Although we might wish for one, there's no quick fix for sexual sin. But when someone decides to fight for real victory, there are some steps they can take to address common problem areas. Ken Larkin debunks the common mindset that sexual sin is just a small problem, Jim Lewis diagnoses the dangers of pride, and Jeremiah Eakin provides encouragement about responding to failure.

Kathy Gallagher offers comfort to wives struggling to relate to God as they see the condition of their own hearts in response to their husband’s sin.

Brooks: Kathy, you received a letter from Karen, whose husband had previously been involved in sexual sin. But at the time of her letter, Karen was questioning her walk with God because of the way she was treating her husband. Her basic question seemed to be, "Can I really have a close relationship with the Lord, if this is what I'm like inside?"

Kathy: You know, this particular woman is probably dealing with a little bit of bitterness from their past relationship and the things that her husband had done. And I know that it's easy to give over to anger and bitterness in the heat of the moment and then to try to go and be with God. You've got this baggage: "Now I just blew it with my husband, so how can I enter into the presence of God?" But we all come to the Lord that way. I think every person on the planet that's ever professed Christ as their Savior has had the same struggle.

Brooks: By "struggle," are you referring to the tendency we have of thinking we have to clean ourselves up spiritually before we can worship God or spend time with Him?

Kathy: Yeah. And just seeing your heart! We all have to come to grips with what our heart is like, and I know I've said to the Lord a million times if I've said it once, "My heart is so black, Lord!" And I always want to say, "How can you love me?" But that's the beauty of the cross. The blood of Christ has cleansed us from that. So when I've blown it with my husband or with someone else, I can come to the Lord—not in a presumptuous spirit, but in humility. I can ask for forgiveness and know I've been forgiven. I don't have to clean myself up, and I don't have to do 90 hours of penance before I can enter into the throne room of God. I can come just as I am, and I'm forgiven and can move on.

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So many of the women I deal with are so sincere; they really want to do the right thing. And they see their failures and their mistakes. Maybe they see how they've condemned their husbands with their mouth or just treated him badly. And they just drag themselves into God's throne room. But I want to encourage these women who are really sincere, who are walking with Jesus and trying to do the right thing. God does see. And He knows what they're going through, and He forgives us when we fail. He doesn't hold it against us. Holding grudges is what we're like; that's how we are. I think that's why we struggle so much with God; we sometimes think he's like we are. But He's nothing like us!

Brooks: If a woman wants to find her way out of being trapped in a sense of condemnation, can you describe how gratitude can contribute to that victory?

Kathy: We regularly have people that we're counseling make a "gratitude list"—a written list of things they're grateful for. Because if your heart is full of gratitude, it won't be full of bitterness. Gratitude transcends all the other things that lodge themselves in our hearts.

Brooks: In your response to Karen, you talked about how spending time with God every day was important for you as you overcame bitterness against your husband Steve. Can you talk more about this and offer wives some practical advice about what having a daily "quiet time" could look like?

Kathy: It's just absolutely the answer to any sin—bitterness, anger, fear, all of those things that I struggled with myself. I found my prayer time, my walk with Jesus, to be everything I needed. God would give me what I needed. Worship was particularly important to me to overcome all the stuff that wives have to deal with when they've been hurt by their husbands.

I think the most important thing that I could communicate to women is this: it's not that you show up for a prayer time, an obligatory period where you're sitting before God. Rather, you are coming into a quiet, secluded, secret place where you and the Most High will have communion. And that's what it was for me. It was a time when I could get away from the world, get away from myself, and get away from all this stuff that I had to deal with. And I was "closed in" with my Maker. It just became a molding time, where the Potter would get me up on the table and start spinning that wheel, and he was doing things in me. Sometimes it was painful; sometimes it was glorious. But God could shape me, God could mold me, God could change my mind, and God could transform me. And he could give me his thoughts and take away my thoughts that were so often so earthly and so carnal.

Brooks: It must be really life-changing for people struggling with condemnation to realize that God actually does desire to have intimacy with them!

Kathy: That's right; He does! Nothing should stop us from coming to God. He does not expect us to come clean; He expects us to come so he can clean us up. And we don't have to have it all together. We have to come in a humble spirit. We have to come reverentially and in a repentant heart. God is the one who changes us and eradicates that condemnation from our hearts.

The same contemporary influences that market casual sex to men also put pressure on single women to compromise. Offering hope to those who wonder whether godly relationships are still possible, biblical counselor Jessie Meldrum shares her vision for women who will fight for purity. Also in this episode: the cure for a "heart plague" and encouragement for hurting wives who feel unworthy of God's love.

