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.

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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One of the mysteries embedded within the book of Revelation is the destruction of Babylon. This city can be traced back to Genesis 11, and its empire and rulers played a central role in the exile of Israel.  But Babylon is not just a city of the past. She stands alongside Satan, Antichrist, and the false prophet as a major player in the apocalypse at the end of the world.

What does Babylon represent? Why should Christians be very concerned about her influence in their lives?  And why is she one of the main reasons that so many in the church are addicted to sexual sin?

In this inaugural episode of our series: Babylon: The Seat of Satan’s Power, Steve Gallagher gives insight as to why Babylon is a threat not only for future generations, but for us today and reveals her pervading influence over the church at large.

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

Copyright

Scripture quotations taken from the NASB (New American Standard Bible) Copyright 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org

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In this segment, Pastor Steve Gallagher sits down to discuss two dangers for Christians in America. He first talks about how we’ve strayed as a nation from the Christian virtues of our founding, and how this has birthed the morally relativistic thinking of our day. He then goes on to discuss how many churches are not even preaching the truth their congregants need. And this reality reveals to all sincere believers their vital need to develop a strong personal relationship with the Lord.

Nate: People have called the day and age that we live in a post truth World. And it seems to me that 60 years ago, people wouldn't even have thought in terms like that. There were major disagreements about what the truth was, but people wouldn't have had a thought like, “there is no such thing as absolute truth.” How did we get to this place?

Pastor Steve: Well I'm 68 years old, so 60 years ago in the world that I grew up in we understood the difference between right and wrong. The culture that I grew up in was founded on Christian concepts which fostered that sense of morality. I had to make a real choice to go down the path of sin, crime and so on. But something happened in the 60s. There was a tremendous shift in the spiritual realm. There was a rebellion and a lawlessness that broke forth in 1968 that affected the direction of the culture.
So fast forward to today and we have gone so far down this path as a country to the point that truth is severely devalued. Why? Because we've gone from a Christian culture to more of a socialist culture. This includes atheism, evolution, and life without God, so, it's humanistic. And in humanism, there are no absolutes about right and wrong. There's a complete setting aside of that. It devalues truth, truth is just not important anymore, and we can make arguments like “your truth is not my truth.”

Nate: In the first chapter of your book, you talked about moral relativism. And you expressed a concern for anyone who would even toy with this idea which is obviously rampant in our culture. But then you identified another group of people that you're also really concerned about, and this, I think would surprise people. You said that you're very concerned with the masses of people in churches who hold to the historical doctrines and believe the general truths that are revealed in the Bible. Aren't they walking in the truth? Why would you be concerned about them?

Pastor Steve: I'm concerned with a large percentage of them who only mentally accept the truth of the Bible. The historical facts that revolve around Christ and so on. They accept all that. But their level of belief in what is taught in Scripture basically stops there and does not go into the real issues that Scripture brings forth which is the kind of inward decision making that comes out in the way you live your life. Paul said it to Titus. He talked about people who profess the truth about Christianity, but by their lives, they deny it.
So, there's a disconnect between what they say they believe and the reality of their life. If you really believed it, then it's going to radically affect the way you live your life. It goes beyond mental acceptance, mental acknowledgement, and even mental comprehension of the truths of Scripture. It should translate into the way you live your life. I heard a metaphor one time that says, if there's a spider crawling on a guy's leg and he says, “Yeah, I know it's there” but it has no effect on him, then he doesn't really believe it. If he really believed that a tarantula or whatever was crawling on his leg, he would scream, hit it, jump, and run. There would be a radical reaction to it. That is what we're no longer seeing in the Church - a radical reaction to the truth.

Nate: Okay. I think there are a lot of people who would be reading this who would probably say a hearty amen to that. But you actually took that line of thought further and said that your concern is that the amount of Biblical knowledge in America is actually harming people. If you had said that saturating yourself with worldly information is going to do harm to your spiritual walk, most people would go, “Yeah, I get that.” But to say that people saturating themselves with Biblical information is doing more to lead them away from the truth than good, that requires some explanation.

