This episode: Steve Gallagher urges us to make sure we possess the character qualities that every true citizen of God's Kingdom has.
Rediscovering Repentance Ep. 10: When God offers us the gift of repentance, neglecting it is very dangerous. We must receive it immediately.
Absolute Surrender: One of the greatest needs we have as believers is to understand our continual need for the Holy Spirit's power.
This week, Dustin Renz teaches us about God’s character as he examines the way God dealt with Nineveh, as recorded in Nahum 1.
Morality is not a line. It's a direction.
Before the flood, humanity had become intoxicated with evil. The sin and wickedness introduced at the fall had grown exponentially with each successive generation. By the time of Noah, humanity had spiraled so far out of control that all their thoughts and all their feelings were unredeemable.
We are not immune to this same spiritual process. Though God has promised all of us salvation through Jesus Christ, this same soul-sickness can easily consume any one of us who would refuse that offer. When we turn from the Lord, we will inevitably begin to plunge into the same darkness which overtook the pre-flood world.
In this interview with one of our Residential Program counselors, we discuss the Spiral of Degradation found in Romans 1. We’ll take an in-depth look at each step down that spiral. We’ll also talk about the hope available for anyone who finds themselves on that destructive path. If you desire freedom today, it is still available for you!
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 uses man’s natural propensity toward sin to lead him down a path of destruction.
It was the late 1960’s. The skirmish in Vietnam was escalating into all-out war. The Beatles were being displaced by hard rockers like the Rolling Stones and the Doors. Flower children were advocating “free love” in San Francisco. And a young man walked to the balcony of his hotel room and, convinced that he could fly, plunged ten floors to his death on the sidewalk below. He had come under the deadly spell of L.S.D.
L.S.D. lied to this young man. L.S.D. stole years of life from him. And finally, L.S.D. murdered him. Several months before, he had been seduced by the euphoria it offered him, not realizing that once he partook of this deadly potion, his days were numbered.
L.S.D. is an apt representative of sin. Like the devil who employs it, it deceives, steals and destroys. Satan uses man’s natural propensity toward sin to lead him down a path of destruction. The victim is enticed down this trail by promised fulfillment. But even while the seducer dangles the intoxicating carrot in front of the person’s lust-filled eyes, it is picking the person’s pocket and leading him right to a cliff.
Well did the writer of Hebrews speak of “the deceitfulness of sin.” (Hebrews 3:13 NASB) Sin promises much and delivers just enough to keep its victim returning for more. It employs the same successful strategy time and again. It presents the act of sin in such a way as to infer that it will bring about tremendous satisfaction. As a master deceiver, sin suppresses thoughts of possible consequences while glamorizing the pleasure it offers. Memories of past consequences fade in the glitter of the proposed act. Typically, a lying devil is moving the process along, keeping the person’s focus fixed upon the object of desire. J.C. Ryle captures its utterly deceptive nature:
“You may see this deceitfulness in the wonderful proneness of men to regard sin as less sinful and dangerous than it is in the sight of God and in their readiness to extenuate it, make excuses for it and minimize its guilt. ‘It is but a little one! God is merciful!’
Men try to cheat themselves into the belief that sin is not quite so sinful as God says it is, and that they are not so bad as they really are… We are too apt to forget that temptation to sin will rarely present itself to us in its true colors, saying, ‘I am your deadly enemy and I want to ruin you forever in hell.’ Oh, no! Sin comes to us, like Judas, with a kiss, and like Joab, with an outstretched hand and flattering words.” (1)
Consider some of life’s most valuable elements that the sinner must forfeit. Sin cheats a man of his honor. Every time he gives in to some temptation, he is depleting his character. He lacks the conviction and strength of character to resist his passions. Little by little his honor ebbs away until, in the end, he is a shifty, weak-willed jellyfish who nobody respects.
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Sin also destroys relationships. A person given over to a sinful idol usually loses interest in loved ones. Spouses are often confused about why their mates seem so aloof, not realizing they are addicted to some secret sin. Sin has a way of making a person’s life extremely tiny. The greater the addiction, the less room there is in the person’s heart for anything or anyone else. The beloved sin demands and receives his complete devotion.
