This episode: Bombarded with unrelenting sexual thoughts? Find out why you should never believe that real freedom is out of reach.
This episode: A true love relationship with God breaks the power of sin. What should a person do if they don't sense God's love for them?
In the 9th message of our “Unveiling Yahweh” series, Ed Buch breaks down the amazingly good gifts of God.
Timeless Truths: God knows every person by name and wants to draw them to Himself and conform them into the image of His Son.
Living by faith means that despite your circumstances or how you feel, you can choose by an act of your will to trust and obey the Lord.
Freedom from sexual sin is absolutely possible. But it's a journey, and knowing how to stay on the path towards that freedom is crucial. There are obstacles that we will face along the way that can totally derail us, unless we learn how to deal with them well. One is how we navigate around our feelings. The second is how we choose to walk through the consequences of our own sin. That’s our subject today in episode two of our series, Key Lessons on the Road to Freedom.
20 Truths: Truth #19 - Faith is the Victory Over Sexual Sin (Short Video) by Steve Gallagher
Don't continue to allow your desires to take you in a direction that brings forth death. God wants to give you life!
One of man’s natural responses to his fallen condition is to blame God for his sinful choices. We see this going all the way back to Genesis 3 when Adam blamed God for what he had done. But we don’t usually say it as plainly as Adam did. We usually shift the blame onto the Lord in more subtle ways. For instance, many who are trying to break free from addiction often say that they have tried everything and still can’t get free. But this is just a sly way of saying that God hasn’t fulfilled His end of the bargain. We know from Scripture that this is not true about God’s character. He always fulfils His promises.
So what’s really missing in our lives if we aren’t seeing the freedom and victory we are hoping for? In this interview, we take a look at James 1 and the vital truths it contains for men in sexual sin.
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.
If someone is practicing sexual immorality on a regular basis and thinks that they are doing okay, they are deceived.
People in habitual sin often try to convince themselves that what they are doing isn’t all that bad. But minimizing our sin can have very disastrous repercussions in our lives. In this blog, biblical counselors Ken and Trey discuss the reasons why men in sexual sin choose to minimize their sin and what that can do to our hearts and minds.
Nate: Okay, so Ken and Trey, what we want to do today is respond to some conversations and thoughts that arise surrounding our ministry to men in sexual sin. We want to talk about what some of the issues are and try to expose some of the darkness that's in these situations. Let’s talk about a few of the things that came up in a conversation that we had in preparation for this interview. Trey, I think you were the one who brought up a number of these when we were talking about ideas for this podcast because these are real life situations that have come up in your counseling office. Let's talk first about a guy who minimizes the evil of pornography.
Ken: Well, Jesus doesn't minimize it. The Scriptures clearly teach that even just lusting over someone is equated with adultery in your heart, so it is a big deal. Jesus even talked about the radical nature of dealing with these types of things when he talked about literally cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye. He said that it's better to go through life maimed than go to hell with both intact.
Nate: Yeah, I thought about that example too because I can't imagine actually cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye. I mean you're talking about losing parts of your body that are so essential to life and Jesus is saying that it's better to just cut it off and go through life really inconvenienced. Most of us would think, “How am I going to live without a hand?” But Jesus says, “just do it,” because it’s better to do that than to go to hell.
Ken: Yeah. And obviously Jesus isn't advocating self-mutilation. Our bodies are created to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. But He literally is saying it would be better if you did that than to go to hell. In other words, do whatever it takes to deal with the issues that need to be addressed.
Trey: Yeah, and when it comes to counseling men who are in sexual sin, we never just want to deal with the outward fruit, we want to get to the heart issues. So, the fact that they are minimizing wouldn’t be my main concern but rather, why are they minimizing and what are they minimizing? I'll explain it this way, they are either minimizing God's standard, or they're minimizing the weight of what they did or they're minimizing the consequences that may result from what they did. Typically, when they're trying to minimize, they are trying to protect something. I know in my own life, I might be trying to protect an idol that I don't want to be revealed because if it gets revealed, I have to cut it off and deal with it. Or maybe I’m trying to protect my image. In my case, before I came to Pure Life, I didn’t want to be convicted about my sin. I wanted to appear godly to others. So back then what I did was to minimize what God said about my sexual sin in His Word so that in my eyes, what I did wasn’t that bad.