Pastor Steve: What I am referring to is the way that a lot of sermons come forth focusing on peripheral issues such as the way the Pharisees lived their lives at the time or what was going on in the culture in the year 31 AD. Just the interesting tidbits, information that helps fill in some of the understanding of the culture of the time and all that kind of stuff. There's nothing wrong with it in and of itself, the problem is when a sermon becomes all about those peripheral things and interesting facts.
That's what our sermons have become. The preacher should be putting his finger in the face of his congregation that he's responsible before a Holy God for and saying, “There is sin in your life. There is worldliness in your life. There is carnality in your life. You are not giving your life to Jesus Christ in the way that He's called you to.” That's truth and that is the kind of truth that is lacking in the church today, because not very many preachers will do that. We're being inundated with a bunch of interesting facts and it's not changing our lives.

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Nate: Well, what I appreciate about your answer is that it's relevant to everyone. Whether you're flirting with moral relativism or you're attending a doctrinally sound church, you're saying that more correct facts aren’t what's really vital to finding truth. If that's the case, it kind of begs a question. If more facts don’t lead me to truth, then what hope is there of finding truth?

Pastor Steve: Hunger. When Jesus really confronted the Pharisees in Matthew 23, He told them that they focused on these trivial matters like tithing mint and cumin. And He exposed their neglect of the weightier issues of the law: mercy, justice, and righteousness. That is what is going on in the Church today. It’s all about focusing on trivialities and neglecting the weightier issues which are the things that have to do with our life in God.

Can we have hope? Absolutely. It may not come through the organized Church system as it is today. But any believer can have a connection with God outside of organized religion. And I'm not promoting doing away with going to Church, because we do need fellowship and we need the body. I'm just saying that our hope lies in our personal relationship with God. It's all about that relationship. The fellowship that the Apostle John talks about in his first epistle has to do with what we can have with the Lord. Whether or not we're hearing piercing truth come forth from the pulpit, we can have it with God in our own private time with Him. There is all kinds of hope because we can always turn to the Lord and He will gladly lead us in the way of truth.

What is proper for the Christian marriage bed? I can’t tell you how many times this question has come up through the years as I counsel couples that are dealing with the aftermath of sexual sin.

Sin Has Marred What God Has Intended for Pleasure

This question arises because sin has marred what God intended for pleasure. Our society has reduced sex to a selfish, lust-filled desire. It has become twisted and deformed from the purity that God originally created it in. But I want every couple to know that God can restore purity, even when a spouse’s sexual sin has brought added confusion, guilt or awkwardness into the marriage bed. My own testimony is that He can indeed make sex pure again. Sexual intimacy is a beautiful experience for the couple who sees it as a God-given gift and as a means to bless one another.

When God created man and woman He looked at all He had done and it was pleasing in His eyes. The Bible says, “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31) The word “everything” includes the way He made and designed our bodies, does it not? I say that because I want you to clearly understand that God intended for us to enjoy sexual relations in the covenant of marriage. Sexual relations were designed by God for procreation, but also to be a time of giving and expressing our love to one another through the giving of our body to bring pleasure and delight to each other.

This Isn’t a Behavioral Issue, It’s a Heart Issue

The question that inevitably comes up is, “What acts are considered acceptable before God to bring that pleasure to my spouse?” Of course, the Word of God is clear about certain acts being sin, such as bringing pornography or another person into your marriage bed. But beyond these blatant violations of the biblical standard, what is permissible? I’d rather not try to convince anyone that particular acts are right or wrong. What I intend to do is to provide the biblical basis for establishing purity in your marriage bed. This isn’t a behavioral issue, it’s a heart issue. The truth is, if your heart is right, you will be able to discern for yourself, with the Spirit’s help, which acts are right and which acts are wrong for you as a couple.

The Scriptures admonish us to, “look out not only for our own interests, but also for the interests of others.”(Philippians 2:4). Paul also instructs the husband to “render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:3)  Lust and self gratification are self-centered, whereas true agape love is others-centered. Giving, not getting, is what should be in the heart of each spouse as they come together. Love-making should be a time of giving and blessing the other. Our times of intimacy should be expressions of love, not lust.

The apostle Paul wrote, “So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way. I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” (Romans 14:12-14). The context here was the eating of certain foods but the principle applies to the marriage bed. Approached from this standpoint, doing things that would violate your mate’s conscience or cause a stumbling block to either spouse is automatically precluded. Let me just say that anything out of the ordinary can prove to be a stumbling block to either spouse, especially a person coming out of sexual sin.

