Mike: Kathy, we got a response from a woman who really had been impacted by At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry, which of course, was written primarily for men, before you and Steve wrote Create in Me a Pure Heart for women. And two things that she said really helped her in dealing with sexual sin in her own life were one, accountability, and two, someone who was willing to tell her the truth and help her to really face the truth about herself.  

Kathy: Yeah, that's very important. This woman that she's calling her mother, she's not really her mother, just a very dear woman who had the courage to tell Brittney what she saw, to tell her straight up what she saw, that she was full of lust and self-pity. And it caused Britney to really look at her life. And that began a relationship between them, where Britney was able to confess her sins to this woman, and this woman has really bore Britney in her heart for a number of years now. It's been the thing that has changed her life.  

Mike: We do have tremendous sympathy and compassion for these women. I know that you do. I hear it in your voice when you talk about these women. But true mercy, the mercy of God, will confront these women about what's going on in their heart.  

Kathy: Absolutely. And that's what mercy is. I mean, mercy is stepping in to the life of someone that is on their way to hell, in many cases, and stopping them. It's throwing up a roadblock and saying, "Stop!" That's mercy. It's the right thing to do. And to turn away from someone that you know is really struggling, and to act like they'll figure it out on their own, or to just go into denial, is really unkind and unmerciful.  

Mike: And sometimes, just a lack of courage.  

Kathy: Yeah.  

Mike: Well, hopefully what we talk about today will really help some women that have come to a point in their life where they see they have a problem, and really want to deal with the root issues. But, there is so much misinformation out there about what the "root issues" are. Let's talk about, what I'll call, "The Blame Game." A lot of people blame their parents or their past for the choices and the decisions they're making in their lives. And many also blame their partners, their mates for the sexual sin they're involved in.  

Kathy: A lot of women will say that because their husbands neglect them, sexually, that that's the reason why they've gone into sin. And I understand, you know. I've talked to a lot of women whose husbands have neglected them. My heart goes out to them, I do have a lot of compassion. But, I also have to say, in that same compassion, that is not an excuse to go that way. They are only bringing on themselves corruption and distance from God - separation from God and all the other miseries that go along with it. You can't ever try to fill your own need as a Christian. You just can't. That's a dead end.  

Mike: The story that comes to my mind, is the story of Joseph, and how mistreated he was by his own family.  

Kathy: Right, and there was no self-pity which is really the root issue with a woman who's been neglected by her husband. Self-pity is something that you really have to be on guard against, because it allows you to so easily, justify in your own mind, going outside of the marriage to get your needs met. It's basically saying, "God, you're not taking care of me."  

Mike: That really leads us to our next point. Kathy, a lot of women are blaming God for the circumstances they find themselves in.  

Kathy: Well, they view God as a cosmic bellhop that can snap his fingers and make this go away. And, that's kind of a spiritually immature attitude to have. To ever take the position that God is responsible for the sin I'm presently in, is kind of a dangerous attitude to get yourself into. The reality is, for anybody that's in sin, God is not the author of it. God is the author of faith. He's the perfecter of faith. But he does not tempt us. He doesn't drag us into sin. He doesn't leave us in sin. We are where we are because that is ultimately the choice that we have made. God has put in our hands the power to overcome sin. He's given us His Holy Spirit. I never want to sound like I'm simplifying or minimizing. But the bottom line is, we have choices to make. If we don't choose God then we're choosing something else and then sin becomes our master and we become mastered by it.  

Mike: So, what you're really saying here with these issues, whether it's blaming your parents or blaming your past or even blaming your mate, these women must, we all must, take responsibility for their sins.  

Kathy: Yeah, they do. And, you know, I also want to just kind of throw in the mix here that I know a lot of these women that I have dealt with have been horribly abused. I don't want to discount how that has deeply affected them. But, it would be wrong for me, and unmerciful of me, to tell them that they get a pass because of that. If I don't challenge them to walk uprightly and above reproach, then I have done them a disservice. I'm not walking right myself, if I'm not challenging them to come out of a life of sexual sin.  

Mike: The Word of God is full of examples of God healing those wounds and bringing a renewed innocence, bringing a renewed joy and peace into their life. But, they certainly are not going to experience that if they're blaming God or someone else for their current decisions.  

