The psalmist David declared of the wicked that "there is no fear of God before their eyes." The apostle Paul echoed this claim in his letter to the Romans. What about today? Well, one thing is for sure: Christians today are addicted to sexual sin in record numbers.

In this episode of The Church Addicted we explore how a lack of the fear of God has contributed to an epidemic of sin in the Church.

Like so many young women, Kathy Irwin entered into marriage with bright hopes for her future. But after exchanging vows with Steve Gallagher, things began to go downhill quickly. Her new husband was not the man she thought he was.

Life with Steve was very difficult. He was angry, demanding and never satisfied—and she was beside herself trying to understand why she could never please him.

After months of pain, confusion and questions, she found out one afternoon why things were so difficult in their marriage. Steve was addicted to pornography and was cheating on her with other women.

In an instant, all of her dreams about happily-ever-after were crushed, and she awoke to the horrible reality of being married to a cheating husband.

The Bible says that "without vision…people perish." Pastor Steve Gallagher and Mike Johnston talk about a similarly destructive trend in today's Church—a minimization of the need to obey God.

Mike: Pastor Steve, one thing you discuss in your book Intoxicated with Babylon is the difference between genuine and false faith, and you begin this discussion by describing two conflicting messages in today's church. What are these two messages?‍

Pastor Steve: There is a cry, I believe, going out from sober and godly people who understand how the spirit of the world has infiltrated the church and how it's affecting people's lives. They are passionate about the need for Christians to return to holy living. It's like a refreshing call to repentance and holiness going out from some. But unfortunately, there is another voice that is so loud and so dominating in Christian circles that it really smothers out the first voice, and basically, the message that they are propagating is this: "You don't have to be holy. You don't have to obey God. You can basically live how you want to live. As long as you go to church and just follow some basic outward rules, you don't have to get yourself in a strain about living a holy life. That's what grace is there for. If you have few little sins in your life, don't be too concerned about it. God loves you, and His grace will cover it all."

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Mike: There is a kernel of truth to this message of grace you're describing. So would you say that the problem is one of overemphasis?

Pastor Steve: That's exactly what it is. Of course, we appreciate God's grace, and it does cover us in our lapses. But his grace is meant for sincere believers. We're talking about a holy God, and He does not wink at sin. Paul said, "God is not mocked." And the message here is basically that you can live for yourself, that you can live selfishly, that you can live a worldly, carnal and even a sinful life...and none of that really matters because God's grace is going to cover you no matter what. And this just simply not in Scripture.

Mike: You mentioned Paul's writings. Didn't Paul warn us about this kind of teaching becoming common in the last days?

Pastor Steve: Yes, he did. In one of his passages of Scripture where he started referring to what Christianity was going to look like in the end times, he gave Timothy what has become a famous warning—that the time would come when "they will not endure sound doctrine." Why not? Because they "want to have their ears tickled." And so, therefore, they will "accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires," and they will turn away from the truth (2 Timothy 4:3). And that's exactly what we see happening in America today.

Mike: If you look at the American church today, it seems like we think we can do whatever we want without any consequences. Is that where this false teaching has brought us?

Pastor Steve: Let me take it a step backwards. Our prosperity has affected us. There's a reason Jesus warned about the "deceitfulness of riches" (Mark 4:19). We have become accustomed to a certain type of lifestyle, and that lifestyle is very much to please the flesh. So what has happened is that there's been a subtle change in Christianity over the last forty years. We started with Christianity being Christ-centered and revolving around a sovereign and holy God—the Almighty. We had a huge perspective of the Lord forty years ago. And little by little, that has been withered away by this selfish desire for worldly living, until now, by and large, the Christian faith in the United States has become man-centered. Richard Baxter, an old Puritan, encapsulated what I'm talking about when he said, "As much as God desires the salvation of men, he will not prostitute heaven and set the gates of it wide open to those who only fly to it in extremity but never sought it in good earnest, nor indeed do now care for it or desire it for any other reason but to excuse them from going to hell."

Mike: You're talking about our need to do more in order to seek God. But someone might ask, "Wait a minute. Are you talking about works? I thought we were saved by grace?" What's your response?