Sometimes sin will even rob a man of his freedom. How many times have I heard a sad story about a guy caught looking at child pornography and sent to prison? After doing his time, the unfortunate soul is eventually paroled back into the community where he is branded as a sex offender. He often must wear this label for the rest of his life.
Worst of all, sin strips a man of his relationship with God. Every time he indulges some temptation, he sets himself up as a defiant rebel to the King of Heaven. With every transgression he aligns himself with the evil one. Before long, he has completely set up house in the enemy’s camp. All the while he convinces himself that he is a Christian when actually he is as just as deceived as the man who jumped off the balcony. Rightly did Jesus exclaim that, “The thief comes only to steal…” (John 10:10 NASB)
Most people who indulge sin do not receive such swift retribution as the young man who leapt to his death. For most, the death process is long and painful. Nevertheless, one thing is certain: “…when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” (James 1:15 NASB)
The Apostle Paul said it this way: “the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption…” (Galatians 6:8 NASB) The NIV says the person “…will reap destruction…” while the Amplified Bible says he will “…reap decay and ruin and destruction…” (AMPC) All three translations are correct in their interpretation. The Greek term (phthora) employed by the venerable apostle is sometimes used to describe the corrupting influence of sin, while at other times it describes the process of death.
The truth is that the same sin that defiles the human soul with its vileness also breaks down the life within that person. It is typically a long term process. Little by little everything good and decent is eaten away. The horrible moral decay that the hobbit Smeagol experienced after finding the dark lord’s ring in The Fellowship of the Ring is an apt picture of what occurs within a sinner.
Physical life may remain, but spiritual life ebbs away. In the end, it has given way to spiritual death. The hounds of hell drag the person away into everlasting torment. Those who think they can continue in sin and enjoy some imaginary divine protection are only deluding themselves. “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.” (Galatians 6:7 NASB)
Yes, in the dark corridors and caverns of hell, Sin is heralded as the Great One. It does a tremendous job for its dark master of deceiving, robbing and destroying people.
(1) J.C. Ryle, Holiness, Evangelical Press, England, 1879, p. 7.
If we do not learn to submit to what the Lord has placed before us, we are hardening our hearts.
When we set out to interview Kathy Gallagher about how to be a godly wife, we never intended to touch on topics such as suffering, Bible study, and prayer. But as it turns out, those three topics have become very important to her as she has learned to be a godly wife through the seasons of suffering in her life. Listen as she and Nate sit down and discuss these topics, and more.
Nate: Kathy, thanks for coming in today. I want to start off by trying to give wives a sense of what it means to be a godly wife in general. When you look at what the Word of God says about the role of a wife, what do you see?
Kathy: Well, to be honest with you, not very much. There is not a lot in the Bible that is specific to wives. I did a search and there are 11 mentions in the New Testament about wives. Those verses are mostly all about respect and submission and so, a lot of problems have come out of those two topics. People just narrow in on those two things, but I don't think that's exactly the way it should be taken. You could also add in Proverbs 31 as a model for a godly wife, which is a wonderful model. I think all of us sincere-hearted women see that as a template that is very hard to attain to.
So those verses are very important, and the whole theme of submission and obedience is very important, but you can't just limit the model of being a godly wife to a few Scriptures. If you really pay attention, there is so much in the New Testament about suffering. There is so much in the New Testament about how to live your life in a persecuted culture. Those things really stand out to me. Even though being a godly wife is not a main topic in the New Testament, it is a big deal, but I think that we as women need to look at the whole of the teachings of the New Testament to see what God expects of us. What is He looking for in us as we face crisis in our marriage, or anywhere else?
Nate: So you're saying that if a wife just goes to the Bible to find out what God says about being a good wife, then she is going to miss a ton that the Bible simply says about becoming conformed to the image of Jesus.
Kathy: Yes. And He's working His image into us through every circumstance. But sexual sin is a game changer and there's no easy way to work your way through that. And again, you won't find a real specific pathway in the Bible of how to overcome other than through repentance and forgiveness. The whole New Testament is written to believers to show them how to live a life that is pleasing to God.
Nate: That's good. It's not just a list of helpful tips for us to go looking for an answer for every problem we have.