Kathy: Their heart will grow cold and hard. There's words to a song that Point of Grace sings. I just recently heard it and one of the lines in that song says, "Heal the wound, but leave the scar." That really is beautiful. I like that, because it's like saying to the Lord, "Lord, heal this thing in me. But don't ever let me forget where I've come from. Don't ever let me forget the mercy that rescued me." And it is mercy that rescues us. But we have to position ourselves for that mercy to come and cleanse and do away with the thing that's going to destroy us.  

Mike: And I think of Romans 8:28. I almost hesitate to say it because, we've heard it so often that it doesn't mean much to us anymore, but it is so true. All of these things, no matter how horrible they have been, can work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Look at your life. Kathy, we see the terrible scars that occurred in your heart in your life. In part, because of Steve, your husband's, sexual sin. But look how God is using that. Even in this program today, he prepared you to help other women in similar positions.  

Kathy: And that's so much of what Christianity is. Whatever I've gone through has purpose. It all has a purpose. For me, my purpose is because there are other women out there. They're going through what I went through. And I want to be able to tell them that Jesus is The Way He's The Answer. You know I said on a different program, another time, and I've said this to many hundreds of women: I don't regret one day of the misery I went through with my husband. It taught me obedience. It taught me love for God. It gave me a healthy fear of God. I'm not one bit sorry I went through what I went through. And I believe, in my heart, most of those women want to serve the Lord. They just feel like they are stuck because of the sin they are in. But you just keep pressing on. God is going to hear those cries. He hears the cry of the afflicted and he wants to heal you. He wants to set you free. Don't ever lose sight of that.  

Mike: Amen. Well, let's talk about blaming emotional problems. We've really hinted at the response to this. Most often we hear that someone has these unmet needs, unmet emotional needs. And they believe that until those needs are met, they are not going to overcome their problems.  

Kathy: It is only the Lord God who can make right what's wrong in our emotional life. God is the restorer or of all things, and the more we sit and focus on ourselves, the more we talk about ourselves, the more we talk about the things that have been done to us: the more self-centered we become and self-absorbed. We become more depressed. The answer to overcoming depression is get out of yourself, as hard as that may be. You get out of yourself and you go out and you find someone who's in worse shape than you are and you start to wash their feet. You minister to their needs and take care of them. That's how you get free of depression.  

Mike: Well Kathy, we've looked at some of the areas that are the wrong path to go down when a woman is looking for help. Let's look at the right way to go. Once a woman is born again, God immediately begins a process of renewal in her life. And, surprisingly to some people, that begins with the death process. Talk a little bit about that.  

Kathy: The death process is this death to self or the self-life, which has created so much death in us as we've been so self-absorbed and trying to live a Christian life, but also given over to worldly and carnal lusts. You can't do both. Jesus said you cannot serve two masters. And it's so true. So, God begins this process of tearing down and doing away with that old life. And the new creation that came about at the new birth is God working in us and dealing with us and transforming us into the image of His dear Son. We have to die. And we have to allow God to kill off that old flesh nature. And it's a very painful process because, quite frankly, we love ourselves. We love ourselves in this world. We love our lives in this world. But this transformation - it really is such a transformation - into the nature of God doesn't happen without some pain. But it's a wonderful thing. And the deeper into the process you get, the more you love Jesus because you realize what an enormous, enormous blessing in favor he's doing you by doing that in you.  

Mike: And for these women, God has a wonderful plan for her, doesn't he?  

Kathy: Yes He does. The wonderful plan is that God is going to create in us a pure heart. That's His plan; that's where we're headed as he transforms us -  

Mike: Into the image of Jesus.  

Kathy: That's the goal, to be like Jesus.

It’s easy to get discouraged if you’ve been stuck in sexual sin a long time. You may really want to stop, but you’ve tried everything you can think of to get free and yet, nothing works. Maybe you’re thinking, “This is hopeless. I’ll never be free.”

If you’ve been thinking along these lines, you’ve fallen prey to self-pity, just another one of Satan’s schemes to keep people away from true repentance, faith and salvation. It’s an easy trap to fall into. In this episode, we look at how to know if you’re in self-pity, how to avoid it, and how to get out of it.