Nurture Openness and Communication

I encourage couples to have open communication about their love-making. Both husbands and wives need to be able to ask questions about what is pleasing to the other, and they also need to be sensitive to things that might be uncomfortable for their partner. I realize these discussions can be awkward for many couples at first. Most of us haven’t nurtured the kind of openness that is required to address sexual issues in our marriage. My wife and I had to go through all of this ourselves as the Lord led us through the process of restoring our marriage after my sexual sin. It meant honestly evaluating what we did in our marriage bed through prayer and using the Scriptures as our guide. As a counselor, I often recommend that couples go through the book Intended for Pleasure by Dr. Ed Wheat. This book can help Christian couples identify and work through some of their sexual intimacy issues.

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Putting the needs of our spouse before our own truly is the way of blessing. When God is in the midst of our love-making, and we are focusing on pleasing Him and our spouse, there is a oneness involved that is beautiful, fulfilling and lasting—the very opposite of lust which is fleeting, unfulfilling and ugly. God desires married couples to enjoy sexual relations as a divine blessing. Couples need to bring godly convictions into their sexual intimacy but they don’t need to allow the past or the devil to rob them of the blessing and sanctity of the marriage bed.

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To understand how the spirit of Babylon invades our way of thinking, we must understand how Satan uses men to help promote his goals. There have been many examples of such men and women throughout the ages, but the first was Nimrod, the founder of Babylon. The rebellion he began against Yahweh continues even today and can be found in the beliefs of many religions, cultures and organizations. And if we aren't careful, any of these ideas can influence us and steal our hearts away from the Lord.

Resources

• Intoxicated with Babylon (Book) by Steve Gallagher

This interview with Pure Life's counseling staff reveals the inner dynamics that lead people to hide their sexual sin and create a false life with two very different sides.

When a person is living in habitual sexual sin, one of the key features of his lifestyle will be a double life—a pattern of deception that creates an outward image to hide his addiction. Steve Gallagher describes this problem clearly in his book A Biblical Guide to Counseling the Sexual Addict:

The typical man who will come to you for help just been involved in elicit sexual activity for years. This immoral lifestyle has been done almost entirely in secret. Although sexual fantasy, pornography, and illicit encounters make up a huge part of his life, he has managed to hide it for most, if not all, of his closest friends and relatives. Most acquaintances would consider him to be a morally upright person and would never guess what he does when no one's looking.

How does someone get here? Where does this deceitful life actually start? Ed Buch, who is a biblical counselor and the pastor of Pure Life's Residential Program, explains the process:

Ed Buch: Very few people actually begin a double life as a decisive choice, like something they've thought about and then executed a plan to accomplish. Almost everyone enters into a double life very gradually, very subtly.

People end up in a double life for a couple of basic reasons. I think the most common one truly is that they're afraid of disappointing people—and maybe even themselves. They've gotten caught up, maybe, in a sin cycle—where they sin, they confess it, they sin, they confess it. They just don't want to disappoint others by letting them know that they are still in that. They expect victory; they expect to overcome sexual sin. But when that doesn't happen, they start to go underground with the truth about their situation, and they begin to develop this double life.

Although some people do just quit talking about their problems because they don't want to keep admitting they've failed, others have hidden sexual sin their whole lives and have never told anyone. And there are various factors that hold them back.

Ed Buch: There's shame...there's the fact that some of them don't intend to give up their sexual sin...and there are others who probably just never had that convenient opening they were looking for, where they could share it.

Over the years our ministry has helped so many people that fit this pattern, and in many of their stories, the double life they lived grew out of a situation where the stakes were even higher than usual.

Ed Buch: At Pure Life Ministries we get a significant percentage of the men coming into the program who are actually coming out of full-time ministry, and so this double life is a common theme. They're active in ministry; people are not aware that they're in sexual sin. They're preaching on Sundays, leading the worship team on Sundays, or doing whatever it is they're tasked to do in the church on a regular basis. But over time, they've allowed a back door open in their life; something has gone awry in their spiritual life, and they have begun to live a double life. And that dark side has increased over time and eventually become the dominant theme in their life.

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We just had a pastor recently in the program who had pastored for a couple of decades. I am sure he was a good, well-liked pastor who had a relationship with the Lord. But over time, he started dabbling in some pornography. He'd gotten hooked into it one day kind of subtly, and over time it just grew and became a very powerful force in his life that overrode everything else, including his marriage vows and his service to the Lord. And I'm sure that, to him, it seemed impossible to come into the light, because his job, his marriage, his house—all of it was was connected to the job he was doing as a pastor, so bringing anything into the light about his sexual sin jeopardized all of that. I'm sure he felt stuck, paralyzed...unable to really break free of this on his own and unable, in his mind, to pay the price of coming into the light with it.

