"How will I know if my husband has really changed?" is a common question from wives. We talk to Kathy Gallagher for the answer.

Mike: Kathy Gallagher has joined me in the studio. Kathy is the Co-Founder and Senior Administrator here at Pure Life Ministries. Kathy, it's good to see you again.

Kathy: Thanks, Mike. It's good to be here.

Mike: Kathy, as we look at letters to hurting wives today, one of the questions I know you sometimes get from wives of husbands who have gone through our Residential Program or our Overcomers-at-Home Program is "How do I know if my husband has really changed?" What a great question. How does a wife really know if a change has occurred in her husband's life?

Kathy: Yeah. When a man repents, it takes time for the old habits to change. There may be a genuine repentance but the old man is still hanging on and the old habits are still entrenched. It's going to take time for those things to be eradicated completely. The confusion probably is for the wife as she is seeing a little bit of the old man, but she is also seeing a little bit of the new man. I want to encourage those wives: if you feel like your husband has repented, give it time, it will manifest itself. True repentance has fruit. There's definite fruit in real repentance and it will show up in time.

Mike: Is there anything Kathy that you would encourage the wife specifically not to do?

Kathy: The wife has to be careful that she doesn't make herself, her feelings, and her marriage the center of the universe. It's very hard to do because women that have been affected by their husband's sexual sin live in fear. You have to really battle to keep yourself out of the middle of it, in the sense that if you see little pieces of the old man you will panic and feel like he hasn't changed, but that's not true. It's better to be on the side of believing the best than not. There's nothing worse for a man trying to come out of sexual sin than to have his wife - his helper - standing in the background accusing him. Even if she doesn't do it verbally, her actions and her manners may be saying to him "I don't trust you and I don't believe you." It's a tightrope for the man and the woman because she's been hurt. I believe in my heart for the most part most women want to believe the best, but when you've been hurt you're a little tentative to put your heart out there on the line. Yet on the man's side I believe that a lot of guys really do want to be free. They want to be normal and live a normal godly life with their family. So it's two people working together and not making each other the center of the universe. It's Jesus Christ who has to be made center and He will balance everything else out.

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Mike: What are some of the practical things that a wife can be looking for that might be evidence of true repentance?

Kathy: I think one of the most important things is that his overall attitude will be different towards her and the family. There will be a softness that probably hasn't been there in the past. More evidence would be his daily walk with the Lord, which to me is the biggie. The most important thing is what he is doing with God every day. Is it consistent? Does he desire fellowship with other believers? The Word of God is so important to this process. If a man is in the Word of God all the wife has to do is wait for the Word of God to take its effect. Those are some of the things I look for. When Steve repented those were the things that were pronounced in his life and I didn't know any of this stuff. I didn't have a Pure Life Ministries. The things that stood out the most to me and were so precious to me was that he wanted to be in the Word of God Every. Every spare moment he had he was reading the Bible and he was praying. I saw him repent and it wasn't because he got caught or because I was worried about something. He was having a relationship with Christ separate from me and it encouraged me very much, so that to me is real fruit of repentance.

Mike: It sounds like you're saying rather than being the hawk that is always looking for her husband doing something wrong, instead begin to look for her husband doing things right, and perhaps encourage him in those things...

Kathy: Yeah, there was nothing more sweet to me than when my husband told me that my support and my belief in him did so much to help him get free. I really want to encourage wives to be on that side. It's better. Even if he fails, it's better to be on the side of support than no support.

Mike: Then you know in the end that you have done the right thing and have done what you could do. You will have been more Christ-like towards your husband.

Kathy: And it's exactly what Jesus has been to us knowing full well we would fail Him, but He is always right there with us.

Mike: Amen. Well I'm sure that will be an encouragement to wives. Kathy Gallagher, thanks so much.

Kathy: Thank you, Mike.

One of the very real questions I have had to face in ministry is whether or not men in habitual sexual sin are truly saved. I have diligently studied the issue in Scripture with some of the best teachers from the three great schools of thought: Calvinism, Fundamentalism and Arminianism. After 30 years of sincerely considering this question with an open mind, I think I have finally arrived at a conclusion with which I am satisfied.

What Does it Mean to be Saved?

Before that question can be answered, a more fundamental one must be addressed: What does it mean to be saved? It was in the great “grace chapter” of Ephesians 2 that everything began to make sense to me. Look at the description of the unbeliever’s life presented there:

• They are dead in their trespasses and sins
• They walk according to the course of this world
• They walk according to the prince of the power of the air
• They indulge the desires of the flesh and mind
• They are by nature children of wrath

The next five verses indicate a change in the lives of those who have been regenerated that can be described as nothing less than spectacular:

• God made them alive together with Christ
• God raised them up with Him
• God seated them with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
• God showed them the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness
• God created them for good works, which were prepared beforehand

It isn’t difficult to see the stunning difference between these two groups. There seems to be a great chasm separating them. Paul elsewhere describes this transformation in this way: “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.” (Colossians 1:13) He also wrote, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (II Corinthians 5:17) Unquestionably, the true believer experiences a dramatic inward change.

This brings us to those men who seem to be standing with one foot in the domain of darkness and one foot in the Kingdom of God. Is it possible to be in both?

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Two Groups of “Christians”

The apostle John made a statement that at first glance seems to solve the mystery. “The one who practices sin is of the devil… No one who is born of God practices sin…” (1 John 3:8-9) Taken at face value, these statements could easily cause one to conclude that anyone bound in habitual sin is not truly a believer. But 20 years of ministering to sexual addicts causes me to hesitate to accept such a simple explanation. Instead, experience seems to tell me that there are two distinct groups of “Christian” men bound up in sin.

First, there are those who have truly been born anew but have not yet completely broken away from their past life of sin. As the man draws spiritual strength through his relationship with Christ, the longstanding habit gradually loses its power. His growing love for God is displacing his idolatrous love for sin.

