dr. Dexas.

What are we going to talk about today? Well, I wanted to talk to you about there. There are things in the culture that are out there, including among Christians that, oh, I don't know. I'm supposed to follow my heart. Now, in every lie, there is truth. Yes. So there's something to that idea.

There's some truth to that. but then we have to define what does that mean what is my heart and how can that go wrong and i thought hey who better to help me with that than dr frank turrick i talk about that a lot because so many christians actually will tell their kids follow your heart follow your heart man i tell you eric if i followed my heart if i followed every impulse that i had everything that was on my heart i'd have been dead a long time ago you can't follow your heart the bible actually says i think by the way eric this is this, sorry, Dr. Dr. Dr. Metaxus, I think this is the second most important verse in the entire Bible right now. And it comes from the Old Testament. Most important has anything to do with the

gospel. But the second most important verse is Proverbs 423, which says this, above all else, guard your heart, because everything you do flows from it. Doesn't say follow your heart. It says, guard your heart. Because Eric, you and I now are, you're almost 6.0, I think. I've passed I'm 6'3, not in height, but in age. And if I had followed my heart without moral restraint, without reason, as they say, I'd be dead already. In fact, if you follow your heart and it's all about you, whatever you want to do, you do whatever you want to do with whomever you want to do it, whenever you want to do it, you're going to wind up divorced, addicted, broken, alone, and probably prematurely dead. you couldn't give worse advice to a young person than to follow your heart blindly. Well, and also we have to define what do we mean by your heart?

And this is, I have to say, part of the way Satan lies is through confusion about the meaning of words. When people talk about love, for example, ladies and gentlemen, what do we mean by love? Is love Jesus's definition of love or is it Hollywood's definition of love? what do we mean when we use a word love? And everybody kind of says, oh, that sounds so good. Love wins. You know, make love, not war. What do these words mean?

So when people say follow your heart, about 35, 40 years ago, Dr. Joseph Campbell was all over PBS. This is why PBS needs to be defunded. PBS has been a propaganda arm for leftist lunacy forever. Your tax dollars, you know, you know, for every, Pavarotti concert. They're just pushing garbage down the throats of the whole world. And I remember Dr. Joseph Campbell, he was this new age guru, but he came with these, you know, academic bona fides. He was very intellectual and he would throw things around. And he would talk about follow your bliss. And I remember,

I had just become a Christian, so it must have been 88, 89, maybe 1990. And these Christians that I had just become friends with, we're saying, oh, yeah, follow your bliss. And I thought, wait a minute, wait a minute, follow your bliss. Follow your bliss. Follow your heart could lead me if I'm married to commit adultery. Oh, my heart, it feels so good. It's so beautiful. God says, be careful. Be careful. Because doing that, you can destroy your life. You can destroy the lives of your children. Be careful. What does it mean to follow your heart? What is your heart? Is your heart deceitful?

Well, the scripture says, yes, your heart is deceitful. Frank, you just quoted Proverbs 423, above all things, guard your heart. So this idea, and this comes, you know this better than I do, it comes out of Russo and the romantic movement, 200 plus years ago, this idea of your feelings and your feelings. Now, there's something to that to following your feelings. God, you know, can be the Lord of our emotions if we guard our hearts, but our emotions can lead us to whack and ruin. And we have been living really since the romantic movement, it's kind of filtered into the culture. It's gotten into Hollywood big time.

It was already in Hollywood in the 40s where you saw these films about, you know, but do you love him? Yes. Yes. Yes, I love him. What does that mean? You know what I mean? You can't take a test. You love him yesterday, no.

What does that mean? So this is very, very important. So keep going. Well, you mentioned the heart is deceitful. You're quoting Jeremiah 179. The heart is deceitful, above all things, and desperately sick, who can understand it? Deceitful. You know, your heart tells you you need something that you don't really need.

And as you mentioned earlier, Satan does this. He lies to us. He comes as an angel of light. You see a good thing. Like you mentioned adulter. You might see a beautiful woman and you might go, I need that. I want that. That's deceiving you to say you need that when, in fact, you can destroy your life in about 10 seconds, right?

