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!"

Resources

• Intoxicated with Babylon (Book) by Steve Gallagher

In this interview, Nate and Ken sat down in our studio to discuss chapter two of John’s first epistle. Their hope was to gain a greater understanding of what the “world system” is and how it impacts each of our lives. And as they took a look at what the Word of God has to say, they discovered that the spirit of the world infiltrates our lives much more broadly, and much more subtly than many of us realize.

We hope that this discussion will challenge you to consider carefully the warnings of Scripture and that you will heed the call to keep yourself unstained from the world.

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.

The Bible teaches us that our hearts are naturally drawn toward wicked things. And these evil desires are adamantly opposed to God. But they are not opposed to the world system. In fact, the things that surround us every day, even things that seem good to us, can feed some of our worst habits. That’s certainly true of sexual sin.  But we often don’t want to hear that something in our lives which we think is good may actually be hurting us. We want to be free from sexual sin, but we also want to hold on to our lives in this world. However, the truth is that hope for freedom over sexual sin is only possible if we are willing to confess and repent of the real issues in our lives. In this interview, Luke Imperato discusses how worldliness is one of those issues.

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Nate: So Luke, what we want to do here is help people see that there's a really clear connection between worldliness and sexual sin. Because what we teach her at Pure Life Ministries, what we tell our counselees and preach from the pulpit, is that one of the main factors in overcoming sexual sin is learning to cut ourselves off from the spirit of the world. This is because when your whole life is centered around just going after what the world offers, then you're creating a spiritual environment inside of yourself that's going to make you really vulnerable to sexual sin. But I think that connection is not super clear, especially if you're in sexual sin yourself. You just don't see it. It's kind of like somebody who's continually having intestinal problems and they don't even realize that they have a food allergy. They're like, why is this happening to me? So, I think I want to dive into that a little bit more right up front. From your perspective, what is it about worldliness that is making our inside world a perfect place for sin to thrive.

Luke: When I was thinking about this question, what came to mind was the fact that the root behind sexual sin or what really makes a sexual sin lifestyle thrive is selfishness. We don't have to conjure that up. It comes naturally. We don't have to work to become selfish. So when I look at a mentality of worldliness, I connect it with a natural tendency to love oneself and the natural tendency to just protect self and to do whatever self wants. With that in mind, worldliness could be almost defined as just the pursuit of any earthly pleasure, or passion, or desire for anything that self wants. When we think about the fact that that's the message of the world, and it’s the natural tendency of our hearts which we know produces sexual sin, it should be no surprise to us that if we keep feeding selfishness and worldliness in our lives, we are going to produce a life of sexual sin.

Nate: That's helpful. What you're basically saying is that we are already selfish by nature and part of that selfishness is wanting to indulge in sexual passions, which all of us have. Then this world’s spirit adds to that saying, “Yeah, do that. Whatever you want, whatever you crave, just go for it.” That perspective really helps to understand how that selfishness can be fostered by the worldly spirit. Why is God is so adamant about being separate from the world.

Luke: It's a chain reaction. If I look back at the chain of events in my own life, I see a lot of sexual sin in my life and I see how that was because I was selfish. The world fostered that selfishness, but the Lord is going to be adamantly opposed to anything in my life that's going to produce sinful behavior. So, if worldliness thrives in a selfish mindset, or even if selfishness thrives in a worldly environment, then the Lord's going to say that He doesn't want a worldly influence to be reigning in my life. Sometimes I find it helpful to just look at it through the lens of Scripture and just let the Word of God tell me what's right or wrong. If the Word of God is saying that something is evil, there are times where we just have to believe that.

Nate: Yeah. Without needing some kind of complex explanation.