The second group would be constituted as “tares,” men who have had some kind of religious experience that hasn’t actually taken hold in their hearts: “they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away.” (Luke 8:13) It seems that they have drawn near to the Light, but have drifted away from it without having experienced a true conversion. I call them tares because they continue in church alongside true believers, even though they really cannot be considered such.

How can a person in habitual sin know to which group he belongs? Well, let me first say that most insincere people don’t tend to question their salvation. They are presumptuous with God’s grace and assume because they have had some kind of encounter with Him that they are saved.

The difference between tares and wheat is found in the heart. Nothing short of a new heart can bring about the sudden and vivid transformation indicated by the second list above.

New Heart. New Desires.

The heart is primarily the center of a person’s being: the seat of his emotions, feelings, affections, motives and attitudes. Just like the physical heart pumps life-giving blood throughout the entire physiological being, so too the inner heart of man functions as the nucleus of all that goes on in a person’s life. It is the breeding ground for all of his thinking; the seedbed where ideas are formed, attitudes developed and out of which thoughts spring forth. It is the essence of man’s being.

When God has written His laws on a person’s heart—as the New Covenant promises in Jeremiah 31—the basic disposition of his life changes. There is more to this than simply changing one’s speech, stopping some bad habits and going to church. He now walks “in newness of life;” or as Jesus put it: “From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38)

One minister expressed it this way: “At the moment of regeneration Christ enters the deepest being of man — enters that which underlies all faculties — changes it; makes it His Holy of Holies, and from it works through the whole range of man’s nature. Christ is at the very center of our being, and becomes so interlaced with it as to be present in all our life, to think in our thoughts, to speak in our words, to act in our actions.”

With a new heart come new desires. Whereas once his life revolved around the things of this world, now his greatest passion is the Kingdom of God. The Word of God thrills him. He may not be free from outward sin, but his attitude toward it is different. It is losing its luster. He is increasingly growing in love with Jesus Christ. As his relationship with God continues to grow, his spiritual lapses occur increasingly less frequently. Eventually, he looks back upon his life and realizes he hasn’t fallen into his old pet sin in quite some time. He is free!

Perhaps this is why Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of the great Reformed teachers of the 20th Century, asked what he considered to be the clarifying question: “The greatest desire of the true Christian is to draw nearer to God. Can you say, honestly, that the greatest thing you desire at this moment is to know God better, and to realize His presence? If you can, you are a Christian. If you cannot, you had better examine the foundations again; for when a man is in Christ he has a new nature, and this new nature cries out for God.”

Is a man bound by habitual sexual sin truly saved? If a person has truly been regenerated, sin will not hold him. It will only be a matter of time before his old habits of sin are gone and he is enjoying the liberty of Christ. If he has not been converted, though he possesses a form of godliness, it is unlikely that he will find freedom from sin’s malignant power. Ultimately, I suppose “The proof is in the pudding.”

One of the great truths of the Gospel is that Jesus purchased humanity with His own blood so they could walk triumphantly over the power of sin.  Tragically though, there are many who never overcome addictions and habitual sin because they get stuck in a rut of apathy and hopelessness.  The truth is that they won’t put away their sin until they become so serious about their relationship with Jesus that they will do whatever it takes to walk holy. People must come to the point of desperation before they will be willing to recklessly abandon themselves to God.

While pastoring in Detroit I ministered to alcoholics, prostitutes, junkies and drug dealers.  These people had been devastated by sin; they had lost everything in life.  One would expect to see a single-minded determination to break free from the stranglehold of sin, but amazingly, most of them seemed unwilling to change. They lacked the desperation that is always present in a person’s life that finds true victory from the power of sin.

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The Law was Never Meant to Bring Liberty

The struggling believer is in a much better position than the unsaved drug addict out on the street.  Sin may be controlling his life but at least he has the knowledge of God’s law that is constantly reminding him of the wrongness of his transgressions. Nevertheless, the law can never bring liberty to the sinner.

Imagine if a person wrote the entire dos and don’ts of the Mosaic Law (moral laws) on the walls of his home.  They would not make him more holy, only guiltier.  These laws would point accusingly at him because every human being breaks those laws on a constant basis.  The law only kills and damns people because it reveals that they are actually lawbreakers.

Though the moral law manifests a person’s guilt before God as a lawbreaker, it is powerless to change him or give him the desire to do so.  The law screams, “Stop lusting! Stop fornicating! Stop the homosexuality! Stop gossiping! Stop gambling! Stop sinning!” Yet the desire and power to break the chains of sin are not there.  There must be something more, a love more powerful than the person’s love of sin and self.‍

The law was never meant to bring liberty; it was only meant to show people their great need for Someone who could save them from the power of sin. The law cannot make a person want to change because the knowledge of sin is not enough.  Even though a person knows he should quit his sinful behavior, he is locked into a terrible pattern of spiritual bondage and despair.  There must be something greater than his sin and if he doesn’t grab hold of the greater he will never have the desperation to change that is needed.

When a man grows desperate for God he becomes willing to do whatever it takes to overcome sin.  His heart begins to change and a cry wells up from within, “God, I can’t break these chains. They are too strong for me.  Please help me!”  This is the point of desperation where God visits His people and sets them free.  Only a hunger for God that seizes the soul will produce the driving passion needed for holiness.

The Victory is not Found in Self-Effort, but in Self-Abandonment

One of the greatest obstacles people face in their pursuit of victory is the matter of control.  Most people want to be free from the chains of sin, but they want to do it while maintaining control over their lives.  “If I can just do this one particular thing, I will find freedom,” they tell themselves.  Nevertheless, as long as they believe there is a solution outside of abandonment to Christ, they will remain a captive to sin. Their efforts to win the battle by their own methods and strength are doomed to failure as long as they remain in control.

