God's mercy shines against His judgment. Sin has real consequences, but God’s mercy still brings real change.
Residential Program Director Luke Imperato gives a sobering call for backslidden Christians to return to the Father.
Wondering if lasting freedom is possible? IT IS! Hear how God has kept two former staff members walking in ongoing victory.
Steve Gallagher warns us to keep watch for signs of backsliding in our lives.
God is the only one who can redeem us when we’ve yielded our bodies and spirits to the enemy’s authority.
When Jesus and His disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee, they were immediately assaulted by a man possessed with many demons. And while many of us might have seen this man as too far gone to help, Jesus was ready and eager to meet his needs with compassion and mercy. This is a great lesson for all of us, but especially for those who feel they have gone too far for God to save them. Join us, as Pastor Ed Buch shows us through this story how there’s hope for every person through the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.
It's only by experiencing a very real breaking away from the spirit of Babylon that we are able to walk closely with God.
Babylon began as an ancient city built by a rebel. It later emerged as a proud, idolatrous, God-opposing empire. The origins and history of Babylon are so entwined with defiance toward God that it came to symbolize everything that resists the rule of God in the world. Its king is Satan himself. Its goal is life without God. This is the final episode in our series, Babylon: The Seat of Satan's Power. In today's show, there will be no history lessons, no discussions, no explanations. Just an exhortation to respond to the timeless words of God. Yes, His voice is still echoing in the prophet Jeremiah's ancient words: "Flee from the midst of Babylon!"
In Scripture, God warns His people to not love the world because there is a very real danger of their doing so.
In this interview, Nate and Ken sat down in our studio to discuss chapter two of John’s first epistle. Their hope was to gain a greater understanding of what the “world system” is and how it impacts each of our lives. And as they took a look at what the Word of God has to say, they discovered that the spirit of the world infiltrates our lives much more broadly, and much more subtly than many of us realize.
We hope that this discussion will challenge you to consider carefully the warnings of Scripture and that you will heed the call to keep yourself unstained from the world.
This series is based on the book Intoxicated with Babylon: The Seduction of God’s People in the Last Days by Steve Gallagher. You can find out more about that book by visiting our bookstore.
The Lord is adamantly opposed to the things of this world because they are not of Him and they separate us from Him.
The Bible teaches us that our hearts are naturally drawn toward wicked things. And these evil desires are adamantly opposed to God. But they are not opposed to the world system. In fact, the things that surround us every day, even things that seem good to us, can feed some of our worst habits. That’s certainly true of sexual sin. But we often don’t want to hear that something in our lives which we think is good may actually be hurting us. We want to be free from sexual sin, but we also want to hold on to our lives in this world. However, the truth is that hope for freedom over sexual sin is only possible if we are willing to confess and repent of the real issues in our lives. In this interview, Luke Imperato discusses how worldliness is one of those issues.
Nate: So Luke, what we want to do here is help people see that there's a really clear connection between worldliness and sexual sin. Because what we teach her at Pure Life Ministries, what we tell our counselees and preach from the pulpit, is that one of the main factors in overcoming sexual sin is learning to cut ourselves off from the spirit of the world. This is because when your whole life is centered around just going after what the world offers, then you're creating a spiritual environment inside of yourself that's going to make you really vulnerable to sexual sin. But I think that connection is not super clear, especially if you're in sexual sin yourself. You just don't see it. It's kind of like somebody who's continually having intestinal problems and they don't even realize that they have a food allergy. They're like, why is this happening to me? So, I think I want to dive into that a little bit more right up front. From your perspective, what is it about worldliness that is making our inside world a perfect place for sin to thrive.
Luke: When I was thinking about this question, what came to mind was the fact that the root behind sexual sin or what really makes a sexual sin lifestyle thrive is selfishness. We don't have to conjure that up. It comes naturally. We don't have to work to become selfish. So when I look at a mentality of worldliness, I connect it with a natural tendency to love oneself and the natural tendency to just protect self and to do whatever self wants. With that in mind, worldliness could be almost defined as just the pursuit of any earthly pleasure, or passion, or desire for anything that self wants. When we think about the fact that that's the message of the world, and it’s the natural tendency of our hearts which we know produces sexual sin, it should be no surprise to us that if we keep feeding selfishness and worldliness in our lives, we are going to produce a life of sexual sin.
Nate: That's helpful. What you're basically saying is that we are already selfish by nature and part of that selfishness is wanting to indulge in sexual passions, which all of us have. Then this world’s spirit adds to that saying, “Yeah, do that. Whatever you want, whatever you crave, just go for it.” That perspective really helps to understand how that selfishness can be fostered by the worldly spirit. Why is God is so adamant about being separate from the world.