My first exposure to pornography came as a defenseless child, less than 10 years old. I innocently rode my two-wheeler down to the neighborhood candy store where I always spent my weekly allowance, and there it was. It was in the early years of Playboy magazine leading the way for a whole new genre of “adult entertainment,” and the magazine was prominently positioned.

Something went into me that day that I could not shake. I came back a day later, and rifled through the pages, filled with both shame and overwhelming excitement. The images were indelibly implanted in my mind. Like Adam and Eve, a whole new world opened up to me. Little did I know that I had been bitten by a vicious serpent, and its deadly venom had entered my soul.

Although this poison is not deadly in one dose, the serpent is relentless. By his repeated and progressive attacks, the serpent’s victim becomes increasingly unable to resist. Satan is a patient predator. He studies and understands his victim. He doesn’t present his corrupted view of reality all at once, but rather step by step, lie by lie, as he sees the target ready to accept the next dose.

Through my teen and early adult years, pornography—and its relentless companion masturbation—became a regular part of my life, progressively drawing me deeper into magazines, adult movies, strip clubs, you name it. I was raised in a church-going family but that did nothing to abate my habit. Satan had convinced me that these practices were just a harmless way to satisfy a single man’s natural desires. After all, he assured me, it’s a “victimless” crime…it hurts no one. “Have fun, be merry, for tomorrow you may die,” became my mantra.

By the time I married at age 32, pornography and masturbation were firmly entrenched in my heart, and had completely distorted my views of women, sex and marriage. I thought I loved my wife but, the truth was, I entered marriage overcome by a “what’s in it for me” attitude.

It says in Genesis 3:1 that “the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field,” and, sure enough, Satan’s lies took a new turn on his now-married prey. It did not take much for him to persuade me that pornography would be a wonderful way to enrich and add excitement to our sex life. My new wife was hesitant but acquiesced to my pressure.

The excitement lasted for a while, but soon our relationship began to unravel as I expected her to do and be what my pornographic inside-world had convinced me was the way to a happy and fulfilling “love” life. It did not take long for her to harden and pull back, feeling used and unloved in ways that went far beyond the bedroom. The fact was, the world that Satan had led me to - pornography and masturbation - had utterly destroyed my capacity to love my wife. We were divorced in four short years.

I married again, five or so years later. The result was the same. Disillusioned and unaware of what I had become, I then fell prey to the most sinister of all of Satan’s lies, self-pity. He assured me, “You deserve better than this. God has let you down.” Over and over again, this message convinced me that I had a right to indulge in my sexual sin.

The serpent now went in for the kill. The stronghold in my heart that I had yielded to him, this harmless and “victimless” pornography, led me down roads I never thought I would travel as I yielded to sexual sin of all kinds. Sex became medication to me, but a drug whose potency became less and less effective, as I needed more and more to dull the pain of what had become my life. Weekends would go by where I would spend $5,000 or more on my sin and end up deeper in depression and despair. Any hope I once held of lasting joy and happiness, or even a normal life, had evaporated.

Satan’s poison of lies and false promises had disabled me, leaving me in a spiritual and emotional trance that took complete control over my life. I had completely lost touch with reality, with Truth. I had become literally insane. It was clear now that the ultimate victim of pornography was me, and that I had forfeited all the promises that could have been mine in Christ.

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Until Jesus intervened.

I know now why He had to allow me to go so far, to go down so many dark alleys, and for so long. I was finally backed into a corner, desperate and totally out of options when He extended His hand to me, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) His offer to me was to come into the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program where He would reveal Himself, and correct the lies about myself, about life, and about Him.

It was at Pure Life Ministries that He opened His Word to me and gave me hope. When the serpent came at Jesus with His lies in the desert, offering Him food after forty days of fasting, Jesus rebuked him with God’s Word, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4) For the first time in my life, I began to feast on God’s Word.

The Lord spoke clearly to me through Romans 6:16, “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” I had presented myself to Satan and became his slave, and now, Jesus wanted to know if I would present myself to Him and receive His righteousness.

You see, there is an antidote to the serpent’s deadly venom of lies, and it is the Truth—repeated and steady doses of the Truth. I have become a lover of God’s Word.

Once a cesspool of pornographic images and imaginations, my mind is now clear and free. I am married now eight years and learning to love a woman sacrificially and unconditionally.  All that I had lost has been restored, and so much more.

To anyone taken captive by Satan and led into the world that I had become enslaved in, I offer the hope and truth of my testimony from Psalm 103:1-5:

Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

This PLM audio article recounts the dark history of the adult entertainment industry in the late 20th century and exposes its connections to the criminal underworld.

