What does it mean to be “unequally yoked”?

I addressed this very issue in my book, Intoxicated with Babylon:

Paul is referring here to an obscure law, which forbade the yoking of an ox with a donkey. (Deuteronomy 22:10) They aren’t compatible and cannot accomplish a synchronized plowing of a field. Yes, the ox and the donkey can graze together, but they can never work side-by-side in a yoke.

Now Paul applies the law’s principle to a believer and an unbeliever. A true Christian has undergone an enormous inward change. God has transformed his values, beliefs, and perspectives, and thus his lifestyle; all of which are now diametrically opposed to those of unbelievers around him. There is no possibility of reconciliation between the two.

Paul then asks, “For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?” How can those who are submitted to God intermingle with those who are part of a system which is in rebellion against God? How can the kingdom of light—that place of holiness, purity, and truth—co-exist with the unholy, impure, deceptive kingdom of darkness? They are two different kingdoms eternally separated. THERE IS NO GRAY AREA BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL.

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Paul is targeting worldliness among believers and probing such issues as,

● Should a daughter of light be married to a son of darkness?

● Should a man who is governed by the precepts of heaven be yoked in a business partnership with one who has pledged allegiance to this world’s system?

● Should believers fraternize with unbelievers?

The answer to all these questions is a resounding, “NO!” As Paul admonished the Corinthians before, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals.’” (I Corinthians 15:33)

The one who has been truly saved recognizes the effect bad company has on him, and he consistently avoids unhealthy relationships. He lives his life for the kingdom of heaven and is not enthralled with the world’s charms or its charmers. He “...does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers,” (Psalms 1:1) because he understands his vulnerability to their influences. This is the separated life of a true believer.

This commandment does not mean that a person who is already married to an unbeliever should seek a divorce. Paul addressed this issue in 1 Corinthians 7:15.

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Here’s the full roundtable discussion from Episode #493. Listen as three of our counselors walk through how the spiral of degradation unfolded in their own lives. They get brutally honest about where that took them, but also how wonderful it was when Jesus finally broke through and brought them out of that spiral and into life in Him.

In the next few episodes, we’re going to look at the origins of Babylon. But before we get there, we need to look back to a time before this city was founded, to a time when mankind was almost universally engrossed in spiritual darkness. In the time before the flood, mankind fell into a wicked state that was so offensive to God that He wiped all but a few from the face of the earth. As we investigate this history, we learn about the corrupt nature of the human heart and how we must guard ourselves so as not to go down the same deplorable paths that those ancient men and women fell into.

Resources

• Intoxicated with Babylon (Book) by Steve Gallagher

Earlier this year we released a podcast series called "Refined as Silver", and recently we filmed a follow up episode based on conversations we had during that series. In it, we discuss the necessity of standing against a worldly atmosphere in the home, because when a home is full of worldliness, it creates a wide-open door for all sorts of lustful temptations and for sexual sin.

You can find the series by clicking the link below and listening to episodes #473-#477: https://www.purelifeministries.org/podcast

We received an email from a young man, twenty one years old who is struggling with his sex drive - no surprise for a twenty one year old - and I guess someone has suggested to him that psychotropic drugs may be a solution to his problem. How would you respond to that?

Well I would respond from scripture, like I would with any kind of an issue that comes up in life like this. In 2 Peter 1, Peter made a couple interesting statements that I think we should take a look at. He said this:

“seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”

OK now that's a mouthful and I understand that. But I do want to say a couple of things about this. First of all, I need to say that I believe this statement is true. With all my heart I believe it's true, not only because the Bible says it, but also because it's my testimony. It's something that I have experienced and I've seen lived out in the lives of many people. God has what every believer needs. That's not just cheap preacher talk or something, it's the reality of anyone who has a life with God. Peter promises us here that God's power will provide everything we need to make it in life. We have to decide do we really believe that. I mean that's really what it boils down to. When we hear these kind of promises made in Scripture, we have to decide "Do I really believe what the Bible is saying."

Personally, the idea of a Christian needing to take drugs to live in victory is absolutely preposterous to me. It shows me - and it's not surprising for a twenty one year old - but it shows me that this young man does not yet know what it means to have the power of God in his inner life. If he will a establish a strong devotional life, not only will he find that there is power to live victoriously in Christ, but it will give him a wonderful opportunity to ask God for a greater infilling of the Holy Spirit.