Dating in America is almost exclusively driven by an obsession with personal happiness and getting what we want. It’s clear that these ideas do not line up with Scripture. As Christians, we must be radically different from the world when we approach romantic relationships. Obviously, we must abstain from sex before marriage, but it goes much deeper than that. Today we look at how Christians should seek, not only to find a good spouse, but to please God in this whole process, so that their relationships honor God and reveal that He is trustworthy in all things.

Mike: Kathy, when we look at a woman who is dealing with sexual sin, I think we need to make it clear, right up front, that it's not just the sexual sin that the woman is addicted to, but she's really addicted to a complex chain of actions.  

Kathy: That's right, Mike. It all begins with temptation and then moves into the person's particular routine, whatever that may be and peaks, in the act itself and ends with the lingering, inevitable consequences of that death process that sin always brings.  

Mike: Underlying that is something else. It's just this idea of the lust in the woman's heart. Talk to us a little bit about that.  

Kathy: Well, I want to read a verse of Scripture, actually 3 verses, James 1: 13-15, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death." Lust comes from within. It's not an outside thing that comes to us, but we are drawn away and enticed by something in us. So that's where lust comes from.  

Mike: Well, let's talk about the process of sin. There is a process. The initial step, of sin is what most people would think: the temptation.  

Kathy: Yeah, you get tempted, and you follow that temptation down a trail. There's a path, and there's something that's enticing to a person. One person may be tempted by seeing the cover of a magazine. That may do something for them, so that's going to start a whole chain reaction.  

Mike: One of the things I often hear from people, and I've even said it myself, and we've probably all said it is, "you know, I just hate this temptation. I really don't want to be tempted." Is that true?  

Kathy: No. I think people don't want to have to deal with it. But the truth is, we do enjoy the temptation. We enjoy the process that those thoughts take us down. So, to say, "I don't enjoy this," or, "I don't want this to happen," is really not being honest with yourself. Because, if that were true...

Mike: We'd stop it right then.  

Kathy: You would. It would be like stepping on a nail. I really don't enjoy stepping on nails; therefore, I'm going to put shoes on my feet and I'm going to quit doing that because I really don't like stepping on nails.  

Mike: And there is a sense that temptation is a lot like alcohol, or a lot like drinking. The more we drink, the more intoxicated we become by it. And that’s the same with temptation.  

Kathy: That's very true. I want to read a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who really was able to capture the whole idea of temptation and what happens to us when we are in the throes of our temptation. "At this moment, God is quite unreal to us. He loses all reality, and only desire for the creature [or sin] is real. The only reality is the devil. Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God. And now his falsehood is added to this proof of strength. The lust thus aroused envelopes the mind and will of a man in deepest darkness. The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us." You know, reality is, and I think I can say this honestly, that for a lot of people we don't want Him. When we're in our lust, it's like we're saying, "Lord, go out and close the door for a while, because I'm going to do my thing." And that's the ugly reality of it.  

Mike: That's a very convenient forgetfulness.  

Kathy: Yes, it is. It's very convenient. And what he says here at the end of this quote, "The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us," I would add to that - not that it's taken from us, but that we have surrendered it. We are not being taken captive by some power outside of ourselves. It is something very much in our hearts. That's why we hammer away at dealing with the heart. Until you deal with your heart and get brutally honest with yourself about your heart and your issues, nothing is going to change.  

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Mike: You mention that as the woman gives over to this temptation, that is when the physical begins to kick in. What's happening there?  

Kathy: Well, she's actually going to start moving towards acting out. Once the thoughts come into her mind and once the temptation comes upon her, if she doesn't stop it right away, she's going to start physically moving towards the act of sin.  

Mike: I assume that, when a woman is in this position, that she's probably imagining to herself, "Well, I'm just going to do this, but I won't go any further and I won't do it again." But that's almost never true.  

Kathy: It's never true. I would say it's never true. It's just more of the lie we have to tell ourselves. She can convince herself she's not going to do it, that she won't do the same thing as the other day. She may say, "I'm not going to get on the Internet," or, "I'm not going to go as far as I went." But as she's speaking those words, she knows in her heart, if she's honest with herself, that's exactly what the plan is.  

Mike: And before long, as she's giving over physically to the sin, her own thinking is really becoming warped.  

