Many people are surprised to learn that there is an issue behind the behavior of sexual sin that is far more serious than the sin itself. It is a huge problem.

We examine the issue of the self-life, because the root of sexual addiction probably isn't what you think it is.

Husbands who get caught in sexual sin often weep buckets of tears and promise that they will never do it again. Wives want to believe that this is a good sign, but many of them are later devastated when they find out that nothing has changed.

Kathy Gallagher was devastated by her husband’s addiction to pornography and adulterous relationships, but eventually Steve was sick of his life and he really began to change! In this video, Kathy reflects on the things she saw in Steve’s life that made her sure he was changing.

The "Fear of the Lord" is widely misunderstood and all but ignored in much of the Church today, and yet the fear of the Lord was a driving force in Steve Gallagher's life as he came out of addiction to pornography.

This is a pertinent and powerful message for the Church today.

It is never easy for someone to make a difficult confession to the person they love. When a man is in sexual sin, the fear of what might happen is eminent in their mind. But what many husbands don't realize is that their lies are destroying the foundations of the marriage, making the collapse inevitable.

In this episode, Jeremiah Eakin outlines the biblical foundations for marriage and shows us why confession of sin is so crucial for the man looking to move forward. He also reminds us of the truth that “Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” Proverbs 28:13

Nathan Boer's testimony is that for much of his young life he lived without the Fear of the Lord. Then he passed through great fear that he had blasphemed the Spirit and was beyond forgiveness. Now that he has come into the fear of the Lord, he has a life in God and victory over sin.

Jim: I brought Nathan Boer into the Purity for Life Studio to talk about the Fear of the Lord, but also to share his story of a life lived totally without the fear of the Lord. You see, I know Nathan.

We were students in the Residential Program at the same time, back in 2015. We worked at the same job, rode in the same car, even performed the same chore. Even though I’m his father’s age, we’re close friends. I know him to be a godly young man who loves the Lord with all his heart. I know him to be a gifted Biblical Counselor who uses to Word of God to walk men into freedom from sexual sin and into a life of surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And I also know that it wasn’t always this way for him. Every staff member and every student at Pure Life were wrecks when we got here or we wouldn’t have come. We came here seeking freedom from sin that we couldn’t get on our own. So, that our lives were once wrecked and ruined by sin is a given.

We began our conversation by looking at Proverbs 14:9, where Solomon wrote that “Fools mock at sin.” One thing I found fascinating as I was looking at the meaning behind these words, was that this is describing the person who boldly pursues sin, but then loves to boast about it. This really helped to bring the verse alive to me, because I have certainly been in situations where people unashamedly told me all about their sins. The meaning there is that moral fools love to brag about their guilty exploits. I started off by asking Nathan if he was in this camp as a young man.

Nathan: Absolutely. I'm happy that you asked if that was the camp that I was in, because not only did I enjoy bragging about the sin I was in, but I was surrounded by people also lived to create crazy stories about the sin that they were in; whether it was a long weekend or a crazy music show or some ridiculous amount of travel under the influence of some substance, we always had a spirit of competition trying to outdo one another.

Jim: I asked Nathan just to tell us his story. As it began to unfold, he was describing a definite progression from one activity to another, each hinging on the next, on a downward spiral into more and more sin, more and more degradation, all in the name of achieving that next thrill. Nathan was a pleasure junky.

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Nathan: The pursuit of sin came before I even really understood that it was sin. It began with self-gratification around the age of 10 or 11. After or during those changes, I was brought to a doctor who diagnosed me with ADHD. Later they diagnosed me with depression. Each time I was diagnosed with something, they gave me a medication of some sort. I was playing video games and that increased in a rapid succession as I went from the ages of 11 to 15. I played more and more video games and eventually came across pornography, which, then I understood that self-gratification was sin. Then that really lit the candle for what had already begun in me years before. I quickly realized that the medicine the doctors were giving me wasn't really helping me, and that I could abuse it to get high, so I did that. And we began stealing alcohol from our parents; Actually we even stole alcohol from random people's garages, and that presented an adrenaline high to go with all the others. And eventually I began dabbling in marijuana, which led to all kinds of other substances which I'd sworn previously that I never do.

