← Wretched Radio with Todd Friel
Wretched Radio with Todd Friel
Oprah’s Gospel, Aborted Babies, and America’s Misery
00:55:00
Segment 1 • Why are depression, anxiety, and loneliness exploding despite endless promises of happiness? • A controversial article asks: what happens when motherhood is treated as the enemy of fulfillment?
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Todd Friel
Wretched radio begins in 3, 2, 1.
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If it brings her to the same point that it brings you, it doesn't matter whether she called it God along the way or not. That understanding works for you, so therefore it is absolutely right for you. All beliefs have become only relatively true. And of course, to the world, religion is just some personalized experience, not a divine revelation. And the church is catching the disease.
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It's time for Wretched Radio with Tod Friel.
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Why the World is so Bummed Out. This is Wretched Radio. Does anybody use the word bummed out? Well, apparently so, because I just did. The world's depressed. They're anxious, lonely, fearful of the future. You've seen the statistics, so I won't regale you with them. But we all know the world is just blue, not as happy as we once were. What has changed? Why is the world? And let's make it personal, possibly you so bummed out. I believe that, at least in part, if not in totality, the reason for the loneliness epidemic, the depression and anxiety that is so prevalent, can be found in one word. And that word is priorities. Pursuing what is important, pursuing things that we believe will make us happy. And I believe that when our priorities are Khafritz, when they are not in alignment with the priorities that God has given to us for human flourishing, well, we're not going to flourish as humans. That was pretty clever right there. If you're not doing the things for human flourishing, you're not going to flourish as a human. Why? Because God has written his priorities into the fabric of reality. God has determined if you as a human being do this, things will overall go better. And please note, you don't even need to be a Christian. You don't need to believe in God for things to go better when you are doing things God's way. Why? Because that's the way the place works. And we were made to be doing certain things that bring about a sense of shalom, of peace. It's good. It is well with my soul. When we neglect those things, inevitably, well, we see the statistics. Depression, anxiety, unheimlicheit. That's right. I just said it. Unheimlich Used that word yesterday in the sermon. Jimmy spit over 2/3 of the congregation. Those German words, they get a little chucky. Unheimlicheit. It means weirdness. It means detached. It means I don't feel connected to stuff. I'm like an air balloon that's been untethered and I'm just drifting away. Why do so many experience that? It is because we're detached from God's priorities. The American Spectator summer edition came out. Decided to read it this weekend. And I discovered, for whatever this is worth, side note, the American Spectator isn't all that happy with Donald Trump right now. That's kind of the impression I got, but that isn't what interested me. There were several articles that I believe had the exact same theme of priorities, and each one of them had in particular to do with women. But, gentlemen, please note, this applies to us also, because while we're going to be examining why so many women are so unhappy, it will remind all of us, okay, Am I doing things God's way? Am I doing the things that God has prescribed for us so that we can all make adjustments? That's the bigger point. One of the articles was titled the Mothers who Regret Their Children. Apparently there was a New York magazine article featuring women who say, I wish I hadn't had kids. It said, quote, sooner or later, everyone has to decide whether to give up lazy weekends. That's a priority. Disposable income priority, and overall peace of mind priority to have a baby instead. So you got to sacrifice those things. You're never going to get those again. You got to make that decision to have a baby. And in part, that's actually true. You do give up a lot. But the question is, is the giving up a lot a good thing or a bad thing? The world says it's a bad thing. Why? Because the world says everything is about you. So you need to do all the things that make you happy. Whatever the entertainment is, whatever the rest, whatever the video game is, you do, you let it make you happy and don't do anything for anybody else. We are living in a me centric society. Well, God has a different priority. He actually tells us, sacrifice yourself, and in that you will find joy on this earth and reward in the afterlife. This is a theme throughout the Bible we're preaching through First Peter at Alpharetta Bible Church. The theme just keeps coming up over and over and over again. The delights that come from being obedient here and the rewards that happen in the afterlife when we act in particular like Jesus Christ, who did what he sacrificed himself. That's why when you sacrifice yourself for another, it feels good, doesn't it? That was good. You drive away. You didn't want to go help the widow or the orphan, but you did. Do you ever drive away just going, ah, stupid. I was never going to do that. That was just a big old waste of time. No, feels good. Why does it feel good? Because those are the things that God has said will make you feel good. Back to our article. This is actually from the American Spectator talking about the article in New York Times Magazine. They have three stories of young mothers who look back on their pre baby lives with longing and conclude that motherhood itself is the source of their unhappiness. Ding. There's another big problem. God says being a mother, that is a source of happiness. And when you have the opposite attitude toward it because you're so me centric, well, you're going to be miserable doing it. Furthermore, has the world not done a bang up job of painting motherhood as something horrific? Another article that we'll be tackling in the American Spectator talks about the number of anti marriage books