Pastor Steve: Yes, that is very true. We are only saved by grace and by putting our faith in Jesus Christ. But James makes the point that if there is true saving faith, there is going to be works accompanying that faith. And if there are no works, then it's a good sign that there is no true, saving faith. And so it seems like a contradiction with all that Paul says about works. But actually, there is no contradiction. Because when Paul is saying that we are not saved by works, he is referring to the Jewish system of trying to earn your salvation through works. If I could put it this way, what we're talking about is before and after conversion. If you have not been converted and you are trying to earn your way to heaven, you will never do it. You will never make it there. But if you have truly been converted, then there is going to be proof of that conversion in the way that you live your life. So there really is no conflict between what James is saying and what Paul said.

Mike: In Intoxicated with Babylon, you give three proofs of true conversion. What are they?

Pastor Steve: These are three of many proofs of conversion, but they are maybe some of the bigger issues.

1. One proof is a continual growth in obedience to God.

We begin this Christian life as spiritual babies, and of course, at first, God gives us a lot of latitude for mistakes and sin issues that are still hanging on our lives—the struggles we have to work through, and so on. The Lord understands. But he expects growth, and for a person that has truly been saved, there's going to be that growth, because Jesus Christ is living within.

2. Another proof of genuine conversion is the development of an eternal perspective.

The genuine believer is just simply going to have eternity in the back of his mind. It's going to shape his worldview and the way the sees the rest of his life. He's going to have eternal values in the equation. What many so-called Christians do is live with a temporal, earthly mindset, and that makes me wonder whether they have really been converted.

3. The last characteristic that I mention in the book is love.

Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). And here, again, the temptation is to take a superficial perspective of what love is: "I'm a nice guy, and I love people." But that's not the fiery love of Jesus Christ that burns through a real Christian's heart. That kind of love causes you to get out of yourself and meet the needs of other people in one fashion or another. So a true love that compels you to see the needs of others and to help other people is a sign of healthy Christianity.

Mike: Now let's take a quick look at dead faith. Why is "self-will" one of the things you mention as a sign of dead faith?

Pastor Steve: Because it's very easy to just do the "church thing"—you know, the evangelical thing—and to really keep God at arms length, where you refuse to submit yourself to His authority and His lordship. When that's not happening, we need to examine ourselves and determine, "Why? Why has there been no true spiritual growth?" That's a very pointed question that we all should consider.

Mike: If someone considering these things doesn't see evidence of genuine, saving faith in their life, what should they do?

Pastor Steve: If there is reason to doubt whether or not you have truly been converted, there is only one thing to do, and that is to get on your face before God, to begin to cry out earnestly for the Holy Spirit to make Himself real to you, to repent of your sins, to repent of your self-will and your worldliness—anything that you have allowed to get between you and God—and to refuse to get up, so to speak, until the assurance has come to you that you are a child of God. And then, you can go forth with the confidence of knowing that you have crossed that line, and that you belong to Jesus Christ.

Take a look around and you will quickly see that addiction has found just as much room inside the Church as it has outside its four walls. We’ve been asking the question, how did we get here?

In this fourth episode of The Church Addicted, we look at obedience to God. We will explore how a minimization of its importance leads to a perversion of the grace of God, which in turn results in spiritual apathy, lawlessness and licentiousness.

Sexual addiction is formed inside a person as they repeat the same act over and over--whether it be leering at women, watching pornography or visiting strips clubs.

Science has shown us that addictions are formed as neuro-transmitters create neurological pathways in the mind. The more we seek the pleasure from a certain experience, the deeper these neurological pathways become.  Truly, as Psalm 139:14 says, the human body is "fearfully and wonderfully made."

Tragically, sexual addiction uses the natural biological processes to corrupt our spirits. So how can we practically use our minds to take us farther from degradation and closer to freedom from pornography? Watch as Steve Gallagher expertly blends the physical with the spiritual as he describes the genesis of addiction.

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The vast culture of entertainment is pulling Christians away from the Lord and infiltrating the Church to the point where there is no difference anymore between the Church and the world. Nate Danser discusses this strategy of the Enemy and points us to where this alarming trend inevitably leads.

Jim: Nate, can you introduce the subject of amusement by defining it and describing how it relates to the Christian life?

Nate: The word "muse" is not very commonly used today, but it means “to be absorbed in thought” or “to think about something carefully and thoroughly.” I think, by extension, that those thoughts deeply impact the way the life is actually lived. We see this concept in Scripture: "If you have been raised with Christ...set your minds on things above" (Colossians 3:1-2). That whole passage is about putting off our old sin nature and putting on the nature of God. But one of the ways that happens is to think deeply and to set our minds on the things of God. So if you put the prefix "a-" in front of "muse," it means “to not think” or “to not consider.” And it began to strike me that American culture is obsessed with amusement.