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Nate: That's really interesting that you say that, because I don't think I ever quite thought about the fact that it's coming from a place of self-protection. The thinking behind it is, “I have to minimize this, otherwise I have to face it and I really don’t want to face it, so I need to minimize this sin.”
Ken: I don't think I've ever dealt with a person that minimized their sin who didn't, in some way, still want their sin. They want to hold on to their sinful behavior, so somehow, they have to justify themselves in their mind, especially when they are professing to be a Christian.
Trey: Yeah. The enemy lives in the realm of darkness, the realm of not seeing things as they really are, and Jesus told us that the truth will set us free. So, it is important if someone's wanting to come into freedom to see things as they are and to see pornography as it is. We can easily minimize the weight of it by thinking that watching pornography is much better behavior than acting out with somebody. While overall there is a fragment of truth in that thought, it's still not seeing the spiritual reality of the darkness that is going on in your life.
Nate: What would you say the spiritual reality is then?
Trey: The Bible teaches the principle that you become what you behold. For example, 2 Corinthians 3:18 says that as we behold the face of Jesus, we will reflect His glory. Psalm 115 talks about people becoming like the idols they create. Back in biblical times, they didn't have pornography the way that we have it now. What they did have were pagan temples. So, imagine you're going into a temple. There's an atmosphere in that place created by the people and activities there. They are likeminded, and their intent is to pursue sin. So a person who is walking into an atmosphere like that is immersing themselves into the spiritual darkness that is in that environment.
If we really think of the spiritual reality of what's happening in pornography, who's influencing them to do those acts? Who's really directing the creativity? It's not God. It's not the Holy Spirit influencing the actors or whoever it is that's involved. It's the enemy. When you’re viewing pornography, you're engaging in a worship experience of Satan. When you see it that clearly in your heart, hopefully you don't even want to go near that anymore. And the reason why the Lord doesn't want us to minimize it is because He wants us to come into the truth of what real worship to Him looks like. It's the opposite of what we are doing when we are viewing pornography. With pornography we are beholding images, dissecting them, idolizing them and adoring them for hours and hours on end. The Lord wants us to do the complete opposite. He wants us to behold the face of Jesus and worship Him.
Nate: That reminds me of the picture in Ezekiel of one of the visions that Ezekiel had. In his vision, the Spirit of the Lord took him to the temple and essentially said, dig through the wall of the temple and see what they're doing. See how the inner chambers are filled with abominations and images of creeping things. When it comes to our mind and body, it's just the same how our temple is being filled with abominations. That is exactly what pornography is. It’s filling our temple with abominations. God doesn't really see it any differently now than He saw it then. If anything, it's worse because we have so much more light and understanding of what God is requiring of us.
You are either moving closer to God or further away from Him. There is no middle ground. You must keep on fighting.
Have you ever noticed that Americans are always looking for keys? We want someone to give us three keys to a better life, five keys to a happy marriage or seven keys to a secure future. This week we are starting a new miniseries about keys – sort of. Really, we are going to be talking about some key lessons that you will need to learn as you journey out of sexual sin and into real freedom. The first key lesson is that you must have a fighting spirit.
People of the world are driven through life by their lust for sinful pleasures, but believers are called to live at a higher standard.
Mankind is largely driven through life by his desires. His hunger for his various lusts almost irresistibly drive him in whatever direction promises their acquisition. But followers of Christ are called to a higher standard. We are called to submit ourselves to God’s authority and put wicked desires to death.
However, this doesn’t mean we won’t feel the pull of those desires. The enemy is always seeking to draw us into his clutches. And our fallen nature is eager to give in to his enticements. So, it is vital we learn how to actively fight against those things. In this episode, Steve Gallagher helps us learn how to cultivate godly desires which will help guard us from the spirit of this world.
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.
Instead of asking the question, "What's wrong with what I am doing?", we should ask the question, "Is this right and does it glorify God?"
God's warnings to those who indulge in sexual immorality should be enough to convince us that the only reasonable course of action is a wholehearted pursuit of purity. But where do you draw the line when it comes to purity? And actually the better question is this: where does God draw the line? In this "Ask the Counselor" episode of Purity for Life, we tackle the often-debated question: ‘Is masturbation a sin?’