Forever. Because you followed something you thought you needed to have. Your heart does not need. Your heart will tell you you need something when you don't really need it. Now, Jesus said this. He said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him, for it is from within. out of a person's heart that evil thoughts come. Sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit,

lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these things come from inside and defile a person. So your heart is deceitful and wicked and it wants what it wants. And this is where sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, and all these things come from. They come from a wicked heart that tells you you need to have something when in reality you do not need to have it. Okay, now we want to be real clear, folks.

Here's a big life hack for you. Do what the Bible says. It'll save you infinite trouble. That's number one. Number two, when we say the heart is deceit, but we don't mean, oh, oh, you're a bad person. We mean you are a person. If you are a human being, the Bible makes it clear. There's no exceptions.

You are broken. You participate in what Augustine and others. They called it original sin. So in other words, you start out. broken. You start out wanting things that will destroy you. That's who you are until you let Jesus come into your life, heal you of your brokenness, and lead you, give you a desire to do his will and not your will. That's everybody. That's you. So we're not saying, oh, you're a uniquely bad person or we're saying every human being, according to the Bible, the Bible says we just quoted it,

right? The heart is deceitful. Your heart, my heart, apart from God, your heart will lead you into self-destructive behavior. So when people say you shouldn't sin, they're not trying to keep you from having fun. They're trying to bless you. They're trying to bless you and prevent you from driving your car off a cliff. So this is a big cultural lie. And Frank, you know, you and I, we love this, that we live in a culture. We see these cultural lies. We want to want to correct it, the Bible corrects it, but you even have a lot of Christians that misunderstand this, which I think, which is why it was important for us to talk about this today. But a lot of Christians kind of buy into this stuff somehow.

Oh, and I love the Babylon B because, you know, the Babylon B is your best source in fake news. Here's what they said, which I think verifies the fact that our heart is deceitful and wicked. Here's what, here's the headline. Study finds 100% of men would eat any fruit given to them by a naked woman. That's right. At least it's funny. At least it's funny. But I mean, it is, but it is so interesting to be.

I remember, you know, way back like in the 70s. Again, these are satanic lies. It's similar to, you know, follow your heart. It was like, if it feels good, you know, why wouldn't, why wouldn't you do it? That's the voice of the devil. That's the voice of the devil. If it feels good, yeah, it'll feel good temporarily. And then it will feel very, very, very, very, very, very, very.

bad and the God who loves you wants to bless you. He doesn't want you to go down that path. So this lie, again, this is a big cultural lie that, you know, oh, we're all good people and just follow your heart. Because again, it gets confused with your conscience. Your conscience is a little different. Your conscience is going to tell you, no, don't do that. Don't do that. So people kind of get that blurred with I'm following the conscience. I'm kind of this inner voice, whatever, is this what God is saying or not actually very important that you know the difference? We'll be right back. I'm talking to Frank Turek. You can find him at cross-examined.org.

Cross-examined.org. Folks, welcome back. I'm talking to my friend Dr. Frank Turek. He earned that doctorate. I have five honorary doctorates. And I guess you could argue that on some level I earned them. You could also argue I didn't. So Dr. Frank Turek, you said there are other reasons. We're talking about this idea, this lie that's in the culture, follow your heart. It sounds so beautiful.

And by the way, we're not talking about the organ that pumps blood. The heart is, you know, when scripture talks about the heart, it's kind of like who you are, your core in your gut, who you are. Follow that. And that's a very mysterious thing. What does it mean to follow that? So what else do you have reasons to not take this cavalierly? The first reason is your heart is corrupt, as we mentioned. It's deceitful.

It'll tell you that you need something when you don't really need it, okay? And by the way, if you don't think hearts are deceitful or corrupt, you haven't brought up a two-year-old, right? You don't have to teach a two-year-old to say mine. The two-year-old already knows that. You need to teach a two-year-old to share, okay, because we're bent toward evil from the beginning. You know, as Augustine said, depravity is the propensity to sin and the necessity to die.

In other words, it's easy to be bad. It's hard to be good. It's so hard to be good. It's much easier to be selfish and to do what I want all the time. But we can't. If we do that, if we follow our heart in that direction, as I mentioned before, we're going to wind up divorced, addicted, broken alone, and probably prematurely dead. So your heart is corrupt. That's the first reason you can't.

follow it without moral restraint. The second reason you can't follow it without moral restraint is because your heart is conflicting. You have two hearts on the same issue. I know I do. On one hand, I want to be in shape. I want to have the benefits of good health. On the other hand, I love glazed donuts, right? I can't follow both. If I try and follow both, Eric, I'm not going to be able to get where I want to get. And there's probably people listening right now who are single. And on one hand, they're thinking, I want to settle down. I want to have a family. I want to be in a relationship with one person. On the other hand, their other heart says, I want to continue to play the field. You can't follow both hearts. I don't know about you, Eric, but when I became married, it put a big damper on my dating life.