When a person's sexual sin is exposed, this double life can be a shocking revelation—even to those that know them the best. But one of our biblical counselors, Jeremiah Eakin, says that it's not hard to start down this road.

Jeremiah Eakin: You can hide anything, as far as sexual sin. It can be same sex attraction, it can be pornography, it can be masturbation. That's the thing with sexual sin: it's so easy to hide, because you can do it in your mind, or you can do it right in front of people. And no one knows it. You can hide any form of sexual sin and still go to church and wear nice clothes, and then you worship and leave and virtually no one will know your struggle. No one will be able to tell, because it's all happening in the heart and in the mind, and there's not really any outward signs.

The length of time that someone can keep living a double life varies. But it's hard to keep doing it forever, as Jeremiah points out.

Jeremiah Eakin: You have to create something false. So it just depends on how good of a liar you are. It's being double-minded. James says, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." People can go 20, 30, 40, or 50 years. But eventually, it's going to come to an end. It's not real and it's in direct opposition to what the Bible says. We have a conscience, and we are supposed to walk out our Christian life in faith. But if you're in sexual sin, your conscience is messed up and faith malfunctions—every time. So you can't go on like this. You'll see someone all of a sudden leave the church after 20 years. It happens very abruptly, but they've never really been walking out the Christian life. It's just been a facade, and all of a sudden they just can't do any more and they leave the church.

If the statistics are correct, sexual sin is a problem every church needs to pay attention to. But since this phenomenon of people having a double life is also going on, how can a person know who's struggling? Jeremiah shares some thoughts.

Jeremiah Eakin: There is a way to tell. They're not going to have real life—life that's flowing out of them. Someone who's stuck in legalism would look the same way. If you have a church where people really know the Lord, you can recognize this problem. There's going to be life in a genuine Christian, and that's the main difference, because someone in sexual sin isn't going to have that real life. And so if you get to know them...if you spend time with them, you'll see. But you have to get to know people. It's not enough just to see them at church. You have to get into their life. You'll see that the reality is they're destroying themselves. There is a cry for help, but you have to get in there and be willing to get your hands dirty with people.

Jeremiah has a burden for people who are hiding out in the church—struggling, but silent. So he shares a final word of encouragement about what people can do to reach out.

Jeremiah Eakin: These things need to be talked about directly, because it's out there. People are struggling with it, but they need an outlet where it's talked about and confronted. And that's the best thing you can do for someone in sexual sin: go straight at it. Talk about it in real terms. One of the best things you can do if you think someone is struggling with sexual sin is just to get to know them. Just talk to them. Because it will show up in their life. You'll just see it. They'll have an opportunity to share. Those who are struggling want to tell people, but they need a safe place to share this, because to them, it's very shameful. And so there has to be some trust involved. It has to be a safe place for them to really open up and share what's going on. That’s important.

This excerpt is from a podcast episode that we designed especially for pastors and other church leaders presenting a three-part profile on the typical sexual addict, “A Leader’s Guide to the Sexual Addict, Episode #326”.

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

In a world full of lies, even Christians can easily be deceived. The truth is, we’re all prone to deception because we often want the lies that we are fed. For example, those regularly giving over to sexual sin will often gravitate to lies which justify their immoral lifestyle. In this interview, Steve Gallagher helps us see what’s going on in our hearts during this process, and helps us see the way to combat the world’s lies.

Nate: In a book that is called Walking in Truth in a World of Lies, I think what most people would expect is that you would deal with very specific lies in every aspect of our culture and then debunk those specific lies. You did do that in the first section, talking about various spheres of culture, but then you spent the next two sections doing something very different. Can you explain what and why?

Pastor Steve: Yeah, I could see why a Christian seeing this book would think that, and like you said, in the first section I do go into some specifics about how we're constantly being lied to. But there is a purpose in that, and it's not to debunk those lies. It is simply to offer examples of how we are constantly being bombarded with falsehood and how that affects us spiritually.
       That's the point of the first section. The rest of the book has more to do with the Christian culture and what's going on in the Christian culture. How am I lying to myself? What lies am I believing about myself and my life in God? What is the deception of the End Times? How does that look? What does that look like in our church culture today? So, when I'm talking about walking in truth, it has much more to do with the reality of our life in God. Living and walking with the Lord in truth about myself and truth about Him in the midst of overwhelming deception. That's a better context of the point of the book.