The power to overcome sin will never be found in a person’s own determination or wisdom.  Freedom from the bondage of sin only comes through surrender to God.  The man must come to the point where he falls unreservedly at the feet of Jesus and cries out, “Oh God, I’m weary of my sin!  I can’t overcome it without you.  You are my only hope!”  It is at this point of helplessness that the man is closest to victory.

General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army said, “The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.”  People who have done tremendous exploits for God did not possess great abilities in themselves but were people who completely abandoned themselves to the Lord of miracles.

So it is with the battle with sin.  The victory is not found in self-effort but in self-abandonment.  Oswald Chambers put it this way: “What is needed in spiritual matters is reckless abandonment to the Lord Jesus Christ, reckless and uncalculating abandonment, with no reserve anywhere about it.”

The Power for Holiness Comes Through Intimacy

Acquiring a relentless determination to live in victory will not happen through one’s own willpower but through one’s affections.  To put it simply, it is a matter of love.  People become addicted to some particular besetting sin because it is what the flesh loves.  And what’s more, the flesh will always love it and there is no amount of effort on a person’s part that can bring to an end his love of sin and self.

His only hope of overcoming habitual sin is to replace his love for sin with a consuming love for God.  Until this love seizes the soul the person will never experience a driving passion for holiness.  Only when he looks into Christ’s lovely face will he find a love that will eclipse his love of sin and self.

So herein lies the answer. It is to see Jesus, to fall in love with “The Lover of My Soul.” This is why the Psalmist declared, “My eyes are fixed on you, oh, Sovereign Lord.” (Psalm 141:8)  Every time a man falls into sin it’s because he has taken his eyes off of Christ’s lovely face.  In other words, he abandons his first or principle love.  That is why the devil and the world are relentlessly trying to get believers to take their eyes off of Jesus.  But godly men and women have learned the secret of making Jesus the focus of their entire life.

The power for holiness comes through intimacy.  Look at Jesus, and His love will burn in your heart. The greatest victory and joy you will ever know will be yours as you recklessly abandon yourself to Christ.

I will share one final quote in closing.  Robert Murray McCheyne said, “Let the Holy Spirit fill every chamber of your heart so that there will be no room for folly or the world or Satan or the flesh.”  If you lack this kind of infilling of the Holy Spirit, get on your face before God and cry out for it.  Ask the Lord to help you grow desperate you for Him.  Ask Him to bring you to a place of absolute surrender.  It is there—in complete despair of being able to find the answer in your own abilities and strength—that you will find the One who can set you free from the power of sin.

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Every human starts out in life with a fallen nature, but those who indulge themselves in open sin at a young age are usually guided there by circumstances. For me, this came in the form of sexual abuse. I was five-years-old when a neighbor boy began molesting me. The belief that I was a “bad girl” was reinforced by the verbal and emotional abuse I routinely received from an angry father.

When I was twelve, I accepted Christ as my Savior. In my youthful naivety, I didn’t understand that I needed forgiveness for my sinful nature. I could only see the need to be forgiven for the bad things I had done with that boy. I didn’t understand that I was a victim of molestation—not a willing accomplice.

Nevertheless, I did my best to be a “good girl” throughout the rest of my youth. I was very active in church youth activities, particularly choir. Being from an extremely small town, going to church was a social experience for me. I assumed that since I enjoyed going, and rarely missed, I must be living the Christian life. I also resisted opportunities to be involved in sinful behavior like smoking, drinking or promiscuity. I was determined to be a “good girl.”

I didn’t understand that a person cannot live the Christian life without the abiding presence of Jesus Christ. All my attempts at being good were carried out in my own strength. Moreover, my good intentions were being worn down by the anger of my father. No matter how hard I tried to please him, I was always left with the feeling that I just didn’t measure up.

Looking back, I can see that I was hungry for love, validation and affection. As a senior in high school, I finally gave up inside. My boyfriend had been pressuring me to have sex and at last I relented. To my horror, I soon realized that I was pregnant.

It just so happened that I was soon to leave for college. I was so terrified of my father’s reaction that I delayed telling my family the news. When I was six months pregnant, I finally came home for a visit. My dad emotionally shut me out. In fact, he would not even talk to me except to tell me to “shut up” when I would cry.

His solution to the dilemma was to arrange for me to marry the father. I had not dated the guy since that night; the fact was that I never wanted to see him again. This marriage was doomed to failure from the beginning. But this was 1972 and out-of-wedlock pregnancy still carried a terrible stigma.

The child was born and dreams of college and a bright future quickly faded. My little boy was a joy to me but marriage was torment. My husband did not like me, much less love me. Like my father, he too was verbally abusive and controlling. After a second child was born, the abuse worsened and I decided to divorce my husband.

This was a distinct turning point for me spiritually because I knew I would be labeled once again by my family and community as a bad person, (and I was) so I figured it didn’t matter how I lived.  I convinced myself that I must not have been a Christian after all or I wouldn’t be such a bad person.  After months of living a truly shameful life of immorality, I decided to leave the state and start all over.

Within months, still desperate for love and acceptance, I moved in with a man who provided a sense of financial security and physical affection, but even this relationship lacked real love. He soon left me for another woman.

By this time I realized that men would never meet my needs. It was then that I changed my perspective and decided that I would throw myself into building a career. Over the next several years I made it my goal to climb the corporate ladder and make a good life for myself and my kids.

Even though I retained a lot of resentment toward men, I continued to give over to promiscuity. My family had long ago rejected me because of my sinful lifestyle, and though I occasionally visited church, the perceived stares and gossip were more than I could bear.

One day I discovered that I was pregnant again and chose to have an abortion. Before long, another one followed. I blocked out the guilt of my actions, convincing myself that abortion wouldn’t be legal if it were wrong. By this point, I had become a proud and defiant woman.

I didn’t realize it then, but there were many people praying for me during that time. It seemed that as much as I attempted to steel myself against it, the Holy Spirit continued to convict me of my sinful lifestyle.