Kathy: It's rotting out a resolve to do the right thing. You get a seared conscience after a while. The Bible talks about your heart becoming very calloused and hard. Eventually, you get to the place where you don't care about what God thinks.  

Mike: Well, that leads us to our next point: the point of no return. What is the woman thinking at that point?  

Kathy: She's not thinking. That's probably the problem. She's only entertained now by the thought of what these feelings are going to produce for her. You know, she's in the "feeling-mode." The feelings are now very dominant. They're controlling her, and she wants to satisfy this chain of events that she has entered into.  

Mike: You really do think to yourself, "I can't stop now. There's no way I can stop."  

Kathy: Right, essentially she's saying to herself, "I've gone too far. I might as well go ahead and get it over with." And she begins to justify herself thinking she can go to God get cleaned up afterwards, but right now she has gone too far. Now, it's the point of no return.  

Mike: And we talk about women in this process, and of course, there are various routines that women get into. Give us an example of a routine of sin.  

Kathy: Well, everybody is so different. She may go to her computer after work, at night, and convince herself that she is just going to look at the news or just look at the weather. Maybe she says, "I'm going to download some stuff on to my iPod. I'm not going to go there again." But she's already started the process. This is the trigger. And the longer you sit there, the more easy it's going to be for you to go ahead and go into something that you know you shouldn't go into. I mean, everybody's got a different routine, but everybody has a routine.  

Mike: And the commonality, whatever the routine may be, is we lie to ourselves about these routines. I think you said also earlier that, deep in our heart, we really want the sin, so we put ourselves in these routines because, deep in our heart, we know where the routine is going to lead.  

Kathy: Right, when you're really serious about changing, you do hard things to yourself. You put yourself in a hard position, rather than a position of falling. But people that are addicted make sure that their routine won't be thwarted.    

Mike: But we know, of course, that once given over to the routine, it's very unlikely that the woman is going to end up doing anything but giving over.  

Kathy: Right, actually you know that is almost always the case.  

Mike: And we know where sin leads.  

Kathy: In death.  

Mike: Talk to us about what that means. What does it mean that sin ends in death?  

Kathy: The end of the actual sin brings forth death. It brings the death of self-respect and the death of her dignity and the death of feelings and it leaves her in shambles emotionally inside.  

Mike: Well, what a contradiction. Even as you're saying those things, I'm thinking about what she even saw in the sin when she first saw the temptation, compared to what you're describing now?  

Kathy: That's, see, that's the deceitfulness of sin. If I could grab a hold of the women that are listening, that are struggling, and somehow impart to them the reality of that and how deceitful sin is. If I could sit here and tell you right now that, whatever fantasy you may be entertaining or whatever lust you may feel in your heart, I promise you that when you're done, you will hate yourself. You will not walk away fulfilled; you will walk away empty. You won't walk away satisfied; you'll walk away unfulfilled. You’ll be miserable.  

Mike: You know, we look at, very often, the catalyst here: the enemy, Satan, and at one moment in the temptation, he is promising the world and at the end of it, he brings condemnation. It's a terrible, terrible price that he extracts from these women.  

Kathy: Yeah, he's a liar and he's the father of lies. He's a deceiver and, you know, the Holy Spirit is always wooing us in the other direction. But the power of our lust and the power of the enemy is so strong. And that's why it's so important to have a real walk with God. That's the only strength that a woman will have is what she has between her and the Lord.  

Mike: So, I guess it's somewhat of an admonition, but really an encouragement when Paul said that God always - always provides a way of escape.  

Kathy: No temptation has taken you but what is common to man. But God will, with the temptation, make a way for you to - get the heck out of Dodge!  

Mike: And it's up to us to take that way.  

Kathy: I did this when I was a young Christian. I always waited for something to float down out of heaven and make me different. But, so much of the Christian life is obedience. It's going through painful experiences. It's all of those things, and all of it is for our good. And that's what the Christian life is. It's a journey. It's very much a walk. It's very much a relationship. It's me coming into my rightful place before God.

Being betrayed by someone you love brings indescribable pain. When David was betrayed, he cried out, “Fear and trembling grip me. Horror has overwhelmed me.” The betrayed wife knows these emotions well and Kathy Gallagher has been there herself.

