In part 2 of our current series, we answer the question, "What Role Does Brokenness Play in Freedom from Porn?"

We look at brokenness from a biblical perspective, understand how God uses it, and hear testimony of how brokenness is on the path that leads to freedom and life.

It’s been said that first impressions are everything, and for the struggling Christian porn addict there was no stronger impression than their earliest taste of sexual sin. With that initial introduction, there was no thought to how far it would take them or how deeply corrupted their hearts and minds would become. It was only years later, when they were at the bottom of the pit did they ask, “How did I get here?” More importantly, they asked, “How do I get out of here?” The answer is easier than you might think.

The way of escape is found in the way an addiction is formed. The two main elements in the formation of any relationship are “time” and “devotion.” The amount given to each directly affects the strength of the relationship. Negative connotations aside, an addiction is simply a relationship that has been nurtured over a period of time.

For Christians who are desperate to overcome temptation and sexual sin, they need to know that it is a steadfast love for God that defeats the inflaming love of sin. From his own experience, Steve Gallagher shares how simply being committed to a daily life of prayer was pivotal in his turning away from pornography and failure to a life of continual victory.

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When a wife determines to help her husband find victory from sexual sin, she must be prepared to hear some very difficult, personal, and painful things. How can she provide the support and encouragement her husband needs without becoming controlled by the pain of these confessions? How can she wholeheartedly support without being demanding? Kathy has given her life to helping women navigate these kinds of issues, because she was once in these same situations. In this video, she talks about some of the mistakes she made early on as she tried to help her husband Steve.  But God was working on her as well. As the Holy Spirit showed Kathy her own sinfulness and need for a savior, God enabled her to relate to Steve in an entirely new way. As a result, she and Steve were able to experience deeper fellowship in all areas of their lives through repentance, humility, and Kathy’s willingness to hear painful things. This was exactly the kind of support that Steve needed.

When a husband is battling his way out of sexual sin and is showing real signs of change and repentance, what can a wife do to help him to find complete victory? Kathy Gallagher has devoted her life to helping wives navigate the difficult journey of having a husband in sexual sin. In part 1 of “How Can I Help My Husband?” Kathy looks at some of the internal difficulties a wife will face when she decides to take an active role in helping her husband. Many wives want to help their husbands by keeping them accountable, but the things they hear from their husbands are often so painful that many women run the risk of becoming controlled by their fear and pain. Kathy shares about this period in her own marriage with Steve, and how she had to resist the temptation to become manipulative and controlling, which would only have hindered their relationship and made Steve’s journey even more difficult.

For centuries, the Bible has been the source of hope. Romans 15:4 (ESV) says, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” It is in the Holy Spirit inspired Word of God where everyone who is in desperate need can expect to find true and lasting remedies to any issue. It exposes sinful attitudes, penetrates hardened hearts, and cuts out falsehood.

Scripture has the inherent power to rebuild a soul that has been marred, ruined, and devastated by sin. And that is wonderful news for those who find themselves amid the destruction of sexual addiction. For the Christian determined to press on in the battle, the Bible declares that restoration is not merely possible, but a promise. Steve Gallagher expounds on key principles penned by King David and shows how clinging to Scripture and dwelling on the testimonies of God will reform, reconstruct, and restructure a mind dominated by pornography.

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American values have so crept into the corporate consciousness of the Church that we now operate the church on the same model and with the same mindset that a secular manager or C.E.O. runs his business, and our bottom line is the same: success, which is measured in larger crowds, more products sales and a healthy profit. We have created a church culture that is conducive to deception and open to ambitious leaders who want to use Christianity for self-glory.

Pure Life founder and President Steve Gallagher explores this phenomenon in an interview with Mike Johnston.

Mike: Steve Gallagher has joined me in the studio. Steve is the founder of Pure Life Ministries. Steve as always it's great to see you again. Thanks for coming in.

Steve: Great to be here with you, Mike.

Mike: As we continue our discussion in your book Intoxicated with Babylon you make the point that a worldly-minded church will embrace worldly concepts that inevitably pervert the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and as you talk about this happening, you have laid the blame for this squarely at the top.