Jim: Notice the progression of sins that Nathan just described: Fantasy/self-gratification at an early age even without pornography; Prescription stimulants – twenty percent of all boys 4 to 17 are on prescription medication for ADHD and even more for a host of other disorders. Video games came next, followed closely by pornography. Then alcohol, street drugs like marijuana, petty crime and sexual promiscuity. How many other American teens take a similar route? And how many teenagers even in the church are part of a local party scene?

Nathan: It was always from one party to the next party, “who was throwing the best party?” “which college did you go party at?” “which show did you go to?” “which music festival did you attend?” It was just one out-doing another at every opportunity, with a mixture of substance abuse, sexual encounters, music, travel, whatever you could do to outdo everyone else in your group, and make them realize that you are cool, or you're crazy, or you know, came up with a unique way of doing things that intrigued others. It seemed like we were invincible. You get into so many crazy car accidents, or you experience such an overwhelming amount of substance abuse, and you start thinking that “can I really die?” And you know, eventually a couple of friends did die, Overdose. Suicide. There is tragedy at the end of that.

Jim: Nathan may sound to you like a typical American teenager. But one thing that we haven’t yet mentioned is that throughout all this time Nathan was attending Christian school and going to church. Despite being involved in a lot of religious activities, something was missing from his life. There was no fear of God. But thankfully, Nathan began to see that his life was out of control. The deaths of some of his classmates to overdose and suicide sobered him up a little. He knew he needed to stop his runaway lifestyle. But who could help?

Nathan: I first heard about Pure Life at a men's Bible study, and as soon as I had heard of it, it was like I knew I was supposed to go, and I also knew that I didn't want to go. One of the other guys in the men's group brought up his addiction to pornography, and while I had been using pornography for years, it had never presented itself to me as a life-dominating addiction. It was picked up, it was put back down, because of a very promiscuous lifestyle that went along with all the substance abuse. I had different girlfriends and I had pornography and I had substance abuse, and it was just like this whirlwind inside of me. I never thought that sexual sin was my problem; I was thinking that drinking  an enormous amount of alcohol each day was my problem, that was going to kill me, or overdosing on some weekend binge was my fear that was going to kill me.

Jim: Nathan is a little different from many who come to Pure Life. He wasn’t forced here by his parents. He wasn’t given an ultimatum by his wife. His life was out of control, but he came here because he somehow knew that God had called him here. And his life was filled with fear. It wasn’t the fear of the Lord. There was some fear of death, but mostly it was fear that he was lost and could never be saved.

Nathan: First, I was terrified that I had grieved the Holy Spirit. I thought I had committed the unforgivable, unpardonable sin. And I was convinced that no program, no amount of Bible reading, no amount of thankfulness was going to get me out of depression, restore a right mind to me or reverse the consequences of the lifestyle. I had chosen to live in complete opposition, in rebellion to God. So I was very afraid that I would die, and I would go to hell and that there was nothing that I could do, I was doomed. I was stuck in condemnation for at least the first 3 months of the program.

Jim: One time during a teaching here at Pure Life and I asked the class of seventy men how many of them at one time had wondered or worried that they had committed the unpardonable sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit and were in danger of forfeiting their salvation. I expected a few hands. Nearly every hand in the room went up. I’ve written a blog article on the subject of committing the unpardonable sin on the Pure Life Blog page, and we’ll include a link on this page to get to it quickly. Now, the Lord intervened in Nathan’s life to deliver him from this fear of having sinned beyond God’s forgiveness…

Nathan: There was a special service, I believe it was a Thursday night, and I had been battling this 3 or 4 months into the program and wrestling through the idea that I'm not. I can't be saved. I've committed the unforgivable sin. One of the speakers got up and said, “There's someone out there who thinks that they've committed the unforgivable sin, that you’ve blasphemed the Holy Spirit. And I just want you to know, that if you are afraid that you have committed the unpardonable sin, it is actually a great indicator that you have not, because people who have grieved the Holy Spirit do not care.” And there was something that broke in me at that point. There was hope where there was hopelessness. And I still share that with many people today because it really helps me.