Okay. Yeah, it's a bummer, man. My wife didn't like it that I was still dating. No, actually, in all seriousness, it's kind of funny you say this because I think that's part of the problem, another problem in our culture, is that we have, we used to live in a culture where the normative thing was for a young person in their teens to start thinking about, okay, I'm growing up. I should be looking for a spouse, a wonderful person to share the rest of my life with. And that was normative. But we live. live in a culture now where you have people, you know, into their 30s thinking, well, I don't know, I don't know. And I've seen people just kind of drift along that way or be in a relationship and then being in another relationship and be another way. And it breaks my heart to see that, basically, because the blessing of marriage, you know, and again, I'm not talking about people

who want to get married and haven't been able to, but I'm talking about a lot of people that they're just kind of, they're drifting and they're floating. They're afraid to, to, to make a decision or they don't know how. That's because they have two hearts, Eric. On one hand, they do want to settle down. On the other hand, they don't. And so it's a failure to launch. They're kind of floating in the middle. And they want to have it both ways. They want to have all the benefits of having an exclusive relationship. On the other hand, they still want to play the field. And this is why you can't follow your heart blindly. You've got to make a choice and go in one direction or another. And of course, that's why, from a Christian perspective, marriage is final,

just like when you become a Christian, it's final. You've given, you've made your choice, and now you can enjoy inside the choice you've made, the relationship that God has ordained. You just can't get out of that relationship and say, well, I want to go to somebody else now. Now, I'm not saying there are no, there are no justifications for divorce. I'm saying that too many people have no justification for divorce biblically. They just want to move on to somebody else because they're tired of the person they're with. that is not biblical divorce.

That is... I mean, that's a stunning thing. I'm glad you brought that up because I've been talking about that to some folks lately, how many inside the church have gotten incredibly sloppy on this issue right here. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That when God, I mean, Jesus spoke very strongly against divorce. And if you're a Christian, divorce is not an option.

Now, obviously, if there is physical abuse, if there is adultery, You know, that's a little different. But apart from that, when people start twisting words and saying, oh, it's emotional abandonment. That's garbage, folks. That's garbage. Emotional abandonment. You're twisting a term. But people will do that.

They will twist terms and then they'll find maybe a pastor or Christian leader who will affirm what they want to do and say, yeah, it's okay for you to, you know, oh, yeah, the marriage is over. What do you mean? How is the marriage over? That's like saying the contract. is null and void. Was it made null and void by a lawyer? How did that happen? You had a contract. It's interesting, Eric, the most important, let's just speak in terms of contracts for a second. The most important contract we have in America can be dissolved by one party without the

consent of the other with no consequence, and that's marriage. Yeah, that's no fault divorce. Yeah. It's so satanic. I have seen this around me over the years. It is demonic. It is absolutely demonic because nobody forces you to get married, folks. It's not like, oh, well, I was forced. No, you were not. You entered in freely to a contract. And the church has not only been silent on this, but has been complicit in this.

And this is one of the fundamental things. If you want to know why the culture is not flourishing, divorce, the destruction of families, it has been made so easy. and many in the church, many church leaders have turned a blind eye to this, and it has led to every kind of evil, including quote-unquote same-sex marriage. We'll be right back, folks, talking to Frank Turrick. You can find him at cross-examined.org. Welcome back talking to Dr. Frank Turrick. You can find him at cross-examined.org. So, Frank, we're talking about three reasons not to follow your heart.

You mentioned one, the heart is corrupt. We talked about that. Now we're talking about how the heart is divided. It's changing. You have two hearts on the same issue, right? You might want to settle down. On the other hand, you still want to play the field. You might want to be in health.