Nate: One of the things that you stressed over and over in this book is the need to take personal responsibility for lies that you believe. And I think that to some people, this doesn't really make logical sense. Here’s an example. Let's say I'm standing on a street corner minding my own business and this guy comes up to me and says, “Hey man, watch my dog. I have to go into the store, and they don't allow pets inside.” So, I say sure, whatever.” Five minutes later the police come and I'm arrested for possession of drugs, because the dog was secretly carrying drugs. Now to me, I was deceived and I'm innocent. So similarly, why is it that to be deceived morally or spiritually is actually my responsibility instead of the person who's deceiving me.

Pastor Steve: As an ex-police officer, I can tell you there has to be criminal intent for there to be a crime. In that situation you described, you had no criminal intent. You were completely deceived by this conman and you are innocent. And we are innocent of many of the lies that have been told to us. For instance, George Bush kind of twisted the truth about the need to attack Iraq, because he said they had “weapons of mass destruction.” And it was all a fabrication or an exaggeration of the actual facts as he knew them. So, he lied to us and we were victimized by that. I sincerely believed him, because I thought him as a man of character.
       So there's that. We are victims of many lies. But I opened the first chapter of the book by talking not about deception, but about the inherent desires that drive every human being. We are driven through life by what we want. When it comes to the whole concept of truth and deception, you cannot divorce the reality of what you want in life from how you perceive truth. What we want clouds our ability to discern truth.
       For example, a man who hungers and thirsts for righteousness is going to be open to hearing all the truth that God has to say. But in contrast, a man who's in habitual sexual sin and pornography has had his mind inundated with deception. He has a powerful desire to participate in sexual sin. And as you start feeding him over-exaggerations of doctrine such as the lies of antinomianism, which says that it's okay to sin and that God covers you, he is going to be very susceptible to believing that lie, because he's driven by what he wants. In this case, you are making yourself open to deception and that is on you, because your heart is not right.

Nate: Let's go back to the story about me being deceived by that con man. That was one moment in time. I was deceived and I received some consequences, even though I was acquitted. But for most people it's not that obvious. Take someone for example who grows up believing in hell, but 10 years down the line, they don't believe in hell and now they believe that all religions lead to the same god. During that whole process, they didn’t think they were being deceived. Instead, they believed that they were being enlightened. How does that process happen inside of a person where there could be that dramatic of a shift, where they think that they’re closer to the truth than they have ever been.

Pastor Steve: The Bible uses terms like “walking in” or “living in” frequently. Walking in the truth is a biblical phrase which describes a person's lifestyle. Think of someone who has lived 70 years of life and maybe the last 30 were lived as a Christian. During that 30 years, little things are happening here and there. You're making decisions every day in the things that you do, in what music you listen to, what entertainment that you subject yourself to. All of that is affecting you spiritually. We live in constant flex morally speaking and spiritually speaking. As a human being, you are not a stationary being. You are living in a constant flex determined by your decisions.
       We need an anchor of truth, which is the Word of God. So you have to be so tied into that and be determined to obey the Word. That is the anchor, the truth that is immovable. It's a mountain and it is a rock. It is not going anywhere. There is no flex in God's truth whereas we're all over the place because of our emotions and so on. So a person can start in truth and end up way out of whack because they were making many choices along the way that little by little took them off the straight and narrow road. And by the time you get 10 years down the road, you can really be in trouble. And I think that's how it happens.

Nate: The piece of that that's most concerning to me is that in that process it's like there's something happening on the subconscious level that is then revealed in the conscious level. How do you get down to that subconscious level so that you can know what's happening there? So that you don't end up way off track.

Pastor Steve: Well, all I can tell you is that the subconscious level is your will, and we all have a free will. We have the choice to decide to do the right thing or the wrong thing. So, when you want something that is pushing you in a direction, that is also part of your will. In fact, the very word desire and will are the same word in the Greek. They both are describing two sides of the same coin. So, what you desire in life is propelling you forward in life and is causing you to make certain decisions underneath the surface. And up on the conscious level, you can tell yourself all kinds of things, but there be a disconnect between the two.
       At the surfacy level, you are flattering yourself and making yourself in your own mind seem way better off than you really are spiritually while what God is seeing in your heart is what is really going on. And that is that you are in lust for whatever form of idolatry you are given over to, and that's what is propelling you in life. That is what is causing you to make the decisions that are you are making. But because you're not being honest with yourself and there's a disconnect, you can lie to yourself and think that you can get away with whatever you want to get away with. And that is happening in the hearts of multitudes of professing Christians.