Jim: We turned to Proverbs 8.13. “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.” It is five years since Nathan arrived as a student at Pure Life. He has come into the Fear of the Lord, and into a sincere hatred of sin. There are still struggles with temptation. We don’t hate every sin every time. But God does a real work of deliverance in our lives as we walk with Him.

Nathan: I find myself hating some sin more than other sin, where God hates all sin! So as I continue to spend time with Him and to learn what He's really like, He continues to help me to hate all sin the way that He does. But the sin that I'm dealing with now, five years later, is much different than the sin I showed up to Pure Life Ministries Residential Program with.

Jim: You heard the testimony of what Nathan’s life was like right up until the day he arrived at our doorstep. He is no longer the same person. The Lord has done a work in his life, and everything is different for him now.

Nathan: I have been set free. The life-dominating sins that were driving me to an early grave no longer control my thought patterns. They’re not the things that motivate me to get out of bed in the morning. They're not directing me to the store or to the local drug dealer or to any other avenue that I used to utilize

Jim: Nathan described the fear of the Lord as one of His useful tools in our sanctification. It’s helpful to think of it that way. God uses our attitude of awestruck wonder and our healthy fear of His discipline to work real change in our lives and make us more like Christ.

Nathan: The fear of the Lord is one of, I believe, His favorite tools to change us into more of His image. You know sin corrupted us, but when we get stopped in our tracks, by being afraid, it's very sobering. It's very alarming, it's very scary. But then to come to the understanding that the Creator of heaven and earth, Who spoke everything into existence with a word, wants a personal relationship with you, and has created you for a purpose, and His purpose is the only one that will satisfy, it really undoes someone. It really undoes me. It really overwhelms me that He knows exactly what we can handle even when we don’t.

Jim: God took a young man whose life was dominated by alcohol, drugs, sexual promiscuity and relentless thrill-seeking, and turned him into a biblical counselor who uses the Word of God to bring freedom and healing into the lives of sex addicts. How does God do that? Well, that what Pure Life Ministries is all about. That’s what God did first in Steve Gallagher. In his 20 Truths series and here on Purity for Life we are describing the tools that God used and that He still uses. The Truth, Scripture, Repentance, Regeneration, Prayer, and the fear of the Lord: useful tools in the hands of the Lord to set a man free.

In this episode we examine the Biblical teaching about the heart, which Scripture regards as the core of the human soul.

While we have a heart that is fallen and evil, the salvation that is ours in Christ can give us a new heart.

In his segment from the 20 Truths series, Steve Gallagher discusses the truth that Lust Begins in the Heart.

Nate Danser testifies to his own journey at Pure Life and the work that God did in him to give him a new heart. He shows from Scripture that this is what regeneration in Christ is all about, and that freedom from sin does not come without that new heart.

Jim: Nate Danser is with me in the studio today. Nate is Media Outreach Director here at Pure Life, and we're going to talk today about the gift of a new heart. Nate, I want to begin our time together by reading the Scripture, three passages from the prophet Ezekiel.

He writes in chapter 11:

When they come there, they will remove all its detestable things and all its abominations from it.  And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God. Ezekiel 11:18-20

And this one is from chapter 18:

Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord GOD. “Therefore, repent and live. Ezekiel 18:31-32

And finally from chapter 36:

For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God. Ezekiel 36:24-28

In every one of these passages the prophet is talking about dealing with the sin and rebellion of Israel in exile by God giving them the gift of a new heart. Nate, what is your immediate reaction to these wonderful passages of scripture about the gift of a new heart?

Nate: Well, I can keep it really short and really simple. This is extremely good news. That's the way it strikes me, and these kinds of passages have been of tremendous encouragement to me personally, because anyone who begins to understand that sin comes from within, and really gets a sight of the fact that it's the heart that is the problem, then the promise of a new heart is really encouraging.