She has used that experience to minister to thousands of wives, so that rather than being destroyed by pain, they are drawn closer to the Savior and Lover of their souls. In this week’s episode, Kathy helps us understand how to deal with painful emotions biblically, and how to allow God to have His rightful place in our hearts.

Mike: Kathy I want to start out our discussion today about struggling women with a passage from First Timothy 5:6, "She who gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead, even while she lives." Now, I know that you and Steve have been reaching out to men and couples and certainly wives. But you also work with women who struggle with sexual sin. Tell us a little bit about that.  

Kathy: It's always been a man's problem, and now we're seeing that it's not just a man's problem, but women struggle quite a bit. We did a survey on our website, and we had 500 women respond to that survey which really shocked us. But what was more shocking, was what women are actually dealing with and what they're struggling with. The level of sexual addiction among women was very shocking.  

Mike: I do want to share just a few of these statistics and I don't want to bore listeners too much with statistics, but they really are shocking. These 500 women that responded to the survey were self professing Christian women, correct?  

Kathy: Yes, they were all Christian women.  

Mike: And that's what really makes these statistics, I think, more shocking. 44% of those 500 women admitted to be viewing adult movies alone. 53% admitted to occasionally viewing magazines or internet pornography and 46% reading pornographic stories. 90% of these women acknowledged dealing with masturbation either now or previously in their life. 31% were having online sexual conversations or had at some point. 36% were involved in promiscuity in the form of fornication with other singles. Those are pretty high statistics for women who are professing to be Christian.  

Kathy: Right.

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Mike: Do you think that this is kind of the silent cry going on of the church?  

Kathy: I really do believe this is something that has been boiling beneath the surface in women, not all women, but a lot of women that have already kind of succumbed to the culture. They have succumbed to a lot of other worldly things in their lives, so this is not a huge leap from where they're at.  

Mike: Why are women engaging in this type of behavior?  

Kathy: Well, I think it's a mixed bag. I can't really nail it down to one thing in particular, but I can take a shot at a lot of reasons. I know in my life, at one point when I was young, got involved in pornography because of my husband. You know, Steve introduced me to pornography, and it was our way of trying to hold together a very shaky marriage. And it was what he wanted, and I was more than willing to comply, so I got involved in pornography and saw things I wish I would have never seen. Other women are curious. Single women, they get involved for romantic reasons. They have this romantic fantasy of meeting Prince Charming, so they read novels, or they watch movies and they just keep this kind of a lustful view of life.  

Mike: Well let's talk about some of the specific areas that women are getting involved in, and you already touched on one, and that's the viewing of adult entertainment. Let's talk briefly about online pornography. I know from reading your book, that many women get involved in that, if not because of their husbands, very often just because they're lonely.  

Kathy: Yeah, that's a big motivator, especially if you have a computer in your house and you have access to the internet, you're bored, and you're lonely and you feel just this emptiness then pornography can kind of fill that hole. The thing about pornography is, it’s so addictive, so a young woman or middle-aged woman or a widow may sit in there and she's coming across this stuff, it is very very difficult for her then to detach herself when she has that secret little world. And that's the power of addiction: it's secret. It's powerful.  

Mike: You know, and the sad part of that is that at whatever level of naivete or innocence that woman started out with, as that progresses what's really happening in her inside world, is she's being corrupted with evil. And Satan, the evil one, is destroying whatever godly beauty may have been established in her life at one point.  

Kathy: Yeah. So often people don't even realize how much pornography has affected and warped their minds: the way that they think and the way they view life and people. They think that they have it confined, but they don't realize, and they will find out, at some point in life you will wake up to the reality that this thing has so corrupted them.  

Mike: That's true in the next area that we want to talk about, which is cyber-sex. Now what's going on with a woman who's getting involved with cyber-sex?  

Kathy: Well, I think it starts probably with chat rooms. You know, you get into this fantastical world and you can be anybody you want to. This whole cyber-world, cyber-sex, webcam thing is just, to me, it's a level up from pornography. Now, you can actually, physically become the porn star. You know and throwing your body out there for who knows who.  

Mike: I know one of the comments that I read in your book from the women, is that one of the things they loved about the chat rooms, is they loved the feeling that these men were really desperate for them.  