Wisdom from God helps us to see the long-term consequences of our decisions.
In Episode 7, Part 1, we established how Satan uses the allurements of his world system to play on our desires. He does this in order to break our fellowship with God and bring us into alignment with his wicked way of thinking. In Episode 7, Part 2, we look at the way to overcome that ever-present threat by being filled with godly wisdom.
Wisdom from above involves making decisions in our lives based on God’s standard of right and wrong. If God’s way of thinking is our foundation, then Satan will not be able to get control of our hearts. He can’t manipulate us through our desires when something better than our unreliable emotions defines our actions. This may have been what Solomon was talking about when he said, “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.” – Proverbs 28:26 (ESV)
Today, Nate Danser and Ed Buch sit down to talk about the topic of wisdom, using James 1 as a launching point for their discussion. If you need deliverance from spiritual strongholds and addiction, we hope this interview will encourage you to start seeking out godly wisdom.
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.
One of the keys in coming out of the downward spiral of sin is to give thanks to the Lord for all that He has done.
In a recent Pure Life Ministries service, Pastor Ed Buch spoke on the topic of gratitude and how essential it is in the life of a believer. Listen in, as he describes attributes of God that can always prompt our praise and thanksgiving.
Pastor Ed: I'm going to share a couple of thoughts out of Psalm 103. It’s a familiar passage, but it came to mind, because it's been one of those difficult days for me. Maybe you have had days where things just don't seem to go the way you want them to. And for me, Psalm 103 came to mind as a good place to go get reset inside. David writes this Psalm, saying in verses 1-2 (NKJV), “Bless the Lord, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits.” That's what was real to me when I read this, because that is exactly what I needed to do. I needed to go back and just count some of my blessings. I needed to not forget all His benefits and remind myself that I am not lacking anything. It may feel like I am lacking a lot at times, but that is a lie. The truth is that I am not lacking anything and truly have more benefits than I can use.
Psalm 103 continues by saying that the Lord forgives all our iniquities, He heals all our diseases, and He redeems our lives from destruction. Wow. Thank you, Lord! Thank you for doing that. My life was destroyed. Most of us who come to Pure Life Ministries understand that firsthand. We destroyed our lives in one way or another, but praise the Lord because He redeems us from the pits of destruction that we place ourselves in. Was someone else going to come along and do that? Did you have some other hope left? I did not and I think most of us did not. We were at that point where we said to ourselves, “this is horrible, there's no way out and no way to fix this.”
At one point the idea of our life being redeemed may have seemed like a mirage or a false hope. But then God comes along and He does it. He actually does it! He turns our lives around and uses them for good. Personally, He made it better for me than if I had never done some of the wrong things that I did. I’m not saying I should have done them. I’m not saying He needed me to do them in order to make good happen. But He is so good at redeeming things that He can turn the worst things that have happened around and make them work for good and bring glory to Himself through them.
Psalm 103:4b-8 (NKJV) says, “Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.” Oh, I wish I was more like him. Merciful, gracious, and slow to anger.
We need to slow down sometimes and rein in our feelings. It is not the Lord speaking when your feelings are racing and your thoughts are racing, because panicking like that is outside of His character. He is slow to anger and abounding in mercy, but He will not always strive with us, nor will He withhold His anger forever. There is limited time on this earth to respond to the Lord and repent. Billy Graham said in a sermon one time, “You think that you can come to the Lord whenever you want, but you can't.” Scripture says that we're drawn to the Lord. God has to draw us. If we're not drawn, we can't come. Don't miss those drawing seasons in your life because it's not going to be on any day that you want it to be. It's not like you can say, “Yea, I feel you drawing me Lord, but I'm going to choose a different day to respond.” That different day to respond doesn't always come. Look in Scripture for yourself and you'll see that there were men who sort of barely missed the Kingdom of God in their encounters with Jesus or their encounters with the Apostle Paul. They heard preaching, but they didn't receive it with fertile soil in their hearts. They were drawn, but they didn't respond the way that they needed to.
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Psalm 103:9-10 (NKJV) says, “He will not always strive with us nor will he keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins nor punished us according to our iniquities.” With those verses in mind, no matter how bad things have gotten for us, and no matter what you feel like you're overcome with, as far as consequences and punishment, it's nowhere near what it should be or could be. That's the truth of God's Word. He spares us. He never lets it get that bad. He's kind to unthankful and evil people.