Kathy: That's a good way to put it. I think a lot of us women go hunting and pecking. So, when trying to teach the Bible to young women, they have to basically be deprogrammed. I think that needs to happen for a lot of people. We have to be deprogrammed because we have been taught to hunt and peck for verses and encouraging statements. That is not the way the Bible was written and that is not what its intended purpose is. I don't mean to turn this into a podcast on the Bible, but to me this is like the crux of why so many women have more struggles going through the process of becoming a godly wife than they need to. They don’t understand the Word of God properly.
Nate: Yeah. In the Instagram age, you can only fit so much on one little picture, so we feel the need to find, like, nuggets – little bite sized pieces of Scripture. But that really tears apart the preciousness of the Word of God just to provide some sort of immediate emotional response.
Kathy: Definitely. We really want that emotional response and something to pull ourselves up by the boot strings with one verse. But I just so strongly disagree with that. I've never gone to the Bible looking for one specific verse, but I think that's what a lot of women do. They aren’t understanding the whole counsel of the Word of God, that the preciousness of His Word is revealing who God is. You just don't get that in one sitting. It takes a lifetime. I've been walking with the Lord 42 years, and I feel like I'm not even barely scratching the surface. The longer and deeper I go, the more I look at the Word of God through the lens of just wanting to know Him.
That’s what's becoming more real to me is that He wants to reveal Himself to me through His Word. That is where my hope is going to come from. It won’t come from a put-together marriage. That would be awesome; that’s what we hope for. The whole point of Pure Life Ministries in a certain way is to see people's lives rescued and redeemed and brought back to the Lord. But the bigger issue to me always has been that Jesus is your answer. He doesn’t just have some answers, He is the answer! It’s Him. Himself. Here's an example of that. We ask the Lord, “Please give us strength.” Well, what we're looking for is to have a little bit of strength, but Jesus wants to BE your strength. He wants to BE your hope. He wants to BE your redemption and all of that.
Nate: Well, this is really good. I actually didn’t foresee you talking about Bible study. But since we’re taking a little bit of a rabbit trail, why don’t you talk about prayer as well.
Kathy: Prayer is so important. I can't say it long enough or loud enough how important it is to pray. And I don't mean throwing up ten second prayers of “Jesus, please help me Lord, I need help today.” I'm talking about getting in your prayer closet and pulling Heaven down to Earth. You just have to do that out of desperation. One thing you can do is to go through Psalm 119 and pray with your heart, not just your mouth, and learn how to touch Heaven. A godly woman is someone who will just, by faith, get into her prayer closet and intercede, not just for herself and her children, but for her husband. A husband in sexual sin is in the battle of his life and he needs that support.
We miss this stuff because we get so mad at our husbands for wrecking everything. But that’s selflessness when you put your own needs aside. Through prayer, you gain a spirit of understanding and wisdom. That comes from spending time in the presence of the Lord. For me, I took the Scriptures and I started praying against the enemy. That’s when things opened up to me, because I knew that the Spirit of God was with me helping me to pray that way. I can't do that on my own. It's not natural to pray against the enemy in the Spirit of God, but when I did so much opened up to me about what's really going on and what we're really up against.
And again, I feel like an infant in it, but I want to grow in it more. I think that a godly wife that is helpful to her husband is a praying wife. And I don't mean prayers like, “Jesus save me from this mess.” Pray for the Lord to save your husband, rescue him, bring him out of the darkness and bring him into the light. Pray for the Lord to break the power of darkness over his mind and over his heart. Just push back against the enemy on his behalf.
Nate: There's a picture emerging as you're talking, because I think you've got two perspectives from the world on what it means to be a good woman. You have the feminist ideal: self-sufficient, strong and able. Then you've got your ultra conservative picture of what it means to be a wife. But that tends to be all outward. You stay at home, you raise the kids, you keep a good home. Not that those things aren't in the Word of God, but they still are all outward. What you're talking about is growing in godliness, which is all interior.
Kathy: It's very interior and it's very selfless. You lose your life. If you're on the outside looking in, that sounds dreadful, but there is a place of quiet rest near to the heart of God. That is a very true line from a hymn. And I don't disparage a woman who stays at home to raise the children and keep a godly home. That is a very noble thing. I love those women who love their children enough to keep them separated and to model to their family what being a godly woman looks like. But the best model I have ever seen are those mothers who are in their prayer closet interceding. That is how you model Christianity.