Kathy: Yes. Yes, and the women are desperate for the men to be desperate for them. That's the insanity of it. Women have this dynamic of wanting to be worshiped and men are all too willing to worship. So, you've got this thing going on between male and female, and a lot of times between two women or even two men. You know, there's just this desperation. Each party is desperate for something.  

Mike: They're feeding off of each other?  

Kathy: They are, they very much are.  

Mike: I think that women are more inclined to want to get involved in these fantasy relationships.  

Kathy: Right, and it really does elevate you to just, enormous ego boosting. It's very, very ego-satisfying.  

Mike: And the whole thing is a lie. And you know, as you were saying that, I thought, "well of course, that is what the enemy is doing." He is the father of lies. He is the father of deception. So, this is his world, and these are his tools.  

Kathy: Yeah, and he's got plenty of instruments in his hands to play with. It's sad to me; it's heartbreaking to me; how many young people, and it's not limited to young people but it's mostly young people, who are just living to just have fun right now. But some day, they are going to have to pay up. And the price is enormously high.  

Mike: I hear the passion in your voice, and I know that's why you and Steve have written Create in Me a Pure Heart.

When a Christian parent finds out that their child has been looking at pornography, they are often thrown into a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. Where did we go wrong? Why would my child do such a thing? How will we ever recover from this? If the Lord has allowed you as a parent to discover your child viewing porn, don’t despair.

There are clear answers to your questions, and there is a path forward. There are basic spiritual principles that will help you find the right mindset to guide your child into victory in the battle for sexual purity.

In this week’s episode, we wrap up our series on The Message of the Cross. Jesus taught that anyone who would save his life must first lose it, and He demonstrated this by laying His own life down at Calvary.

But today, the gospel being preached looks very different, promising life to everyone without requiring them to follow Jesus’ example. This false gospel wants the resurrection, but no Cross. So, many in the church are unaware of what it really means to follow Jesus example. They are still the master of their own lives and bear no resemblance to Christ.

Mike: Steve, today we want to deal with a question that came from an individual that has a history of sexual sin. Their question really revolves around finding a spouse after being involved in sexual sin. How does one go about finding a spouse?  

Steve: Well, there's a couple of different things this guy should consider. You know, first of all, the importance of repentance. When you are living in a lifestyle of repentance, it allows the Lord to go to work on restoring your innocence. And that's absolutely vital for a guy like this, because guys that have been in sin, they're single, and then all of a sudden want to get their life together and want to get married and all that. In their mind, they're going straight from this single life filled with perversion into married life. And they don't understand that their interior world needs to go through a complete upheaval, a complete changeover.  

Mike: They have been just, completely corrupted inside if they've been involved in sexual sin.  

Steve: Right, and they tend to think, "Well, I'll just get married." But they don't understand that they'll bring that corruption into the marriage. So, the first thing he has to do is to just let God do His work transforming him inside as a person.  

Mike: Ok Steve, so after this individual has begun to allow the Lord to do a work in his inside world, is there anything else that you would share with him that would be of a benefit to him?  

Steve: Well, one of the things that really stands out to me about his question is, "How does one find a spouse?" I really want to address that for a second, because if you're walking with the Lord and you're in His will, you don't have to be concerned about finding a spouse. God is going to do it for you. If you are in His will, He is going to bring the right person into your life, assuming of course it's His will. So, I really want to stress this because, there are so many Christians out there that are trying to take it into their own hands. You know, going through Christian dating services and singles groups just for the purpose of finding a spouse. And all that tends to do is to get them into relationships that are not God-ordained. It's so much better to just really pray about it and put it into God's hands and trust Him with the whole situation and then just get on with his life with God. And I have seen it happen so many times. When a guy is willing to do that, the Lord brings Miss Perfect into his life. He could have never found this girl himself, by his own efforts. But by allowing the Lord to do it, he ends up with the girl that he's meant to have.

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Mike: We're so prone, particularly in America today, to try to take control of things ourselves. And this is just another one of those areas where we just don't seem to be wanting to trust God to have control over our lives.  