Nate: I've been here for 12 years and how many times have I heard you emphasize time in the Word and time in prayer that helps develop a real connection with God. Is that what can really stop the process we’ve been talk about, or even reverse it? Does time in the Word and prayer affect your will and bring forth the fruit of a change of desire? Is that's what happening?

Pastor Steve: I've got different kinds of lusts that go on inside me like anyone else. But the primary drive of my life is that I want to obey God. I am hungering and thirsting for right living before the Lord. Because that is the primary drive of my life then when I'm spending time with God and I read a verse that convicts me about an area of lust or sinful desire, I come under conviction and I repent to the Lord. That's what keeps me right inside.
       It’s the same in prayer. When I am being propelled primarily towards obeying God in my heart, then when I'm in prayer, my ears will hear the Lord speaking and I will sense the conviction of the Holy Spirit if I'm getting out of whack in one way or another. And that does happen to me, but the Lord is quick, and He helps me to stay on the straight and narrow road. That's my testimony and I think that people who aren't so concerned about right living with God are susceptible to deception.

Nate: Any time a person is confronted with a specific truth, he's going to do one of two things. He will either embrace it or reject it. That rejection happens in a number of different ways. If you could see into a person's heart who is rejecting the truth and obviously thereby being deceived, what would you see inside that person?

Pastor Steve: I get what you're saying, but my problem with that illustration is this: how often are Christians really being confronted with truth? The reality is, most preachers have learned to become very diplomatic, because they are tired of getting emotionally beaten down by angry parishioners. They have softened their message so that people won't get mad at them. So first of all, are they even being confronted with truth?
       Secondly, let's say they're reading in the Bible the Sermon on the Mount. There Jesus says, ‘you have heard that it is said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say unto you, if you even look at a woman with lust in your heart, you have committed adultery.’” So, what does a Christian man do with that? Typically, what happens inside of a man who is driven by other desires is that he has already built in place beliefs and doctrinal systems so that he can discount what Jesus is saying. He can also latch on to the message of false teachers to help him believe the lie that Jesus doesn’t really mean what He is saying.  

Nate: The thing that strikes me when you say that is that there's a moment in time where a person is confronted by the truth. But how they respond in that moment could be predicated by what happened yesterday, the day before or 10 years ago. So, it's almost like, where I am now could have required a lot of work previously by the Holy Spirit to get me to the point where I even am confronted by the truth in a meaningful way.

Pastor Steve: Yeah. It's like I was saying. We are a product of our past. If you've been lied to constantly and you bought into those lies long ago, you are putting layer after layer of deception into your heart. And you are creating a receptive environment for falsehood to be accepted and acted upon. That's why it is so important that we get a grasp of truth. Yes, Biblical truth, orthodox beliefs and all that. But more than that is what is the Lord really saying to you as a believer? You must be in complete connection with God's reality of where you are in your walk with Him. That is the important thing.

Just because we take extreme measures to prevent giving in to sexual temptation doesn’t mean anything has changed in our hearts. We can’t just put off sinful habits, we need God to give us a new heart – one in which He produces the true fruits of righteousness. In this roundtable discussion, Josh, Chris, and Luke sit down in the Pure Life studio to discuss the crazy things they did to overcome their sexual addiction and how it never worked. But their stories will also give hope to anyone in bondage as they share how God blessed them and freed them tremendously during their time in our Residential Program.

Resources

• The Gift of a New Heart (Blog) by Purity for Life
• Intoxicated with Babylon (Book) by Steve Gallagher

If Genesis 6-8 tell the story of a family that survived the great flood because of their devotion to God, why do Genesis 10-11 tell the story of a great insurrection against God's authority? How could mankind have fallen so far, so fast? Steve Gallagher joins us to look at where the Tower of Babel rebellion ultimately began - in the heart of one of Noah's own sons. We’ll see how a young man who grew up in a very godly home could become the grandfather of the very first Antichrist. And Ed Buch helps connect this story to each one of us, showing how it plays out for many in the church today. Plus, our staff roundtable guests will share personal testimonies of the outward things they tried to stop from giving over to sexual sin, how these never worked, and what ultimately changed their hearts.