Nate: This is definitely touching on something that I wanted to bring out with you in this interview, the idea of what it means to be a godly wife. I guess we could also think in terms of being a godly mother. What should a woman be aiming for in that?
Kathy: What I talked a lot about in my book and in messages I've given touches on what the Lord is doing in the midst of the sexual sin. I realize that that's not the point of this particular segment that we're doing, but it's a big deal and I think that's why most women are listening. And what He is doing is He's exposing in us what's in us. And hopefully we're finding out more of who He is and what He is like. I have always believed from a very early age that although sexual sin is not the will of God, He uses the affects of it in a very big way in our lives, but women can have sinful attitudes that will really mess things up.
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Proverbs 14 says that a wise woman will build her house, but a foolish one will tear it down with her own hands. I have had my fill of women who are rebellious, demanding, and selfish, who love themselves more than they love anybody else. They feel they have the right to certain attitudes and to protect themselves and to defend themselves. Just this whole “me-first” mentality. I've said to women before, if your husband would be happier in any other home than his own, not because of sexual sin, but because of the constant needling, nagging, demanding, discontentedness that he is experienced in his own home, then you are tearing your house down.
I know that a lot of the people that will listen to this don't fit into that category, but through years of counseling women I’ve seen that that type of foolishness has always been a big issue. But we don't see our actions that way. We women feel very justified in our expectations. And, up to a point, a wife should have expectations. But we have to be so careful. As women, we have to be very careful about what is in us. I know a lot of the women that I have dealt with want the Lord and see His hand in this. They also see what's in themselves. It's a joy to work with them even though their hearts are broken. It's a joy to work with them because you know that there's hope for them. Maybe not always for their marriage, but they have a sure hope in their walk with Jesus.
So, I really do appreciate a woman who's willing to box her way out of this ring in the right way. There are no disclaimers in the Bible for ungodly behavior when we're suffering. The only thing I can find about our attitude is that we are to endure patiently and wait – something we do not want to do. We don't want to wait, and we certainly don't want to be patient. We want answers now.
I know all this can feel hollow, empty and discouraging to hear in the midst of trial When your heart is broken, you want something right now. But I feel like what is important for us as godly woman is to learn how to submit to the suffering. I get so tired of saying this stuff, but I feel like some people just don't understand this concept. I’m not saying submit to abuse. I'm not saying submit to violence or anything like that. But the struggle and the suffering, submit to that. If we don't learn how to come down under it, we’re hardening our hearts. Again, like I said earlier in this interview, if you look at the Word of God, suffering is woven throughout the Old and New Testaments. It describes to us how to deal with it. It’s in the Scripture because this life is full of suffering.
When we taste and see that the Lord is good, He begins to be the one we are fighting for.
If we are going to resist the enemy, we must learn to be fighters. That's what Josh, Kyle, and Trey found out early on in their walk with the Lord. The battle was hard, and they weren’t expecting it. In this discussion, they reflect on how worldliness will kill a fighting spirit, and how God has helped them to become willing to enter the battle. We hope you’ll be encouraged by their stories and by their growing passion to know Jesus!
Most people live their lives pursuing pleasure, little realizing that the spirit of Babylon is leading them to their destruction.
There is a dark spirit at work in this world, seeking to destroy mankind by convincing them to unite in rebellion against God. That spirit is of course, Satan. But he isn't alone. All around us, there are demonic beings trying to exert their very powerful influence upon us. This week, we’re going to take a brief look at the demonic realm and how these dark spirits work to gain dominion over a person's heart. And we’ll follow that up with a conversation about a powerful strategy to effectively fight against their evil influence.
Evil can lie dormant in the heart of man for years and suddenly come to life when the circumstances call it forth.
The global flood described in the book of Genesis represents a unique event in human history. The destruction of all flesh, save for Noah and his family, is so distinct an incident that God Himself promised never to do it again.
But what could possibly have caused the Lord to react so strongly toward His beloved creation? What could have caused this creation, which He Himself had once described as, “very good,” to descend into such wickedness that their thoughts became constantly evil?
In episode 2 of Babylon: The Seat of Satan’s Power, Steve Gallagher discusses four of the actions and attitudes of mankind which led to this great cataclysm. And we find that these reasons warn us to avoid all such ways in our own lives.