Steve: There's a culture in Christianity that just makes it possible for people to rise to the top who are good at working the system that we have in place here, but you know Mike, this is nothing new. Paul faced it; all the First century Christian leaders faced it. You know when Paul was giving his final address to the Ephesian leaders, he told them that after he left, there would be savage wolves in their midst, not sparing the flock, but wanting to accumulate to themselves followers; and elsewhere he talked about angels of light who are really serving Satan. And of course, Jesus alerted us to be wary of false prophets who come in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. It's all through the New Testament we're warned to be aware of the fact that there's going to be false teachers who are going to try to capitalize on the Christian situation for their own selfish purposes.

Mike: Steve, you talk about deceivers in the body of Christ, in your book you talk about two types of deceivers that are at work in the body today.

Steve: Yeah, there's those who are just outright deceivers, you know, television preachers begging for seed faith offerings or men who prey on vulnerable women; you know entertainers that are tapping into the lucrative Gospel music industry. And you know that there are people out there that our capitalizing on the system to further their own aims. But not so obvious are that the teachers who are inadvertently leading people astray. You know they've been taught wrong doctrine and they are simply passing along what's been given to them. And that's what makes the deception so powerful is because they're sincere, and they're simply telling others what they've been taught.

Mike: So when we're talking about false teachers, when the average Christian is looking for a false teacher, they may not be as obvious; they may not be the wolf that so oftentimes we're looking for.

Steve: Well that's the problem; people are looking for wolves instead of sheep, you know, they're looking for servants of Satan instead of angels of light. In other words, a deceiver doesn't look like a wolf; a deceiver doesn't look like a servant of Satan. That's what's really the challenge is that the people who are out there deceiving are so often very smooth in what they're doing.

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Mike: And when you talk about a church, especially the church in America today that doesn't have a solid foundation to begin with there are real trouble.

Steve: When Christians are wrapped up in the spirit of the world, their discernment is just going to be practically nonexistent, so it's very easy for a worldly-minded church to be led astray by false teachers.

Mike: In your book, Steve, you've laid out four reasons that this kind of deception can occur; false teaching is one of the inevitable side-effects, you said, of number one, ambition within the Christian church, or blind ambition.

Steve: What we have here, Mike, is a morphing of two distinct cultures: We have the Christian culture, which follows the teachings of Christ obviously, and things like what Paul said, “Do nothing from selfishness but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important himself.” Or Jesus saying to his disciples, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last and servant of all.” That is a kingdom mindset, but we also have fused into this Kingdom culture the American culture, which is exactly the opposite. The American culture all revolves around success, driving ahead, being the first, it's all about putting self forward, so you have a clash of two cultures or it's not really a clash, unfortunately. We have the American culture because of the worldliness in the church which has kind of overtaken what should be the culture of the Kingdom of God.

Mike: You said earlier that this was not new in the church and of course even with Jesus we found the disciples arguing about who was going to be first already, looking to make their way up the ladder of the church even at that time.

Steve: Well, in those early days they just didn't understand things very well and it wasn't until after Calvary that they began to understand that it wasn't going to be like they thought it was going to be where that worldly mentality of trying to be first. Calvary destroyed that mentality.

Mike: That kind of leads into your second point about worldly-minded teachers, Steve; You said that the substitution of education for anointing is another cause of this problem.

Steve: Well, certainly in certain circles, academic achievement is given so much credibility that if you have a Ph.D., or you have a doctor before your name, that that somehow is supposed to establish your credibility as a spiritual leader, but just because you have academic accomplishments doesn't mean the slightest thing in regards to your life in God. It reminds me of something that John Wesley said. “I don't care about your seminary degrees. Just give me 100 men who are hungry for God and fear nothing but sin, and I'll turn this country upside down.” And you know he understood that a man's life in God was the most important thing, and education can be a good thing, but it certainly should be secondary to a person's life in God.

Mike: Steve, the third cause that you bring up here really stems from that, and that is, men of God that are going to the pulpit that are not prepared to be teaching and preaching and so they're just making assertions about things they really don't know anything about.