There were many people who contributed to the explosive emergence of X-rated movies in the ’70s—such as Hugh Hefner, Larry Flynt, John Holmes, and Linda Lovelace, to name a few—but the most important players were the gangsters lurking behind the scenes out of the public’s eye.

Members of the Mafia had been making a modest income by producing stag films for at least ten years when, in 1971, some associates of the Columbo organization (one of five Mafia families in New York City) hit the jackpot after producing an enormously successful X-rated comedy. Filmed mostly in a motel on Biscayne Blvd. in North Miami, the movie cost less than $25,000 to produce, but within a couple of years the mob had raked in a staggering $50 million in profit.

This windfall attracted other Mafioso, such as Robert DiBernardo (a “capo” in the Gambino organization), who presented himself more like a Wall Street broker than a smut-peddling thug. He began Star Distributors, which became the main supplier of pornography in New York City. He was also responsible for bringing all of the pornographers under the control of the mob. Another key player was Michael Zaffarano, who was the main contact between the mob and the porn industry. He often mediated disputes between various Mafia families over the production of X-rated movies.

By the mid-eighties, most of the porn industry had moved to Southern California. According to testimony before the Meese Commission by Captain James Doherty of the L.A.P.D., almost 90% of adult films were produced in Los Angeles. Chief Daryl Gates went on to say that at least 85% of the porn industry was controlled by organized crime.

As the sales of porno movies continued to skyrocket, the F.B.I. decided to investigate. Early in 1977, they launched the largest undercover operation in their history—known as MiPorn (Miami Pornography). Agents Patrick Livingston and Bruce Ellavsky set up shop in Miami posing as distributors of “adult entertainment.” What was initially targeted as a six-month probe with a modest budget of $25,000, eventually developed into an extremely dangerous, 2 ½-year investigation of the Mafia’s involvement in obscenity, costing taxpayers almost a half million dollars.

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Bill Kelly, described by one reporter as having a “tight-lipped, no-nonsense determination to root out pornographers,” was assigned the task of training the two would-be smut peddlers. He spent a couple of weeks teaching the agents the ins and outs of the trade. Years later Kelly recalled the sort of things he warned them to avoid: “When you go to buy videos, don’t offer to pay $60 apiece; you offer $40. And whatever you do, don’t ask for kiddy porn because if you do, right away bells go off, and they’ll make you for a cop.”

With their crash-course on the pornography industry behind them, the two opened Golde Coaste Distributors in a warehouse near the Miami airport. Ostensibly a blue jean outlet, the “real” business operating out of the store was the distribution of adult films and magazines. Unbeknownst to a number of criminals who would visit the location, an electronics expert for the Bureau had wired the building with cameras and microphones. Much valuable and irrefutable evidence was gathered there over the coming months.

Livingston and Ellavsky began making contacts with lower-echelon players, but they were so effective that before long they had done what Kelly had deemed impossible: they were able to infiltrate the close-knit ranks of the country’s pornography leadership.

“These guys were good,” recounted Kelly years later. “Out of all the people they dealt with, only two figured them out, telling them, ‘You guys are either F.B.I. agents or you’re informants working for Bill Kelly and either way, we don’t want to have anything to do with you.’” Ironically, the danger was not in the discovery of their true identities—no criminal in his right mind would knowingly murder a federal agent. It was if the gangsters mistook them for informants. An example of the peril they lived in was manifested in a trip to New York to visit Robert DiBernardo’s operation. They were warned by one of his associates not to cross him: “There are plenty of people who would kill for DiBe.” But whether they were “made” as cops or not, pornography had become a dangerous business. Kelly later stated that he knew of about 80 players in the business who were either doing at least five years in prison or had been murdered.

As time went on, the Batman and Robin of obscenity investigations continued to establish significant contacts with big-time pornographers. During their time on the case they made 25 first-class flights to various cities around the country—even one trip to Hawaii to purchase child pornography.

Many of these trips were to porno conventions. Nowadays, these gatherings have become almost glamorous, but in those days they had to be presented as get-togethers of legitimate magazine publishers. Patrick Livingston and Bruce Ellavsky continued to build their cases against the main pornographers. Their covert operation was so secretive that even other agents didn’t know about the case.

After about a year, prosecutors with the Justice Department opened a Grand Jury investigation and began presenting evidence which the agents continually supplied. Kelly describes the logistical nightmare involved: “We had a room about the size of a big bedroom full of obscene material that we were going to present in trial on 50 defendants. That’s a lot of pornography! On top of that we also had an 8,000 square foot warehouse which was full of extra stuff that we weren’t going to use in the prosecution.”