In the message I preached about this subject, I outlined what could be the typical day of an American...or even an American Christian. You wake up, you listen to your favorite music or check Facebook and social media. You get in the shower, and you turn on an online radio station or a podcast. You are on your way to work, and you listen to an audiobook. Then you get to work, and you've got music playing throughout your whole day. At the end of the day, you go out to dinner, and the TV is on. Then, maybe you go out to a movie with some friends. You go home, and you go to sleep with Spotify on. And then, you wake up, and you do the whole thing again tomorrow. Our culture is obsessed with amusement. And unfortunately, this culture of amusement is utterly in opposition to the spirit of Jesus and the Christian life. You cannot be a Christian and live your life that way, because that contradicts the clear commands of Scripture⁠—that we "set our minds on things above". We cannot do that if our life is filled with amusement. So the title of the message I preached was "Satan Is Extremely Amusing."

Jim: If amusement is a part of the plan of our spiritual Enemy, what is the strategy behind this approach?

Nate: I'm reminded of the parable of the seed and the sower. In the parable, you have a type of soil which is called “thorny ground.” And Jesus tells us that the thorny-ground hearers are "the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful" (Mark 4:18-19). So I believe that the culture of amusement is all designed to keep people who are professing Christians from bringing fruit to maturity⁠—which destroys the harvest of God that he wants to see in both that person's life and in other people's lives.

The Bible talks about sowing the Word of God. The Word of God is thoughts and ideas and concepts that⁠—when planted in a good and an honest heart⁠—begin to change the actual life to conform with the Word of God. So when Jesus says, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep," if our lives are filled with other things, we don't have time to do that. When he says, "Seek first the kingdom of God," if our time and our energy are taken up with the things of the world, we cannot fulfill that commandment⁠—which ends up destroying the harvest. And so I believe that the whole culture of amusement in America is designed to do exactly that: to destroy what could be a fruitful harvest.

Jim: You mentioned the "thorns" in the parable of the sower. Can you give some examples of "thorns" in a Christian's life?

Nate: It seems to me from what Jesus says⁠—"the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things"⁠—that some of those things are inherently harmful. Pornography would obviously be a thorn. I mean, I'm not even sure you'd call that a thorn; I think that's just poisonous seed that bears a harvest of wickedness. But newspapers, magazines, television, social media, the internet...all of these things, I believe, would easily fit within the category of "the desires for other things." I recognize this in my own life. It's not like I'm immune from this or have completely overcome. What happens to us when we've got something that we want to do, and a need arises? I've got my favorite TV show scheduled for 7:30, and suddenly someone calls me, and they're in need. What happens in our heart? Does the need to take second place? If so, that is a thorn that is keeping the Word of God from bearing the harvest in our lives. Or, if we somehow organize things that are important around all of the things that we love and that are not eternally important, these are thorns. When the priorities of our lives are things that do not matter, it’s choking out a harvest.

Pastor Steve Gallagher, Pure Life's founder, has written books like Intoxicated with Babylon and other teachings where he discusses the end-times apostasy. In those teachings, I learned that our culture is going in a direction, and we know what that direction is. It is the Battle of Armageddon, where the forces of Antichrist come head-to-head with the forces of Jesus. The Enemy has to get the world to that point. How is he going to do it? There have to be practical things in place that bring the war into his mindset. And these things are clear to me and clear to him. It is popular culture that is creating the kind of environment where people will eventually rise up against Jesus.

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Jim: You mentioned end-times apostasy—the spiritual battle to deceive humanity. Can you bring that concept down to a practical level?

Nate: The mindset of our Enemy is pleasure at any cost. And when we are feeding our souls and our minds with his mindset⁠—through television, social media, movies and music⁠—we really don't get to determine what kind of fruit that is going to have in our lives. When we take in his mindset, his life is going to find expression in our life. And sometimes that's going to mean pornography. A lot of people don't want the fruit, but they want the seed⁠—the movies, music, television, and social media. What we have to teach people is that it's the love of the world that is making it possible for pornography to flourish in your life. If the love of the world is rooted out, then the pornography will go, but until you deal with the root, you cannot find freedom from the fruit.

Jim: If people want to be "in the world but not of the world," what steps do they need to take?