One night, I was awakened—as though God was in the room. He simply said, “Enough.” I knew He was speaking to me and sobbed uncontrollably. I knew that I was not the woman He had intended me to be. I knew that only the Lord could rescue me from my bondage to sexual sin. In desperation I cried out, “Lord, I don’t want to live like this anymore, please forgive me!”

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From that night on I became a different person. I could not wait to get back into church. I started reading the Word every day, learning all I could. I was desperate to be different and was in awe of this Savior who could love me after all that I had done.

One of the truths that God made real to me came from the words of Jesus just before He went to the Cross: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit.” He was telling me that anyone who desires to follow Him must die to his or her own life and embrace His. In fact, in the very next verse He says if we struggle to hold onto life, we will lose it. But if we are willing to let go of our lives in order to experience His, we will find life in the fullest sense of the word. (John 12:24-25)

This is what I have endeavored to do during the past 21 years—simply by trusting and abiding in Christ every day. What a glorious adventure it has been! He brought a godly man into my life who is not only my husband but my best friend and spiritual mentor as well. God has graciously restored relationships within my family. He has opened amazing doors of opportunity for me to minister to women across the country and in other parts of the world. My story proves that God uses simple and ordinary people to accomplish His wonderful work.

When I lived for myself, I was indeed a very sinful woman. But my testimony today can be summed up in the words about another woman like me: “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love.” (Luke 7:47 NLT) By God’s grace I intend on spending the rest of my life loving my Savior and the people He brings into my life.

We all face the struggle of dealing with our flesh. Paul said, “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God...” (Romans 8:6-7) Imagine it! Hostile to God!

We all have a flesh and it does not magically vanish when a person becomes a believer. Jesus said, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The flesh is our old, carnal nature. It must be dealt with. Think of it as the weak-willed man within us. Our fallen nature has a side to it that has no character, no resolve, no backbone, and no self-control.

The Bible says that the flesh is a slave to impurity and lasciviousness (Romans 6:19), serves the law of sin (Romans 7:25), has passions and desires (Galatians 5:24), brings corruption (Galatians 6:8), has its own wisdom (II Corinthians 1:12), wages war against the soul (I Peter 2:11) and has nothing good in it (Romans 7:18). It is the flesh that desires and generates immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, and carousing. (Galatians 5:19-21) It is the weak-willed man inside us.

When we speak of the flesh, or the carnal nature, keep in mind that we are primarily referring to a mind-set, a way of thinking. It is the insanity which keeps us bound up in sin that we know (when we are in our right minds) is destroying us.

For the man struggling with the powerful pull of sexual temptation, the conflict between the flesh and spirit becomes an even more relevant issue in life. Paul said, I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16 NKJV)

Herein is the key to overcoming life-dominating habits: to walk in the Spirit. After 19 years of dealing with Christian men in sexual sin (including many ministers), I have never found any evidence to dispute this statement. Childhood traumas, frigid wives, availability of pornography, seductive women, or lack of accountability notwithstanding, I have never seen a man in sexual sin who was walking in the Spirit. Every man I have ever dealt with has had one thing in common: not one of them emphasized the need to crucify the flesh (as Paul later mentions in the passage) and to walk in the Spirit.

You can spend years on the psychologist’s couch, regularly attend support group meetings, go to a world famous clinic for sexual addicts, have experiences of a memory being healed, be slain in the Spirit, or even have demons cast out of you. However, if you want to overcome habitual sin, you must learn to walk in the Spirit.

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Spiritual Change Over Time

This process is a lifelong daily battle. After telling his readers to walk in the Spirit, Paul goes on to say, “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.” (Galatians 5:17) In this verse, we see the daily battle raging inside every believer who wants to please God and yet finds that part of him simply wants to indulge in pleasure and sin.

Everyday we make choices about which spirit will be in control. We can choose to give in to the flesh: vent our anger on others, be sarcastic, indulge in sexual thinking, and be wrapped up in ourselves. We can sit in front of a television, listen to carnal music, or read worldly magazines. Or, we can choose to shield ourselves from the sensualities of the media, control our minds, bridle our tongues, and show kindness to others. Minute by minute, throughout the rest of our lives, we will face choices as to our behavior.

This is where the typical Christian gets bogged down and discouraged. It seems that change will never come, that they are bound to live in defeat. This is not God’s desire for His children. While it is true that one aspect of the spirit vs. flesh war occurs in our daily lives, equally true is that the person who strives after righteousness, struggles against the desires of the flesh, and pursues a course of holiness, gradually gains ground in the contest. This process takes time and requires the believer to diligently cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s work. The sincere seeker soon discovers a previously unknown strength forming within him. He will notice that temptations no longer grip him with overwhelming power. His intimacy with God increases, in turn producing a power not present early on in his faith to overcome temptation. Before long, this man will come to know what it means to become a mature saint: to truly walk in the Spirit.

This spiritual growth and development is not automatic. A person does not mature into godliness simply because his salvation experience happened a long time ago. He grows into the likeness of Christ only by daily cooperating with God’s work in his inner man.

Subjecting More Than Just Our Sex Problem

One of the first things he must learn is bringing his flesh under subjection. Many sexual addicts plead with God for help to overcome sexual addiction but resist Him when He begins to require change in other areas of their lives. They want Him to come into their inside world and clean out the red light district but leave the movie houses, gambling halls, and comedy clubs.

When men come into the Pure Life Residential Program, they quickly find out that God is not looking to simply help them overcome “one little problem.” Rather, He is looking to overhaul their entire lives. These men’s lives can be compared to an old, dilapidated shack. God wants to dismantle the old dump and build a palace, but many shriek in terror when they see Him show up with the hammer and crow bar. They feel like they will die if He takes it down. Instead of allowing the Lord to destroy it, they go out and nail a few boards on it, give it a fresh coat of paint and try to convince Him that it is now a worthy dwelling. There’s nothing more pathetic than a well-painted shack! This is precisely what Jesus was referring to when He said, “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” (Mark 2:22) How can the Lord get us out of the slums of defeat if we refuse to allow Him?

