In this episode, we look at two strategies for winning the war against sexual sin. The first is that we have to separate ourselves from the spirit of this world. The second is that, as we do this, we must begin to seek God with all our hearts.

Resources

• Find out more about our Annual Conference

• God Rewards Those Who Seek Him (Article) By Dustin Renz

As human beings we are naturally driven by our feelings. On the one hand, they are a gift God has given us and can even protect us. For instance, fear keeps us from doing things that could cause us harm. Pain can give us warning signs that we might have an injury or illness. But on the other hand, we are challenged by God’s Word not to let our feelings dictate the way we think and act, especially when it comes to moral decisions. Instead, God calls us to live by faith. (from Podcast Episode # 510 - Live By Faith, Not Feelings | Key Lessons on the Road to Freedom)

Nate: Austin, I wanted to start off by asking you how relevant you think the topic of living by faith and not by feelings is. If you could venture a guess and think about all the guys you've counseled and the guys that you've interacted with on our Residential Program campus, what percentage would you say need to learn this lesson?

Austin: I would say it's safe to say 99%, if not 100%. I can't think of anyone that I've counseled that I haven't addressed this issue with.

Nate: Okay. For someone who’s listening and has never even really considered if they are living by feelings or if they are living by faith, can we first describe what it means to live by feelings?

Austin: To live by feelings is simply to live by my senses. You can easily quantify that by using the following example and examining these patterns in your own life. If you have a two-year-old kid who's just sitting there playing and they see a toy that they want, at that moment all hell breaks loose until they have that toy. That's what you can see. There's a sense and there's a desire that that kid has as a two-year-old that says, “I want that and I'm willing to do whatever I need to get that. We could get that same perspective looking at a teenager who has a friend group and he wants to be like his friends. His friends maybe have the latest video game and he's like, “This is something that I want.”

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       So, this mindset of living by what one wants, if left unchecked, will continue to go step by step into each stage of our lives. If that goes unchecked in a teenager's life, then as a young adult what's going to keep him from doing all kinds of other things? This kind of consumer mentality of whatever I want is mine can really monopolize our lives. I took some time to think about it and if you really want to boil this issue down it comes down to submitting to one’s feelings regardless of what the Word of God tells them. The Word of God has something to say about what is right or wrong in any given situation and we have the temptation of whether we want to heed what the Word says, or just do what we want and what feels good in the moment. So living by feelings would simply just be going by what feels best at the moment rather than taking into consideration what the Word of God says.

Nate: That's a really good perspective because we are Americans through and through, and one of the things that's deeply entrenched in our culture is the idea of “I'm just going to be me.” We believe that if we feel it or if we think it, we’re going to act on it. I think a lot of people, especially our younger generation, are just being taught to live this way. If you ask somebody, “Why didn't you go to work today?” They may respond with, “Well, I just wasn't feeling it.” And as you said that kind of life will end up being very destructive. Then on the other side, it can be really hard to break out of that kind of life, especially if you've been living like that for a long time.

Austin: Certainly. For someone who's now really repented, who's now wanting to walk in the right direction, how does this now carry into their new life with the Lord? There are a couple of things that I've really found we have to face with the Lord that I’ve learned from personal experience. For instance, we may begin to not completely give over to sexual sin, but now in this new life with the Lord there are things that are coming against us that we must face and deal with, as far as feelings go. Some of these things include despair, depression, and condemnation. There are strong inward feelings that if we submit to, can run our lives in a very wrong direction very quickly.

Nate: Yeah. Or maybe anger or laziness. There are so many things in our inward lives that are trying to get us to live a certain way. And that's kind of what you were saying. If I feel condemnation or if I feel despair or depression, it's not just that I feel it, but it's actually causing me to live in a certain way. Maybe I neglect my responsibilities because I don't feel good. Maybe I shut people out because I'm depressed. Maybe somebody has a need right in front of me, but I just say no, I'm not going to take care of them because I don't feel like it. It always ends up affecting our lives. So, like you were saying, there has to be a whole reorientation of one’s life from doing what their feelings tell them to do, to doing what the Word of God tells them to do. That's what you were saying. What it means to live by faith is to let the Word of God tell us how to live our lives.