Luke: Yeah, exactly. So, when I look at a verse like 1 John 2:15 (ESV) where John says, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in Him.” Just that verse is a compelling argument that if you're in love with the world, you don't have the love of the Father in you. That should be a huge warning. John goes on in Verse 16 saying, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father.” It’s like God is saying that when you're holding onto the things of the world, those things are not of me.
          The Living Bible says in 1 John 2:16 (TLB), “For all these worldly things, these evil desires—the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance—these are not from God.” We just have to stop and realize that the Lord is adamantly opposed to things that are not of Him. He's trying to make a connection here that the things of this world, these passions, and desires, are not of me. So if we love them, then how can we claim to have a relationship with Him?
          We know the world is perishing. We know that this world is coming to an end and the Lord is going to judge His enemies, but we read several times in Scripture that God takes no pleasure in destroying the wicked. He's patient and He's kind, hoping that all would come to repentance. He doesn't want to destroy, and He doesn't want to judge in that way. He wishes that we would all come to repentance. So when the Lord is telling us to separate from the things of this world, He's saying, “I do not want to judge you. I do not want to harm you.” I think that oftentimes we don’t connect worldliness with the judgment of God, but that's the reality.
         Most of us know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where God rained down fire from heaven and destroyed these cities because they were full of all this immorality and sin. In our mind, we think that they were just a nonstop party city full of obvious evil. We think that it must have just been a terrible place. But if we look in Ezekiel, God gives us a little behind the scenes as to what was actually going on in Sodom and Gomorrah and what their actual heart issues were. The Lord speaks in Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NKJV) saying, “Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit.” When I read that, I'm like, wait a minute, that’s what was really going on in Sodom and Gomorrah. In that verse you can almost get the sense that it was just worldliness that they were living in. They were just living for the here and now, living for their pleasures and their desires. They pursued whatever they wanted and the Lord said that was that was the iniquity of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Nate: I think that's good to see, because if we could be transported back in time and actually just live there for a day, maybe it would just kind of look like a nice beach town in Florida where everybody's just enjoying life.

Luke: Yea. And we don't see that as dangerous, but the Lord does. He's crying out and trying to warn us in His Word not to be caught up in that mindset because it's going to lead to destruction.

Nate: Okay, so let me get your take on something because I know that objections start coming up in people's minds when we start talking about worldliness, especially if we start connecting it with specific aspects of our American lifestyle. How do you respond to somebody who easily gets defensive about this?

Luke: It's hard, because I don't know if you can make a blanket statement that applies to everyone. It would be nice if there were just clear-cut rules like you're allowed 45 minutes on the internet a day and you will be a Christian. That may be simple and nice if it worked that way, but it doesn't. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I think we need to examine our lives and ask ourselves questions like, “What do I treasure? What do I value? And what do I put a lot of time into?” Our answers to those questions will tell us where our hearts are at.
          You just have to do an inventory of your life and realize, okay, while it may not be evil in itself, if you’re spending a substantial amount of time on entertainment or following politics, on hobby’s or at your job, you might have a problem. The Lord says in Scripture that if you want to know where your heart is, just look at what you treasure; look at what you value. So if you run an inventory of your time spent over a period of seven days, you could look and see that maybe 5% of that time was spent with the Lord in that period of time, you should consider how much you really treasure the Lord and if it matches how much you think you treasure Him.

Nate: That's good, because I think when I really studied that portion of Scripture that you read in 1 John 2, what I realized was that what was being represented as the love of the world was not just a blatantly immoral and flagrantly sinful lifestyle, but also a life that just shuts God out. If I look into my past when I was living in unrepentant sin, what my life was saying was that I didn’t have time for God. I pursued what my flesh wanted. I pursued what I saw with my eyes and what I wanted. I was just full of pride.
        I think even maybe some pretty decent people could be living in that spirit just because they decided that they don't have time for God. The bottom line is that they have shut God out by the things they have given their life to.

Satan's end goal is to create a global mindset of rebellion against God's authority. But how does he do it? What are his most effective strategies for shaping the minds of men and women? What are the cultural forces that we need to be most aware of and most on guard against? Our episode this week takes a look at one way he does this, a phenomenon that has gripped the hearts of over 4 billion people - social media.

Resources

• Intoxicated with Babylon (Book) by Steve Gallagher
• How Media Transforms and Deceives Us (Blog) By Patrick Hudson

It’s been estimated that there are over 3,800 distinct cultures on the planet. Even within a single country, you can find a wide range of people groups with differing dialects, traditions and values. Yet despite all these apparent differences, there is a common culture which unites all of mankind together. It was this spirit that the Lord sought to disrupt at the Tower of Babel.