Luke: It's a chain reaction. If I look back at the chain of events in my own life, I see a lot of sexual sin in my life and I see how that was because I was selfish. The world fostered that selfishness, but the Lord is going to be adamantly opposed to anything in my life that's going to produce sinful behavior. So, if worldliness thrives in a selfish mindset, or even if selfishness thrives in a worldly environment, then the Lord's going to say that He doesn't want a worldly influence to be reigning in my life. Sometimes I find it helpful to just look at it through the lens of Scripture and just let the Word of God tell me what's right or wrong. If the Word of God is saying that something is evil, there are times where we just have to believe that.
Nate: Yeah. Without needing some kind of complex explanation.
Luke: Yeah, exactly. So, when I look at a verse like 1 John 2:15 (ESV) where John says, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in Him.” Just that verse is a compelling argument that if you're in love with the world, you don't have the love of the Father in you. That should be a huge warning. John goes on in Verse 16 saying, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father.” It’s like God is saying that when you're holding onto the things of the world, those things are not of me.
The Living Bible says in 1 John 2:16 (TLB), “For all these worldly things, these evil desires—the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance—these are not from God.” We just have to stop and realize that the Lord is adamantly opposed to things that are not of Him. He's trying to make a connection here that the things of this world, these passions, and desires, are not of me. So if we love them, then how can we claim to have a relationship with Him?
We know the world is perishing. We know that this world is coming to an end and the Lord is going to judge His enemies, but we read several times in Scripture that God takes no pleasure in destroying the wicked. He's patient and He's kind, hoping that all would come to repentance. He doesn't want to destroy, and He doesn't want to judge in that way. He wishes that we would all come to repentance. So when the Lord is telling us to separate from the things of this world, He's saying, “I do not want to judge you. I do not want to harm you.” I think that oftentimes we don’t connect worldliness with the judgment of God, but that's the reality.
Most of us know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where God rained down fire from heaven and destroyed these cities because they were full of all this immorality and sin. In our mind, we think that they were just a nonstop party city full of obvious evil. We think that it must have just been a terrible place. But if we look in Ezekiel, God gives us a little behind the scenes as to what was actually going on in Sodom and Gomorrah and what their actual heart issues were. The Lord speaks in Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NKJV) saying, “Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit.” When I read that, I'm like, wait a minute, that’s what was really going on in Sodom and Gomorrah. In that verse you can almost get the sense that it was just worldliness that they were living in. They were just living for the here and now, living for their pleasures and their desires. They pursued whatever they wanted and the Lord said that was that was the iniquity of Sodom and Gomorrah.
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Nate: I think that's good to see, because if we could be transported back in time and actually just live there for a day, maybe it would just kind of look like a nice beach town in Florida where everybody's just enjoying life.
Luke: Yea. And we don't see that as dangerous, but the Lord does. He's crying out and trying to warn us in His Word not to be caught up in that mindset because it's going to lead to destruction.
Nate: Okay, so let me get your take on something because I know that objections start coming up in people's minds when we start talking about worldliness, especially if we start connecting it with specific aspects of our American lifestyle. How do you respond to somebody who easily gets defensive about this?
Luke: It's hard, because I don't know if you can make a blanket statement that applies to everyone. It would be nice if there were just clear-cut rules like you're allowed 45 minutes on the internet a day and you will be a Christian. That may be simple and nice if it worked that way, but it doesn't. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I think we need to examine our lives and ask ourselves questions like, “What do I treasure? What do I value? And what do I put a lot of time into?” Our answers to those questions will tell us where our hearts are at.
You just have to do an inventory of your life and realize, okay, while it may not be evil in itself, if you’re spending a substantial amount of time on entertainment or following politics, on hobby’s or at your job, you might have a problem. The Lord says in Scripture that if you want to know where your heart is, just look at what you treasure; look at what you value. So if you run an inventory of your time spent over a period of seven days, you could look and see that maybe 5% of that time was spent with the Lord in that period of time, you should consider how much you really treasure the Lord and if it matches how much you think you treasure Him.
Nate: That's good, because I think when I really studied that portion of Scripture that you read in 1 John 2, what I realized was that what was being represented as the love of the world was not just a blatantly immoral and flagrantly sinful lifestyle, but also a life that just shuts God out. If I look into my past when I was living in unrepentant sin, what my life was saying was that I didn’t have time for God. I pursued what my flesh wanted. I pursued what I saw with my eyes and what I wanted. I was just full of pride.
I think even maybe some pretty decent people could be living in that spirit just because they decided that they don't have time for God. The bottom line is that they have shut God out by the things they have given their life to.
The Lord knows how to help us through our suffering, and He knows how to make it work for good.
Job was a righteous man who strove to live obediently before the Lord. And if you’re familiar with his story, then you know that after living a holy life for many years, he was subjected to extreme suffering. Maybe you’ve wondered why God allowed Satan to destroy Job’s life. Perhaps you’ve struggled to understand God’s purpose in allowing suffering. Reverend Dave Leopold joined us this past Sunday to speak to our students and staff on the rich blessings that come from the trials of life and on the role of suffering in the life of a true Christian. If you’ve experienced seasons of difficulty and pain, then we hope this message will encourage you to keep hoping in God.