Nate: One of the things that was so helpful for me was being in the Residential Program, because for nine months, I was separated; I didn't have a choice. And it was in that environment of being separated from the world and being separated unto God that some of these things began to become more clear. I would say to somebody reading this that if you are in pornography or in sexual sin and you want to be changed, unplug! Unplug from social media, unplug your TV, and unplug the music. Do it for a space of time, and seek the Lord. Because He will begin to give you His wisdom and His perspectives on things. Then, when you begin to view and listen to some of those things again, you will start to hear the message behind those things, and that will help you. If you're just in it all the time, you cannot see what the Enemy is doing in your heart and your mind. But when you unplug and you begin to soak yourself in the Spirit of God, you start to hear the Devil's voice. And if you have wisdom, you'll flee.

Kathy Irwin met Steve Gallagher at a friend’s house when she was 18. He was instantly interested in her, but she wasn’t so sure. However, after spending a thrilling weekend together in Santa Cruz, she moved in with him.

Soon after this, Kathy began to be very disturbed about the way she was living. Having not been raised in church, she had no idea why she was so tormented with thoughts of hell and imminent death. God’s conviction was coming upon her heart, and He was drawing her into a relationship with Himself.

A few months later, Kathy gave herself unreservedly to Jesus and was radically converted. Her life was instantly transformed and she began sharing Jesus with everyone she could, including her boyfriend, Steve.

At the beginning of the following year, she married Steve and was looking forward to a wonderful marriage.

But storm clouds were on the horizon, and she was about to enter into one of the darkest periods she could have ever imagined.

The Apostle John wrote that “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Yet these truths are often ignored, disobeyed and even sometimes renounced by the Evangelical Church as out of step with reality. But love for this world is a chief reason why the church is addicted.

In this third episode of our podcast series: The Church Addicted, we continue our examination of why the Church is addicted, look at Scripture's command for followers of Jesus to forsake the world, and consider how to be "in the world, but not of it."

Welcome to Episode 2 in our current series: The Church Addicted, in which we’re asking the question, how did we get this way? How is it that when it comes to sexual sin in the lives of Christians, today’s Evangelical Church is no different than the world around them?

At Pure Life we help men get free from life-dominating habits of sin. But what are the disciplines that makes all the difference between a man walking in victory or falling back into his sin? This week we look at the all-important but oft-neglected disciplines that bring faithfulness and growth in the Christian life.

Society deems a person insane when they have lost touch with reality and become irrational in their thinking. But doesn’t this describe the life of a typical sex addict? How many people have destroyed their lives pursuing pornography or adulterous relationship, even while knowing that it is bringing hurt and pain to themselves and those they love?

Solomon said, “The hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives.”  If that is true of mankind in general, how much more so is it true of those who ruin their lives in sexual sin when it clearly doesn’t satisfy.

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When it comes to the Christian faith, there is perhaps no issue more critical than whether a person is truly saved. Pastor Steve Gallagher defines for us, from a biblical perspective, what true conversion to the Lord Jesus looks like.

Mike: Pastor Steve, one of the issues you tackle in your book Standing Firm Through the Great Apostasy is how to answer what is arguably the most crucial question a person could ask: “What is real conversion to Christ?” What motivated you to write about this topic?

Pastor Steve: What I talk about in the book is that, although you can classify humanity in a lot of different ways, when it comes to spiritual matters, there's really only two groups: those who have been converted and those who are unconverted. But in Christendom, we find a third group a group of people: those who insist on there being this gray area between the converted and unconverted. In other words, they have never been converted to Christ, but they act as though they have. And really, the bottom line is that they want the benefits of Christianity without really submitting their lives to God.

Mike: What is it about this "third group" in Christendom that you're describing that places them outside the realm of what you would call true conversion?

Pastor Steve: A convert is someone who has basically thrown up the white flag and surrendered their heart and life to God. But what we see in the lives of many people in the church is those who have been altered into Christianity rather than being converted into Christianity. In other words, they've altered some outward aspects of their life: they go to church, they don't cuss anymore, et cetera. They kind of fit their life into the outward form of evangelical Christianity, but their inward parts have not been changed. Conversion is something that happens in the heart. And if it’s only taking on an outward lifestyle, then the heart has not been converted.