Austin: Yes. For me personally, that's really something that goes deep because I still remember in the program the first time that I started walking by faith. I remember it was early in the morning one day getting up out of bed and it was one of those mornings that you just feel dead and have no desire to seek the Lord or to spend time with Him. But I knew that that was what I needed to do. I needed to seek the Lord. I needed to pray and read the Word. So, I went to the place where I would normally spend time with the Lord in the program, even though internally I just felt like I couldn’t do it. I was sitting there with my Bible open, but I just felt like I didn't have it in me to seek the Lord.
       And in that moment the Holy Spirit reminded me of what my counselor had told me. The night before this happened my counselor told me that you can choose by an act of your will to praise the Lord. And that came back to me at that moment as a revelation of, “In this moment, even if I feel completely dead, I can choose to praise the Lord.” And as we know, the Word of God is full of commands to praise the Lord and in every circumstance to give thanks. And so that's just what I began to do. I began to praise the Lord and thank Him for the Word of God and how sure and how faithful it is.
       And I just remember that after about 15 minutes of doing that, something broke. It went from being completely dead to me to being full of life. The Holy Spirit really began to speak to me, and the Word of God began to become real to me. So, a morning that was completely dead got turned around all the way to where it was the best quiet time I had ever had thus far. I just remember that for myself and the revelation of how powerful it is to obey even when I don't feel like it.

Nate: Yeah. And I'm just thinking about what would have happened if you would have gotten there to your quiet time, opened up the Bible and were like, “You know what, I'm just not feeling it.” And shut the Bible like, “I’ll just see if I feel better tomorrow.” Then maybe you come back the next day and you're not feeling it again. And this can go on forever. Eventually you will create a pattern where you never read the Word or pray because you never feel like it. And that's a death sentence, to never read the Word because you don't feel like it. We need the Word of God. And what's so awesome is that when we obey, like you were saying, the Lord rewards us.

There have been many testimonies told from those who've gone through our counseling programs. Some of those testimonies are so similar to each other that they can become almost predictable, but we never get tired of hearing them. There is something powerful about God's individual, intimate involvement with each person that He comes to. In this episode, we walk through the story of Danielle. She had a relationship with Jesus from a young age, but for a long time, there wasn't much depth to her walk with God. She wanted to follow Jesus, but there were things that were really hindering her. And then her husband’s sexual sin really brought things to a head, and God used that trial to really draw her to Himself.

Resources

• Marriage Won't Fix a Sin Problem (Article) by Kathy Gallagher

We continue our discussion on the role social media plays in the Babylonian system in this week’s interview. Nate sits down with Pure Life counselor, Trey Best, who has experienced first-hand the Spirit-quenching effects of social media. He discusses how various media platforms helped foster sexual sin in his life, and what it took for God to free him from its addictive nature.

Resources

This series is based on the book Intoxicated with Babylon: The Seduction of God’s People in the Last Days by Steve Gallagher. You can find out more about that book by visiting our bookstore.

Satan wants you to focus on the things the world has to offer you instead of on God and His life-giving Spirit. One of the ways he keeps your attention on that Babylonian system is by fostering a frantic lifestyle, constantly going from one thing to the next. This is so much a part of our 21st century culture that even Christians have fallen victim to this scheme and opened the door to sinful habits and attitudes in the church. Two of our counselors, Ken and Trey, join Nate in this interview to discuss the effects of this lifestyle and how to escape it.

Resources

This series is based on the book Intoxicated with Babylon: The Seduction of God’s People in the Last Days by Steve Gallagher. You can find out more about that book by visiting our bookstore.

In part three of our discussion on the Spiral of Degradation, Ken Larkin dives  into the last steps of the Spiral. If you haven't already read part one or part two of this discussion you can check them out by clicking the links below. (from Podcast Episode #493 - Babylon: When Satan Rules the Hearts of Men)

The Spiral of Degradation (Part 1)

The Spiral of Degradation (Part 2)

Nate: I want to start this part of our discussion discussing the sixth step of the Spiral of Degradation, which is being given over to a depraved mind. What does depraved mean?