and movies. And Netflix shows that when you are as a woman you hit middle age, you gotta get out of there. And it's D I V O R C E for the sake of your own mental health and wellbeing. And what are they doing? They're undermining the very thing that God has prescribed to make us happy. Marriage, motherhood, childbearing. Those are the things of life. Those are the things with stuff. Those are the things that bring joy and a settledness and a peace. Because those are the things that God has prescribed for us. And the world is bent on changing the priorities and flipping them on their head. Listen to the one of the women from New York magazine. She said her freedom and identity went down the toilet. She doesn't get it. Her priorities are out of whack. What is her priority? Me. Her priority is self free. Time weakens by the lake. So that all went down the toilet after giving birth. And she described having to shut down a job offer. She had to turn it down to avoid uprooting her daughter's life. You mean you had to sacrifice for somebody else. And that left her angry and resentful. This is my life now. I don't have the freedom to work at any hour for as many hours as I want to come home to. Just exist. In other words, to be me centric. I feel so angry and alone. It's like my future is over now with nowhere else to go while my daughter is about to begin. It's an ugly feeling. Yes, it really is. Because it is ugly when a mother resents her own child because the child gets in the way of self. When in the history of the world did women ever start thinking like this? And this article, I don't know who the author Melissa Henson is. She actually, I think captures what the Problem is a failure of imagination. CS Lewis, she kind of writes a paraphrase of him would say that the problem is not that this woman's desires are too strong, they're too weak. We're half hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he can't imagine that what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. In other words, our priorities are out of whack. Our priorities aren't in alignment with God's priorities. We're seeking the lesser things. We're seeking the low things that we think because we've been told, and perhaps our flesh craves it because we can all have a propensity toward laziness and personal delights and the world just nothing but encourage that these days. We used to live in a world where sacrifice that was considered noble. Now it's considered stupid. You need to be selfish. That's the mantra of all of these self help books these days. In particular for women. You need to be selfish. Our world has flipped priorities on their head. According to the Institute for Family Studies, women are more likely to have a sense of purpose in their lives when they're married and they have children. Among women ages 25 to 55, 28% of married mothers strongly agrees that their life has a clear sense of purpose. Just 14% of women without children say the same thing. And what is the world telling women these days? And especially young people don't have kids. Terrifying, awful future. Oh, look out. Global warming. We're all going to die and they are robbing us of the very things that God has determined. This is what makes you happy. The conclusion of this article. Motherhood does not diminish a woman's life by asking her to surrender certain goods. It elevates it by inviting her to desire greater ones. In other words, she needs a priority adjustment. This is wretched radio.
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Jimmy Hicks
You know you can love the Lord with absolutely everything in you and still go mute. When somebody asks you how do you even know the Bible is true? You feel the answer deep down. You just can't put it into words. The reasons go deeper than most of us were ever even shown. Skeptics know that too. That's why they start in Genesis and then. And they work backward. Because if you crack the foundation, then everything built on top of it will start to wobble. But when you trace the logic and the morality and the science all the way down. You find the very same thing every single time. Reality only makes sense if the Bible is true, and Dr. Jason Lyle has spent his entire career studying the universe, and in his new series, Irrefutable Proof of Creation, he asks the hard questions about about God and turns doubt into confidence. Irrefutable Proof of Creation is streaming right now on Fortis, with new episodes dropping every week. Download the Fortis plus app on your smartphone, your smart TV, or you can
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Todd Friel
go to fortisplus.org Perhaps you've been wondering, is there a Christian university that isn't woke or that hasn't compromised on important biblical doctrines like, you know, the age of the earth? There is. It's the Master's University in Southern California. Beautiful campus. All of the athletics and activities that you've come to expect from universities. But it's more than that. The academic programs are most excellent. Preparing students for the future. The Washington Post just said number six for preparing students for the real world. All that plus the Master's University isn't woke and it is thoroughly biblical. Would you like to learn more? I encourage you to visit the Master's university at masters.edu wretched masters edu Wretched
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Jimmy Hicks
here's something fun to know about Fortis it's not the same. 12 videos on repeats we're constantly adding new content. Our fellows are putting out hot takes on what everyone's talking about. This week we've got Gary Varvell drawing cultural cartoons that are funnier than your dad jokes. Not my dad jokes, but yours for sure. There's always something new on Fortis. There's so much depth. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours of content is sitting there right now. Stuff on theology and marriage and parenting and manhood and cultural issues. Stuff you can dig into for more months and you can watch it all on your tv. On your Roku, your Fire tv, your Apple tv, your Android. Not just your phone, your actual tv. The Fortis plus app. It's free. Download it, throw it on your smart TV and see what Christ centered content actually looks like. Fortis.