On the other hand, you love glazed donuts. You might want to be financially secure. On the other hand, you see the shiny new thing you want, right? You can't follow both hearts. you've got to decide and make a choice. And we think if we just give into our heart, we're going to be happy. And John Mark Comer, a pastor put it this way. He said, giving into the desires of our flesh does not lead us to freedom and life, as many people assume,

but instead to slavery. And in the worst case scenario, addiction, which is a kind of prolonged suicide by pleasure. Prolong suicide by pleasure. Think about that. is a prolonged suicide by pleasure. That's brilliant, because that's exactly right. It leads you down the path of death. That's right.

But it is incremental. It is gradual enslavement. The Lord wants to make us free, folks. He wants us to be free to rejoice in him, to flourish. But there's a dark side. There's our sin nature. And if we give into that, it leads us into slavery, towards slavery. That's powerful.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its way ends in death, says the proverb. We think that it's the right thing to do because we have a disordered heart. And if we follow our hearts, rather than guard our hearts, we're going to destroy ourselves. In fact, C.S. Lewis was very profound. He's profound on everything. Can we just say that? Here's what Lewis said. He said, surrender to all our desires, obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humor, and frankness, for any happiness, even in this world, quite a lot of restraint is going to be necessary.

We don't like to hear that. We don't like to hear restraint. We like to hear, I'm just going to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, with whom I want to do it. Yeah, not going to work out long term, buddy. It's not going to work out. I mean, it's kind of funny that we have to rehearse these basics, but we're living in a culture that in our lifetimes, really, since the 60s, we're.

we have seen an abandonment of all the basics, this idea that, you know, I have to not follow my bliss, follow my heart. Cultures always seem to know this, that I've got to work. Now, the thing is that makes it sound dower, right? Oh, you got to work. You get a sacrifice. God says that's the path of blessing, right? When you do the right thing, it gets easier and easier.

It's like exercise. You don't want to do it right now. Do it. Do it again. And again, it gets easier. You'll start seeing results. That is true of the soul. You do the right thing.

It becomes easier. And you begin to flourish and it's beautiful. So you need people around you to encourage you to do the right thing. Are you hanging out with people? Yeah, yeah. Encourage you to do the right thing or the wrong thing. You might want to make a choice with whom you hang out. Yeah, you need to deny yourself.

You need to carry your cross. You need to crucify the flesh because the flesh will lead you astray. So the first reason we talked about is your heart is corrupt. The second is your heart is conflicting. You've got two hearts on the same issue. The third reason you can't blindly follow your heart is your heart is changing. And this happens so much to the young, especially, Eric. This is the whole transgender thing, right? They're saying, oh, this kid thinks he's a boy when, or thinks she's a boy when she's really a girl. Well, we've got to transition this kid. When the data show that 80% of young people who have this rapid onset gender dysphoria as a kid grow out of it by the time

they're 18 and 96% of them grow out of it by the time they're 26. And yet we are medically mutilating these children when their heart is likely to change back to their biological sex. We're medically mutilating them right now because we're not recognizing that things change. They change all the time. In fact, even Bill Maher got this. You know, Bill Maher, when Bill Maher is more articulate on the transgender issue than most pastors, we've got a problem. Here's what Bill Maher said. He said, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a pirate. Thank God nobody took me seriously and took me for eye removal and peg leg surgery, right?

But that is what our country in many respects has been going down this road. Now, thankfully, President Trump is trying to stop this madness, but there are still millions of people out there. In fact, I don't know when this is going to air, but we just had in the Senate last night, Eric, the bill not passed that said we ought not have biological men and women's sports. It couldn't get 60 votes. You couldn't get... Okay, just to be clear, because I don't think we talked about it. So President Trump issues an executive order, right? But that's just the executive branch. That's right. It would be nice for the legislative branch, Congress and the Senate, to pass a law going along. with this. They did not do it. And this gives me an opportunity to say, ladies and gentlemen, if you go to a church where your pastor made it seem that how you vote is not a gospel-centered issue, think about this. Think about this. If you vote for Democrats, they are doing things that are wicked. They cannot affirm this basic, basic, basic stuff that most Americans know to be true. That's how bad things are. So Frank, honestly, that's amazing. I'm glad you brought that up.

So the larger issue is that the heart is deceitful and that you have young people saying, I want this. I think that if I have an operation, now can we first of all even imagine, folks, think with me, there are doctors willing to take money to perform these satanic Frankenstein surgeries. on children on young people. That boggles my mind. That frightens me, frankly. I agree with Jordan Peterson who said these doctors ought to be imprisoned. If you're mutilating children for money.