Ken: Well, it's interesting. I like the King James version, because it says reprobate. And from what I understand, the Greek word for reprobate has the idea of being tested and found wanting. So, your character is being tested and you're without character. It’s like worthless silver. You’ve tried to refine it and there's nothing inherently good in it. You've basically shown yourself to be a man or a woman without character where you just give over to a lifestyle of sin and you don't even care anymore. And one of the problems of the depraved mind is that it has the idea of your conscience being hardened. It's not just the idea that you're given over and you love your sin. You can no longer distinguish between what is right and what is wrong. You begin losing your sensitivity to what’s right and wrong is. You could use the analogy of the human nervous system when you hurt yourself. I can get a small paper cut and it hurts a lot, because my nerves are very sensitive to pain to protect me from further pain. So, in a sense that protection in your conscience is gone at this point and you’ve lost that sensitivity. You're no longer convicted over your sin and you no longer feel pain or remorse. It's like there's something in you that becomes dead inside.
         It's very scary because you're to the point where you're in darkness, you love darkness, and you don't even realize how far down the spiral you've gone. And some people get to the point where they are militant in their sin. Where they exalt and love their depravity. And I don't even know how else to say it, but one begins to actually celebrate it and expects everyone else to join in. A person that has gone this far will begin to associate with other people that are like-minded, whose minds are also depraved. They choose to surround themselves with those who have the same lifestyle and preferences as far as how they give over to their sin. The Bible says at the end of Romans 1 that these people have come out of a knowledge of God. So, they know the judgment of God. They know that He has pronounced a judgment on these sins and that people who committed them are worthy of death. But a person gets to the point where they might still have an idea of that, but they not only love these things, at this point, they celebrate them and approve of others who do so. For example, someone who watches pornography is actually watching someone sin and enjoying it. That's exactly what he's talking about here in Romans 1. Where you're actually given over to a lifestyle and you love the people that are like minded and do and approve of what you're doing.

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Nate: Yeah. And I think then you can kind of see how that leads to the last step of the spiral, which is to be filled with all unrighteousness. Once you get to the point where you can't distinguish between good and evil, and you're celebrating evil, then every stop has been pulled out. Then it's just a matter of time before you really reach the place of being filled with all unrighteousness. What's happening in this step?

Ken: First of all, I would say it's a scary place to be in. Of course only God knows where you cross a line where there's no return. But I would say this, it reminds me of Genesis 6, where it says that every intent and thought of man's heart was only evil continually. This is to the point where you're totally given over in your heart and your mind to sin. Your conscience isn't convicting you and you don't have any qualms about it. You have just totally given over to sin.
         And I think the scary part there is that while it is progressive in nature, you get to the point where you are totally depraved and you don't even realize it because you've exchanged the truth for a lie. At that point you've embraced the lie and you actually believe the lie that this is the ultimate fulfillment and that there is nothing wrong with it. Even if you do believe in God at some level, you may still tell yourself, “Well God made me this way, so it can't be wrong if it feels so right.” You can justify it in a million ways, but you get to the point where you can't even distinguish good or evil and you actually love the evil. You’ve embraced it and your whole life is centered around it.

Nate: I do want to end with just a little bit of hope or maybe just a way of sharing that we're not victims and we can come up and out of the Spiral of Degradation no matter where we find ourselves. Some people who are listening may be pretty far down the spiral. They may know what it's like to be given over to the lust of the flesh or given over to degrading passions. What would you say as a counselor to somebody who's in that condition?

Ken: Well, I would say you're a perfect candidate for salvation, because really that spiral describes every single human being. We all might have been at different levels down that spiral, but we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But the hope is that Jesus came to save us from our sins. He came to set the captives free. He came to deliver us, and Jesus can do that for anyone that is willing to cry out to Him and ask for help. I like to look at Ezekiel 36 as a reference point when thinking about the issue of the corruption of sin. In Ezekiel 36, beginning in verse 25, the Lord says, “I will Sprinkle clean water upon you and you will be clean, I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols” (NKJV). So, God can cleanse us. God can remake us inside. God can give us a pure heart. And then He even goes on and says, I'll give you a new heart and a new spirit. I'll take out the heart of stone and I'll give you a heart of flesh. I'll put my spirit in you. So there's hope for anyone in that sense. I would say if you care, you haven't gone too far. That might be a blanket statement, but the reality is if you've really gone down that spiral, you're not anywhere near walking with God. But if you are crying out to God I believe God put that cry in your heart because God is the one that pursues us. And then our hope is that Jesus is the Good Shepherd and He's willing to leave the 99 to find that one and bring them back to Himself through repentance and faith in Christ.