In his book, Lost Undercover, author Ron LaBrecque describes a dangerous situation that arose toward the end of the MiPorn investigation when Livingston visited Michael Zaffarano in New York:

As a powerful mob boss, Zaffarano played the game in classic fashion and was typically insulated from the daily work. It was primarily because of his less public stance that the agents had never met him. Pat decided to force an encounter… (flying) to New York (to) confront Zaffarano in his Times Square office, located near his Pussycat Theater on Forty-Second Street. The confrontation, however, was unnerving; Pat unexpectedly encountered the Mafia figure in the hallway outside his sixth-floor office.

Zaffarano was a menacing man whom Pat immediately feared, especially since he was unarmed. He knew he would have to make (his undercover character) totally believable. To this end, he kept the conversation as vague as possible until Zaffarano acknowledged some mutual acquaintances. When they moved from the hallway into Zaffarano’s back office, however, Pat pushed too hard with his questioning, asking whether it was true that one of Zaffarano’s acquaintances had gone to jail for him. The pornographer immediately tensed, as if a revelation had come to him, and a grim look came over his face as he told Pat to ‘get (out) and never come around here again.’ He accused Pat of being a police officer trying to set him up.

Pat left the office quickly, running down the stairs to the street rather than waiting for the elevator. He felt a rush of adrenaline as he took a cab back to the airport and returned to Baltimore. It had been a potentially dangerous situation, but despite the fact that he had been kicked out of the office, Zaffarano’s statements during the meeting were enough to link him to others under investigation, so that he, too, could be named in an indictment.

This episode marked the end of the undercover phase of the operation. On February14, 1980, 400 F.B.I. agents began making arrests in 16 cities around the country. Fifty-three defendants were arrested in all. By the time the dust had settled, 45 defendants in the MiPorn investigation had been successfully convicted.

One of the targets who didn’t go to prison was Michael Zaffarano. He dropped dead of an apparent heart attack when agents attempted to arrest him during the nation-wide roundup. Robert DiBernardo was convicted, but his conviction was later overturned. No matter, he disappeared in 1986, murdered on orders of a powerful mob boss.

Unfortunately, the biggest culprit in this story, escaped practically unscathed. The pornography industry has tripled in size since those early days and more importantly, has managed to gain a degree of credibility in the mind of the American public.

It seems highly unlikely that there will ever be another MiPorn investigation. The F.B.I. continues to pursue obscenity cases but, for the most part, has confined its attention to child pornography. The lack of concern shown by most Americans over the effects of pornography on our culture has stymied any momentum law enforcement previously had. The sad fact is that the dirty business of hawking obscene material appears to be a welcomed addition to the new global community.

Pornography use is exploding in our smartphone culture, and it's fueled by porn's alluring but deceptive nature. To fight the cultural trend, we will have to dismantle the lies that surround pornography. First, a PLM audio article explores the untold history of the adult entertainment industry, and then Nate Danser debunks the myth that porn only affects the person using it.

Ken Larkin, a biblical counselor, maps out some basic steps toward change for people who realize they're heading in the wrong spiritual direction.

Brooks: Ken, the human tendency to form habits can often be a good thing...but not when it comes to sexual sin. What are the basic differences between someone who's on the right path of seeking the Lord and a person who is caught up in habits of sexual sin?

Ken: In Proverbs 14:16, scripture says that "a wise man is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is arrogant and careless." Really, the difference between someone on the right path and someone on the wrong path is your perspective on life. A foolish person basically lives for today. So if you find yourself constantly just seeking what's immediate—immediate gratification and pleasure, where you're asking "How will this make me feel at the moment?" without considering consequences in the future—then you're living like a foolish person and you're on the wrong path. But a wise person is not only concerned with the immediate results but with what the consequences will be in the future for his actions—maybe a month from now or a year from now. And more importantly, he wants to know, "How is this going to affect me from an eternal perspective?" For him, it's not just about gaining pleasure; it's "How is this going to set me up in the future?" There's a big difference between living for the "now" or living in the reality of the future and what direction your life is actually heading in as you pursue your pleasure or your sin.

Brooks: As a counselor, when you're talking to someone who realizes they're on the wrong path and they are willing to change, what are the first steps they need to take?

Ken: The first step is to look at your life and see where you're going wrong. Obviously, if they're in the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program and they're dealing with sexual sin, it's an obvious thing. But you need to realize, "OK, what are the patterns of my behavior? Why do I do this?" You want to look at, not just what you're doing, but why you're doing it—what you're hoping to gain out of it. If you're sinning, ask, "What should I have done instead of that?" I think it's also very good to look at the consequences of where you're headed, because you're not going to want to turn around unless you see the need for it. If you see that you're going the wrong way, you need to see exactly where you're at, you need to take ownership for it and you need to resolve in your heart, "I want things to be different."