Steve: Well, what those kind of teachers are depending on, maybe not their academic achievements, but these teachers depend on their own personal abilities, their charismatic personalities or their abilities to really woo a crowd or affect people emotionally or challenge them intellectually. In other words, it isn't their life in God, their walk with God that is giving them confidence. Their confidence is coming through their own personal abilities, and they use those abilities to create a following for themselves.

Mike: In concluding your discussion on the subject, you did have something to say to the men of God, the true men of that are really preaching the Word of God and what they can expect.

Steve: I need to say, Mike, that there are many godly people pastoring churches, but, the reality is that in this current culture that we find ourselves in, true men of God are going to be largely ignored by people who prefer charisma to godliness and flash to spiritual substance. But you know God did not call us to success, He called us to faithfulness. And when we stand before Him, even if we were nothing more than a pastor of a tiny church, or something like that, if we were faithful to what He called us to do, then we will hear those words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” And many of these big, big names that we have come to look up to so much are not going to be hearing that same thing.

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” While there may be some truth to this adage, the human heart bends toward the hedonistic ideals of ALL play with as little work as possible. There is nothing wrong with having some pleasure in this life in its proper place. But hedonism says that pleasure is the prime goal of life and anything that causes pain or discomfort should be avoided at all costs. The mind that thinks like this is just one click away from a porn addiction.

Modern hedonism traces its roots to an 18th and 19th century philosopher named Jeremy Bentham. He said, “every law is an infraction of liberty,” and, “the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.” His whole aim in life was to live pleasure-filled and pain-free. Does this not describe the goal of much of modern America? And sadly, this also represents a large number in the American Church.

Bentham’s ideology is nothing new. Scripture tells us of the danger of living a pleasure saturated lifestyle through King Solomon 3000 years ago. The wise king wrote in Ecclesiastes 2:10 (NET), “I did not restrain myself from getting whatever I wanted; I did not deny myself anything that would bring me pleasure.” At the end of this pursuit he would write in Ecclesiastes 12:8 (NLT), “Everything is meaningless…completely meaningless.” In our day, has Scripture’s warnings about the pitfalls of seeking after pleasure fallen on deaf ears? The answer is a resounding “yes.”

With the American Church being influenced more by a hedonistic culture than the Bible, it is no wonder why so many Christians are addicted to pornography. Steve Gallagher gives keen insight as to how a life lived with no restraint regarding pleasure and indulgence is the perfect breeding ground for sexual sin.

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Beginning this week and for several more to come, we will examine the key elements that lead to victorious Christian living and freedom from sexual sin.

We will be asking questions like “what role does repentance play in freedom from pornography?” What part does deliverance play? What about worship? Where does obedience fit in?

Today we look at the role of faith in finding freedom from pornography.

Many people have the belief that pornography promotes sex. This couldn’t be further from the truth. What pornographic materials actually promote is the destruction of sex. Pornography is one of the most damaging forces against a healthy sex life. Sex is not a dirty or shameful activity. In fact, God created our sexual organs and made intercourse to be beautiful, intimate and enjoyable. Sex was His idea. In the past, the church has shied away from the topic of sex, leading some to believe it was something shameful. However, that was not the Lord’s original intention. He designed sex. And when kept within the boundaries of His original plan, it is one of the highest forms of pleasure two married people can enjoy.

The problem occurs when sex is taken out of the context for which God created it. Any form of sexual experience that is outside of the confines of a loving marriage between a husband and a wife becomes perversion. Pornography seeks to make perverse activity the normal expression of sexuality. As the years have passed since its inception, a cycle of depravity has made available pornographic materials that are unimaginably obscene and twisted.

When someone is given over to viewing pornography, something happens in their internal world. What should be repulsive to them becomes increasingly acceptable and even desired. Many sex addicts will testify to the fact that the longer that they stayed in their lifestyle, the more depraved the sexual acts became. It may have started off with “softcore” porn, but it led them into places that they had never intended to go. They simply thought they were going to have a little enjoyment, and they ended up a prisoner in a world of smut and darkness.