Resources

• Intoxicated with Babylon (Book) By Steve Gallagher

We all know that we’re being lied to on a daily basis. From news outlets, to advertisements, to social media we’re surrounded by it. And with such an onslaught, it’s easy to allow cynicism to grow in our hearts. But this can lead us into a dangerous spiritual condition, as Pastor Steve discusses in this interview from our archives.

Nate: You wrote in the introduction to the first part of your book, Walking In Truth In A World Of Lies, that there is an unexpected danger that threatens a person who's constantly being barraged with lies. The danger is that a person can start to think that it's impossible to know what's true and what's a lie. And this can give way either to despair or to cynicism. And to me that came out of left field. I would never even have thought of that as a danger in our day and age. So why do you believe that is such a danger?

Pastor Steve: Well, the entire Christian faith is built on trust. It’s built on the fact that we believe in the Lord, we believe in His character and we believe in what He tells us. And when you become so disaffected by constant lies and you’re being lied to everywhere you turn, I think for most people it becomes an unconscious feeling. It's not that we sit and think it through, it's just that we know we're being lied to constantly. And then that crosses over unconsciously into our minds regarding our relationship with the Word of God and with the Lord Himself.
And like I just said, everything in Christianity is built on our trust in the Lord and our belief in who He is, who He says He is and what He says He is going to do. We can't afford to allow cynicism to creep into our attitudes about life. We should be skeptical when we know we're being lied to, but we don't want to cross the line into cynicism about everything and everyone. That's the danger.

Nate: I actually remember being confronted by the Lord on this issue in my own life. I had crossed that line into cynicism about everything just like you were saying. The ongoing thoughts I had were, “Why even try to find out the truth if you know that you're just constantly being lied to.” How would a person know if they have crossed the line from skepticism into cynicism?

Pastor Steve: Well, it takes self-awareness. You have to really be in touch with what's happening inside of you and what's going on in your relationship with the Lord. There has to be some degree of a sensitivity and a conscientiousness about it and living in the reality of the spiritual life. Those kinds of things give you discernment as to what's true and what's false. Then you’ll know if you're crossing into becoming cynical about everything.
Truthfully, cynicism is a form of pride. And if you have been broken by the Lord repeatedly in different areas of your life, you get broken down from that high place of pride where you are the judge of everything, including God. You'd be shocked at how many Christians subconsciously think that way. If you're talking about being cynical towards God and God's Word - if that isn't pride, I don’t know what is. So, that's really what's underlying that: the need for brokenness. We need to allow God to break us of our pride and to humble us. And then you take on a completely different mindset and attitude toward the Lord.

Nate: Pure Life Ministries is dedicated to helping Christian men and women overcome sexual sin and its consequences. Cynicism seems to be totally unrelated, and I think a lot of people would think that way. So why spend so much time on a subject that seems to not even really fit directly with the mission of Pure Life?

Pastor Steve: The primary mission of Pure Life Ministries is to help men who are dealing with habitual sexual sin. The Bible talks about the deception of sin. Sin is very deceptive, and you can't be practicing sin in an ongoing manner without also allowing deception to take root in your heart. Meaning that your perspectives have become so skewed by sin and the film of sin over your spiritual eyes, that you can't get a grasp on what truth really is. So, this topic is very relevant to a person who has been involved in habitual sexual sin.

Nate: I don't think there's anyone who would be reading this who could say I walk in truth in every area of my life. And you said in the epilogue to your book that your constant prayer through writing this was that you would be able to present the many ways that Satan, who is the master deceiver, is deceiving people so that men and women can learn to walk in truth. We're going to get into some specific ways in regard to how to walk in truth in later interviews. But for this first interview, what's one way that a person could avoid being deceived?

Pastor Steve: Well, I would say that inundating yourself with Scripture is part of the process. Just building a biblical framework in your daily thinking. Because when you are consistently immersed in Scripture, it creates a new way of looking at life. Also, it is equally as important to be very honest with yourself about your inner world. Do your utmost not to get into a mindset of looking to create an image to present to others, that isn’t consistent with who you really are as a person. I would say, those two things kind of go hand in hand and both are vital to being able to walk in truth.

Nate: Okay, great. Thanks. You've given us a lot to think about, and even some ways to begin responding. I look forward to the rest of this series. Thanks for doing it.

Pastor Steve: Amen, it’s great.

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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