Second, when you see you need to change, the Bible says that you need to repent. You need to turn around; you need to repent before the Lord, and you need to also repent before any individuals that your actions have affected. If you've hurt someone or if you've done something where you sinned against someone, then you need to repent. And this clears the spiritual slate where you can make a clean break from your past and start fresh and begin to move forward—in your walk with the Lord and in getting out of this lifestyle of sin. Repentance is a change of mind. You see that what you've thought and what you've done was wrong. And this change leads to a fundamental heart change, where you realize that you need to go in a different direction. And that should lead to a change in your will—where you resolve to stop doing what you're doing—and a change in the direction of your life. And then, ultimately, it will affect your actions.

For more discussion about what real repentance looks like, see "Did You Repent or Make an Empty Resolution?"

Brooks: “Accountability” is a word that is often linked to discussions about breaking addictions. What advice do you give counselees about this aspect of change?

Ken: One of the worst things you can do is dumb it down to merely just being accountable to someone for what you’re doing—checking in with someone and saying, "Yeah, I failed today," or whatever. Especially if it's someone else who's struggling. There are support groups where people that are actually bound in sin just kind of tell on one another and try to encourage one another. But really, from a biblical standpoint, it's deeper than just telling someone you're doing wrong or checking in. It really should be discipleship. And that would mean you need to go to a mature believer or mature believers in your church that can come alongside you and help. They shouldn't be someone struggling with the same thing. It could be beneficial if they've come out of the same background, so they can empathize with you. But any godly person living in victory and that's more mature in their walk with the Lord can help you. And then, it's not enough to just come under their guidance and direction. If you don't follow their counsel, it's not going to do you any good. Proverbs 12:15 says, "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel." Obviously, if you're stuck in a pattern of behavior that's wrong and you're trying to grow, you're going to need outside help.

Brooks: Another common discipline that's often connected to Christian growth is Bible study. Why is Bible study important in the change process, and how do you recommend people do it?

Ken: Romans 12:2 says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." Anyone that's been struggling with habitual sin has been living to that extent like a fool, and they need to have their perspective changed by spending quality time in the Word of God—really, on a daily basis. It's not just about gaining facts; the Bible is spiritual food, and it's about developing a relationship with God. The more you spend time with a holy God, it will eventually rub off on you and you'll begin to really be a "partaker of the divine nature," as the Bible says. Your relationship with him will enable you to overcome sin. It's not about getting strong or overcoming in yourself; He is our strength, and He is our victory. He is the path to freedom and deliverance.

Brooks: Can you give some practical recommendations for getting started in Bible study?

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Ken: The first thing is you do make a commitment that you're going to spend time in the Bible—that you're going to commit to a lifestyle of Bible study. In the Residential Program, we mandate that the men spend at least 15 minutes per day in Bible study. I think that's a good starting point. I would rather someone spend 15 minutes a day and be consistent than maybe spend an hour once a week or something. The important thing is spending quality time...and then, consistency. Then, you have to have a specific game plan—you have to have a specific time and place where you're going to do this. If you don't have a time scheduled, it's going to be just too easy for the day to crowd out that time. I would recommend the morning; give God the first-fruits, and spend that quality time in the morning with God. Eventually, you're going to want to build that time up, because you can do only so much in 15 minutes. And it should be coupled with prayer. I would say that if you can commit to a half-hour a day—15 minutes in the Bible and 15 minutes in prayer—that would be a great starting point. If you can get that solidified, where you're doing that on a daily basis, God is going to make major inroads into your life and give you spiritually what you thought you could never get. He's going to bring you to a victory you've never experienced before if you haven't spent time in God's Word on a daily basis before. You can do different things: word studies; prewritten Bible studies, such as our resource The Walk of Repentance; or meditating on the life of Jesus in the gospels. But I can't emphasize them enough the importance of spending daily time in the Word of God and how that will revolutionize your life. It's not an option, if you want to live in victory.

Biblical counselors Jeff and Rose Colón offer practical advice on the basics of communication between a husband and wife.

Brooks: Jeff and Rose Colón, communication must be a frequent topic that comes up when you counsel couples. Can you give us some thoughts on this area?

Jeff: Words are powerful, and they will either work to bring about God's peace and unity in a marriage or they'll work to bring about contention, strife and division. A couple has to learn how to bring God's thinking into their communication. They have to learn how to reconcile differences and how to come to common ground—whatever they're dealing with.

Brooks: What are some of the ways that you see communication problems manifest when you're counseling couples?

