Staying in the Safe Zone
This morning I expressed concern to a visitor that I had heard a friend quote Oprah to a room full of Christian women as though she were an authority to be trusted. When I had challenged the quoter she said, “Well I know Oprah’s in deception right now but she’s a good person.” This friend had gone on to say that she watches Oprah’s TV show fairly regularly and thinks Oprah does a lot of good for people. I was amazed to hear several other women in the room admit that they still watch Oprah regularly. My visitor this morning suggested to me that I go to YouTube and search “Oprah” so I could see what she is teaching to the women of America. So I did.
Let me allow Oprah to speak for herself. Here are some direct quotes from her broadcasts, available on YouTube:
“One of the mistakes human beings make is believing that there is only one way . . . there are really millions of ways, many paths to what you call God. My path might be one way and her path a different way, and when her loving, her compassion, her generosity gets her there, it doesn’t make any difference whether she calls it god or not. . .
“So what about Jesus? There couldn’t possibly be only one way. . .”
“Let me remember that there is no sin.”
“God isn’t something to believe; God is. God is. God is a feeling experience, not a believing experience. Religion is a believing experience. If god, for you, is still about a belief, then it’s not truly God”
“We’re all on the same path, we’re all headed to the same thing, and there’s no need to be judgmental.”
“Do not make the mistake of “clinging to the old rugged cross”.
My dear friends, Oprah is a woman who has openly denied Jesus Christ, aggressively promotes “many ways to God”, and teaches that “my salvation comes from me.” These are all direct quotes from her broadcasts, and are some of the most innocuous quotes I could pull out because I don’t want to hurt you. The videos are available on YouTube. If you doubt me or want to see for yourself, I suggest you go to YouTube, search “Oprah” and watch the short video entitled “Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid”. If you want to know more there are other related videos you can check out there as well, but I do advise caution about listening to many of them. For myself, they were extremely upsetting and I was only able to listen to a little, not because I was being tempted to believe them but because I quickly felt personally assaulted and defiled by the blasphemy I was hearing.
The alarming thing is that this new religion has found tremendous acceptance because of Oprah’s personal charisma and popularity, and because it is being promoted every Monday night over her TV network. Eckhart Tolle, who is Oprah’s mentor in her new faith, is regularly on the Monday evening show teaching and leading the audience in guided meditations which he calls “3 minutes of silence”. Sales of Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth have grown so large that it is being estimated that they will surpass sales of all other books ever printed other than the Bible.
Ladies, we cannot be naive about this phenomenon. Why is this new religion so particularly appealing to women? 2 Timothy 3:6-7 gives us the answer and warns us about what we are seeing among women in this country right now. “For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Through our televisions, we are inviting Oprah into our homes, a place where we feel safe, a place where we let down our guard. If we are still struggling with condemnation over sin (notice that I said condemnation, not conviction — conviction comes from the HOLY Spirit and only requires repentance to be resolved with God, while condemnation comes from the devil, “the accuser of the brethren”, and will never be resolved until we learn and receive the truth from the Bible about forgiveness and cleansing through the blood of Jesus alone), if we are still weighed down with sins, we will be attracted to Oprah’s message that says “my salvation comes from within myself “. If we are still battling rejection then to hear Oprah say, “There cannot be only one way to God. That would be unfair and my god is not unfair” will be comforting to us. If we have not allowed the Holy Spirit to anchor us in the Word of God, the Bible, then we can very easily be among those who are “always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth,” and we will be vulnerable to Oprah’s kind of false religion. 2 Timothy calls these women “weak women”. In the Greek, that word means silly, foolish, lacking in maturity and dignity. It is not the same Greek word that means “less physically strong”, but rather describes a woman who has chosen to give in to a childishness that is not only unattractive but also dangerous. So let us press on to know the truth, my friends!
As I watched Oprah’s videos, I saw testimonials from several of her viewers: a teen who said she was “searching for some meaning in my life” and happened on the broadcast. She entered into the 3 minutes of silence and felt a “connection with some force that made me intensely conscious of my own existence, my own breathing, my own heartbeat. I felt alive,” she said,” and in touch with the universe, the fire, the wind, the heartbeat of god.” It was followed by a testimony of a woman who is in the hospital, dying of cancer and struggling with fear of death. She says she watched Oprah’s broadcast and “my fear went away when I realized that I am part of the cosmos. I will live forever.” Both of these women are being led to hell through these broadcasts. They have been given a false sense of security and a false hope whose author is Satan, not Jesus. Our only true hope is in Jesus. Our only true salvation is in His Name.
My heart is burdened for my friends this morning, so I had to write to warn you. Oprah has left the safe zone, ladies. Please don’t watch her. Please warn your Christian friends about her. Please correct one another in love when you hear someone promoting Oprah, her show, her books, or quoting her as though she was someone to be trusted. She is not a “good woman”. This is dangerous, ladies, and a lot of people are being led straight to hell by Oprah Winfrey. Watching her cannot be considered entertainment any longer. For the sake of the REAL Kingdom, spread the word and warn your friends!
Your comments here will be greatly appreciated.