Can you find something that you want to say thank you for today? I'm preaching to myself in all of this. That's what I was telling myself today. I'm looking at this passage in Scripture and thinking about how I need to get back to a place of giving gratitude to the Lord. I need to quit asking Him for things and just give gratitude, give thanks and be grateful for what He’s already flooded into my life with His goodness and mercy. I’m reminded too that the first step into the spiral of degradation mentioned in Romans 1 was that they chose not to give thanks. Let's get up, out and away from that spiral as far as we can and start giving thanks. I want to be free from that spiral. I don't want to live right on the line of falling into the spiral of degradation.
If you want to live in the center of God’s will, gratitude will help you get there. But you have to open your mouth and say thank you for the things that He has done. You need to bring those things to mind, because like the beginning verses of Psalm 103 says, we must not forget all His benefits. Some are even listed there to help you get jump started. And you have the whole book of Psalms that mostly does that. It helps us jump start the thanksgiving process in us.
One of the things that really helped me was when someone once told me there are four things that you can always give thanks for. These are things God is never tired of hearing you say thank you for. He never could hear it enough. He never gets tired of you coming to Him and saying thank you for these four things. Those things are Jesus Himself, His blood, the Word of God and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
So, you have four things that you can say thank you for from your heart at any time to the Lord and you can get right into His throne room with gratitude. I’m telling you the Lord’s heart opens wide if you give thanks for those things with any kind of fervency and sincerity. Remember those four things to be thankful for: Jesus, the blood, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. If you've got a bad memory, write them down and practice them until it becomes something that is natural for you to do. Every morning I start my prayer time with one of those and I usually get all four in there somewhere. But one of them just takes off in gratitude in my heart and then I'm on a tangent about the blood or about His Word. Through gratitude you can become obsessed with God for a change instead of all the vile thoughts that you are accustomed to. You can use gratitude to change your inside world.
Only Jesus has the power to truly transform us, and He does it through the power of repentance and the power of the Holy Spirit.
A lot of times when someone gets sick of their addiction, they go to Google and search for help. And that's when they realize there are actually a ton of different options out there. Now that might seem good, except for one thing: the vast majority of those solutions are powerless to help them really change. So in this episode, we break down the problems with two very common remedies for addiction: secular accountability groups and the always-popular “resolution” to change.
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As we stand firm, we will find that He who is within us is greater than he that is in the world.
Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “The Christian life is not a playground, it’s a battleground.” Never has this statement been as true as it is today. And yet, when we look at American Christianity, it begs the question, “How many people truly live their lives like they’re in a spiritual war?”
Our culture is brimming with tantalizing pleasures, both innocent and perverse, which vie every day for our devotion. Nonbelievers quickly and easily run to these enticements, but sadly multitudes of Christians live with little to no concern for the spiritual threat surrounding them.
This dangerous spiritual climate hasn’t come about by chance, but by the careful scheming of the enemy of our souls. He has carefully built this world-system, utilizing the aid and skills of his army of fallen angelic beings. Join Steve Gallagher as he once again unmasks the deception of these last days and lays out the spiritual strategies needed to escape the clutches of the spirit of this present evil age.
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.
If you want to find freedom from sexual sin then you are going to have to take radical steps to remove worldly influences from your life.
The connection between a worldly lifestyle and sexual sin is very strong. Anyone hoping to overcome their sexual addiction must be willing to admit this, and then examine their lives and see where that connection is strongest and what God might be asking them to do about it.
This is part two of our interview with Luke Imperato on this subject. If you haven’t already read part 1, you can find the link to that article below.
Click here to check out Worldliness Leads to Sexual Sin (Part 1)
Nate: So, we’re talking about the connection between sexual sin and worldliness. I want to start off this half of our conversation by asking, what kind of guidance do you give to somebody who is trying to create a separation between the things of this world and their heart? I think it can sound like reading the Bible and praying are the only good things that you can do and everything else is dangerous and sinful. It is easy to fall into heavy legalism where you think that you have to get rid of everything and you have to basically become like a monk. How do you counsel someone who is thinking along those lines?