Jim: Now before we talk about the gift of a new heart, and we will get there, I want you to share with our listeners how is it he'll dealt with a particular issue that was brought to him over and over again by the children of Israel they had a saying, and you're going to share with us what that is, but it was their way of blaming their situation, blaming their problem, and even blaming their own sins on the actions of their fathers before them. How did Ezekiel deal with this issue?

Nate: Well, he had a word come to him from the Lord, and God said, “What do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, ‘The fathers eat the sour grapes, But the children’s teeth are set on edge’? “As I live,” declares the Lord GOD, “you are surely not going to use this proverb in Israel anymore. “Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine. The soul who sins will die. (Ezekiel 18.1-4) And one thing I'll just mention, because I think it's maybe helpful. There is a sense in which it was very natural for the children of Israel to think this way, for a couple of reasons. One, because God had said that He would visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation, and He had also demonstrated that at times the judgment that came about because of a particular person's sin was postponed and dealt with at a different time on a different generation. And so, it wasn't as if they had no precedent for this. But the problem was, as you mentioned, they were using it to excuse their own guilt and to put an accusing eye toward God, as if He was not righteous or just.

Jim: And, of course, the situation that you're in, in exile, is the children who are born in exile say, “We didn't get here; our father's sin is what brought us here! It’s not my fault! It's my father's fault that I do what I do. How does that show up in our culture today?

Nate: Well we don't use this proverb ourselves, but the heart of it still shows up in the lives of many people, because it is absolutely human nature to think highly of ourselves and to think lowly of other people -- as if, “Oh, I would never do this on my own! Something must have happened to me that would cause me to be this way.” And so, we see this in the whole nature vs nurture debate in the psychological community. We see it in people who are always pointing towards a father wound or a mother wound, as if the way that their parents treated them made it impossible for them to turn out any different than they have. And I do want to say that I understand that there is a very real effect upon a person's life when they are mistreated, misunderstood, neglected, abused, abandoned -- those things are very, very real. But as Christians, we have to be very careful that we don't excuse our own sin by blaming someone else, and the most compelling example that I've ever heard was to look at the life of Jesus, because there's no one who's ever been as mistreated, as misunderstood, as neglected, as abused as Jesus was, and He was sinless. And so, what it shows is that there is the real possibility of living above our circumstances, living above the way we've been treated, and we definitely see that in our world today people constantly wanting to blame someone else for their own sin.

Jim: Regardless of what happened to you in the past, regardless of what kind of parents you had, what kind of upbringing, what kind of socio-economic background you have, there comes a point when you have to stand up and take responsibility for your own behavior.

Nate: Yeah, that's right, and what is tragic is that many people spend years and years, decades, focusing on someone else to excuse their own sin, and they only become more and more bound, more and more enslaved, and so, when we blame someone else, what we're really wanting is, we're were hoping that by blaming someone else we will get out of the situation that we're in. “If I can just figure out the root cause, which is this person, then I should be free,” but what happens is the absolute opposite. The more you blame someone else, the more you excuse yourself, the worse off you become.

Jim: The bad news is that your sin is your problem and it's your fault. The good news is that once you take ownership, then God is able to do something about it in your life.

Nate: Yeah, and isn't it amazing how many times we see that in the Residential Program? That as soon as a person says, “It's my fault,” then the healing and the transformation begins to flood in.

Jim: Alright, now, God intends to solve our sin problem through giving us a new heart. How does he do that, Nate? Tell me from the New Testament, how God gives us a new heart?

Nate: Well, before I go there, let me mention something about the heart. because in Scripture the heart is essentially the very center of the person. And so, like I mentioned at the very beginning, when you begin to realize that your heart is the problem, what you are saying is that the very core of my being is the problem. And when that begins to become a reality, well, it can be pretty traumatic for people because they begin to realize that there's no help, there's no hope inside of me, because to the very deepest level that's where the corruption is coming from. There's nothing below that to reform. I can't get down there deep enough to really change things around. I need something completely brand new, and that is what God promises to give us. He promised us to make the change at the deepest part of our being, at the very center. That's where the healing is going to come from, not from the outside in but from the inside out, and that's what regeneration is all about: receiving a very new supernatural center of our being. And when you study out the Scriptures, what you find out is that, that is the Holy Spirit. That's what he's promising to give us is the Holy Spirit at the center of our being, so that from our inmost being, rivers of living water are springing out of us. Instead of corruption flowing out of us, now there's living water, there's a healing, there's a spiritual life flowing out from the center of our being, and that's how he solves our sin problem, is by removing the center of that corruption and putting in that place spiritual life in the Holy Spirit.