As we rid ourselves of the old nature, God replaces the void with the mind, thinking, and behavior of Christ. As we allow Jesus to have more of the territory in our kingdom, we will find that our inside world becomes better managed and more clean and orderly. As we permit God to empty our old self-nature, we find Him filling us with His Holy Spirit. Thus, a defeated life is gradually replaced with a victorious life. It is not overstating it to say that we desperately need Him to spiritually invade and take over our inside world. As God captures our hearts, conquers our wills, and fill us with His Spirit, we will experience the victorious life we are promised. This is what the Lord desires for us and expects from us.

In spite of the fact that sexual sin was widespread under the surface in the Church, it was hardly ever discussed openly in 1986 when I founded Pure Life Ministries. Men who struggled were terrified that if they were discovered they would be ostracized by fellow church members. The fear was legitimate.

Gratefully, this has changed, and today sexual sin is talked about openly. Those who struggle are no longer stigmatized and treated as outcasts as they once were. After all, lust is “Every Man’s Battle.” Indeed, the  catch-phrase in the Church is: “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.”

Yes, much has changed for the good in the past 30 years. And yet, I fear that the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. Could it be that in our attempt to show compassion to those bound up in sin that we have minimized the evil nature of the sin? In our rush to assure fallen men that “God loves the sinner,” have we forgotten that He also “hates the sin?” Are we giving men the wrong message that God really isn’t too concerned about wickedness?

What Jesus Said About Lust

Unlike many today, Jesus spoke of lust in the most sobering and even frightening terms. For instance, we are all familiar with the passage dealing with lust and masturbation in the Sermon on the Mount:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery;” but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell. (Matthew 5:27-30)

Before we blow over these well-known (and to many, worn out) words, we should stop to examine an important term Jesus used in this passage: stumble (Gk. skandalizo). It seems as though Jesus is saying, “If you occasionally have a spiritual lapse, you must sever the cause of it lest you be sent to hell.” How could that be the case? Would Jesus really send a man to hell because he “stumbles” in sin every now and then? Since these words don’t seem to line up with our ideas about God’s grace (“God loves the sinner”), most people tend to think that Jesus really didn’t mean what He said. But I want to say that Jesus made no mistakes in His statements. He said exactly what He meant to say and it is very dangerous to assume otherwise.

One of the reasons these words aren’t taken very seriously by many men today is that the English translation used here is very weak. The Greek term skandalizo is much more alarming than our English term stumble. Perhaps glancing at a couple of other verses where this Greek word is used will give us a better sense of what it really means:

“And in a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away (skandalizo).” (Mark 4:16-17)

“And at that time many will fall away (skandalizo) and will deliver up one another and hate one another.” (Matthew 24:10)

In the context of these two passages, we can see that this term refers to spiritual apostasy. But is that really what Jesus is talking about? Isn’t this term also used in a less dramatic way? Yes, and that is precisely the point. The strength of Jesus’ statement about lust and masturbation should be understood in direct correlation to each individual’s situation.

For instance, if we are talking about a godly man who “walks with the Lord,” but then—in a moment of uncharacteristic weakness—succumbs to temptation and lusts or masturbates, but repents and gets back on track, that would rightly be termed “stumbling.” On the other hand, the word stumble would not be the appropriate term to use for the man who regularly indulges in lust or masturbation. His sin is causing him to fall away from the living God.

And What That Means for You

Many men I have dealt with over the years have deceived themselves about their sin. They like to say that they “struggle” with lust or masturbation, when the truth is that there really isn’t any struggle going on at all: they regularly give over to the passions of their flesh. Peter described men like this in the Church of his day: “They have eyes full of harlotry, insatiable for sin. They beguile and bait and lure away unstable souls. Their hearts are trained in covetousness (lust, greed)… Forsaking the straight road they have gone astray…” (II Peter 2:14-15 AMP)

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This is the sort of man who I believe Jesus is addressing in this passage: men who are habitually sinning. They don’t occasionally slip into the gutter; they live there. It would be very foolish for such men to minimize the gravity of Jesus’ words in this passage. He only used the term hell in a handful of occasions; in this case he used it twice. The implication of His words is unmistakable.

The deception many fall prey to is that since they remain faithful in their church attendance, they can’t be considered as apostates. A backslider is someone who has thrown off all semblances of Christianity and is living in open sin. However, much of the Bible is taken up with the hypocrisy of those who “honor Me with their lips but their hearts are far from Me.”

The context of Jesus’ statements in Matthew 5 revolves around the heart, the inward life. The point Jesus made is that even though a man may not be committing actual fornication the very fact that his heart is full of lust makes him just as guilty as if he were actually practicing it. Thus, it is possible for an individual to fall away from God in his heart even though he still maintains an outward semblance of religion.

The true telling factor of whether a man will face the terrible sentence pronounced by “He who has been given authority to execute judgment,” is not whether or not he is sitting in church every week, but what is going on inside him. Those who have “gone astray” and “fallen away” in their hearts, would do well to drop to their knees and cry out to God for a spirit of repentance. God can restore innocence to every heart that truly desires it – truly cries out to Him for it.

Statistics clearly prove that pornography addiction has become an enormous problem in America.  For instance, according to Dr. Laura Schlessinger, on-line adult entertainment is now a $5-6 billion a year industry. One researcher estimates that 60 million Americans have visited sexually explicit web sites.  These figures only represent Internet porn.  The numbers involved with pornography as a whole are even greater.

“But what does this have to do with the Church?” you ask.  Apparently quite a lot.  Studies and polls have shown that the percentage of Christian men viewing pornography is the same as that of nonbelievers (33-50%). This could explain the findings of Barna Research, which found that 35% of born-again Christians believe sex outside of marriage is “morally acceptable.”

How Can So Many Believers be Involved With Something as Filthy and Disgusting as Pornography?