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 Christians give their undivided attention to the system of this world, their hearts and minds are not where they’re supposed to be.
Everyone’s life can only be aimed in one of two directions. Either our eyes are set on the Kingdom of God, or they’re set on the kingdom of darkness. Put another way, we can either have an eternal mindset or we can be distracted by the cares of this life. But the enemy won’t blatantly divert us from eternal things. Instead, he subtly distracts us by focusing our attention on things that seem important. In this interview, Steve Gallagher discusses the ways Satan uses the media to push this agenda.
Nate: Today we want to deal with things related to mass media. We live in very confusing, perplexing times. The issues that our world is facing seem to be coming much more quickly and with a lot more intensity. Things like the coronavirus, global warming and tensions about injustice. These issues are very unsettling to people, and so they spend a lot of time trying to keep up to date with what they think they should know to make sense of the world they are living in. But you say in your book that this is exposing people to an even greater danger. Why do you say that?
Pastor Steve: Well, let's face it. The news is just another form of entertainment. When you have your own tv show, you want people to watch it because the higher your ratings, the more advertising you can sell for it. So the way the news keeps people coming back is by constantly releasing big stories. They want to consistently broadcast something that will titillate people’s senses or get them excited. When you think about the realities of what's happening in the world, some of these things are not big stories, they're being made into big stories. This is the way the news has been from the beginning.
Go back to the 1880s for instance, and you've got a reporter from the New York Times who wants to keep people coming back to his newspaper stand to buy them every day. To do this, he must write stories that are going to grab people's attention. Let's say he does a series on how bad tenement buildings are. Pretty soon you've got the whole city, or at least all those people reading that newspaper, in the same mindset of looking at these tenement buildings and saying, “this is a terrible thing.” Now we aren’t looking at whether it's terrible or not, that's not the point I'm getting at. The point I'm getting at is that a corporate consciousness is being established and run by a newspaper or a news outlet.
Let’s take it back into the unseen realm for a minute. You've got the Kingdom of God with the culture involved there, and then you have the kingdom of the world. When Christians who should be all about the Kingdom of God and the corporate consciousness that is established in that kingdom give their attention and their hearts to the corporate consciousness created in this world by the devil, their hearts and minds are not where they're supposed to be. We're being drawn away into this whole drama that news organizations are pushing for their own agenda. It's taking us away from the things of God.
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Nate: I think the issue that people would have with the answer that you gave is that tenement buildings, in their eyes, represents a small issue from the 1880s. But when the issue is much larger, then it does seem like it becomes something to be concerned about. What’s wrong with people wanting to know about these things and even becoming involved with some of these things?
Pastor Steve: Well, let me change the metaphor. I think it was back in the 1990s that the public finally revolted against tobacco companies and I mean they were getting blistered everywhere. I agree, cigarette smoking is horrible and what it does to people is a horrible thing. But that is an example of a value within the ranks of humanism that would be considered terrible. From a temporal perspective, it is terrible. The bigger issue is that the Kingdom of God is looking at things from an eternal perspective and that's what the most important thing is.
God's perspective has always taken into account the eternal, but all you can expect from people of the world is that they will look at what’s important in the here and now. So they will pump up things like cigarette smoking, tenement buildings or whatever their focus is on, and make them enormous. But what should be more important to us is being set apart. We should have a completely different mindset than the world. We should be over here saying, “Yeah, that is bad, but it pales in comparison to an eternal soul lost in hell.” That is what should be important to believers.
Nate: You’re saying, it's not so much an issue of their perspective being wholly wrong. It's just that all the things that are left out makes it a deception. I think that's probably one of the reasons that people love the internet. They don't have to dial into a specific viewpoint from somebody else. They can just pick and choose what they believe is true.
Pastor Steve: Yeah. On the internet you have 50 different answers instead of just being subject to whatever CBS, CNN or Fox has to say. But it doesn’t matter if there's fifty, or two or three, it's still all the world and the enemy. If Satan is keeping your mind distracted, that's the important thing to him. He doesn't care if it's CNN, Fox, or some internet site as long as it's keeping your mind from the important issues related to the Kingdom of God.
Nate: Let's just focus specifically on Google as an example. The word google actually means a number so large that it's not even worth quantifying. The founder’s aim is to provide so much information that it's not even really worth quantifying. Is there a danger embedded in that kind of worldview?