Jim: Well, Nate, I want you to make this personal for us in just this way: you were raised in the church, came from a Christian family, went to a Christian college, you were active in church, you were a worship leader; you had all the outside trappings of a good Christian kid. You were just hooked on pornography. And when you came to Pure Life, you experienced a radical conversion. Walk through that experience for us, and describe how that happened for you here.

Nate: Ok. I came to Pure Life high on myself, there was no question about that, thinking I was a great guy, and couldn't wait to get through this program in 5 months and become even greater. And so, at about month four (this is going to be the super Cliff Notes version), I started to entertain the idea that maybe I wasn't as great a person as I thought I was and that I probably needed something inside to happen. Ad so I just simply asked the Lord, “Please move into my life,” (essentially). Now what I expected was, I expected that I would go from great to greatness, but what happened was, my spiritual eyes came wide open to the sinfulness of my life, the sinfulness of my heart, the depravity of my character. I could suddenly begin to see God in His holiness and His righteousness, His purity, His love, His humility, and I started to realize that I was the opposite of all of those things.

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Jim: You were none of those.

Nate: I was none of those, and I didn't know how to become those things. What I did at first was I tried, I tried to become more righteous, more holy, pure, humble, all those things, and instead of getting any better … it seemed like I was only getting worse and worse and worse as I tried to become those things. And so, after about a 4 or a 5 month period of, at times, terrible anguish of soul, I finally let everything down, all the facades, all the effort, and I just came to God as simply as I knew, and I said, “I have no idea how to even have a relationship with You.” And that is when the cross became real to me. That's when I understood why, why the cross, because His nature and my nature were so opposite that there was no possibility of a relationship, there was no possibility of fellowship or communion, and the cross was God's solution. It was His way of saying, “I will become what you are, so that we can have a relationship, and you can become like I am. And when He revealed that to me, in just such a simple way I could finally understand it, and for the first time I put my faith in that thing that He had done. That that was my answer, and I don't know how to explain it exactly, but when I woke up the next morning, everything was new.

Jim: That's right. Now Nate, I think when the average person and even the average Christian in the church today listens to that story, that sounds like a pretty radical conversion to them. Doesn't it also occur to you like it does to me, that that is the exact experience that God wants every person to have, that should be the normal experience of coming to Christ.

Nate: Yeah, absolutely, because what was so real to me, when I woke up the next morning, was not that I was new, but that there was someone new in me, and it was as if I could see Jesus inside my soul. I don't know how to explain that, but I knew that a person was there. It wasn't that I became something great; it was that there was a person there that was pure and holy and righteous, and that was completely new for me. I had never experienced anything like that.

Jim: Regeneration, a new beginning, a new heart, becoming a new creature: it's all described in the New Testament. It's supposed to be the experience for every person who comes to Christ. Why does it seem like it's so unusual these days?

Nate: You know the thing that preceded that, was the horrifying reality that I was all wrong. Not just certain behaviors, but me, to the core, all of that was wrong. And I knew that something had to change. I just wasn't sure what it was. And so those months of crying out to God, that was crucial for me, because that experience didn't come because I realized, “I've made some mistakes, and who hasn't, and I want to go to heaven.” That experience came from a deep yearning to have something other than me in place of me. And that was God's answer was to give me Himself as the solution for my sin.

Jim: Okay now, you not only testify, but you give evidence of the fact, that you have been truly converted. God the Holy Spirit has invaded your life and taken over, praise God. But you also have said to me on a few occasions, and publicly here at Pure Life on many occasions, that when you came to Christ as a new creature, that’s when the battle started. That's when life started to get tough. Talk about that. Why did the battle start once you were saved?