Ever since that day, Satan has been plotting and scheming to reunite humanity in rebellion against God. Today, however, he no longer wants to do this by raising a single tower, but by raising up a single world leader – the Antichrist. But how could he influence billions of people divided across the whole earth? How could he overcome all their differences and unite them once again?
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The answer is kosmos.

Join us as Steve Gallagher explains how the spirit of kosmos is being manipulated by Satan to condition multitudes into a cohesive mindset. Pastor Steve also helps us see what all Christians must do if they hope to be prepared for the spiritual battles in the days ahead.

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.

Before they came to Pure Life Ministries, Gabriel, Michael and Chris lived their lives in a frenzy, running from place to place. They couldn’t slow down long enough to allow the Lord to speak to them. This left them in a bad place spiritually. In this discussion, they share what it took for the Lord to slow them down. They’ll talk about how God did that as they went through the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program. They’ll also testify to the peace of God which comes from taking the time to meditate on His Word and taking the time to wait patiently for His direction in life.

Resources

• Intoxicated with Babylon (Book) By Steve Gallagher

Many saints throughout the ages have spoken of the value of being still. They've told us about the great spiritual benefits awaiting anyone who will regularly quiet their minds and hearts so that they might contemplate God. They've urged us to think deeply about His works, wonders and promises. They've testified about growing in the reality of eternity. If that’s the impact that was made on those who chose to quiet themselves before God, it’s no wonder why Satan loves fostering stress, pressure, lights, noise, and endless activity and motion in our culture. After all, if we are constantly tyrannized by what is happening right now, we will never have time to think about eternity.

Resources

• Intoxicated with Babylon (Book) by Steve Gallagher

In the beginning, God created man to dwell in His presence, living entirely for His purpose. But Satan lured humanity away from this noble call by appealing to our desires and brought us into willing rebellion against God. From that point on, every human being was born with the instinct to choose their own way and reject God’s plan for their lives.

Many of us who’ve grown up around Christian teaching agree with that intellectually. But we must ask ourselves how deep does that understanding go? Do we really comprehend that the desires we experience and the choices we make every day are leading us somewhere? Is it real to us that if we aren’t careful, we could easily stray from God’s presence?

Three of our staff took time to study through Ephesians 4:17-24, and in this interview they sit down to talk about what they learned. They also share how the enemy used their desires to blind them and lead them away from God.

We hope this discussion will inspire all true believers to continue to fight against their former passions and to grow deeper in their fellowship with the Lord.

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.

When the founding fathers gathered to sign the declaration of independence, they fully believed that the Christian God was behind their endeavor. They were, after all, championing noble causes such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Centuries later, multitudes of evangelical Americans have the same conviction - God is on our side. Today we're going to take a look at Christian nationalism, and full disclosure, we're going to stir the pot a little bit.

Resources

• Intoxicated with Babylon (Book) by Steve Gallagher
• Live in My Presence and Be Blameless (Blog) By Steve Gallagher

What a husband and a wife value in their relationship often differs significantly. The way women process emotions and situations can seem like a foreign language to many men. Kathy Gallagher joins Nate in the studio to discuss her thoughts on this and explain how a wife can learn to love and support her husband, even through their many differences.

Nate: In the past you’ve said that it's really important to praise your husband when he succeeds, even if it's a small thing. What makes that so important?

Kathy: I don't know that I actually ever did that literally with Steve. I was just very, very grateful. I really respected Steve for the effort he put into getting right with God. Also, gratitude and respect were just coming out of me, I wasn't saying it, it was just flowing from what was in my heart towards my husband. I'm not the type that would walk up, throw a hug on him and say, “Honey, I'm so proud of you.” That is totally not my style. He knew how I felt. I wasn’t just saying those things, I was showing him I was proud of him by my actions.
          He absolutely knew I was supporting him and that I was totally on his team, but I never used those words. It was my life that spoke to him about where I was at, and that's what he needed. What's in us comes out of us and that's where we have to be very, very careful. Especially when we're getting very upset inside, when there's this rumbling going on inside and you want to just let it come out. It will come out, even if you don't open your mouth at all. It just shows up in your disposition. What's in the heart does come out of the mouth, but it also comes out of the life.

