The Eric Metaxas Show - Frank Turek

Episode Date: March 26, 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. Did you ever see the movie The Blobs starring Steve McQueen? The blood-curdling threat of the blob. Well, way back when Eric had a small part in that film, but they had a to cut his scene because the blob was supposed to eat him, but he kept spitting him out. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster. Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest. Eric Pataxis!

Welcome to Hour 2 talking to John Zmirak. In a few minutes, I didn't mention it. We have our friend Frank Turek coming up. We have the greatest guests on this program. So, John, you were just talking about something. at the end of the last hour, and I want to get into it. Okay, so the great, to me, one of the great danger in the past 10 years were the Russell Moors and David Francis of this world, trying to convince everyone that Christianity meant

being like Ned Flanders on the Simpsons, being as ineffectual and harmless as possible, and making yourself popular with the editors at the New Yorker and the Washington Post and getting money from George Soros to combat the, desperate threat of white racism, because we know white racism is so, so rampant in this country that white kids can't get into college with 1600 on the SAT. That was, to some degree, yesterday's problem. I'm afraid that tomorrow's problem is going to be turning Christianity from a supernatural religion into a tribal cult of where it's really about being a Gentile. It's not so much that you're a Christian because you worship Jesus Christ and are grateful for the heritage

of the Old Testament and the example of the prophets and the patriarchs and the apostles, all of whom were Jews. The danger is it becomes, yeah, I'm a Christian because I'm a Gentile. I'm not one of those Jews. And Christianity gets cheapened into a trinket of the tribe. And I'm a Christian. And I see this with people who are using the phrase, Christ is king. Christ is king as a political rallying fraud. It's funny because you and I have not talked about this, but I have smelled the same kind of thing. And good people are saying this. But I think it's a little dangerous because it is like a tribalist, you know, chant. And it doesn't, it doesn't smell like Jesus. It smells like something tribalist and colonel, even though the statement, of course, is true, just like Black Lives

Matter is true. Yes. Let me give you another one. But how is it being used? Here's another one. It's okay to be white. Have you ever seen that on the internet? It's okay to be white. That is something which, on the face of it, yeah, I guess it certainly is okay to be white. If you deny that, then you're saying white people should be wiped off the face of the earth, which again, some on the left thing. But the phrase was created and weaponized by far-right white nationalist extremists. And they used it the way the communist cult, Black Lives Matter, used their phrase. And people are using Christ is king that way.

It is true that Christ is king. Let me give you another example. Let's say people were using the slogan, protein is essential. I agree, protein is essential. then you find out the organization behind it are cannibals. They want to hunt and eat human beings. But their slogan is, protein is essential. If you don't think protein is essential, you want people to die from protein to fish.

You want people to starve to death. If you're not willing to say protein is essential, you think everybody should die. Yeah, I know I'm fine with the actual protein part of that, but it's the fact that you're a cannibal cult that I question. But protein is essential. Well, you say protein is essential. I want you to repeat after me. Protein is essential.

Protein is essential. Black lives matter. It's okay to be white. And by the way, Christ is king. John, thank you for making me laugh. Honestly, the idea of a bunch of cannibals using the line protein is essential is hilarious. But it makes the point, as you normally do, you make the point that the people, not all the people, but a lot of the people is saying, Christ is king.

The way they say, it. I mean, I sort of smelled this because I have to say, even though it's true, I in the evangelical world, had always heard Jesus is Lord. Christ is King. I hadn't heard that kind of as a slogan, even though it's not a Catholic. It's not a Catholic slogan either, Eric. It is not a Catholic slogan either. It's something Nick Fuentes, who calls himself a Catholic, but he's really just a white supremacist, who a lot of people think is, I gay or a Fed. But I want to be clear, he's not a jerk.

He's a super jerk. Yes, yes. He is like The Joker. There was a great TV series, Gotham, was an adaptation of Batman. It had this skinny pale weirdo doing internet broadcasts to get young people furious. And it was just like Nick Fuentes. I think Nick Fuentes watched the TV show Gotham, saw the character of the Joker and said, I can do that.

Well, go watch The Joker in Gotham. is Nick Fuentes. You're talking about what James, I'm sorry, I'm losing it. I can't think of his name. It's okay. Don't quote him. He's not the best source. Okay. No, but what I'm saying is there are people who are talking about the woke right. And that's what we're talking. I think that's, I think that's a dumb way of putting it. I don't, I don't, I think James Lindsay is, is kind of another David French. So we're going to have to agree. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't agree with you on that. But I I guess the larger point is that what we are talking about is people on the right basically being racist, making everything racial, making everything tribal.