Nate: Well, even though God gives us a new heart, what is still very, very real, is indwelling sin and a corrupted nature. So, God takes out the center of the corruption, and puts inside something new, but that something new is still dwelling within a flesh that is corrupt, that hates righteousness, that hates God, that would be happy to go to hell. And so. that's why the battle begins, because now, you actually have something that's righteous and holy that wants heaven, that wants purity, that wants holiness, and it is surrounded by a nature and a flesh that wants exactly the opposite. So, it's like the children of Israel going into the Promised Land; they took possession of the land, and yet there were all of these enemies that had to be driven out. There were all of these things in that land that stood against the things the children of Israel were created to stand for, and so that opposition always means war. They’re mortal enemies, there is no peace between the new heart and the flesh nature, there can be no peace, and we were not called to peace we're called to war.

Jim: The Bible calls it enmity; the flesh hates the spirit, the spirit hates the flesh, and they're always at battle with one another. So tell me, you're still in the battle.

Nate: Yup.

Jim: What does victory look like?

Nate: Well, you know one thing I've been so encouraged, from people who have been in the battle a lot longer than me, because I'll tell you, there were days I was so discouraged that I felt like I just going to quit. “This is too much, I can't handle this. There's so much pride; There's so much self-centeredness; There's so much apathy, There's love of the world; there's lust. There’s envy...”

And I mean it's when I became a Christian, that's when I became so even more aware of the sin that was in me, not less aware. And I would be very discouraged at times just I can't fight all of these enemies and there's no way I'm going to overcome all this stuff. And I was so encouraged from people who had been in the battle longer than me. “Nate what God is looking for is that you never quit never, you never stop identifying those enemies, you never stop putting those things under your feet by an act of your will. ‘I will not let you dominate my life,’ and you never stop seeking to live the life that is laid out for us in Scripture.” And so, victory looks like every single morning, in my heart, getting on my face before God: “I'm a sinner! I'm in need of mercy! I'm in need of strength and communing with Him and then going out into that day with just a general heart attitude that “I want to live for You today Lord; I'm not going to be satisfied to live self-centeredly, selfishly, sinfully, but my life – “I'm going to do war today. I'm going to do battle today. I'm going to grow. I'm going to be the less focused on myself today than I was yesterday. I'm going to be more eternally-minded today than I was yesterday.” And each day, just having that kind of heart-attitude, and I can say, “Yeah, I'll say gladly, that I have had periods of my life where I was regressing; where I did give in, where I did allow my flesh nature to get the upper hand, and God, in His mercy has, year after year, drawn me back to Himself and said, “Nate, I've called you to higher things; I've called you to live a life that's worthy of the Gospel.” And He's just, man, He's been so good to me in that way, to remind me of what the Christian life is really all about, and to give me conviction when I need it, to chasten me when I need it, encourage me when I need it, strengthen me when I need it. He's just done a lot for me in that way, and that is that new heart. That's the way He works. He works in the new heart. The flesh is good for nothing. It is destined to be put off and swallowed up in life, and the heart is the thing that will remain forever. The new heart living with God. In eternity forever.

There is a physiological aspect to all addiction. We get addicted to things that at first are very pleasurable.

The hormone released in the brain that causes us to feel pleasure can be quite intense, but diminishes in intensity over time. So we keep repeating the behavior, seeking the high, but with diminishing return.

This is the nature of addiction. Steve Gallagher teaches us that Behind Sexual Addiction Lies the Pleasure Hormone.

In this episode we look at the psychology of sexual addiction, what the experts say, and what the Bible says about sexual sin.

There is a surprising agreement that sexual sin is the epitome of insanity. We also talk to a counselor about how he deals with men who have been heavily psychologized.

We want to talk today about a letter that you received from a wife who’s husband was involved in sexual sin and she has just absolutely lost respect for him. What help do you have for her and others like her?