Mike: In Standing Firm Through the Great Apostasy, you describe five distinct elements of true conversion, although you point out that they might not necessarily happen in a particular order. Can you list these elements of conversion and give a description of what they look like?‍

Pastor Steve:

1. There is conviction and the fear of God.

One of the great realities of humanity that is expressed over and over again in Scripture is the depravity of mankind—that something is terribly wrong, and therefore something dramatic must happen inside. Well, for a person to realize that something's wrong, they need an agency outside of themselves to bring that reality into their heart. And that is what the Holy Spirit does. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit's function is "convict the world concerning sin." (John 16:8) And that conviction of sin is what leads the unbeliever to see his need to change.

What we're seeing in the church is a lot of promises: "Hey, if you'll join Christianity, you'll get heaven, you'll get blessings, you'll get all this. Just start coming to our church." And very rarely do you hear the kind of preaching that causes unbelievers to see their need for repentance—to say, "Something is wrong in my life; I have sinned against a holy God; I have been in rebellion against his authority, and I am wrong and need to change my life." Just saying, "Sorry; I messed up," is a very weak form of repentance, and I don't believe that kind of repentance brings someone into a saving faith.

2. There is spiritual enlightenment.

We've all heard the phrase that a person has "seen the light." And I think a lot of people in the church have experienced spiritual enlightenment, where something has opened up in their mind to make them aware of the spiritual realm. They understand that there is a God. But that doesn't equate with conversion; it's only part of the process of conversion. And the problem is that a lot of people stop right there and go no further, and they mistake that as conversion.

3. There is poverty of spirit.

Poverty of spirit is when you come to that point where you realize that you need to be saved but you realize that you cannot do it on your own—that you can't make yourself good enough, you can't obey all the rules, you are hopeless. You realize, therefore, that you need someone who can step in and wash you clean of all the filth of your sins and breathe life into you that can help you live the Christian faith.

This issue of poverty of spirit is why the Pharisees had such a hard time coming into Christianity. They had years of self-effort that they did not want to let go of, and there's so many people that have been raised in the church environment and that don't want to let go of their own goodness. So they never go through "the narrow gate;" (Matthew 7:13) they rest their Christianity upon their own works. Let's face it: if you go all the way back to the garden, we do not like acknowledging we're wrong. Humans hate to say they're wrong. But to go through the narrow gate of repentance, you have to acknowledge that something is terribly wrong in your life. Jesus used the story of the prodigal son to illustrate what a real conversion looks like. This young man lived for himself, and then, in the pig pen, he came to his senses. That's a picture of spiritual enlightenment and poverty of spirit: you're coming to the reality that you don't have it and that you need it. But that isn't the conversion yet. Really, the conversion is seen in his two proclamations, "I have sinned, and I am not worthy." You sense the ownership and the responsibility he's taking for his guilt. He's acknowledging that he has been a sinner and is not worthy of salvation, and he's throwing himself at the feet of God.

4. There is submission and surrender.

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This element of conversion also comes forth in the story of the prodigal son. After he made his confessions, he said, "Make me as one of your hired men," and when he made that statement, he was saying, "I will spend the rest of my life as your servant, doing not my will but your will." That is a sign of a real conversion. So often, the key issue for men who come to our Residential Program is whose will is going to rule in their lives. And it takes them usually a few weeks of being in a very spiritual environment and of really seeing the truth of this spiritual reality before they get to the point of being willing to lay down their arms and surrender to God. We talked earlier about depravity, and the root of depravity is our own self-will. That's the bottom line. And that is what describes a conversion: it's when you go from being in self-will to being controlled by God's will.

5. There is sanctification and fruit.

Any time a person has truly been born again, sanctification is a process that begins immediately. In a nutshell, the term sanctification means being made holy. It's a lifelong process that begins with salvation, and from then on the Holy Spirit begins to work in the person's life. And as the person matures in the faith, they become increasingly more Christlike. In a true conversion, that process is going to be evident. Some people only go a certain distance in that process, and that's why there's different stages of rewards. But there's going to be some sign of sanctification if there's truly been salvation. I would say that the fruit of sanctification is manifested in two ways: first, the person's own spiritual life and the way they live their life; and second, their affect on the lives of people around them.

The latest statistics concerning men addicted to pornography and other illicit sexual sins are staggering. 64% viewing porn at least monthly. 36% of young men watching it at least daily. 35% of men admitting that they are having an affair. The worst part? These statistics are not from unbelievers—but from people professing to be followers of Jesus.

Welcome to The Church Addicted—a series of shows where we look at how these statistics have become the Church's reality.

In today’s episode, we discuss the modern trend of basing one’s eternal destiny on a single decision to ask Jesus into their heart, and the lack of life-change these incomplete conversions often lead to.