Steve: Yeah, well it kind of touches on a larger issue which is: people say they put their trust in God, but do they really? This is an enormous decision for a person. You're going to live with the consequences of it for the rest of your life. And we say we trust the Lord, but yet even with monumental decisions like this, we immediately reveal the truth. The fact is, most people trust themselves and not the Lord.  

Mike: We see so many examples in Scripture of the consequences, the very profound consequences sometimes, of not trusting the Lord and doing things, maybe not even seemingly evil things, but just going our own way in our own will. And certainly, the Scripture says, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and then all these things will be added unto you."  

Steve: Yeah, that's right.  

Mike: So good advice and hopefully that will be an encouragement and hopefully some wise direction to those out there who may be seeking a spouse.

The Bible says, “The Message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” Could it be that multitudes of professing Christians are trapped in sexual sin because they have rejected The Message of the Cross, and thus have been denied its power?

Today we continue to discuss The Message of the Cross, and why it is so important to realize the depth of our sinful condition before a holy God. Without it, we are devoid of strength to turn from our sins, strangers to the true power of God.

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” This is The Message of The Cross and, it stands against our culture which seeks what it wants, when it wants, how it wants.

Anyone who wants to follow Jesus must be willing to go through the painful process of dying to this self-centered mindset. But amazingly, as we surrender to the way of the Cross we are deeply transformed. Today we look at the message of the Cross, and how it demands the death of self-lives.

Mike: Steve, we want to continue a discussion we began last week stemming from your book, Standing Firm Through the Great Apostasy, on the subject The Message of the Cross. Now, in our previous interview, we talked a little bit about what happened on Calvary, the horror of that event, what the Father went through and what Jesus went through. We also talked about the relationship between Jesus and His disciples. Specifically, we discussed the difference of heart response between the eleven disciples and that of Judas. Today, we want to dig a little bit deeper into what exactly the Message of the Cross is. You have a perspective on that stemming from what Jesus actually said in the Gospels, correct?  

Steve: Well, what happened was that Jesus started warning the disciples that he was going to be arrested and crucified. You see that in Luke 9 and also in Matthew 16. It's actually in all four gospels, the only teaching that's in all four gospels. The words He said are extremely important to the Christian. He said, "If anyone wishes to come after Me..." Now that sums up everyone who calls themselves a Christian. There are three things he must do, Jesus says, "he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.  

Mike: Well Steve, let's take a look at those three statements in the verse. Let's start with denying himself. Now, what does that really mean, to deny yourself?  

Steve: Well we have to understand that, first of all, in the sight of a holy God, we are criminals. So, to come into Christianity requires repentance. That is a message rarely heard anymore. Today we hear something more along the lines of, "accept Jesus to be your Savior," or, "trust Jesus," kind of, nice little terms. But biblical repentance means something far different. It means a complete 180, a complete change of direction. You know, you're going through life doing your own thing, never mind the big outward sins, but just doing your own thing as a rebel. Doing a 180 means that you stop that. You repent and you turn back towards God and He becomes the Boss in your life. But the problem is that you have a mountain of crimes in your life that you are culpable for.  

Mike: Steve, it seems that so many in the church, and we can include ourselves at some point in our lives, compare themselves to others and we can always see people worse off than us. And the problem is, we actually end up thinking we're pretty good.  

Steve: That's the reality. We don't see the depravity of our nature the way we should. We don't see how bad we have been. We don't see our little acts of selfishness, our pride, our resentments, our envies, the petty little things that we've done. We don't see our gossiping, backbiting, anger and the hatred that's in our heart towards certain people. We don’t see the self-righteousness. We don't see that all those things that seem so petty and minor to us that stand out as enormous crimes before a holy and pure God. So, when you come into Christianity, there has to be a repentance of what you have been, of who you have been as a person. But most people kind of just come into the church thinking they're doing God some great favor by attending church on Sundays or by not partying on the weekends.  

Mike: You used two scenarios in your book, Steve, that I felt really helped to bring out how we just don't see ourselves rightly.  

Steve: Scenario one is a guy named James. He comes and stands before God, and the devil is his accuser. The devil is the prosecutor who’s telling God all the bad things that James has done. Then Jesus steps in and says, "Now wait a minute, I'm going to take his sin upon myself and he can be made free. After all, James is a pretty good guy. He's not that bad, so I'm going to take it upon myself." Here, Jesus acts as not only the defense attorney, defending James as he is wrongfully attacked by the devil, but also offers to take the sentence upon himself. And the Father, who is the Judge in this picture, says, "OK, case dismissed. James is free to go."  