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Todd Friel
God has given the church many gifts for the building up of the body. One gift is exhortation, the spiritual ability to encourage, comfort and admonish God's people. Whether God's people are oppressed, confused or in error, God has provided the gift of exhortation to comfort, urge and correct them.
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This is Wretched Radio with Todd Friel seeking lesser things. This is Wretched Radio. If only we Christians would reframe how we view God's Commandments. It could change everything in the life of a believer. And it could make Christianity look so appealing and attractive that the world would say, we want in. We want to know, what is it that makes you people so content, so satisfied, so downright happy? And the answer, I believe, can be found in the word priorities. Our priorities are in alignment with God's priorities. And when they are, it is inevitable human flourishing. It will happen. And the world would see it and say, could you tell me about that? Instead, we all too often frame God's commandments as being onerous, as being a yoke. Didn't Jesus say, he does not put a heavy yoke on people? His burden is light. Why? Because he's already removed our sin burden and now he gives us the instructions. If you will follow my precepts, you will have joy. It is good to be obedient. It shouldn't feel onerous, like, oh, I've got to get married. Oh, I've got to have children. Are you kidding? In fact, this goes for every sin. We need to reconsider how we present sin, at least in the context of a Christian conversation. When we talk about not doing something, I think we always need to connect it to because don't do this, because if you do, you're going to be miserable. But if you do this, oh, the joys that follow. In other words, God's commandments are good and we've got to start talking about them as such. And that goes to all of the current issues that seem to be up for grabs these days in society. The issues of marriage and parenting and education and labor, having children. The world is pushing back against these Christian priorities and ideals and saying they're bad. Well, God says they're good. The American Spectator wrote an article When Women's Liberation Disappoints. Now, you can't track the misery of so many women to one particular ideology, but that doesn't mean you dismiss it either. I found this a rather fascinating piece as he tracked the issue of modern day feminism and their messaging. Because it is anti good commandments, it's anti God's priorities, and it is everything pro selfish. And it's contributed then to the misery of so many women. From the article, if modern feminism's premises are correct, this should be a moment of unmistakable triumph since the second wave pioneer Betty Friedan famously wrote in 1957 that she wanted something more than my husband and my children and my home. Oh, man. All God's priorities. Wanting a spouse, wanting children, wanting to have a happy home. That's Christ centered to Betty Friedan, eh? And so what was her message? You need to cast it off, lady. Can I call you lady? And the ambition of doing so, it's really been mostly accomplished, hasn't it? If you take. In fact, I just read a statistic, the number of jobs. It's like 94% of the 380,000 jobs that were added since the Trump administration began. Part two. Women, women getting the jobs. Women dominating marketplaces. They've moved from minority status to majorities. Law schools, medical schools, a college educated workforce, law firms, 1/3 of U.S. judgeships and 2 thirds, by the way, are recent appointments of women. In other words, what feminism has said. This is what's going to make you happy. It's been accomplished. So the question is, why aren't women happy? Why are they suffering from historic levels of depression and anxiety? That's what this article sought to answer. Women across the industrialized world report lower levels of life satisfaction compared to men. Even most recent. 2024. The big survey found that between 2014 and 2024, US women report being happy declined from 33% to 23%. In other words, if we're going to be scientists, at least social scientists. Feminism has not done what it promised to do. Why aren't women thrilled? And we know the answer to that. We should know the answer to that because God has said, these are the priorities. This is what will make you happy. And the world has kicked back and said, no, we're going to do it my way. From the article, where there are indeed a myriad possible number of reasons for the gender divergence and happiness, it's worth noting that the well being gap emerged in the 1970s. That's when 25 million women were added to the workforce. That should have been happy Days. I think that was a song from the 70s, maybe the 60s. Oh happy day, we've been liberated now. Please note, this is not a commentary on women working. This is a commentary on priorities and feminism's promise. Live for you. Don't be in monogamous relationships. Be as frisky as men are. And that's what this article starts to dive into. The push for women to behave like men in all regards. Because hasn't that been the message? There's no distinction between men and women. So what are so many women trying to do? Act like men. And how do men act? Well, oftentimes like dogs in heat. It's funny, there was some Finnish study and they asked people, they asked women and they asked men over the next 30 years, what would be the number of ideal partners. Wink, wink. We all know what that means. Partners for you. Women said 5, men said 25. And so what are feminists trying to do? Get women to behave like men. And it's violating the very fabric of their being. And women are feeling it. In the decades long feminist effort to treat men and women as psychologically interchangeable in the struggle for status and resources may itself partially account for women's relative dissatisfaction, particularly among mothers. This is an interesting quote from Ann Marie Slaughter. She was apparently an Obama State department official. She wrote in the Atlantic, the proposition that women can have high powered careers assumes most women will feel as comfortable as men do about being away from their children. Well, it's not the case because women are designed to be mothers. While work related stress may be a significant factor in female unhappiness, it is probably worth noting that greater workforce participation has coincided with a 60% decline in marriage in 2024, 31% of women married. Well, I'm sorry. 