Nate: Yeah, it does. The looks, the tone of voice, even the lack of words can speak volumes to people. I would think that gives an opportunity for a husband to misread you. Sometimes when things are not said we are quick to fill in the blanks. We try to interpret what the other person means, and it can be real mess.

Kathy: That's a mess. That's a very big mess.

Nate: Yeah, that really feeds into something that I was thinking about, which is really interesting. I was listening to a sermon by Paul Washer a month or two ago and he said something that I thought was fascinating. He was talking about the difference between men and women and what husbands need versus what wives need in the relationship. Basically, he said, “I don't need my wife to send me little notes or a text telling me that she's thinking of me and loves me. I can go a long time without needing that. What I need is for my wife to believe in me. If she doesn't believe in me, I'll fall apart.” And that was really interesting, because it resonates with me as a man and I'd like to hear your perspective on that as a wife.

Kathy: It’s hilarious to me that somebody else is saying that, because I think I said something like that in my book. Your husband does not want to sit around and talk about your emotions and your feelings - he's not your girlfriend and he is not wired that way. He doesn't want to talk about feelings and all the gooey stuff. The whole idea of trying to get men to think like women doesn't work. A woman’s needs are very vastly different than a man's needs. She's the one who needs all of the things that would be classified as more emotional. I think because of the differences in the way men are wired and the way women are wired there is a lot of strife created in marriages. As a woman, I think I need him to tell me how awesome I am or how much he loves me and that I'm his forever, and he's looking at me like I have two heads. A man doesn't have a point of reference for that, because that is not what he needs and he is not wired that way. Men don't think like that and there are a lot of problems in marriages because of that dynamic.
          I cracked up when I heard Paul Washer saying that because it is so true. A husband doesn't need a text message and he doesn't need you to put love notes in his lunchbox. He doesn't need that stuff. He doesn't operate and think the same way that you operate and think. As a wife, you have to learn that he is wired so completely differently than you are and to not be offended when he doesn't have the same needs and responses that you have. Also, don’t fall into the notion that he's this ominous ogre or brute or beast, because he's really not. He's operating the way that he was created to operate by the Lord. Now obviously mixed into that are sin issues, but I'm just talking about the way our minds work.
         The other thing I would like to add is about the differences in the temperaments of a man and a woman. That helped us so much in the early days of our marriage, because me and Steve are opposites. We could not be more opposite if we tried to be. Learning the different temperaments that we had really helped me to understand that what I was misunderstanding about him is just the way he is. I have a much different temperament than my husband, and on top of that I am female. A male and a female with opposite temperaments can have so many issues if they don't understand the temperaments they have. But if you understand those things, things start to make more sense to you. So, I encourage wives to take some time to try and explore those two different situations, because they're very helpful in marriage.

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Nate: Yeah. The thing that I'm thinking about as you're talking is that it really is all a matter of the flow of the heart. If a wife is coming into this marriage relationship demanding that her husband meets her needs, most of the time she is going to find out, “Wow, he can't, because he's not like me.” But if she comes into the marriage thinking that what she wants to do is give and learn, then she will find more unity in her marriage. This requires real death to self, because usually as humans what we want to do is give to people what we value. So, a wife thinks, “I can love him by being super emotional and telling him about all my feelings, because that's what I want him to do for me.” In his mind, he didn't ask for her to do that and he doesn’t even know what to do with all of that. So a wife needs to learn what her husband values and the husband needs to learn what the wife values. But having the knowledge of what a spouse needs and values is only one step in the battle though. Actually taking the step to give of yourself that which isn’t as much a value to you takes real death to self.