Luke: Well, first of all, I would say that it is truth to say that everything in this world is dangerous. The enemy is looking for ways into our lives and as soon as we leave our prayer closet, we’re in a war zone and the enemy is looking for ways to attack. So a lot of the things in this world really are dangerous. That doesn't mean that we'll always get hurt by them, but they are dangerous. I would say that the first step if you're looking to really get serious in your walk with the Lord, especially if you're struggling with sexual sin, is to start cutting things out of your life that are causing you to stumble.
If you asked yourself or if someone were to ask you what's the most important thing in your life, the Christian answer would be, “Well, you know, following Jesus, or following the Lord. That's the most important thing in my life.” Okay, good answer. But what does the reality of your life indicate? If you listed out the order of priorities – faith, family, career, hobbies, based on the time and attention you give each one, what would be the true order? If you find that your walk with the Lord is getting beat out by other things in your life, I think you need to be a little more brutally honest with yourself and realize that maybe your profession of faith is just talk and it's just an outward form of Godliness.
The book of James says that if you're hearing a lot of the Word but not doing it, you will be deceived. If you’re hearing the truth that the Lord has to be number one in your life, but you’re not actually implementing that in the reality of your life, the product is that you're going to be deceived. So, you need to understand that you have been deceived and realize that some things do need to change in your life. You may do an inventory of your life and say, “Maybe God isn’t the most important thing in my life, but I don’t feel like that is true.” According to James, you have been deceived. It would be better to just take God at His Word and admit that you may be being deceived.
Get brutally honest with the Lord and say, “Hey God, you have to do a radical work. You have to change the way I see things. You have to really show me in my life where I'm wrong. What things do I need to cut off?” If you’re not willing to cut the things off that He shows you that you clearly need to, then I don't think you're going to find the victory over sexual sin that you're looking for. It's just not going to happen, because this world will foster every kind of sexual perversion and selfish lifestyle you could imagine. And you could even find that kind of teaching in a church, so if you're not really willing to make some serious decisions to cut things off, you're not going to find victory.
Nate: Yeah, I've used this illustration before - Let's say that a person has a pretty healthy lifestyle, but they drink a shot of poison once a day. How are they going to feel? They're going to feel miserable! You can work out, eat right and do a bunch of stuff, but you’re still going to feel miserable until you stop drinking the poison. And you may say, “Oh, but I really like it.” Well, okay, then there is literally nothing you can do to stop feeling the way you do until you stop doing the thing that is killing you. If you're not willing to give up Netflix, or if you're not willing to give up social media or whatever things are clearly leading you consistently into sin, you will be insane for the rest of your life, no matter how much you cry out to God, read the Bible, or go to church, because you're not following Him. He told you get rid of it and you're not listening to Him.
Luke: Yeah, when Jesus said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out”, He was referring to sexual immorality. We have to be willing to do that when it comes to worldliness and the influences of this world.
Nate: Yeah, and it's just amazing that many people often worry about what they will do with their time if they give those things up. I know we can both say from testimony that once you are without it, and you experience the liberty and the joy of not having that cloud of lust hanging over your head, you just don't want to go back to it.
Luke: Yes. After living in that kind of freedom from the world you become very sensitive to worldly influences. If you watch an old movie or do something that you used to do, you will see that it makes you feel way different than it did when you watched it when you were enslaved to a worldly mindset. You can look back and see that things you were subjected to were much more worldly, much more sensual, and were alluring your flesh more than you realized previously.
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Nate: One thing we've said a number of times is that God is not only calling us out of the world, but he's also calling us into Himself. Can you talk about that just a little bit.
Luke: Yeah. That is actually really important, because if I don't have hope of where I'm going, and if I don't have any inspiration or a goal, it's very hard to get motivated to do something. I think that's true for many people. If my only takeaway in this conversation was that these are all the things I can't do, while in some degree, it actually might be helpful, it really doesn't give you the full picture and it leaves you feeling fairly hopeless. And that's not the heart of God. He says, “At my right hand are pleasures evermore.” He loves us and He is full of life and joy. We have to remember that the destination that the Lord is taking us to at the end of all of this is full of life and joy for eternity and the true enemy is our flesh, and the world just breathes life into our fleshly and carnal nature. So, when the Lord is saying, don't do this or put this off, it's because it's slowing me down or hindering me from growing closer to Him.