Mike: You know, when I first read that, I thought that’s kind of how it is, right?  

Steve: Yeah, and you know where we get that at is Revelation 12:10 where Satan is called the accuser of the brethren. But Satan is never called the accuser of sinners. Satan doesn't accuse sinners, he leads them down the path of self-justification, of rationalizing their sin, and blame-shifting.  

Mike: There's something missing in the story of James, and I don't think people, like me when I first read it, aren't going to pick up on until the second scenario.  

Steve: That second scenario brings it out. There's William in the same setting, standing in the criminal docket of the high court. He's charged with treason against God's Kingdom, just as James was. But here, it's not the devil who is William's accuser but the Holy Spirit, Scripture, his own conscience, and a long line of witnesses who testify about the many things that they had seen in William's life. But William's reaction is the difference. William steps forward and says to the judge, "Your honor, not the half of my crimes against you have been told. I am guilty as charged and I deserve the full penalty of the law. All I can do is promise you that I will change my life and ask for mercy.” You see, his attitude is one of repentance. James' attitude was one of wanting to get something from God without it costing him anything.  

Mike: As you share that, I look back on my own early experience having heard the Gospel. Like what you share in the book, I had kind of a general sense that all of us are sinners, and that I didn't want to go to Hell. And I wanted from God a get-out-of-Hell free card, for lack of a better term. So, I started what I thought was a Christian life with no other gratitude than for this free get-out-of-Hell card. And it took years before I really got a sight of how guilty I was before God.  

Steve: But you did get that site, and I saw you do it. But you know, Charles Spurgeon really brought this out well. He said, "The attitude a lot of people have is like the thief who stands before the judge. He's not looking to quit his thieving ways. He's not looking to have a change of heart. He's looking for mercy just so he doesn't have to pay the consequences and go to prison. And so, he's begging for mercy not because he has any intention of becoming a different man, a good citizen, or anything like that. He just doesn't want to pay the consequences." And that's the attitude of many people who come into Christianity. That's the exact same attitude they have. They're not looking to change, not looking to let God rule and reign over their hearts. They just want to escape Hell for free, like you said.  

‍Mike: Now, relate this back to what we're talking about here. What does it mean to deny self?  

Steve: Mike, it really boils down to your perspective of yourself. The truth is that 99.9% of human beings think of themselves as good people. There was a study done in a prison for the criminally insane. They did a survey and one of the questions they asked was, "Do you consider yourself a good person? And of those several hundred inmates, 100%, every single one of them, responded yes. Everyone thinks they are a good person who deserves Heaven. And that fundamental attitude towards yourself has to be overthrown. You have to see yourself as a guilty sinner, a criminal in the sight of a holy God. Because, until you see that and get that, you won't really experience true repentance and Jesus Christ cannot take his place on the throne of your heart because you're still on the throne of your heart. You're in control of your life.  

Mike: And I want to make this point: that can be true, even though you claim to believe in Jesus.  

Steve: James said the Devils believe and tremble. This is the tricky thing, the subtle thing about faith. When you believe in someone, you believe in them. Saying, “I believe in you Lord,” means so much more than superficial head-knowledge. Maybe you've kind of acknowledged that there was a Jesus Christ who lived. You believe what the Bible says is true and all that. But if you really believe that the Bible is true, it will show in your life, because a person who transfers their trust from themselves to Christ will have a revolution in their life. And then, before long, the evidence of that changed life comes forth very loud and clear.  

Mike: But as you said, that demands repentance, and in order to have repentance, you have to be willing to acknowledge what Jesus has said is true about you. Why is it so hard for unconverted churchgoers to face the truth of themselves?  

Steve: Because they don't want to acknowledge that there's something wrong with them. You know, it is just inherent in human beings. All of us are this way. We hate to say we're wrong. We feel like our character is being impugned by saying that we're not good people. Everyone wants to think of themselves as a good person, deserving Heaven. But the reality is that if a person thinks that they're good, and that they deserve Heaven, then they don't need a Savior and therefore they won't have one.