I have been reading a wonderful book by Jerry Bridges called “Transforming Grace: LIving Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love”. It is a wonderful treatise on the fact that we are totally dependent upon God and His grace for everything. He points out a common fallacy in the way we sometimes think about ourselves and about other Christians. We sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that we have earned God’s favor by our good works, that God blesses us because we have done something that deserves His blessing. Or we more often think that we have disqualified ourselves for God’s favor because of something we have failed to do or because of some wrong we have committed We forget that, as Mr. Bridges says, “God is not keeping score, granting or withholding blessings on the basis of our performance. The score has already been permanently settled by Christ.” When we fall into this unbiblical kind of thinking, we will tend to look at Oprah, see the amount of money she gives away and the good she does for mankind, and we will misinterpret what her good works mean in terms of eternity. We can be grateful to her for her generosity, but that does not mean that her generosity makes her a “good person” in the eyes of God. It does not mean that her good works should give her credibility in our eyes as a dispenser of truth concerning spiritual things. God says that without the saving grace of Jesus, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12. This means that Oprah’s good deeds have not won for her a new revelation of Who God is. God Himself revealed Himself to humanity through the person of Jesus Christ. It is faith in Him and Him alone that gains salvation for us. Don’t be deceived by Oprah’s apparent “goodness” or even by her sincerity. She herself has said that it is her good works, particularly her generosity, that makes her a “good person.” The truth is that she is depending upon herself for her own salvation, she has “turned aside to her own way”, a common lie believed by most of mankind in which we trust in ourselves and our good works to get us into God’s good favor. Oprah’s belief may be sincere, but she is sincerely wrong!
Hey Gloria!
I was recently sent an e-mail with a link to one of Oprah’s video broadcasts
on YouTube. As I watched, I could feel myself becoming physically sickened,
You’re right – she has won over SO many women across this nation over the
past 20 or so years, and her voice is very strong. I haven’t watched her
in years and am appalled at the twisted message she’s teaching and even more
saddened because I know many women who are probably totally hooked. Oprah
has been deceived and is leading so many down the same path. May the Lord
direct us in HIS path and give us His words of TRUTH that will pierce through
the lies of the enemy!
Blessings,
Cherry
Hello Gloria!
Thank you SO much for putting this out here! I have a cell group attendee
who did the New Earth classes with Oprah and thinks that Oprah has the
answers. She claims to love Jesus but she doesn’t really agree with what
the bible says completely. We’ve lovingly told her that she is being
deceived. She said “the New Earth” is based on the prophecy from Revelation
so I podcasted the classes Oprah had to see what was going on and maybe
figure out for myself what has caught my friend’s attention. I couldn’t get
past the first class. I stopped at when Oprah and Eckhart were talking to
someone in Chicago about people wanting to believe in something more and
getting into the New Age thing now more than before.
I’ve been praying for guidance from the Holy Spirit to be able to have the
right words to say to my friend and having your blog to print and let her
read is such a blessing. I pray that whatever it is you’ve said combined
with the words the Holy Spirit gives me will help her to reclaim the truth!
Thanks again!
Hi Gloria
Thanks for writing this. As I mentioned to you, this morning before you posted this I had been thinking about Oprah… my thoughts were just on her and how I thought she was getting off track. I haven’t listened to her or watched her in years so I had no idea where she is or what she is putting out. Now I know it was the Holy Spirit and that this is something to take seriously to prayer as Oprah is very influential and easy for women to identify with. And what’s more, it’s tragic that Oprah, so obviously passionate about helping people find a better life is actually leading people away from truth. It’s important for us to remember (and I know Gloria that You do..not implying that you don’t) that if she truly realized what she was doing, she would be broken and devastated, so remember when bringing this up with others, and while praying that Oprah isn’t our enemy, but the forces operating through her are.
Hi, Darla! It is good to hear from you. I was blessed to see that some strong Christian women have taken Oprah on on her regular TV show. Of course, Oprah has control of the mic and control of the show so there is not a lot these women could do, but I was blessed that they stood their ground and seemed to know the scriptures. It was because of a question from one of these women in the audience that Opry so clearly exposed her theology that there is more than one way to God. There were many Christians in the audience who supported those who were asking the pointed and important questions too. So she is being confronted but she has her answers ready and she is a skilled communicator. On YouTube there are also some Christian ministers, a few of whom I knew by name and others that were unknown to me, who are challenging her publicly. YouTube has many, many videos, many of which I could not watch. I am not called to apologetics except when pushed into a corner like everyone else, so these things are hard to watch. I do know some people who thrive off of watching these kinds of things and confronting error and apostasy and even blasphemy. I am not one of them, but this was so blatant and I know so many women who watch adn admire Oprah, that I just had to write this.
I have been concerned for sometime about Oprah and the direction she has been heading for some time and have
been wondered why no one in the Christian circles was responding to her off-the-wall beliefs. I think she is a dangerous
woman in that she has such a wide influence and unfortunately, many women believe whatever Oprah says. In the latest
of her spiritual leanings she has exposed herself for what she really is. Thanks for what you wrote, Gloria. I hoped many
that have watched her for years will finally see the truth about what SHE is about.
Darla
I agree with you about Oprah and other shows like hers. I used to be glued to the tv set watching Ellen, and Montel Williams and a rare occasion Dr. Phil but each I got a disturbing sensation but I could not stop it. It was anything that would lead me away from reality and be stuck in my own mind playing the scenarios in my head that I watched on tv. I still have to tell myself no sometimes when it comes to televison and movies. There is just so much out there that can corrupt your mind that it is hard sometimes to decipher which is a good thing to watch. I will stick to sports and cooking shows and maybe the news from time to time. I quote Philippians 4:8-9 to myself in reagards to the shows I watch as well as my own thoughts.
Here is my prayer for the women found in Philipians 1:9-10 Amplified Topical Reference Bible
And this I pray: that your love my abound yet more and more and to extend to its fullest development in knowledge and all keen insight[ that your love may display itself in greater depth of aquaintance and more comprehensive discernment], So that you may surely learn to sense what is vital, and approve and prize what is excellent and of real value [ recongnizing the highest and the best, and distinguishing the moral differences], and that you may be untainted and pure and unerring and blameless [ so that with your hearts sincere and certain and unsullied, you may approach] the day of Christ [ not stumbling nor causing others to stumble].
Amen