Pornography appeals to one of the most powerful physical drives a male human being possesses: his sex drive. Furthermore, men are visually stimulated, making them extremely vulnerable to sexual images. When a man sees sexually oriented pictures, the demand to see and experience more becomes intense and overwhelming. Male hormones are easily inflamed, driving the man into insatiable lust.

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The Internet makes the vilest pornography available a click away; its easy accessibility creates a deadly temptation for believers.  Most Christian men—especially ministers—are not going to rent an adult video in public, where someone they know might see them.  No problem, now that same man can pull up the most “delicious” images on his mobile screen within seconds—all in the privacy of his home or office. The ease of access to Internet porn has compounded this allurement exponentially.

I am convinced that demonic powers are involved with the entire pornographic industry from top to bottom. It goes without saying that the enemy will do everything within his power to enslave Christian men in habitual sexual sin. Why? Because he realizes that a lust-filled Christian offers no threat to his kingdom, and worst of all, disgraces God.

How Is This Affecting the Body of Christ?

All this brings us to a second question that begs asking: How is this affecting the Body of Christ?  When Jesus warned us to “beware of the leaven of hypocrisy,” He was communicating to His listeners that even though a hypocrite hides his sin from those around him, it still has a detrimental effect on the lives of others.  The metaphor of leaven is used to illustrate the corrupting influence of a small ingredient upon the rest of the dough.  Unfortunately, in the case of the 21st Century Church, we are talking about the influence of millions of men who are outwardly presenting themselves as religious while inwardly maintaining a virtual mental library of pornographic images.

In spite of the soothsayers who minimize the damage being done, pornography is a spiritual disease racing through the Christian community.  In short, we show all the signs of suffering from a spiritual epidemic.

If it is true that one out of every five men sitting in America’s pews is saturating his mind with the evil images of pornography, how does this effect the overall level of godliness in the Church?  It seems that the general urgency to live a consecrated life is at an all-time low.  Self-centered living seems to have replaced true sacrificial love.  A hunger for God has been exchanged for a lust for entertainment.  While the Church is weathering a fierce spiritual onslaught from without, the godly character needed for this battle rots within.

I believe in the Church Triumphant.  However, if we are going to return to the godly living of our forefathers, we must face the blight of pornography in an honest and forthright manner. The greatest threat to the Church today is not so much the pornography itself as much as it is the lackadaisical attitude many Christians have about its wrongness.  Minimizing its wickedness might alleviate some of the shame for those using it, but it will not help to halt the epidemic.  Let’s recognize pornography for the evil thing it is.  Perhaps then we can effectively help those contaminated by it and do more to arrest its incursion into the Christian ranks.

I have struggled with masturbation and pornography for a long time. I want to get remarried; the only problem is that this would be my third marriage. Can I remarry?

The Bible says that God hates divorce. (Malachi 2:16) People usually end up in divorce court because they didn’t seek the Lord’s will about their perspective mate in the first place. Then, once married, they lived a self-centered life instead of unselfishly seeking the good of the other.

However, I’m not one of those ministers who takes a rigid (what I would term legalistic) stand on remarriage. God is always concerned with what is going on in the heart. He does hate divorce, just like He also hates murder, and hypocrisy, and pride and a lot of other things.

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The important issue is not whether or not you have been married in the past but what your life is like now. If you will truly repent of your sin and live a godly life, the time will probably arrive when the Lord will feel as though He can trust you with a wife.

The other thing I would say is that marriage is not the answer to a masturbation or pornography problem. It will only be a matter of time before you tire of your wife in bed and start looking for something carnal to take her place. If you will get your life right with God, I think you will find that your desires will truly change from the inside.

Our fears exert tremendous power in our lives if we let them. Through my own spiritual battles, I’ve learned that fear does indeed paralyze us and keep us in bondage (Hebrews 2:15). Conversely, fear animates the enemy of our souls—Satan aims to incite fear; he feeds off of fear and thrives in an atmosphere permeated by fear.

Jesus once instructed His disciples to sail across the sea while He spent some time alone in prayer (Matthew 14:22-33). The weather was cooperative when they started out, but their little boat soon encountered a violent storm that threatened to sink them. Out of the raging storm, Jesus appeared, walking on the waters. When the disciples saw the apparition coming toward them, they cried out in fear. “Be of good cheer,” Jesus called to them. “It is I; do not be afraid.” Impetuous Peter answered, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” “Come,” Jesus invited him.

Undoubtedly you remember the story: Peter climbs from the boat and begins to miraculously walk toward Jesus on the surface of the stormy seas. As he takes a few steps, Peter makes a decisive mistake. He takes his eyes off his Lord and focuses instead on the boisterous waves. He begins to sink. “Lord, save me!” he cries. As Jesus reaches out His hand and catches His fear-filled disciple, He asks a simple question, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Jesus’ question reveals a serious problem most of us face: our fears tend to drown our faith. Often, we find ourselves stuck in unbelief, feeling powerless to cease from the behaviors we know are sinful, and powerless to put into practice the steps Jesus has invited us to take toward freedom from our sins. Truthfully, we aren’t just stuck; we’re paralyzed by fear.

Fear Is a Natural Consequence of Sexual Sin

For the person caught up in the cycle of sexual sin, fear has likely played a huge role in his life. Fear of intimacy, fear of emotional pain or rejection, and fear of failure or inadequacy may well have been significant factors that prodded someone toward sexual addiction in his teenage or young adult years. Even when he begins to experience the negative consequences of his sinful behavior, fear of losing his reputation, fear of getting caught or being exposed, and fear of consequences tend to keep him in bondage.

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At the root of it all, there is almost certainly a fear of the truth about who I really am. As sex addicts, we have (directly or by proxy) manipulated, deceived or taken advantage of others for our sexual pleasure. We are more selfish, vile, perverted, and predatory than we ever want to see or admit, let alone take responsibility for.