Pastor Steve: Well, one of the issues with Google is that they are setting themselves up as the go to place. If you have a question about anything in life, type it in and you're going to get the answer. But you’re really getting their answers. And you get them in order as they want you to get them, and you are subjected to their agenda.
But there's another issue separate from that. That’s that the Kingdom of God has always been built around people who are struggling through spiritual issues and life issues going to the Lord for a protracted length of time. God wants us to prayerfully figure out what the real answers are that He wants to give us. Those answers aren’t meant to be given in a microwave mindset where you just snap your finger, type in your question and there it is. That’s not the way the Kingdom of God works.
Another issue with the internet is its whole entertainment value. We want to be able to go and deal with issues in a more entertaining manner. Let me just refer back to a message you gave one time titled Satan is Extremely Amusing. You brought up the word amuse as tied in with entertainment. You showed that the word is a conjunction. The prefix, the letter “a” in amuse means non or un. Muse is a word that we don't use very much anymore, but it means to contemplate on a deep level. For example, you muse over life's issues. And what you brought out in that message is that Satan is all about amusement, which is to stop you from deeply contemplating life's more important issues. He presents this superficial, glitzy show that gets you so distracted that you don't muse over the deeper issues of life.
Nate: It's interesting that you brought up the whole entertainment aspect of the information age, because that was my next question. We see it everywhere. If you go to a YouTube video to get information it's presented in this really exciting, fun and interesting way. It's not just information, it's infotainment. They actually call it infotainment. Why are we like this? And what is this doing to us?
Pastor Steve: We have been trained to be entertained constantly. But the Kingdom of God was built around men like Moses, David, and Paul, who spent large amounts of time out in the wilderness where there were no distractions. That's where they would hear the voice of God. But we have lost our ability to sit in silence and hear the voice of the Lord. And that's one of the things that concerns me about the whole entertainment system.
Nate: Alright, let's wrap things up by dealing with one final thing that you dealt with in the first section of your book. That’s pornography. You said that you could have easily just included that in the chapter on media because really, it's just another form of entertainment. What are some of the most dangerous lies that are being told to us through pornography?
Pastor Steve: Well, let me just narrow it down to what I consider to be the most damaging lie involved with pornography. The message going out on every pornographic piece of material, book, or video is that sex is the most important thing in life. What these pornographers are doing is catering to their target market and trying to keep them coming back. They want to build up that lie inside people’s minds so they will keep coming back to them. Pure Life Ministries has been in existence for over 35 years now and our whole reason for existence is to repair the damage that has been done to countless marriages and lives because of that one lie. The idea that sex is everything has ruined more lives and marriages than anything I can think of.
Nate: One of the things that I've heard so many people say they appreciate about your writing and about Pure Life Ministries is that it's focus is not on the surface, but on foundational and root issues. We've talked today about mass media, how it shapes our values, feeds our flesh and is exposing us to a lot of sinful opportunities. How does this whole conversation today relate to Walking in Truth in a World of Lies?
Pastor Steve: Sin is a deceiver. The Bible talks about the deceitfulness of sin. You cannot be involved in any form of sin without a deception working itself into your whole frame of thinking. I've talked about the importance of being in the Word of God, because it creates a Biblical structure in your thinking and a structure of truth in your thinking. Well, it's the same thing that happens in reverse with sin. It creates a deceptive structure in your thinking. So, it's like you're trying to look at some item or some issue, but it's like in the old room of mirrors that you would see at a carnival. It makes you wonder what the real thing is. You never really can get your mind around it. People in sin live in a state of constant confusion, unable to really lay hold of what exactly truth is. They can take a guess at it, and they may know it on a superficial level, but they can't really know that they're connecting with the truth.
If you are immersed and influenced by the system of this world, it will blind you to your true spiritual condition.
Sexual sin is an obvious manifestation of a worldly mindset. But there are many other, less obvious, and less wicked ways, in which Satan allures us into a godless lifestyle. This was definitely true for Gabriel, Chad and Vinny – three men on staff here at Pure Life Ministries who were once hopelessly caught up in the world system. In this special roundtable discussion, they sit down to discuss the details of what drew them away from God, and also the miraculous transformation that occurred during their time in our Residential Program.