That's antithetical to the Christian view. The Christian view is not Marxist racism. It's not Marxist critical race theory racism, but it's also not the right-wing tribalist racism. like the, you know, the Norwegian who killed all those people who wrote the manifesto. It's basically we're being lured in this direction is what it seems like with this controversy over Christ is King. And you need to write a piece about this, John. Well, okay. And my piece will culminate with every time someone demands that you say Christ is king,

you should simply say protein is essential. I was going to say, I hope you're going to end that sentence. And you just did exactly the right way. way. Protein is essential. Oh yeah, I'm a cannibal and I'm not ashamed. Are you ashamed? Wow. That's that's, that's, John, let's end on a, on a, on a positive note. I know you're going to write this piece called Protein is Essential and you need to because these folks need some pushback because it's been, you know, on my X feed and whatever and I, I'm sick of it, really. But let me, um, what I really object to it is that it's stupid. Okay. It's stupid and it's vulgar

and it's cringe. It's at least stupid. But I want to end on a positive note. Before we go to our guest, Roger Kimball, I want to remind you folks about food for the poor. We need your help. We need your help. We need your help. We are really ridiculously behind. We're nowhere near getting our goal. Like we're nowhere near. I don't know why, but I just want to say, please go to metaxis talk.com. You'll see the banner. Metaxistock.com. We really need your help.

But I wanted to end, John. When you give the poor people their food, remember, protein is essential. Protein is essential. I want to remind folks, if you want to come on the cruise to the Greek thing, okay? This is June 6th through 16th. Remember, John Zmarach is going to be there. Do you understand how crazy fun this is going to be? You're going to have Zmirak there, whether you like it or not.

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So the phone number, if you're interested or just you're curious, you want to see what's it going to cost and what are the details and can I come. I would call the phone number. So if you go to Eric Mataxis.com slash cruise, I think the phone number comes up. If you go to Ericmataxis. com slash cruise, call the phone number. If you don't know the phone number,

let me just say 844-808-2058. 844-808-2058. Again, this is for the cruise. dial 844-808-2058. We hope you can come. It's going to be crazy. We got about 300 people at this point. And again, don't forget about food for the poor Metaxistalkis talk.com. You'll see the banner. And we'll be right back. Numbers don't lie. The impact that Balance of Nature makes every single day is astounding. You can see the numbers for yourself on their website at Balance of Nature.com. to these stats concerning balance of nature's worldwide success. More than a thousand success stories

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Use discount code Eric to get 35% off plus free shipping balance of nature.com. A generation of kids in El Salvador are lost to malnutrition and the only way to a better future is through a school feeding program. Join me, Eric Metaxus, in saving lives with food for the poor. When you click the Feed Their Future banner at Metaxistalkshton.com, your gift of $100 will provide a child in El Salvador with daily school nutrition for a year. Call 844-863-4673. Make your most generous contribution, please. The nutrition these kids get in school is often their only meal of the day.

Food for the Poor School Nutrition Program effectively addresses malnutrition and increases, children's school attendance. Your donation will also support local farmers who produce the nutritional supplements. You are needed to improve children's nutrition in El Salvador. Your gift will allow them to focus on learning rather than worrying about their next meal. Today, you have the power to feed a child or an entire classroom for a year. Please click the blue banner at metaxis talk.com or call 844-863-4673 with a gift of $100 to feed their future. Folks, welcome back. As I hope I warned you, my guest is a friend, Dr. Frank Turek.

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-examining. dot 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. You know, when people say, does this look infected to you? I always say, yes, I'd have that thing cut off immediately.

Yes, exactly. 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 this 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 doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, metaxis. But, you know, I don't really require that. Three or four is enough. Three or four doctors is okay. Okay, doctor, doctor, attacks. 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 Turich? 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. 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 it. 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, 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 were 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 Rousseau and the romantic movement, you know, 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, I love him. What does that mean? You know what I mean?

You can't take a test. You love him yesterday or 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. 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. 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 call 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 correct it. The Bible corrects it. But you even have a lot of Christians that misunderstand this, which I think.

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 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.org. It's evil and the good without hiding. You must help me. My Pillows excited to announce they're extending the mega sale on overstock clearance and brand new products.

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ship for free. Go to MyPillow.com. Use promo code Eric or call 800-9778-3057.com. Promocode Eric or call 800-9783057 to order now. Mypillow.com. Folks, welcome back. I'm talking to my friend Dr. Frank Turrick. 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 Turrick, 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? 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. 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, 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 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. 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 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 another relationship and it breaks my heart to see that basically because the blessing of marriage you know and again it's 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 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 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 the 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 changing divided it's changing your heart 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. Prolonged 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 is a dark side. There's our sin nature. And if we give into that, it leads us into slavery, toward slavery. That's powerful. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its way ends in deaths, 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, what 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? 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 get 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. 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 basis. 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

number of years ago, 10 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 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 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. 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, Cros-examined. org-O-R-G.

Cross-examined.org. Frank Turak, my friend, thank you. Thank you, Merrick. Creeping with you. God bless.