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One of the consequences of living a life given over to pornography is that it changes the way a person views sex. Even after getting free from its grip, this is something that needs to be addressed in the life of the person who wants to enjoy a healthy sex life at its greatest potential. Pornography is an illusion; it is pure fantasy. What many fail to consider is that everything is staged. In a pure sexual experience between a husband and a wife, there are no camera men in the room. There is no script to get right. There are no microphones being held up. The husband isn’t a paid actor, chosen for his masculine build and the wife isn’t a paid actress who was hired for her perfectly shaped body. Neither of them is being paid to portray that they are participating in the most pleasurable sexual experience possible. Yet, that is a description of the world of porn.

Sometimes, I do marriage counseling for couples in which the man has a history of pornography. I’ll pull him aside when we talk about sex and tell him something that I hope will save him and his future wife a lot of pain and heartache. I say, “Remember that your wife is not a porn star. Don’t treat her like one or expect her to act like one.” The reason this is important to address is because I understand that the person who has been involved with perversion has a distorted concept of God’s design for sex. Having been exposed as a young boy—long before I ever had a sex education class or a talk from a parent—I understand how pornography can completely twist a person’s mind until their concept of sex is rooted in an entirely different realm from God’s design. Two things can happen to a man who enters marriage with a pornographic mindset. Either he will be disappointed in his sexual relationship with his wife because it does not look as passionate, experimental or exciting as the porn he has viewed; or he will try to pressure his wife to do things that she is uncomfortable doing. Both hurt the intimacy that a married couple should enjoy in their sexual relationship.

To avoid this, it is important that a couple be completely honest with each other. Vulnerability is essential to a healthy sex life. Communication with one another is crucial. Too often, couples are too embarrassed to discuss their sex lives. The person who has a background in pornography needs to learn to intentionally set aside any perverted thinking that may have infiltrated their mindset and set out to please their spouse in the way that they need. While porn displays a selfish attitude toward sex, God designed it to be a blessing to one another.

Sex is amazing. It is one of the most pleasurable experiences that the Lord has given to us to enjoy on this earth. But pornography destroys sex as God designed. If your mind has been distorted by a false image of sex, perhaps it is time to reject those perversions and embrace God’s design for sex in your married life.

It is completely natural for a person to desire a happy life and fulfilling marriage. However, many women discover that what they believed would bring the most happiness has been the most painful thing in their lives.

It is at this point that women must answer this question: is God truly able to make all things work together for the good of those who love Him?

Steve and Kathy Gallagher founded Pure Life Ministries in 1986 to help men and women find God in the midst of their trials, tribulations and personal sin. This process is laden with suffering, but God’s goal for us is sanctification and, ultimately, eternal life.

Many times, when a struggling Christian hears about the power of repentance, he says to himself, "But I have repented--over and over and over again--but it didn't work."

This video exposes the vast difference between real repentance (which leads to victory) and human resolutions to stop sinning (which have no power).

Join Steve Gallagher as shares more of his testimony and shows how God made repentance a lifestyle for him. You will begin to understand how repentance will break the cycle of addiction and lead to an overcoming life.

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Sin has created a world full of devastation and heartbreak. Many wives often find themselves in terribly painful situations because their husbands have been given over to sexual sin. When a man is stuck in sexual sin, he is unable to see clearly the devastation he is causing because his mind is completely overtaken with sin.  

The message of this world is very clear: protect yourself at all costs. Sadly, this message has found its way into the church by appealing to our own sense of self-love and self-preservation, which are contrary to the Lord’s teachings of self-denial and putting others first.

When Kathy Gallagher discovered her new husband’s sexual addiction, she soon gave up on him, filed for divorce, and found a new partner. She wanted nothing to do with suffering, and so she did her best to forget about him. But it soon became clear to her that if she wanted to follow the Lord, it meant fighting for her marriage. In obedience to Him, she went back to Steve, and despite the suffering, learned to selflessly love the man who had hurt her the most. For more on this subject from Kathy Gallagher, watch part two of this video.

Since 1986, Kathy has brought this message of selfless love to hundreds of wives through the ministry of Pure Life Ministries.