For money. And, oh, even if you think it's a good thing. The data show it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It doesn't work out. Even people that have the surgery, Eric, the biggest study ever done was a Swedish study done a number of years ago. Ten years after the so-called transgender surgery,

the suicide rate for people that had the surgeries 19 times higher than the general public. This is not a solution. Look, if you have a mismatch between your psychology and your biology, you can't change your biology. You can change your psychology. You can change your mind. You can't change your sex, right? I mean, anorexia is a perfect analog to this. You would never tell an anorexic, you know, you're right.

You're overweight. Let me get a liposuction. You would say, honey, your mind's playing tricks on you. We need to get you psychiatry. Now, if your daughter said she was a mermaid, you wouldn't take her off the coast and drop her in the ocean, Eric. You would say, honey, I need to get you psychiatric help, okay? The fact that we have to talk about this, but we do, folks. I'm talking to Dr. Frank Turrick.

You can find them at cross-examined.org. We'll be right back. Welcome back talking to Dr. Frank Turik, T-U-R-E-K. So what else, Frank? Well, this is a big struggle with identity, obviously, Eric, when we're talking about following your heart. A lot of people think my identity is what I think about. That's not true. If identity was what you thought about, most men would be women and most women would be chocolate, okay? So it's not what you think about. That's not your identity. And Christianity, Eric,

is the only worldview where you don't achieve your identity. You receive your identity. You know, in every other worldview, you've got to do this, you got to do that. You've got to make yourself available to God and you've got to work your way to God with all sorts of good. works, that's achieving your identity. If you try and achieve your identity, first of all, it's going to be exhausting. Second of all, there's always somebody that can do it better. It's going to create jealousy, right? But you don't achieve your identity in Christianity. You receive your identity. It's eternal. God makes you a child of God when you put your trust in him. Your identity isn't what he did, not what you do. So it's a free identity that you can't lose. You can lose an

identity that you have to achieve, what happens when you can no longer achieve it? I mean, think about this. If you put your identity, say, in your sexual preference, what happens when you can no longer sexually perform or you're no longer sexually preferred? You no longer have an identity? No, your identity is not what's on your heart. Your identity is in who you've given your heart, and that is Jesus of Nazareth who rose from the dead. That's the solution to this problem. It is not following whatever is on my heart because my heart's corrupt, my heart is conflicting, and my heart is changing, and it's probably going to change again. So I'm just going to be secure in the identity Christ has given me. Ladies and gentlemen, you're not listening to a Christian radio program.

This is just a radio program. We're speaking eternal truth. This is not Christian truth. This is true. It doesn't mean you have to accept it, but I'm just letting you know, in case you don't have a lot of time, what we're saying is true of everyone. And I got to tell you, Frank, it's such a beautiful thing that God says, you know, when people say, I mean, because you hear this all the time, they don't reference God, but they say, your life is value. You are somebody. You matter. And I think that the right response is like, why? That's right. Why? Says who says that I am somebody? Who says I shouldn't kill myself? Why? Just because you say it? Well, God says it. If God says it, that changes things.

I'm here to affirm what you're saying, Frank. God gives us our identity. He says, I made you in my image. I love you. I died for you. I rose from the grave and sent my Holy Spirit to change you in such a way that you will be what you were meant to be when I created you. And you can't be that without me. And I say this because I think there's so many people that.

They're twisting in the wind, looking for some solution. And I just wanted to say, the shortcut, Jesus is your solution. You're looking for them. What's the meaning of your life? Jesus is the meaning of your life. Start there, and you will see that this is not Christian truth. This is truth. It's either truth or it's garbage.

And I'm here to tell you it's not garbage. And the reason you're not garbage is because God loves you, and he declares you as his child, he wants to be the Lord of your life. This is the reason that we exist. And there are a lot of people who maybe don't know that yet. I hope they're hearing it right now because I really believe that every problem we have at the core of it is what we're discussing here. This is the most important thing. Amen. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Metaxus. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Well, we're at a time. Frank Turek. You've written so many wonderful books. I hope people know. I mean, I have guests on this program to introduce my audience to them. People need to know who you are. They can look you up online.

You've got a million great videos on YouTube. T-U-R-E-K, cross-examined.org-O-R-G. Frank Turak, my friend, thank you. Thank you, Merrick, creeping with you. God bless.