In Ephesians 4:22 Paul starts off by saying that we are to put off concerning our former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts. He’s talking about the lust of this world. He's saying put those things off and essentially avoid their influence in your life. I take it as a warning because it's dangerous. But he doesn’t stop there. Paul says in Ephesians 4:23, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” You need to spend time with the Lord and have Him renew your mind and put the truth into you. That's referring to quiet time with the Lord, a prayer time, and a devotional time or a time of worship where you are spending time with the Lord and He is renewing your mind. But Paul goes on to say that if you do that, there will be a result. And that’s a good thing. He goes on to say in verse 24, “Put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.” And he goes on in Ephesians 5 saying, “Though, once your heart was full of darkness, now it is full of light from the Lord.” Our behavior should show that.
It’s similar to Galatians 5 where Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit. He lists all of the fruits, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc., and at the end of listing them he says, “There's no law against these things.” Does anyone have a problem with the fruit of the Spirit? Well, no, we want love, joy and peace in our life. We want self-control and gentleness. We want all of the fruit in our lives that comes as a result of receiving the Holy Spirit. God is saying in His Word that in order to have that kind of fruit coming forth in your life, you need to put off your former life, and all of the things that so easily entangle you and feed your lusts and the things of your flesh.
And I would throw something in there as well to someone who is living in sexual immorality and is just beginning to make the decision to fight against sin. A lot of the decisions that you make are going to be more radical now than they will be, let's say five or ten years down the road. Initially you need to cut everything off. That may mean getting a phone that has no internet access. That may mean not owning a laptop. That may mean that you can never shop alone and you have to check in with your pastor every other day. At first it’s like, “Man, this is a whole lot.” As time goes on though, those things that you used to be enslaved to will lose their hold on you and they won't have the same grip that they used to in your life. As time goes on, you'll find that you're walking in more and more victory and more and more freedom.
You will also learn a lot during this process. You will learn what many of your own weaknesses are. When you stumble or fall into sin you can then realize that you need to get more radical and cut more worldly influences out of your life. You may need to just make adjustments as far as when you are allowed to have access to certain things or maybe the Lord calls you to abstain from certain activities that you may even really enjoy for a period of time. If you keep living a life like that, after a few years, I'm telling you, you will see that you have more freedom and your heart is being renewed. You won't desire worldly things like you used to and it won’t be as much of a temptation as it used to be. So, it may seem you are being radical and life is super restrictive right now, but that's okay because you have to take that initial plunge.
Nate: Yeah. And that's good too because really what's at the heart of it is not all the rules but the fact that what you are doing without restriction is causing you to be mastered by something. What we're not saying though is that after six years you can start living the same kind of life you're living now. In reality, you won't want to. You may even say for a period of time, “You know what, I'm not going to watch baseball at all, because I am being controlled by my love for it.” Well in five years maybe you can watch a baseball game, because you can enjoy it now without it controlling you. That's the point. What is controlling you? And once the Lord begins to control you, then you can enjoy some things in a way that is still honoring and pleasing to Him and you're just living in freedom.
Luke: And also, your lifestyle will match up with your profession of faith, and that's a beautiful thing when you know that you don't have to live a double life anymore. It’s beautiful when the reality of your life is showing that you love the Lord and He's your treasure. The Lord can see when someone comes to that place and at that point there are blessings that He can give you. You can have a life in Christ that gets to the point where the world is dead to you and you are dead to the world. That's what I'm striving for and hoping one day to get to, where the things of this world don't have a hold on me anymore. That's a step into eternity and that's not going to go away.
It's only by experiencing a very real breaking away from the spirit of Babylon that we are able to walk closely with God.
Babylon began as an ancient city built by a rebel. It later emerged as a proud, idolatrous, God-opposing empire. The origins and history of Babylon are so entwined with defiance toward God that it came to symbolize everything that resists the rule of God in the world. Its king is Satan himself. Its goal is life without God. This is the final episode in our series, Babylon: The Seat of Satan's Power. In today's show, there will be no history lessons, no discussions, no explanations. Just an exhortation to respond to the timeless words of God. Yes, His voice is still echoing in the prophet Jeremiah's ancient words: "Flee from the midst of Babylon!"
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