Proverbs 10:24 tells us, “The fear of the wicked will come upon him...” And that’s exactly what happens to most sex addicts. Sadly, it often takes being caught or exposed before the addict becomes willing to face his fears. For others, it may be the lengthening list of consequences that finally forces them to get past these paralyzing fears. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

There is ultimately only one way to escape this fear-based prison. We must face our fears head on. We must take stock of the various fears at work in our lives and begin to consciously confront them with biblical truth. Jesus told his disciples in the encounter mentioned above, “Do not be afraid,” and in one form or another, this is probably the most repeated command in all of Scripture. Unfortunately, it’s probably also the most violated.

Fear is the Antithesis of Faith

Coming to grips with our fears is not complicated. It requires truly believing in my heart two key principles the Bible teaches us about God. One is that He is in control, and He is bigger than my fears. Secondly, I must know in my heart that God is good, and His mercy endures forever.

When our heart is open to truth, even a cursory reading of the Scriptures reveals God’s sovereignty and His goodness. The Scriptures are chock-full of examples, promises and proclamations which are meant to serve as anchors for our faith. Read through the life of Christ and you’ll see Him exercising sovereignty over all manner of physical diseases and ailments, over storms and forces of nature, and even over demons in the unseen spiritual realm around us. Everything is under the Lord’s dominion, and He always uses His power for good purposes.

“And we know,” wrote the apostle Paul, “that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28) This is the same apostle Paul who also reluctantly mentioned in another epistle that “five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness—besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.” (II Corinthians 11:24-28) Paul could endure these fearsome circumstances because he clearly understood that our lives are in God’s hands.

Nothing happens that God cannot turn out for our good, even if Satan or other people intended it for evil. (Genesis 50:20) Please hear the heart of the Father beckoning you through the words of His Son: “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:27) He is trustworthy, and He is so much bigger than our earth-bound fears.

As I said earlier, overcoming fear is not complicated, but it is not easy either. That’s why it is seldom accomplished acting alone. Replacing fear with faith invariably requires a body of believers, or at least a few mature believers to come alongside you and pray you through. They need to exercise faith for you, and with you, until your own faith matures.

Spiritual maturity involves letting Scripture get into your heart and make a permanent change in your conception of the Almighty Father. You must learn that He is genuinely for you and that His most passionate desire is to give mercy to you and, just as importantly, to do mercy to others through you. This takes time. In the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program, we do our very best to totally immerse men in an atmosphere of faith and hope and love, and still we allow 7-9 months for the change to take root sufficiently so that a man is able to endure victoriously when he returns home.

Jesus Heals Us of Fear

Perhaps I can offer you this biblical account as an anchor for your faith. Luke’s Gospel tells us of someone who was bound by fear and uncleanness but found healing and freedom in an encounter with Jesus. (Luke 8:43-48) The woman with the issue of blood had suffered for twelve years, finding no help from the various doctors and treatments she had tried.
With her last hope, she sought out Jesus.

In the grip of her fear and uncleanness, she dared only to come near enough to reach out and touch the tassels of His robe. Knowing immediately that healing power had gone out from Him, Jesus stopped and demanded to know who had touched Him. Now in even greater fear, the woman realizes that she cannot be hidden. She comes trembling, kneels before the Lord, and confesses all to Him.

You see, Jesus might have let the matter pass, but that would have left the woman healed of her uncleanness while her fear remained. Because He loved her perfectly, Jesus also insisted on dealing with her fear. (I John 4:18) “Daughter,” He said to her, “Be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

I believe Jesus is waiting to say these same words to every son or daughter whose fear is keeping them bound in sexual addiction or any life-controlling sin. Where will you turn with your last hope?

Steve Gallagher discusses how to overcome the memories of sinful exposure or actions from our past.

Mike: Steve, we want to deal with a question that came in today from a young man who had gotten involved in Internet pornography. He has overcome that but he's wondering why as a believer he can't prevent some of those memories from coming back to him.

Steve: Let's take a look at the dynamic of the human mind for a second. A guy grows up and he has been wired by God, so to speak, to be a one-woman man. The whole thing of puberty and the teen years and all of that is taking him in a direction of, frankly, his wedding night. He's probably going to eventually get married and have that beautiful wonderful experience of intimacy with his wife.

Mike: So there is a natural sexual desire that God wants men to have?

Steve: Yes, it's normal. God created it. It's a beautiful thing to the Lord. It's not something that's dirty in itself. But what happens is this guy got involved in pornography and the enemy uses that to corrupt our perspectives of sexuality - that's what kind of takes us down this bad path.

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Mike: Now we do have a fallen nature. How does that fallen nature play into this?

Steve: Obviously, the fallen nature is very prone to sinful thinking anyway, so when something like pornography is introduced it's more than willing to latch onto it. But it's not just a matter of that, there's also the whole element of what I would call the "autopilot of our brains." Our minds are a lot like a computer. A computer can be operating all the time as a separate operation from the user actually typing in commands. It's kind of an illustration of the way our minds work too. Our minds can be in this "auto-mode" where we're really not purposing to think bad thoughts, they just kind of float in and we find ourselves with these images that we have to deal with.

Mike: I'm glad you shared that because I know one of the problems that guys deal with coming out of pornography is that they can be sitting in church and out of the blue or out of nowhere comes this vile memory that they've had, and they weren't even trying to think of it.

Steve: When that sort of thing happens, that could very well be the enemy trying to distract the person off of what is going on in that spiritual atmosphere. The enemy can come in and introduce sinful thoughts into our minds.  You know sometimes that's what it is.

Mike: Ok, so sometimes it is out of our control. Maybe it's the enemy. Sometimes it's our own weakness in wanting to pursue those thoughts. But what's the answer to the problem?