31.2 women married per 1,000 unmarried women, compared 1970-76. In other words, marriage is just tanking. Having babies is going down the tubes. And all of this is a push by feminism to say, do not be shackled by those restraints. You be you. And that goes for sexuality too, that women are told. You have got these books that are being written. I was like gasping when I'm reading about some of these books and the storylines. These are women. They just, hey, I'm gonna go away for a couple of weeks. So they just leave husband and child. And what do they find out on the road when they're traveling around the country like Thelma and Louise, they find some young hottie and then they go with the dude, leaving everything behind. And those books are being celebrated, bestselling books. And it lists tons of them. Shows and movies, and it lists a ton of these. What do they tend to do? Depict female led exits from marriage sparked by sexual dissatisfaction. In other words, lady, you gotta act like a man. The pro divorce writers seek to blur differences, recasting women's relational and sexual aspirations as mirroring those of men. As with career ambition, treating the sexes as essentially interchangeable. Well, guess what? They're not. They're different. And God has designed it that way. And that design is better for us. What do we do with these articles from American Spectator? I think it should encourage us. God's ways are always best, aren't they? God's ways are always right. Why? Because he's the one who has designed what will make us happiest. And when God says get educated, it's not because he just likes to crack the whip or maybe crack our knuckles when we don't pay attention or study well. It's because he's educated. He wants us to be like him. And there is joy in that. When he says to sacrifice yourself, serve others, what are we doing? We're acting like Jesus. Is there anything better than that? And of course it's going to bring satisfaction. Marriage, parenting, faithfulness. When we're faithful, why is there such joy in that? And the answer is obvious. It is because when we act like God, we will always be happier. The world they're kicking against the goads. And I would simply ask the question for all of us. Do any of us need to reconsider our current priorities? Could it be that our out of whack priority might be the very thing that is contributing to our own misery? This this is Wretched Radio.
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Jimmy Hicks
And it's now time for your daily Fortis News break, a production of Fortis Institute. We start in Florida, where a judge just refused Planned Parenthood's bid to throw out a lawsuit. The state's attorney general is suing the abortion giant for advertising the abortion pill as, in their words, safer than Tylenol. The judge said no. They didn't just call the pill safe, he noted, they called it safer than other medicine. That's a claim they'll now have to back up. Speaking of products sold as safe in Scotland, at least 40 women now say the drug maker Pfizer gave them brain tumors. Blaming a long term contraceptive shot. The women report bulging eyes, lost vision and seizures after years on the injection. One mother took it for two decades before doctors found a tumor on her optic nerve. She's had four surgeries. In America, more than 7, 1700 similar cases are now piling up in court. The lawyers say nobody warned these women, and they're almost certainly right. From contraception to the children taking it. In Illinois, Democrats have passed a bill letting minors get birth control with no parental consent. It now waits on the governor's desk, and he's expected to sign. That would make Illinois the 24th state to cut parents out entirely. Supporters call it empowering, but pro life investigators. Investigators have shown for years how hiding contraception from a child is exactly how an abuser keeps his victim quiet. So empowerment for whom? And while one state is attempting to erase parental knowledge, another state is just attempting to erase them altogether. In New York, Democrats in the legislature have passed a bill stripping the words mother and father out of state family law. Mother becomes gestating parent and father becomes nun gestating parent. It now heads to Governor Kathy Hochul's desk. And reporters say some Democrats actually rolled their eyes as they voted, but then voted yes anyway. To Washington and your tax dollars. A new study finds more than 6 million people on Obamacare were enrolled, deceptively about 1 in 4. The cost this year alone, an estimated $25 billion. Dr. Oz, who now runs Medicare and Medicaid, says many never filed a single claim because they don't exist or never knew they'd been signed up. The administration says it's already pulled nearly 2 million phantom names off the rolls, $25 billion for coverage no one asked for overseas. Now, last week, Belgium sent a man to jail for citing crime statistics about a mass migration. One week later, immigrant rioters set parts of Brussels ablaze. And to trigger budget cuts, rioters tried to storm the parliament building while lawmakers sat inside voting. So one man goes to prison for quoting the numbers and the streets promptly prove him right. You almost couldn't write this. And that wraps up today's Fortis News break. I'm Jimmy Hicks. If you want more, you can download Fortis or sign up to become a Fortis Insider for exclusive daily content, both of which you can do@fortisinstitute.org, and don't forget, you can subscribe to Fortis News on your favorite podcast app in order to get these updates daily. And until tomorrow, tomorrow, go serve your king.