Nate: It sounds like one of the cruxes of this whole issue is how bad do you want to be free. If you're willing to just tolerate this and let it be in your life then the fact is you're not just standing still, you are moving further and further away from God. But if you really care and if you're really crying out and you are willing to get to the place where you're not going to tolerate this anymore, then you must fight for freedom until you get it. And you need to realize that God knows how to get us up and out of the Spiral of Degradation.

Throughout the centuries, Christians have always had to face the overwhelming temptation to conform to society and the call of God has always been, “Come out of her, My people.” God is not looking for half-hearted citizens who are addicted to the pleasure of earth life. He desires followers whose minds and hearts are fixed on heaven and heaven’s King. The truth is that no Christian should be dwelling in Babylon. The time to break away from her intoxications is now!

One of the greatest tools used by the enemy in our generation has been social media. It appeals to some of the most powerful desires of the human heart. Multitudes have fallen prey to its addictive nature, including those who attend churches across the United States every Sunday morning. Join us as we unpack this vital topic in episode 14 of "Babylon: The Seat of Satan's Power."

What word would you use to describe an airport during the holiday season, with thousands of people all trying to make their flights on time? Perhaps frantic or busy come to mind. This same feeling could describe a New York City street or a Los Angeles freeway. But while much of this may seem normal to the average American, our culture’s busy lifestyle presents a real spiritual problem for believers.

The psalmist declares that our Good Shepherd will lead us beside still waters. It’s only when we know how to be quiet and still before God that we can find the refreshing our souls long for. And as Steve Gallagher shows us in episode 13 of our series, a life of ceaseless agitation is built to draw us away from that still life, away from God and deeper into the heart of Babylon.

We see it all too often. And we see it from both sides. There is the man who is struggling with sexual sin, with his addiction to pornography, but he thinks, “My problem will all go away when I get married.” Then there is the young woman who knows of her fiancé’s struggles, but she marries him anyway, thinking the same thing: “Marriage will fix him.” In this Purity for Life episode from 2019, we answer the question “Should I Marry a Man Struggling with Porn?”

Resources

• I'm Engaged to a Struggling Man (Article) By Rise Colón

In part two of our discussion on the Spiral of Degradation, Ken Larkin expounds on steps three through six of the Spiral of Degradation. If you haven’t already read part one, you can find the link to that article below. (from Podcast Episode #493 - Babylon: When Satan Rules the Hearts of Men)

Click here to check out "The Spiral of Degradation (Part 1)"

Nate: Let’s begin this part of our discussion by talking about the third step in the spiral of degradation which is the suppression of truth? What are some ways that people to suppress the truth?

Ken: In Romans 1:23 it says that the people who began suppressing the truth did so by exchanging the truth of God for a lie and that they began to worship and serve the creature rather than the creator. So, it's not just the idea that you're suppressing the truth, but you're replacing it with a lie. That's an important distinction. I've counseled men in sexual sin for 14 years, and it’s unbelievable that most of the men that come into our program have an exaggerated sense of their own spirituality when they first arrive. They often say things like, “I'm walking with God, but I just have this one little problem.”
           Meanwhile, their whole inside world is filled with lust and perversion. You see, they’ve compartmentalized this one aspect of their lives as being the problem without realizing that their whole heart and their whole character is moving away from God. Overall, their issue with sexual sin is just the fruit of a life that's not right with God. So when it comes to suppressing the truth, maybe the Holy Spirit has been dealing with them for years about how they have been living and they've silenced His voice and somehow justified or minimized their sin. They may lie to themselves and think that it's not a big deal or that they’re like everyone else. Meanwhile these lies that they are buying into are just enabling them to continue down the spiral.

Nate: I can think of some of the ways that people suppress the truth. We can easily choose to suppress the truth whenever we feel guilt or shame. We can tell ourselves, “Well, everybody does this.” Or “I'm just human and God doesn't expect me to be perfect.” Or maybe we find someone who will coddle us in our sin. I remember one time when somebody confronted me in my sin and said, “You're not a victim.” I had been telling myself I was a victim, and it was that truth that really cut through and helped me realize that that victim mentality had been enabling me to continue living in sin.
        There are so many ways that we can suppress the truth. We can distract ourselves and throw ourselves into a hobby or the pursuit of pleasure. Some people when they realize that they are addicted to something decide to exchange one addiction for another and suddenly they're all into weightlifting or self-improvement. There are just so many ways that we can keep ourselves from acknowledging when our life is a wreck.