Rose: Usually, when we counsel the husband and wife and we sit there and watch and observe them communicate with one another, one of the common problems that both the husband and wife have is that they tend to jump to conclusions—without really knowing what's going on with the other partner. Or they read into something the husband or the wife is doing or not doing. And they draw these conclusions, and later on, they find out that they were so wrong.

Brooks: Rose, what particular things do you notice when you're talking to wives about the issue of communication?

Rose: What we usually see with the wives when we talk about these issues is that there's times when she's communicating and she's not aware of how she's tearing her husband down with her words…or how she's attacking his manhood. And the husband feels like, "I can't do anything right," and he starts shutting down in communicating with her. And it becomes a barrier between both of them.

Brooks: Jeff, what are some practical ways that a couple can begin to work on problems with their communication?

Jeff: It's really very simple. It's just them learning to sit down and to communicate biblically. A lot of times, we get into things with our spouse while we're out in the car driving around or while we're at the store. And that's really not the time to talk about an issue. Or sometimes, we're at home and one person shuts down and doesn't want to talk. Or we play the silent treatment. If a couple wants Christ in the center of their home, there has to be a willingness to communicate. So a conference table is a good way to do that. They can set up a place in the home where they know, "This is where we're going to sit down, and this is where we're going to talk things through." We always tell them to have a Bible on the table, because you want God's perspective on whatever it is you're talking about. We encourage them to pray before they start. And if there's anything that needs to be repented of, now would be a good time.

I've found in my own marriage that if our hearts aren't right starting out, it's going to be very difficult to communicate. So it's very important, obviously, that our hearts get right before we can sit down. So we encourage them to get anything out and to maybe admit, "You know what, I was wrong today," or maybe, "My attitude has been wrong." And it's a good time to repent to one another and then begin to talk about the problem.

Brooks: As you've counseled people about starting with repentance, have you found that some problems actually get resolved at that point?

Jeff: Yeah, actually, what you find out is that what you got mad about was really not an issue.

Rose: And for the wife, during this time, she might need to repent of being resentful toward her husband or bitter toward him. Maybe he spoke to her a certain way that day and she's been carrying it around all day. And maybe they have the conference table at 7 o'clock that night. But all day, she's been running that thing over and over in her mind and heart, and she's developing a root of bitterness toward her husband. This is a good opportunity for her to come to her husband and to say, "You know, I need to repent, because my heart's not right toward you in that area; I've allowed myself to become bitter or resentful toward you."

Brooks: Considering how busy people's lives are, how important is this practice of setting aside time on a regular basis to communicate like you're describing?

Jeff: I think that in the beginning, it's very important. Especially for a couple that has issues that they're working through and that has a serious communication problem. They have to learn how to communicate, and they're not going to learn without practice. And then, after a while, after they feel like they are communicating, it could be limited to when they have issues—when something's not right, when they've got to deal with the kids about something. There's always something that needs to be discussed in a home, and it really is a good idea to have a place where we can sit down and really put our hearts into it and have God in the middle of it. To me, it's a good habit to do often.

Brooks: Beyond the blessings that it provides to the couple themselves, how important is good communication to God?

Jeff: It's very important. Jesus warned us many times about our words, and in Ephesians, Paul said that when we allow any "corrupt communication...[to] come out of our mouths," we "grieve the Holy Spirit." God wants our words to edify one another. He wants our words to build up one another—to encourage one another. When we're not communicating in the Spirit, we're hurting one another. It really is a barometer of whether God is conquering my will—whether God is having His way in my life.

Homosexuality increasingly touches all our lives. More and more Christians know a friend, coworker or family member who identifies as gay...and many others are struggling with same-sex attraction themselves. Steve Gallagher draws on his knowledge of the issues involved and explores five reasons why people could feel drawn toward homosexuality. Also in this episode: Jim Lewis breaks down the basics of biblical counseling and Jeff and Rose Colón give couples advice on effective communication.

With poetic beauty John Newton made it clear in his famous hymn, Amazing Grace, that there are many dangers, toils and snares for those who choose to walk with Jesus. He eloquently depicted suffering as being an integral part of the past, present and future reality of the journey of life. These dangers, toils and snares come from the battles that rage against us through devils, other people, or even our own flesh.

The third stanza of Amazing Grace tells the story,

“Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.”

Newton presented in this hymn some practical, everyday theology. If you read his life story, you will find that he wrote this heartfelt hymn through the agony of personal experience. Not only did he know the perils that accompanied a sailor’s life in the natural, he also knew what it was to face the “dangers, toils and snares” of the spiritual realm. He suffered before coming to Christ because of his sin and then suffered after coming to Christ as a result of his pursuit of God.