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Todd Friel
Revelation Special Revelation is God's act of making himself known through direct means. In history, God has spoken directly to people like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and the prophets. Two thousand years ago, he revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ, but today, he reveals himself in his perfect word, the Bible. This is Wretched Radio with Todd Friel.
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Talk about tragic consequences of poor priorities. This is Wretched radio. Almost certainly you have heard the story. It is the oddest subject on the Internet these days. Jesse Ridgeway, are you familiar with him and his wife? He has over 5 million subscribers. He would be what you would call a social media influencer. And this week he writes, my wife and I made the very difficult decision to terminate our pregnancy due to the child has down syndrome. And wow, has it caused a firestorm on the Internet. And rightly so. It's actually an encouraging sign. So many people have been critical about this young couple's decision to execute their own child simply because their child was going to be a challenge beyond normal parenting. Parenting is hard anyway but you had special needs. And indeed, it does make it more difficult. And this young couple, what did they decide to do? Basically, heed Oprah Winfrey's advice, be selfish and execute their own child. And it has caused a firestorm, and this guy pushed back. If these kids are a little slow intellectually, I thought, well, we'll make it work. I signed on to be a parent, come what may, but I didn't understand what down syndrome entailed. So what is he going to set up for us? A sob story of how difficult it is to take care of a child with down syndrome. Therefore, they are justified in executing their own child. What's happening here? And the answer is priority confusion. My peace, my sleeping in, my not having to work hard is more important than the life of a human being. This is priority confusion at its finest. And there's a really ugly punchline to all of this. In this particular release where he announced that they aborted their child, he cites the fact that so many of these down syndrome children, they have physical difficulties. Indeed they do. But it's interesting in his release that they decided to terminate their child. They didn't share any of the wonderful stories. Go to the YouTube machine and type in down syndrome and you will be surprised at the number of videos that pop up of parents that just talk about how amazing it is to have this child. I've heard this many times before. There's something about down syndrome children that is so admirable because they just. They don't get themselves bogged down in the concerns of life. The carking cares of this world just don't affect them. And they're happy. Sure, they've got struggles and challenges, but frankly, don't all humans? Honestly, don't all humans? I mean, isn't just raising a baby in general a sacrifice? But this was a bridge too far for this couple. They just couldn't see going through all of this. I didn't realize, he writes, just how rough it is for the child, let alone the family. More often than not, they would be fully dependent on others for the rest of their lives. Yeah. So what was the decision here? Me? We don't want to do that. I'm all in on this parenting thing, he said, but not that much. Not that much. I'm willing to sacrifice, but not that much. And then he writes, we spoke with doctors, friends, family and genetic counselors and learned that up to 90% of women terminate their pregnancy after learning their baby was downs. Oh, what a relief. Oh, good. Then it gives us justification for doing the exact same thing. It's interesting that he didn't consult two different parties. One any sort of religious authority. None of that was consulted. No doctors, friends, family and genetic counselors. Furthermore, he didn't consult the parents, who would say, I am so glad that I gave birth to this beautiful baby down syndrome child. None of that consultation seems to happen. He concludes, as for us, we made a difficult decision that we believe in the long run will be beneficial for our family. Substitute that with me, me and my wife, me. Thankfully, we had a choice. Now, here's the punchline. An individual, Ben Zaeloft. I've heard his name before. I can't place what it is. I don't know if he's a politician, what he is, but he went back into the Jesse Ridgeway files because everything that they post is still there. And it's a picture of him wearing sunglasses for some reason, holding up his dog. Let me just read what this young man who just executed his own child wrote about his dog. Sweet. Apparently, that's the name of the dog, Sweets, because