Well, it’s a very difficult thing to overcome. And I would say that this was probably the thing that kept me in chains for some time regarding my relationship with Steve. The lack of love wasn’t killing the marriage, it was the lack of respect; because a woman has to be able to respect her husband. When we see our husbands doing degrading and perverse things, or doing destructive things to themselves, you lose respect for him. And it’s just a very hard thing. For a wife to lose respect for her husband creates all kinds of ugly dynamics in a marriage because he senses that. He knows because she’s probably saying and doing things that obviously are emanating from her that she does not respect him; and he’s going to respond to that. It’s just not a good situation.

Does the wife usually - when she's dealing with that - conclude in her own mind and in her own heart that the answer to that or the fix for that is for her to fix her husband?

Well I think a lot of women try to do that, yeah. They will try to badger their husbands into doing things the way that they want them to do them. They try to...fix them. That’s a very good way to put it. For different types of women, they respond differently. With me, I just left. I couldn’t handle it. I could not handle not being able to see Steve with eyes of respect. Even though he was a cop in LA and a ‘macho guy’, I just had zero respect for him. Other women try to fix their husband, so there’s all kinds of ways that we deal with it. But the Bible talks to women about respecting their husbands, and that is the command to wives. We don’t have any loopholes with that - it’s wives, respect your husbands.

So what I have told women over the years is that God is asking us to respect the position and not the person. If we can get ourselves to see it that way, then it would become easier for us to treat that man with respect in the sense that we’re not degrading, we’re not putting him down, we’re not rubbing his nose in what he’s like; but we’re respecting the position that he holds in our life. Whether or not he’s doing everything exactly the way that we want it, we’re still commanded by the Lord to respect him. And I know that’s very hard for us women. I understand what that's like to esteem someone who is doing horrible things.

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Someone who’s not worthy of the esteem that you’re giving them...

Yes, yes, it’s very, very difficult, and yet we’re commanded to do so.

Well, you mentioned feelings. Now you’ve said that the word of God says that you must respect your husband. But what do you do about those feelings?

Well they are just that. They are just feelings. If we live by our feelings we will do all kinds of stupid things. We should not live by our feelings. Even though those feelings are very legitimate, you can still treat that person with reverence. And that is the greek translation. The Greek word translated is “reverence”. We can treat them with some amount of honor and with some amount of dignity. It’s an action. It’s something that we can do. It doesn’t require a feeling. If we wait for our feelings, it’s never going to happen.

It’s the same thing with love. Love is an action. It’s something you do to someone else. Love is what God has done to us. It was something he poured out on us. And the feelings follow behavior. If you do the right thing, eventually the feelings are going to follow. Now, whether or not we ever actually have our feelings of respect restored - that will happen as the person repents. I don’t know that we can ever be expected to actually have feelings of respect for someone that stays in a habitual cycle of self-destruction. But we can treat them with respect and with honor. We don’t have to necessarily have those feelings.

We look at Jesus who said “love your enemies.”

Yeah, and it’s the same principle. That’s impossible. Humanly speaking, it’s impossible for us to love our enemies. It’s divine. It has to come from heaven - the ability to love your enemy. I think it’s the same thing with respecting our husbands when they don’t deserve respect. It’s an act of the will. It’s just an obedient act before God. And that’s tough, but we do it. We do it by grace and we do it by the power of the Holy Spirit in us. As we obey, he gives us the grace to do it.

For those who are coming out of sexual sin it is very difficult to separate temptation from sin. When someone is living a life of rebellion against God, temptation and sin seem inseparable. So, is there really a difference between the two? Can someone be falling into temptation and still fight through to avoid sin?

There are many examples in the bible of those who avoided temptation and never gave into sin. We are told that Jesus himself was tempted, yet he never sinned. For those who are seeking freedom from the bondage of sexual sin, this is a very important and very pertinent topic.

In this episode, Jim Lewis leads us through the lives of a few biblical characters and points out the differences in both their responses to temptation and what, for some, lead them from temptation into sin.

In Proverbs 7 King Solomon warned his sons to beware of going near the house of the prostitute.

He was telling them to stay away from the place where foolish boys wander into temporary pleasure and eventual destruction. Steve Gallagher teaches this valuable truth to today's sex addicts.