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One of the things that I see in his email is that he is so focused on the sex drive. Of course most guys that are twenty one years old - I mean probably in their teenage years and up - very often, that is exactly what they're focused on. So there's more here that Peter is saying about that focus isn't there?

Well he's overwhelmed, you know? And like you say, a lot of young people do become overwhelmed when their hormones are raging inside. But you know, I want to say this, that when God becomes large in a person's heart and in his daily life and in his mind - large in the sense that he's spending time with him; he's connected to the vine - then problems become much smaller and much more manageable. And you know, when you're just kind of living in the flesh, of course your problems are going to be overwhelming.

Now in his email he said that he wants to reduce the sex drive. So are we saying that if he develops that relationship with the Lord - if his focus is on his life in the Lord - are those going to go away?

No, his sex drive is what it is. I mean it's a physical thing that he has to deal with. But what does come into play is the power to be able to deal with it in the right way. You know, that's what he's missing now. All he's focused on is the sex drive, but he's not seeing the power of God at work in his inner-man.

Of course one of the things that fights against young men who want to go on the right path with this issue is that the culture is saying that you are a captive to these desires, that you can't possibly not give-in to these desires. In fact, the culture teaches you're abnormal if you don't give-in to these desires.

Right. Also one of the problems that is raised is the fact that really they're more plugged-in with the world and the pagan culture we live in than they are to the things of God. So of course when you're more plugged-in to that strong heavy message coming across television and the Internet and so on, that's going to shape your thinking and your belief system; and it's going to strengthen the unbelief that's already in you.

And for a young man or even for a young woman, this really is - if you look at it right - a wonderful opportunity to prove the faithfulness of God in your own life.

Yes it is a wonderful opportunity to glorify God in your body. You know, what a message it sends to young people around you today who are just totally given over to the things of this world, the flesh, sex, and all of it; and to be able to stand strong and say "Listen I'm not into that. My life means something more than that."

Here’s the full roundtable discussion from Episode #492. In it, three Pure Life staff members discuss the subtle ways the enemy lured them into sexual sin through the spirit of Babylon. They also discuss how God helped them separate themselves from that spirit during their time in our Residential Program.

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Welcome to our summer series, Babylon: The Seat of Satan's Power. In this series, we are going to dive deep into this relevant subject, exploring what Babylon really is, what it's goals are and how it seeks to accomplish them.

Babylon is famous for being the brutal empire that conquered God's people and carried them off into exile. But Babylon is much more than that. It was established soon after the flood and became a symbol in Scripture for everything that is in rebellion to God's authority. Babylon is a threat to every believer which God warns us to distance ourselves from because the entire world is engulfed in the spirit of Babylon and is headed towards outright insurrection against the Lordship of Jesus.

In this episode, we begin by looking at why separating ourselves from the world is the only way to truly walk with Christ and find freedom from sexual sin.

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‍Can Christians build their lives around pursuing pleasure? Pure Life Ministries' Director of Counseling, Ed Buch, evaluates this common lifestyle with guidance from the Bible.

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It seems like pleasure plays a powerful part in everyone's life—particularly in modern America. What evidence do you see that the pursuit of pleasure has saturated our culture and also affected the church?

This focus on pleasure has truly permeated our culture, and we've all grown up with it. Take medication, first of all. It seems like we are just a society that is committed to avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure; those two things go hand in hand. The medication is the piece that's about avoiding pain...or, in some cases, we're misusing medication. Millions of people have stepped across that line into addiction while pursuing pleasure.

I also see the prevalence of counseling and psychotherapy and the way we have turned to these things to justify our sin or to blame someone else. We will do absolutely anything except repent—which is what the Bible teaches us to do. You can look past even those things to other areas—from sports and entertainment to the misuse of relationships to gain emotional or illicit gratification. And many people seem to be using religion in the same way we use any of these other things; the church is just another added piece of that pursuit of pleasure. Literally, I've been in churches and realized that our churches have become more like theaters, the worship has become more like a concert, and our pastors are now required to be more like a motivational speaker. It's like there's this American version of Christianity that has become just another path to the pursuit of pleasure.

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When you observe our culture as well as the Bible, what's wrong with a pleasure-centered life—particularly for the Christian?