Life would be easy if we didn’t have to face all these trials and temptations. Yet ever since Adam and Eve’s terrible rebellion this has been the world in which we live. The idea that we will face many “dangers, toils and snares” is Newton’s concise way of communicating some of the ways that Christians will experience suffering. They may come through persecution, spiritual attacks or the inward battles we face in dealing with our sinful nature.

Sometimes our suffering is little more than an irritant; other times it has the potential to be devastating. Yet in each danger, toil and snare there lies an opportunity to grow a little more like Jesus. This isn’t how most Christians think in America despite the fact that trials and tests are an integral part of developing a Biblical faith.

Before Paul came to Christ, he persecuted the church and even thought that he was doing service for God. When the Lord confronted him on the Damascus road, he was terrified by the divine encounter, especially after the Lord declared that he was literally fighting against God.

For three days Paul was in agony of soul and mind through the knowledge that he had been self-deceived into believing that it was God’s will for him to persecute Christians. The Pharisee was slowly being purged of his Pharisaism through the gift of repentance.

After three days of deep conviction the Lord sent to Paul a disciple named Ananias. The Lord told Ananias that He would show Paul “how much he must suffer for my name.” (Acts 9:16). The Lord didn’t paint a rosy picture to Paul by telling him that his new life with Christ would be happy and free from trouble. No, the Lord told him the truth because He wanted Paul to count the cost to be a disciple.

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In today’s church culture many want to remarket Jesus by sanitizing Him of all the supposed negativity that surrounds Him. They want to scrub Him up and make Him look relevant to this modern culture. There is one major problem with this—such thoughts are not based in truth, but an incorrect knowledge of God and man’s great need. Mankind has not changed in six millennia—we are still sinners in desperate need of a Savior.

Many people would like to erase what Paul told the believers in Philippi because it doesn’t fit today’s motivational preaching where people want a happy religion. He wrote, “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.” (Philippians 1:29). How many pastors have preached from this verse? How many self-professing Christians even know this verse exists?

The fact remains that Newton was right in stating that we will go through many dangers, toils, and snares until we see Jesus face to face. Paul knew what it was to suffer for Christ, and this became part of his preaching. An example of this is found in Acts 14:22, “Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.”

Notice that Paul was encouraging the disciples with the message that they must go through much tribulation before they get to heaven. The importance of this message is lost in the watered-down motivational talks that many pastors give today. People need to be prepared for the trials and temptations we are sure to face—not with the psychobabble that comes from so many pulpits today, but with the truth that a victorious Christian life comes by dying to self and living totally unto Christ.

We cannot help people live triumphant over sin, self and the world by giving them cutesy sayings, funny antidotes and sugar sweetened coined phrases that are void of substance. We all need to hear the truth, even when it hurts. To sugarcoat the truth to make it palatable to more people is to turn the truth into a lie.

The apostle Peter told us that “…the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” (1 Peter 5:10). Here we see the wonder and mystery of how God works in our fallen world. If we will submit to Jesus through loving obedience, then He will make all the dangers, toils, and snares work for our temporal and eternal good. They will help purify our faith so that we can hear our Savior’s joyful “Well done” when we stand before Him.

This roundtable discussion offers sound advice to Christian singles about following Jesus and living in purity. Leaders from Madison Place Community Church offer biblical insight into how and why singleness can be a blessing for Christians. Plus, PLM Director of Ministry Outreach Nate Danser offers an inside look at the brand-new resource The Overcomers Series.

Karla Buch, who is part of Pure Life Ministries' senior leadership, shares how she persevered through the tragedy of her husband's betrayal and found faith, restoration, and "a love we never had before."

Brooks: Karla, you and Ed went through a fiery trial in your marriage. But before we get into what happened, can you share a little about how you met?

Karla: Well, I grew up in a Christian home, where I had very godly parents who taught me about the Lord from the time I was very young. I went to a Christian college after high school, and then I worked for two different missions organizations. When I did meet my husband, it was a church, and we knew each other for about 15 years before we started dating. We both wanted to serve the Lord, we both sat under the same preaching and teaching, and we went to Christian seminars together. So we knew we really had something in common—a life where we wanted to serve the Lord.

Brooks: What were your ideas of how marriage would be as you started life together?

Karla: We really were hoping that we would both be serving the Lord full-time. Even in the process of planning our wedding, we had gotten introduced to a Christian organization that was looking for Christian counselors, and that was my husband's field of work. So we really expected that we could be more effective serving the Lord as a married couple then each one of us would be individually. I was looking forward to a marriage that would be very fulfilling for me, because I had trusted the Lord to bring the right man into my life. I was looking forward to that companionship and just to having a godly husband who would be a good husband and potentially a good father to any children we might have—that we would really be living for the Lord in all that we did.