Social media is a distraction which the enemy uses to push us further away from Jesus.
Satan's end goal is to create a global mindset of rebellion against God's authority. But how does he do it? What are his most effective strategies for shaping the minds of men and women? What are the cultural forces that we need to be most aware of and most on guard against? Our episode this week takes a look at one way he does this, a phenomenon that has gripped the hearts of over 4 billion people - social media.
A mind set on the pleasures of this life shuts God out from our inside world and separates us from His eternal life.
It’s been estimated that there are over 3,800 distinct cultures on the planet. Even within a single country, you can find a wide range of people groups with differing dialects, traditions and values. Yet despite all these apparent differences, there is a common culture which unites all of mankind together. It was this spirit that the Lord sought to disrupt at the Tower of Babel.
Ever since that day, Satan has been plotting and scheming to reunite humanity in rebellion against God. Today, however, he no longer wants to do this by raising a single tower, but by raising up a single world leader – the Antichrist. But how could he influence billions of people divided across the whole earth? How could he overcome all their differences and unite them once again?
The answer is kosmos.
Join us as Steve Gallagher explains how the spirit of kosmos is being manipulated by Satan to condition multitudes into a cohesive mindset. Pastor Steve also helps us see what all Christians must do if they hope to be prepared for the spiritual battles in the days ahead.
This series is based on the book Intoxicated with Babylon: The Seduction of God’s People in the Last Days by Steve Gallagher. You can find out more about that book by visiting our bookstore.
Faith is the choice to bring our thoughts and our actions into alignment with the truth of God’s Word.
Faith is a very important part of the Christian walk, and a subject addressed often during Jesus’ ministry on earth. One of the most well-known examples of this occurred when He and His disciples were sailing. While Jesus slept, their boat was struck by a raging storm. His disciples woke Him, fearful for their lives. As Jesus roused Himself, He did not confront them on their lack of courage, but on their lack of faith. In this week’s message, Nate Danser discusses the importance of guarding our faith and shows us how we can strengthen it.
The more you wait on the Lord in stillness, the more you will experience His goodness and come to find that He is all that you need.
Before they came to Pure Life Ministries, Gabriel, Michael and Chris lived their lives in a frenzy, running from place to place. They couldn’t slow down long enough to allow the Lord to speak to them. This left them in a bad place spiritually. In this discussion, they share what it took for the Lord to slow them down. They’ll talk about how God did that as they went through the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program. They’ll also testify to the peace of God which comes from taking the time to meditate on His Word and taking the time to wait patiently for His direction in life.
Spirit filled believers will be characterized by love, joy and peace - even in a world of endless activity and motion.
Many saints throughout the ages have spoken of the value of being still. They've told us about the great spiritual benefits awaiting anyone who will regularly quiet their minds and hearts so that they might contemplate God. They've urged us to think deeply about His works, wonders and promises. They've testified about growing in the reality of eternity. If that’s the impact that was made on those who chose to quiet themselves before God, it’s no wonder why Satan loves fostering stress, pressure, lights, noise, and endless activity and motion in our culture. After all, if we are constantly tyrannized by what is happening right now, we will never have time to think about eternity.
Every single day we can make choices that either allow us to participate in the life of God or create a barrier in our hearts toward Him.
In the beginning, God created man to dwell in His presence, living entirely for His purpose. But Satan lured humanity away from this noble call by appealing to our desires and brought us into willing rebellion against God. From that point on, every human being was born with the instinct to choose their own way and reject God’s plan for their lives.
Many of us who’ve grown up around Christian teaching agree with that intellectually. But we must ask ourselves how deep does that understanding go? Do we really comprehend that the desires we experience and the choices we make every day are leading us somewhere? Is it real to us that if we aren’t careful, we could easily stray from God’s presence?
Three of our staff took time to study through Ephesians 4:17-24, and in this interview they sit down to talk about what they learned. They also share how the enemy used their desires to blind them and lead them away from God.
We hope this discussion will inspire all true believers to continue to fight against their former passions and to grow deeper in their fellowship with the Lord.
This series is based on the book Intoxicated with Babylon: The Seduction of God’s People in the Last Days by Steve Gallagher. You can find out more about that book by visiting our bookstore.
You can’t buy the kingdom, but it will cost you everything.
Over the past few weeks, we've been teaching through the parables of Jesus from Matthew 13. In today's selection, Jesus compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a costly treasure and to a valuable pearl. He tells us the Kingdom is so valuable, we should be willing to give up everything for it. In his message, Pastor Steve asks us to examine just how valuable the Kingdom is to us and if there is anything else in our lives which we are giving our hearts to.
After porn destroyed his life, Steve Gallagher discovered powerful truths that broke his addiction and transformed his life. Based off his popular YouTube series, this book will help you experience the power of these truths for yourself.
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