Well, there's the suicide issue. I happened to see an article that indicated the rate of suicide had increased something like thirty percent over the last fifteen or twenty years. I would also point to the addictions that we see around us. Obviously, we deal with sexual addiction every day. Statistics that we find online and elsewhere indicate that there are something like ten to fifteen million sex addicts in this country. But in addition, there are something like twenty-five million drug and alcohol addicts. And you could add in nicotine addicts, which takes it up to forty million. It goes on and on. It seems like if we really look at the things people are getting addicted to—gambling, food, and other things—that there are just tens of millions or maybe hundreds of millions of people that are addicted. I firmly believe that is the result of this pursuit of pleasure being such a cultural force.

We also see in the Bible that there are dangerous effects. In 1 Corinthians, Paul was specifically addressing a very carnal lifestyle there with very strong language. He kind of questioned them and asked, "Do you people really have Jesus here? Because this isn't the way we live when we have Jesus in our lives! "And he severely rebuked them. We can look in the Old Testament to Sodom and Gomorrah and their self-indulgent lifestyle. And don't forget that Jesus himself told us to "remember Lot's wife," who looked back at the city and was turned into a pillar of salt. That is a picture of what happens to us: our hearts get attached to these things that we find pleasure in, and we find it almost impossible to leave them behind—even with God Himself taking us by the hand and trying to lead us out.

For Christians, I would say that pursuing pleasure keeps my focus on my feelings. It's challenging to try not to live by my feelings; that's our default. But it's not biblical. So we need to override our feelings every day. If you're like me, it starts with having to override my feelings just to get up out of bed in the morning! But we do it in other ways as well. Second, pursuing pleasure will keep the flow of your life on getting and taking...instead of giving and serving—which is the emphasis the Lord has. Again, our default position is to be a taker—to arrange everything in our life so that it revolves around me. But Jesus comes along and says, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," and that's the exact opposite flow. Third, pursuing pleasure will also keep our affections set on the things of this world. We "lose our first love," like it talks about in Revelation. This pursuit of pleasure is one of the reasons why that happens to so many people. As you go that direction, your affections are getting ever drawn down on to the things of this life instead of being on "the things above." And we have to look at what we're forfeiting by pursuing pleasure: it's His Holy Spirit and His gift of self-control.

What kind of life can does the Bible teach that we can expect when we start restraining this tendency to pursue pleasure in our lives?

In the Parable of the Sower, pleasure was one of the things that was present on the "thorny ground" that robbed people of fruitfulness. I think Jesus was trying to emphasize the positive side: our lives will be much more fruitful and productive. Even our emotions eventually line up, and we have a real joy that doesn't come from this world. That's definitely been the experience that I've seen in my life and in the lives of other people. Also, in Psalm 16, it says that "in the presence of the Lord there is fullness of joy, and in his right hand there are pleasures for evermore." I want to make it clear that there is a distinction between worldly pleasures and pleasures that are eternal. God certainly has pleasures for his people beyond what we can even imagine...and we will spend eternity enjoying them fully!

This excerpt is from our podcast episode, “Pleasure, Jesus, and the War for Your Heart”.

To access our podcast library, visit purelifeministries.org/podcast, or check us out in the iTunes store or Google Play store.

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Although my husband and I are satisfied sexually with each other, I am inclined more sexually. I have struggled with thoughts and have considered masturbation. I have been crying out to God and have tried not to look at erotic pictures but I need help. What can I do?

Does your husband know about your struggles? If not, I would open up to him. He is where you should be going to confess your struggles and get your needs met. If you bring it into the light it loses it power but as long as you struggle inside, alone, it will be a powerful temptation.

If looking at pornography on the Internet is a temptation then you should have some type of filter on your computer that would block out pornography—just in case you feel overwhelmed by temptation one day. I personally would also have your husband check the history. You really need a stronger covering over your life.

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Ultimately, as my husband shares in his book, At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry, your real issue is not that you are “highly sexed” or have a stronger “libido.” The real issue is your walk with God. Paul taught that if we are “walking in the Spirit,” there will be a power in our lives to resist the temptations that appeal to our carnal natures. It sounds to me like your devotional life is very weak or nonexistent. I would begin by limiting your television time (which drains a person of spiritual hunger) and establish a solid time every morning in the Word and prayer. I think you will find that your desire for sex will become far less important and your desire for God will grow.

When we are injured physically, our body automatically responds by beginning to heal itself. Similarly, when we are injured emotionally or spiritually, we begin to try to heal ourselves. But here's the problem. When it comes to emotional pain, our natural reactions often end up doing even more damage to us in the long run. We can’t simply heal ourselves – we need God to do His work in us and as we know, His ways are not like our ways. Join us as we explore the danger of trying to find healing through boosting our self-esteem in another follow up to our Refined as Silver series.