The world’s system is constantly seeking to squeeze the minds of believers into its attitudes, values and opinions.
Scripture reveals that Satan desires to seduce all mankind. By marshaling the entire demonic realm, he seeks to deceive us and lead us into the same lustful, corrupt and godless mindset which marks his kingdom. The truth is, that as we look at the vast majority of men and women, we realize that Satan has succeeded in this plot. Most of humanity has bought into his lies, wholeheartedly pursuing a self-centered life in this present world. And so, in the sixth episode of our series Babylon: The Seat of Satan’s Power, we discuss what the Bible calls Kosmos. As we explore what Kosmos really is, we’ll see why it’s such a serious threat to every believer and what our response to it should be.
The Lord is adamantly opposed to the things in our lives that are not of Him.
Why should Christians be concerned about Babylon’s influence in their lives? Think about it this way:
If you have a food allergy but continue to eat the very thing that you’re allergic to, you’re going to constantly battle with problematic symptoms. But you don’t just treat the symptoms while continuing to eat that food. You go straight to the source of the issue. You avoid eating that food and maybe even restructure your whole diet and lifestyle.
Sexual sin is, similarly, only a symptom of a much deeper, and often unseen, problem. In order to get rid of it once and for all, it’s source must be cut off and avoided at all costs. And Babylon’s worldly influence is that source and must be relentlessly dealt with in any believer’s life.
This connection often remains hidden from the eyes of most believers. So in this interview, we sit down with the Director of Residential Counseling here at Pure Life Ministries. Through his testimony and instruction from the Word of God, he helps explain the relationship between worldliness and sexual sin. We trust this conversation will bring clarity, hope, and a pathway to freedom from Babylon’s wicked influence.
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
Can a marriage survive when the husband no longer finds his wife physically attractive and yet still loves her?
Can a marriage survive when the husband no longer finds his wife physically attractive and yet still loves her?
Yes, your marriage can survive if your husband will drink water from his own cistern and fresh water from his own well (Proverbs 5:15). I empathize with the loss and emptiness you feel as well as the rejection you must be feeling on a daily basis. But, I know from experience that there are answers that work.
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My husband’s sexual life was very much being lived in - what we call at Pure Life Ministries - the fast lane. After living in the fast lane of sexual addiction, a man finds going into the slow lane of normal sex with his wife almost impossible. It reminds me very much of the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. God was using the wilderness to purge their hearts of the worldliness and idolatry that was filling them. They complained and grumbled because they were used to the fish they ate for free in Egypt –the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks, and the onions and the garlic—in abundance of variety (Numbers 11:5). Manna was just too boring!
Thirty years ago, God began dealing with Steve about using my body while fantasizing about other women, rather than loving me and putting my needs ahead of his own. Proverbs 5:18-23 became a kind of game plan for Steve to follow. It was something a willing heart could do; it was something he could put into practice.
The steps went something like this: 1) “Rejoice in the wife of your youth,” 2) “Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;” 3) “Be exhilarated always with her love.” 4) “For why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an adulteress, and embrace the bosom of a foreigner?” Or, to paraphrase: if the Lord can help you become thrilled with her love, why would you want to go to bed with some prostitute?
When Steve started following the “game plan”, God did a miracle in his heart. God made that verse a reality in his life. He became exhilarated with my love. He became completely satisfied with my body; and he does not desire the body of some foreigner! It’s a miracle, but it only happened because Steve was willing to let God do that in him.
I pray that your husband will choose to forsake the leeks and garlic and become a contented man, a man who is willing to forsake a life of the endless, perpetual cycle of trying to satisfy sin’s insatiable appetite.
My husband is a contented, satisfied, and happy man. I am a woman who is secure, fulfilled, and joyful. That is God’s desire and plan.
Pursuing our desires, in opposition to God’s will, leads to spiritual exile from His presence and drives us into spiritual darkness.
If you’ve been listening to our Babylon series, then you know that it’s all about exposing the spirit that is working in this world to bring everyone into rebellion against God. So far, we’ve explored the historical origins of Babylon. Now we’re going to look at how Satan is crafting a worldwide rebellion against God. He will do it much more easily than we could imagine. He’ll do it by appealing to our desires.
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