it's apostrophe s possessive sweet. Super 6th birthday after she was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney disease. Last year, around her 5th birthday, the vet said she had weeks to live. If we were lucky, maybe a few months. One year later, she's still fighting. She's in the 0.0001% of superhero dogs that can continue living with no kidneys. We all need a hero in this life. Jenny has been one of mine. Okay, so the dog's name is Jenny. They nickname it Sweets. So the dog we're celebrating, even though it's difficult, even though the dog doesn't have kidneys, which must have certain demands connected to it, we're celebrating that life. Ben Ziesloft writes, when you fight for the life of your dog, but murder your baby out of convenience. And then he quotes G.K. chesterton. Wherever there is animal worship, there's human sacrifice. And indeed there was. What's at the heart of this? I would suggest to you the worldview and the philosophy. No, the religion of Oprah Winfrey. She's not the only contributor to the mindset that says me, but she has been one of the most powerful voices. This goes back 20 years ago. Some of us identified. Oprah's a big problem. She's very anti Christian, she's very Eastern, and more than that, she's New Agey, and she's a part of postmodernism all the way back. Oprah Winfrey. Do you remember the quote From Oprah Winfrey when she was under. Well, Jesus can't be the only way. Remember that quote? And many of us were like, oh, this woman is a problem. And indeed she has been for decades. The American Spectator don't know why they chose to write about Oprah Winfrey, but they discovered it like a squirrel just found a nut for the first time. Oprah, the high priestess of American cultural melees. Well, there's been a number of us that have been critical of Oprah for a long, long time. In fact, just one of the times that I almost got fired. Not to say I didn't get fired, but I ultimately did. But one of the times I almost got fired, Jimmy. We were at the state fair, and I played a game titled Oprah Chopra or Bruce. Okay, Oprah Chopra or Bruce. And I would share a quote from Oprah, Deepak Chopra, or from the prayer of Jabez guy. And people had to determine who gave the quote. And so it was with a crowd of people inside of this radio thing that they had out at the state fair. And it was live on the air, of course. And the idea was we'd have people and they would win prize. We'd give them something if they could guess if it was Oprah Chopra or Bruce. Well, that lit up the phone lines. None of the calls were positive. Hey, you need to fire that guy. Do you know why? Because I was criticizing not Bruce Wilkinson, not Deepak Chopra, but Oprah. You don't touch the Oprah. Why? Because she was singing a song of selfishness that was resonating in the ears of women who were watching her during the daytime and being fed nothing but a giant bologna sandwich of egocentric Life is all about me. I've got to live my own truth. I've got to be me. I've got to do what makes me happy. Well, I'm glad that the author of this article has discovered Oprah Winfrey's been a problem. 2018 article from the Democratic Socialists of America Forum just resurfaced, and it said this. The revolution must be trauma informed. Have you heard about trauma lately? Bet you have, because there's a lot of talk about trauma. Trauma based counseling. We need medicine for traumatized people. We've got PTSD that anybody can. What was the one thing that I saw? Oh, I think. I think it was a golfer. I don't know if I shared this. I was watching the Golf Channel, and they were doing a piece on a guy who had survived cancer. Praise God for that. Very glad for that. And then he said in the midst of his recovery, it was discovered that he had ptsd. From what? Just from going through a health scare. That's all it takes. And you are traumatized. It is all the rage. And the reason that this fellow who wrote this article titled Oprah the High Priestess of American Cultural Malaysia is because she was all about trauma based counseling or trauma based worldview long before it became popular within the last couple of years. Seriously, have you not noticed in the last few years how much stuff is trauma based? I need to talk to somebody about trauma. I need to talk about what happened to me. I need to talk about my traumatic childhood. And this fellow traces it back to Oprah Winfrey. Now, there's other sources of it, but Oprah Winfrey was the popularizer of postmodernism. She did more to it. I mean, she was following the wave and she had all these weird gurus on her show that were informing her along the way. But if you have ever wondered, why is it that we live in a society that is so egocentric, you can look no further than Oprah Winfrey, which we will do next on Wretched Radio.