Brooks: What were some of the first things you noticed that led you to believe that something wasn't right in your relationship?

Karla: Very early on, I sensed that he would go into long periods of withdrawal—where he would be very quiet, very hard to reach and hard to talk to. He could never give me a reason why. I would ask what was wrong, but he would always tell me that nothing was wrong, of course. We would be constantly arguing about household duties or time spent away from home, how much was correct. He immersed himself in his work and took on a position with his work where he had to be gone almost every weekend. So he would retreat into his work environment, and I would go home and stay with my parents for the weekend. It was like we were still living under the same roof...but almost in two different worlds completely. But yet, all the while, we were maintaining this facade that we were the perfect Christian couple, perfectly happy, and that everything was fine. So I knew something was wrong, but I really couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. There was no outward sin that I was aware of, but you just know somehow—I guess, from the Lord, maybe—that something is wrong.

Brooks: Did you question God during this period when things weren't going like you expected them to go in your marriage?

Karla: Well, of course, because I had waited a long time before I got married and wanted the Lord to bring the right one into my life. And so now that he did, I was really beginning to question, "Was this the right one? Was this God's plan? Have I made a big mistake here?" But even in the midst of my questionings and my doubts, the Lord was working things out behind the scenes. One day, I was at the office, and a magazine came in the mail to my desk—and it came to my desk because it wasn't addressed to anyone in particular in the organization. It was Unchained!, the magazine from Pure Life Ministries. When I read through that magazine and heard about Pure Life Ministries' programs and about men that had been set free, for the first time, I had hope that maybe there was something out there that could help our marriage. I ordered Kathy Gallagher's book, When His Secret Sin Breaks Your Heart, and I began to read her advice to women who had been through the same things I was going through. It really helped me to see that we need to keep our focus on the Lord during these times, even when nothing seems to be happening.

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I remember one night when I was just at the end of my own self, my own resources, and I was on my face before the Lord, just crying out him. First of all, I was just asking him to intervene in the marriage, and I was praying for my husband, praying that he would have a heart to change. But also, at the same time, it was just a time of surrender to the Lord, where I had to lay down that marriage and the all of the ideal expectations that I had for the marriage. And I remember saying to the Lord, "If this is the way that you want this marriage to be, then I accept it, and I am willing to continue to be committed to my husband and to allow you to be the One that I am looking to for all of my needs." At this point, I didn't know the full extent of his sin. I just knew things weren't the way I wanted them to be, and that was what I had to lay down before the Lord. It was probably only a few months later when my husband sat down with me one evening and confessed everything.

Brooks: Later, Ed attended the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program, and you enrolled in the Wives Program. How did God work in your lives in this time?

Karla: In the Wives Program, I learned, first of all, what it really meant to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Like I said, I had grown up in the church, but I think my Christianity was more of a mental acknowledgement of the Lord—knowing about Him, reading about Him. But I came to learn that it has to be a personal relationship with Him, and he has to be real inside a person, and that's what happened for me when I did the Program. I also had a lot of pride. I had a lot of unrealistic expectations about what marriage should be. Fear of man was also a big issue for me; I was so self-conscious and worried about what others thought about me. Through the Wives Program, I learned to be more concerned about the needs of others.

When Ed was in the Residential Program, the Lord did a marvelous work in his life. The Lord has restored our marriage. We no longer have those doubts or fears or periods of silence. Nothing's hidden anymore. The Lord has given us a love for each other that we never had before—one that's based on true godly love, not just our own interests. We've been serving here a Pure Life Ministries since 2005, and we're very grateful for all that the Lord has done for us. It's not just that my marriage got fixed. It's that the Lord has come into my life and my husband's life in a way that He is the center of everything. We're not just living for a happy, comfortable life in this world. We now see that the Lord and eternal matters are much more important than anything we could ever hope for in this life.

Brooks: Do you have any closing thoughts for other wives out there who are hurting?

Karla: I would definitely say that your best weapon is prayer, both for your husband and for yourself—to have the ability to be able to endure through what might be very difficult circumstances. Just know that the Lord is working behind the scenes...maybe in ways that you're not even aware of. And if you just keep looking to Him, He will be the one that will meet your needs and be your security. He will be your comfort and your stronghold during this time.

Have you been devastated by the pain and rejection of an unfaithful husband? Whether your husband’s problem is pornography, an adulterous affair, soliciting prostitutes, or even secretly struggling with homosexuality…we can help you.

WIVES PROGRAM