Ken: Yeah. And I would say another thing is that a lot of people that come to us for help come from ministry backgrounds. That makes it easy for them to dismiss their actions by saying, “I'm working for the Lord. I'm not doing good in this area, but look at all of the good that I am doing over here.” In their mind, somehow their wrong behavior is balanced out by other good things that they are doing. But it's not true. Just because you're doing the right thing in one area doesn’t mean that all of sudden your sinful behavior is okay.

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Nate: Let’s move on to the next part of the Spiral of Degradation. Steps four, five and six in the spiral of degradation all have the common denominator of being given over. It starts by being given over to the lust of the heart, then given over to degrading passions and then given over to a depraved mind. So, you can definitely see that a person is being progressively given over, further on and further down. I'd like for you to talk about this term given over, because I don't think it's really clear just from the outset what that even means. What does it mean in the Bible when God gives someone over?

Ken: Well, it's interesting. The word paradidomi in the Greek has the idea of handing one over to an enemy. But in the case of the Spiral of Degradation, it's not so much that God just hands someone over, it's more of the idea that He withdraws His protection. So now you're undefended and you have an enemy out there that wants to kill, steal and destroy and you're basically defenseless. I think it’s easy to forget how much God's grace keeps us from sin.
         The other aspect is not so much that He's just throwing you to the wolves, but He's withdrawing His restraining influence - the grace of God that keeps you from sin. You've rejected it so often that God is slowly withdrawing His presence and now you're left to fend for yourself. And you've already given yourself over to a particular sin and shown you've wanted it. So, God gives you what you want and you're helpless in yourself to defend it.

Nate: So then, can you describe steps four, five, and six of the Spiral of Degradation? What would it look like to be given over first to the lust of our heart, then to degrading passions, and then to a depraved mind?

Ken: The idea of being given over to the lust of the heart is interesting. I like the Scripture in James 1:14 where it talks about how each man is tempted and carried away or enticed by his own lust. It's the idea that we've seen played out a lot where someone might start out indulging in a certain sinful behavior, but there's still some sense of morality or a semblance of knowing what's right and what's wrong. But when they do give in to sin, they are being drawn away by their own lust. They’re enticed. It's like they're carried away to an alternate state where they're in a trance and morality flies out the window. Then they're given over to the point where they would begin to consider and do things they never would have considered doing before.
           Maybe someone crosses the line where in the past they were only acting out with the opposite sex, but now in this lust, they don't care how they fulfill their lust. Suddenly they may begin dabbling into fantasies about the same sex or even begin acting out with people of the same sex. They just start crossing lines and God has given them over to that. Basically, their whole life is starting to revolve around this sin and again, going back to the law of diminishing returns, after a while one begins to be so depraved that morality doesn't matter. Consequences don't matter in this altered state. Whether they're hurting other people – their friends, their family, their children – none of that matters. The only thing that matters is how are they going to fulfill their lust, and they're totally given over to it.

Nate: Yeah. So, then you kind of see that if you're given over to the lust of the heart and you don't repent, that's just going to perpetuate this cycle where then now you're going further and you’re being given over to degrading passions. You explained that a bit already. Is there anything else you would say about degrading passions?

Ken: Yeah. We can go back to talking about the restraint of God. For example, when someone is being given over to lust in their heart, maybe in that step, they weren't crossing lines as far as acting out in a particular sin. But now they're given over where God's restraint is being lifted and His grace and they're basically left to their sin. And we become a slave to what we obey. So, they’re becoming addicted and enslaved to their behavior and now they're probably crossing lines and acting out indiscriminately with other people, because morally to them it doesn't matter anymore.
          And one of the scary things is that a person becomes less and less aware of this pattern. They can get to the point where they don't even realize that their heart's becoming darker because they're getting more and more deceived, more and more depraved, and they love to have it that way. So, they are just given over more and more within.

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In America today, conservatism is often equated with Christianity. And though they share some of the same values and lifestyles, there is a real danger in linking them too closely with one another.

For American Christians, it is vital to examine our hearts and our faith, to see if nationalism has replaced devotion to Christ. And in any area where the values of the Kingdom of God and the values of conservatism differ, we must be willing to align ourselves to God alone.

In this episode, we're not taking sides or looking to diminish real gratitude for the core values of our nation. Our desire is to call believers back to passionate dedication to Christ and His cause because He deserves our greatest loyalty.