- [40:29]
Jimmy Hicks
A lot of us got handed a choice. We never agreed to faith on one side, reason on the other. So when talk turns to fossils or the age of the universe, you kind of feel that knot. You believe God's word, you just can't explain why. But that choice was a setup. The same God who gave us the Bible gave us the universe to study. And truth doesn't argue with itself. The trouble was the assumptions. The one smoke in next to the evidence and taught as fact. It's why two people can look at the same fossil and walk away telling two different stories. But you sort the assumptions out and the science sits comfortably beside scripture. That's exactly what in the beginning with Dr. Jason Lyle is for. He's a PhD astrophysicist who takes the hardest questions in science and makes them clear and biblical. New episodes of in the Beginning, heard every Wednesday on every single podcast platform in existence or on the Fortis app@fortis.org Thanks for listening to Wretched Radio today. Seriously, I mean it. Thank you so much for being a part of what we do here at Fortis Institute. Not just with Wretched Radio, but with all of our other content that we're producing on a daily basis. Whatever keeps you coming back and showing up, we don't take that lightly. There is a reality about all of this, and that's that producing daily radio like Wretched takes resources. It takes studio time, equipment, staff, distribution, and it all adds up. And the reason that we are able to continue doing this at the level that we've been doing it is because of our gospel partners, men and women just like you who have linked arms with us and give to this ministry so that we can stay on the air and reach more people in more places all over the world. And so if our ministry has ever been a source of encouragement for you, would you consider joining us as an ongoing monthly gospel partner? You can get all of the answers to all of the questions and that you likely have@fortisinstitute.org right now. Wretched Amazing Grace Amazing Gospel As a Christian, at some point you're going to be in a conversation about abortion. Maybe it's at work, maybe it's at Thanksgiving dinner, or maybe even with your own kids. And when that moment comes, you're either going to be ready for the conversation or you're not. Life Is Best gets you ready. It's hosted by Scott Klusendorf, one of, if not the sharpest pro life apologist in the world. This 13 episode series walks through every major argument you'll hear and shows you how to respond with clarity and compassion. You'll also hear from voices like Paul Washer and Dr. John MacArthur bringing the weight of scripture to an issue the world wants to keep shallow. You won't find angry debate tactics or gotcha moments. This is thoughtful teaching that engages the mind and the heart. Because the goal isn't to win an argument, it it's to change minds and point people to Christ. Life is best. All 13 episodes streaming now on Fortis for free. Download the app on your smartphone, on your smart TV, or just simply go to fortisplus.org.
- [43:29]
Todd Friel
Books of the Bible God called the prophet Jonah to preach repentance in Nineveh. Jonah fled, but he could not outrun God. He was cast into the sea and swallowed by a great fish. Jonah repented and God spared him. Jonah then preached in Nineveh and they repented. God is compassionate and merciful and he is calling men from all nations to repentance. This is Wretched Radio with Todd Friel.
- [43:58]
What does Oprah Winfrey. Have to do with socialism? This is Wretched Radio. What is socialism? Or at least what is the socialist mechanism for implementing socialism? And the answer is deconstruction. You got to tear everything down. You got to change everything. Everything that is current, it's got to go because it's old. We are going to break it down. We need to break down the economic system. We need to break down the commerce system, we need to break down the industrial system. We've got to break down hierarchies. And yet there is another expression of socialism that has been encouraged, shall we say, by none other than Oprah Winfrey. The American Spectator identifies it as therapeutic socialism. And perhaps you're thinking therapeutic socialism. What does therapy have to do with Marx or Engels or Russia for that matter? And the answer can be found in Oprah Winfrey. She's not exclusive, she doesn't own the trademark on this, but she contributed to something called therapeutic socialism from the article. It's the apex of cultural Marxism in America and it forms the superstructure of the Democratic Party's politics. Everybody's a victim. Everybody needs the gentle hand of a big sister government to help them through their pain. It isn't politics, it's religion. In other words, the tearing down of our social fabric is being done through the therapy movement, trauma based counseling. You just have been so abused, you have been so hurt, you have been so wounded. Let us help. We're the government. And so this is yet another contributor to the breaking down of our current social systems, replacing it with social ism. Where did this come from? This fellow traces it back to Oprah Winfrey. From the mid-1980s to 2011, Oprah Winfrey took the confessional format of daytime female targeted talk, pioneered by one Phil Donahue. She put it on steroids, changed it into something darker. What was Oprah cranking out? A daily ritual of public emotional excavation. You gotta put your feelings on display. Guests vomited forth their abuse, their addiction, their family dysfunction, personal failures, not as cautionary tales or spurs to repentance and character building, but as badges of authenticity to be applauded by the suicidally empathetic as their truth. And she was dripping from that faucet for decades. And women were consuming it day after day after day. The new catechism was what happened to you? Personal responsibility and recognition of consequences and reality. Old fashioned, patriarchal and oppressive. Do you see how this is therapeutic socialism? It's tearing down