Kathy: In a certain sense, yes, it takes a ton of death to self. But if in your heart you are more of a taker then this will feel like it is killing you. On the other hand, if you are more of a giver, you will really enjoy the process of learning how to please your husband. If your heart is, “I want him to be so happy. I want him to get what he needs,” you're going to win. But if you're a taker and you're always needing your needs met from a guy who's pretty clueless to your needs, you will be very, very disappointed. The problem with so many marriages, and this was true for me too, is that we come with a list of wants. I didn't come with a list of how I could bless him and how I could make his life richer and fuller. I came looking for how he could bless my life and make my life richer and fuller. That is a setup for disaster on both people's part, because men do the same thing.
          A man falls in love with a woman, and he falls in love with his attraction to her in mind. That's not a very good recipe for an enduring relationship. But if you're walking with the Lord and you are putting Jesus at the very center of your marriage, you learn how to love because none of us know how to do it right. Does anybody that can hear my voice right now love perfectly as is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13? Love believes all things, hopes all things and it never fails. I don't have that testimony. But just as any Christian seeking to be more like Jesus, I want that to be my testimony. I may have already said this in another podcast, but it's worth repeating. After a message at one of our conferences several years ago, this young girl came rushing up to me after the meeting and said, “I have to just share this with you, because it goes so well with what you just talked about. Someone told me at a camp I went to that marriage is a death march to a life camp.” And that is exactly what it is. It's a death march. Death to self. That’s because if you're going to love rightly, if you're going to be the right kind of wife and the right kind of Christian, it's a matter of losing your life in this world. But you're headed to a life camp and the eternal life of Jesus Christ becomes yours. His life is being formed in you through all of it and it's worth it and there is joy in the journey. But it is joy mingled with pain.

Nate: I'm not married, but I’ve experienced where I set myself up to try to meet the needs of someone else and I found my own needs being met somehow. It puts in you a spring of satisfaction and contentment, and this grasping goes away, because you're satisfied. So, if husbands and wives could learn to set themselves to meet the needs of others, it would remove the source of so much conflict.

Kathy: That's very, very true. It's a spiritual principle that is very much active and alive, and it's real. We women have the profound privilege of helping our husbands learn how to meet other’s needs, because women tend to be more naturally wired to be givers or nurturers. We nurture, we coddle and we naturally want to take care of others. So, by selflessly laying down your life and giving up your rights, you can show your husband how to do that. That is a beautiful thing, because men do not naturally have a nurturing side to them. I know this is going to sound bad, but men tend to be more takers and women tend to be more givers. So, I would just encourage women to go for it when it comes to laying down their lives. I know a lot of women, including all of my friends that are mothers, lay down their lives for their children. If you're going to be a good mom, you need to lay down your life, but you can easily cut off the spirit of giving with your husband if you've got issues with him.
          I just want to encourage you not to stop with your kids. In fact, I would say that your husband should be the recipient of all that you have to offer. It's not wrong for you to give yourself to him, even if he's not exactly doing the same for you, because that is the heart of God. God didn't stop doing the mercy to us. He came to us while we were yet sinners, while we were His enemies. I'm not saying that we are able to do that perfectly in the way that God did it, but He is our model. He has shown us how to build relationships and that is the framework for it. We are commanded to follow Christ’s model for how to love. It is very hard, but I don't have a day of regret being a Christian or being a wife married to a man who was horribly addicted to sexual sin. I'm grateful for all of it because of what it did in my relationship with Jesus and how it brought me closer to Him.

Dictionary.com defines a “rebel” as “a person who refuses allegiance to, resists, or rises in arms against the government or ruler of his or her country, a person who resists any authority, control, or tradition. ”Most rebellions rise and fall without grand success, their leaders lost to history. Very few have gained the prominence and merit of Nimrod, the world’s first rebel leader. Nimrod’s ability to persuade people to follow him, and not the Lord, relied upon the promise that he could bring them a level of joy, happiness and satisfaction God never could.

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Today, mankind is not being enticed by a single leader vaunting the potential of a better life. Instead, a message of worldliness is luring billions into its web through countless voices around the globe. The spirit behind that message advocates rebellion against the Lord and His authority by promising unprecedented, unrestricted pleasure. It is a cause devoted to the here and now, and one which can never provide humanity the satisfaction of life which it truly craves.

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In episode 5 of Babylon: The Seat of Satan’s Power, Steve Gallagher explains, through Scripture, how this message can only lead a person one way,into utter ruin and desolation.

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.

Here is the full discussion from Episode #502. In it, Nate, Patrick, and Jon discuss their church backgrounds prior to coming to the Pure Life Residential Program and how it shaped their way of thinking. They look at how their background led them to elevate talent and good works over devotion to God, and how various online preachers and music artists influenced their religion more than the truth of God’s Word.

Resources

• Intoxicated with Babylon (Book) by Steve Gallagher