Steve: Really the overall answer is to change our thinking. Praise the Lord that God has left us with the resource to do that - the Word of God. If a guy will spend time quality time every morning in the Word of God - at least a half an hour - just really spending time, meditating on, studying the Word, it has the power to wash our minds of filthy thinking, to cleanse out our memories over time, and to introduce a new mindset. The Word of God is God's thinking. It's His perspectives on life and the more time we spend in it, the more we're going to take on His perspective. It doesn't happen overnight, but like I've said many times if you don't want to be thinking the same way you are now six months from now than you better start getting into the Word of God every day.

Mike: Speaking of the Word of God, the verse that comes to my mind is "being transformed by the renewing of your mind" and how important it is for these folks to understand that it's more than just stopping your behavior - that, of course, is critical - but when it comes to actually changing our hearts and changing our minds, it is the Word of God that the Holy Spirit uses to do that.

Steve: Yeah, let's face it, the images that we've introduced into our minds don't just go away when we quit looking at pornography - there's still that lingering effect - but the Word of God has the power to cleanse that away.

Mike: It's your experience in 20 years of dealing with guys in your own life that as you establish a devotional life in the Word of God and in prayer that those memories will fade over time?

Steve: Yes, absolutely.

Mike: Well, that's good news and good hope for this fellow and others, I'm sure. Steve, thanks so much.

Steve: Yeah, glad to be here.

How does the unthinkable become thinkable? Through slow, persistent, and quiet change. At a time when abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia are becoming widely accepted, you might wonder: What’s left that could possibly be called “unthinkable?” The answer: pedophilia, the sexual exploitation of children.

Most Americans view pedophilia as an abomination. But gay activists are now openly advocating it, calling it “inter-generational intimacy.” As Mary Eberstadt writes in a provocative article in the Weekly Standard, the “social consensus against the sexual exploitation of children… is apparently eroding.”

The process of erosion began at least fifteen years ago, when academics began questioning the almost universal condemnation of pedophilia. Soon, filmmakers and advertisers joined in, giving us movies like Lolita, depicting a sexual liaison between a twelve-year-old girl and a forty-year-old man. More recently, advertisers like Calvin Klein have pushed the envelope, using child-like models in sexually explicit poses in billboards and advertising.

Most Americans didn’t fully wake up to the danger until 1998. That’s when the journal of the American Psychological Association published the results of a study that argued that sex between adults and children is not always harmful, and that so-called “willing encounters” should be relabeled as “adult-child sex.”

The public was outraged. But, shockingly, mainline newspapers allowed homosexual activists to use their pages to attack, not the study, but people like Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who criticized it. As one example, in National Journal, Jonathan Rauch wrote approvingly of the study and called the vote by Congress condemning it “faintly sinister.” Mainline publishers also helped lower the deviancy bar, publishing trashy novels with sympathetic portrayals of men having sex with boys as young as seven—books, by the way, that are available at your neighborhood bookstores.

Well, the effort to make the unacceptable was predicted some twenty years ago. In their 1979 book, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Dr. C. Everett Koop and Dr. Francis Schaeffer predicted that things considered unthinkable in the seventies would be quite thinkable in the nineties—including things like adult-child sex.

This would happen, they predicted, because “the consensus of our society no longer rests on a Judeo-Christian base, but rather on a humanistic one.” Humanists, you see, view people as products of chance, not creations of God. So, there are no transcendent standards. Standards fluctuate depending on what’s viewed as “necessary, expedient, or even fashionable.”

Well, Christians don’t live by what’s fashionable, and we need to let our voices be heard on this issue. And the next time you see an ad exploiting children, speak out. Write the advertisers, boycott their products, and inform your congressman.

We can’t afford to keep silent about this issue. God help us if the barbarians in our midst are able to convince the American people that child molestation is just another fashionable trend of the twenty-first century.

Was it not because I held My peace and closed My eyes that you ceased to reverence Me? (Isaiah 57:11b AAT)

Looking back on my teenage years makes me cringe. Although I was raised in church, I got involved in crime, drugs, and promiscuity at a young age. Gradually, sex took center stage in my heart which led me to give over to all kinds of perversion during my twenties. By the time I became a Los Angeles deputy sheriff, I was hardened by sin and trapped in my own spiritual prison.

Now, I can clearly see the Lord’s hand on my life despite my past willful rebellion. Not only did He bear my stubbornness, but He patiently wooed me unto Himself, until He finally won my heart.

The patience of God is a marvelous thing. Matthew Henry described it well: “It can endure evil and provocation without being filled with resentment or revenge. It will put up with many slights from the person it loves, and wait long to see the kindly effects of such patience on him.” I will love the Lord throughout eternity for all that He put up with to save me.

However, one can easily mistake God’s patience for His grace. For example, a person in sexual sin may not experience judgment right away. So recklessly and unconcerned, he travels down a path of destruction—convinced that there will be no consequences. Such foolish thinking has been the downfall of many a sinner!

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But because of His good and merciful character, God is exceedingly patient with every sinner to allow him time to repent. The apostle Peter said, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come...”  (II Peter 3:9-10a). Therefore, it is extremely dangerous for anyone involved in habitual sin to assume that because his day of reckoning has not yet come, there won’t be one.

The longsuffering nature of God becomes a problem—or stumbling block—for the hard-hearted person who chooses to abuse it to his own destruction. As Solomon once said, “A man who hardens his neck after much reproof will suddenly be broken beyond remedy.” (Proverbs 29:1) In one sense, the Lord is like the nice guy who patiently endures the provocations of the neighborhood bully until one day he snaps and flattens the guy! The Lord doesn’t have a temper like man does, but sooner or later, the time comes when His patience with sin and rebellion runs out, and the sinner is left to face the consequences of his actions.

What a wonderful God who will “endure evil and provocation without being filled with resentment or revenge (and) put up with many slights from the person (He) loves, and wait long to see the kindly effects of such patience on him.” It is certainly true that the Lord “is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish…” But equally true is His reason for such patience: He is looking “for all to come to repentance,” so they won’t have to face the aftermath of their sin.