the old systems of morality and values and what we do with hardships and difficulties. We used to think, okay, it's a difficulty. I'm going to be swashed by this or I am going to grow from this. Well, Oprah Winfrey said, oh, no, you don't grow from this. You didn't cause this. This isn't your fault. You need therapy. You need a hand up. You need help. So it's not a tearing down of economic or political systems per se. It's tearing down ideologies that once taught a different way to confront difficulties. You would see them and you would be encouraged by others to conquer them, to overcome them, to learn from them, to perhaps, if necessary, repent of your contribution to them. Oprah Winfrey's therapeutic socialism says, no, no, no, no, no. That's all patriarchy. That's all old fashioned. That's what old Christian European heterosexual males used to teach. Tear it down for the sake of therapy. Oprah preached, you should just let go, honor your inner child and reframe every setback as systemic trauma rather than the predictable fruit of bad choices or even sin. So Oprah Winfrey has been contributing to the breakdown of our society. Again, not necessarily economic and political, although some people would argue she was very political just the same. The focus of this and our concern is how she's been tearing down how we go about the business of dealing with sin in the world, with the fallenness of the world. Oprah Winfrey, she brought on these gurus who said, it is not your fault, it is the universe conspiring against you, and you need to simply get therapy and buy my book and believe like this and think like that and do like I say. Did I mention you should buy my book? Remember Marianne Williamson? How's about Eckhart Tolle? His A New earth awakening to your life's purpose. Deepak Chopra, Rhonda Byrne, she was platforming these people and saying, these are the most important books in the world. So the worldview of Oprah Winfrey was being peddled on her show to millions of women. The message was consistent, beaten into the heads of millions and millions of impressionable women with time on their hands. During the day, your feelings are truth, your ego is the enemy. And salvation comes from presence, affirmations and external blame. You're not to blame for any of this. Somebody else is. Something else is. Don't take responsibility. You're a victim because you've been traumatized. From the article. Teens and young adults in the 1990s and 2000s absorbed the gospel that their pain was not their fault and that their healing meant perpetual processing, not building grit or character. Have you wondered why we see a generation that is so emotions driven in part, not totality, in part. You can thank Oprah Winfrey. The downstream harvest is now impossible to ignore. Unmarried women, disproportionately, those steeped in the therapeutic socialist worldview Oprah gave them now form the emotional and electoral backbone of the hard left. They vote Democratic 59 to 70%. Sky high rates of diagnosed mental illness, more than half in some surveys of leftist women, lean heavily on antidepressants and have estranged themselves from traditional Christianity and family structures that anchored all of the previous generations. In other words, Oprah Winfrey's therapeutic socialism was anti Christian. Don't go to any sort of religious person to find the answers. Go to Deepak Chopra, go to Marianne Williamson, go to that bizarre Eckhart Tolle. Come to me, watch my show, listen to me, buy my books. That is where your peace and hope is found, not in God, not in Christianity. Hence a socialist, therapy minded worldview that has pushed people away from the, from the good things and growing in perseverance, overcoming a struggle, conquering something that has been besetting you. Those are things that make you strong and those are things that make you more like, you know, God. Oprah, Not a chance. Her own biography of childhood poverty and sexual abuse in rural Mississippi was relentlessly centered and weaponized as the source of her power. Oprah's wounds became her brand, her authenticity and her moral authority. Look at me, look at what I've overcome. Look at what I've done. And the article in the American Spectator goes further to say, well, she didn't get there by herself. There were an awful lot of people who invested into Oprah and to help Oprah become what Oprah became, true little interest to me. What is of interest is how Oprah Winfrey used her very difficult past to make it her selling point. Because I have overcome it. You need to listen to me. Was your life worse than mine? Were you sexually abused as a child in Mississippi? I was. And look at me, I'm the queen of daytime tv. And this is how I did it and this is how you need to do it. And the consequence of Oprah Winfrey, not to mention all of these other self help books, all of these other post modern philosophical dribblings that have made their way into so many books that tell you how to live and how to think and how they have infected movies and scripts and what is supposed to really make you happy. They are all wrong, wrong, wrong. This should, if nothing else, be a call to all of us, perhaps a wake up call for some of us. Have I been listening to those messages? Have I been doing the things that God has prescribed that will make me content, give me purpose, build my character, help me to overcome difficulties and to have shalom. For instance, this is what our text delivered to us Sunday at Alpharetta Bible Church. Are you serving in the context of your local. Local church. Are you stewarding your gift? Has somebody persuaded you Daaa. Let the old retired people do that? You're missing the boat. Why? Because God made you to use your gift in the context of the local church, and if you're not using it, you're gonna be miserable. All that to say we need to study God's priorities and get in alignment with what he says will make you happy. Because I gotta tell you, Oprah Winfrey and the rest of them have failed us miserably. Then until tomorrow, go serve your king.