Resources

• Is My Husband's Addiction My Fault? (Video) by Kathy Gallagher

Earlier this year we released a series called Refined as Silver, and we are back this week and next with some follow up episodes based on conversations we had during that series. This week we discuss the necessity of standing against a worldly atmosphere in the home. When a home is full of worldliness, it creates a wide-open door for all sorts of lustful temptations and for sexual sin.

Resources

• The Spirit of the World Wants to Seduce You (Video) by Steve Gallagher

Rose, we want to continue a series that we call "Ask the Counselor" and today we want to answer a question that came in from a woman who is engaged to a man who is struggling with sexual sin. Let me read her question. "My fiancé struggles with sexual sin. He gives in a couple of times a year, but is always honest with me about it. I realize that it's probably unwise to marry him until this issue is resolved. What should I do?

Yeah, this is a common question. Usually, when we have someone call in and saying that their fiancé is admitting to any kind of sexual sin we will tell her that she needs to put the whole marriage on hold until he gets help for this area. Unfortunately, we've seen that sometimes a woman's not willing to do that, because she is under the assumption that if they get married this problem is going to be taken care of. But it doesn't usually take very long to find out that it doesn't get resolved by getting married. 

Just recently I got a very sad phone call from a woman. A couple of years ago, her fiancé had just finished going through our Residential Program and we counseled them to wait for two years before getting married. We wanted to make sure that there were real fruits of repentance in his life. Time will often tell whether or not a man has truly walked away from his sin. But they wanted to be married. Now, the whole situation is a mess. She's pregnant and the husband is full-blown back into his sin. 

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I share that story because we've had other stories like that--people who are not willing to wait or not willing to let spiritual leaders get involved and they just go forward with what they want. All too often it ends up in a heartbreaking story.

Isn't part of the problem, Rose, that the men and women in this kind of situation are looking at sexual sin as if it is the main issue, and that they are not seeing the much broader spiritual issue that it represents?

Yeah, there is that mindset, and part of it is because we read that in 1st Corinthians 7, where Paul says, essentially that if you can't control yourself, then it's better to marry then to burn with lust. What we've seen through the years of doing this ministry is that the lust issue is not the heart of the issue! And that's what I was sharing with the dear woman I mentioned before--that God is after his heart! God's after his heart! He hasn't surrendered his heart to God in the way that the Lord is calling him to surrender--his heart, his life, everything about him! And until that happens, he's just going to keep going around the same mountain.

OK, so you mentioned a couple things to this woman. Number 1, that they should wait to get married. But secondly, you made some recommendations for both of them. 

Yeah, she needs to make sure her leaders, her spiritual leaders, know what's going on. Sometimes the pastors don't know anything that's going on, and it's just between the two of them. So, it's good to get that third party involved so they can speak into their lives. And we would also recommend that if the spiritual leader does not know about Pure Life Ministries to tell him about us and to have him visit our website to see what we have to offer so that he would kind of push the fiancé in that direction to get help for his sin before they even think about getting married.

And that could be another important reason to go to someone who is in a place of spiritual authority as opposed to just a friend or family member, who may very well give you good counsel, but you need someone who has that spiritual authority in your life that can say "No, this is the direction you need to go." Because they you know you've got God's hand on it. 

Yeah, because I think about my pastor...I know God brought him into my life and he gave us counsel that, in the natural, I did not agree with. And I couldn't understand how what he told us to do was going to solve our problems, right? But what I saw that was God was after something in me during that time.

And that's another important aspect of the counsel that you gave the woman that asked this question. You recommended that they both seek counsel.

Yeah, it's very important for them to both go for help, not for one to go independently of the other.

And again, to wrap up your response, Rose, you did say that even if they are willing to wait and they both go through counseling, that it is wise to still wait at a minimum for a year, just to make sure that what God has wanted to get at in the heart, that progress has been made there and that it is genuine and will be long lasting. 

Yes, because especially this area of sexual sin and what it does to a marriage. It's just devastating for a wife. It destroys the marriage vows, really.

Right, and of course our prayer is that people will seek good counsel and that's part of why we're here. We provide help for them and will walk alongside them through whatever it is that God wants to accomplish in their hearts. 

Yes, exactly.