The Eric Metaxas Show - Joshua Broome

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Joshua Broome shares his powerful testimony in his book: 7 Lies That Will Ruin Your Life: What My Journey from Porn Star to Preacher Taught Me About the Truth That Sets Us Free

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. It's a nutritious smoothie of creamy, fresh yogurt, vanilla, vanilla, protein powder, and a mushy banana. For your mind? Drink it all down. It's nummy.

I wub, vanilla. I wub, wub, I wop, vanilla. Here comes Eric Metaxus. Hey there, folks. Welcome to Hour 2. I continue my conversation with Josh Hammer, senior editor-at-large at Newsweek. And after this segment, I will talk to Joshua Broome with just one of the most extraordinary stories of redemption. You have to hear it.

You have to hear it. That's coming up in the next segment. But right now we continue with Josh Hammer. So, Josh, you're saying what I say all the time. most Americans are not nearly sufficiently outraged. This is an attack, a genuine attack on democracy by the left in a way that we've never seen before. I keep saying this is the third existential crisis in our history. We had the revolution. We had the civil war. We are now in a battle. We've simply never seen anything like it. When you have people on the left,

So, I mean, I think when you mentioned George Conway, there are people who are so convinced, now there's no logic, but they are convinced that Donald Trump somehow represents a threat to democracy. They're convinced that he's Hitler 2.0. They're utterly convinced. And any legalistic means they can use to prevent him from getting back into the White House, they will use. and obviously they feel justified. They convince themselves. So to get slapped down 9 to 0 from a Supreme Court that has three very liberal justices. So those justices, I have to say, you know, kudos to them in calling balls and strikes. I mean, it's one thing that we can disagree in all kinds of stuff. But this is a case where they say, sorry, this is so clear we have no room.

We have to rule along with the majority of the six, and they did that. Are you surprised that Sotomayor and Kagan and Katanii Jackson Brown were willing to do that? I mean, I'm just fascinated. Yeah, I was a little surprised. I was less surprised by Elena Kagan. She's the more sensible of the three liberal ladies on the Supreme Court. But, you know, Katanji Brown Jackson is Sonia Sotomayor. are not necessarily just liberals.

They're leftists. I mean, they are grassroots activists leftists. Katanji Brown Jackson's dissent in the affirmative action case last summer. She basically accused America of systemic racism, said that affirmative action is here, there, and everywhere necessary to remediate the badges of inferiority and slavery. It was basically an Ebram-X-Kendi critical race theory, anti-racism opinion.

Sonia Sotomayor, for what her money is worth, She had a dissent many years ago in a case out of Michigan called Shuit. Basically, the voters of the state of Michigan tried to take affirmative action out of Michigan. And Sotomayor said, you can't do that. She was 60 pages explaining why you're not even allowed to vote on affirmative action. It has to be there for it was absolutely ludicrous stuff. So yes, to answer your question, I absolutely was surprised. You know, at oral arguments when this case was heard at the court about a little over a month ago or so, February 8th, 9th, right around then,

you had Kagan and Katangi Brown Jackson, who did seem skeptical. Again, I was a little surprised that Jackson went, but they were skeptical at oral argument of Colorado's argument. Even then after that, Eric, I kind of thought that Sonia Sotomayor would write a solo dissent in this case, just to try to shore up her pro-MSNBC, hashtag resistance, bona fides. Because the justices, they might not say they care about that stuff. They actually do. They're reading the headlines. They care about what their own bases think about them. So the fact that it was unanimous, look, again, give credit where credit is due.

I don't often give praise to Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, but they really do deserve credit here. Now, they wrote a short three justice concurrence in the judgment. The three of them signed on to this superfluous writing that I do not think was necessary, and the precarium majority opinion and Amy Coney-Barratt's short concurrence both said it was unnecessary, but, again, to their credit, they really did ultimately do the right thing. And the last thing I'll say is it was very important. It really was important that the Supreme Court speak with one voice on this issue because this is not a petty insurance squabble. It's not a contract dispute.

It's not a he said, she said situation. This is literally about the very lowercase our Republican government of which we the people of the Constitution's preamble speaks. If our ability to chart our own destiny, if our notion of popular sovereignty means anything, means anything whatsoever, it has to. to entail our ability to select our leaders. So I was very grateful that they decided this 9 to 0. I really was. Well, it is amazing because, you know, the left continues to use this. I mean, it's amazing when they, when they say that, you know, if Donald Trump is reelected, that'll be the end of democracy. And the horror is that if he is not reelected, it will be the end of democracy. But they have convinced themselves. I mean, we have to understand they actually believe this. When you ask them, when you push them to say, so how has he been authoritarian? How is he the enemy of democracy?

It's just pure emotion. They don't have any actual facts. It's simply preposterous, but their emotion is so strong. It's like when, you know, you hear Robert De Niro talking about Trump, there's just no there's nothing there except anger except fury they can't really point to anything or they're in this echo chamber the MSNBC echo chamber where everybody they know agrees with them so they don't feel that they have to come up with anything but we're actually seeing threats to democracy again I think we're in the third existential crisis of our history in this nation and that we are fighting with the liberal elites who are Marxists and globalists they are not friends of the founders.

And it's the first time that we've ever seen anything quite like this in our country. You know, Eric, I happen to agree with you that this is something closely approximating our third existential crisis. You know, I'm doing an event tonight in Palm Beach, actually, with my friend Ryan Williams, who's the president of the Claremont Institute. And I say that because I think back to this interview that Ryan gave to the Atlantic magazine, he did an interview with a liberal journalist there. I think her name was Emma Green. And this is a while. It was like two and a half years ago. It was like October 2021.

And they did a long, deep dive on Claremont. What are they doing? What are they not doing? And Ryan had a line that has always stuck with me for the past two and a half years, where he basically said that our current crisis in many ways is actually worse than the crisis of the 1850s into the early 1860s. Because back then, Eric, back then, at least Americans worshipped the same God. Now, we disagreed over slavery should be.

should be moral, whether it was justified, whether it should be up to the people to decide, or whether it should be abolished. But we ultimately did worship the same creator. We still believed in the Jeffersonian notion of social contract theory and inalienable rights and all of that. Today, we literally can't agree on how many genders there are or whether if you have a certain chromosomal structure, you can compete against men or women in a swimming pool. I mean, the basis on which we now disagree is in many ways much more profound, actually, than the disagreements of a century and a half ago. Yeah, no, you're exactly right.

And that's why, you know, Americans have to wake up. I say this over and over again. If you're not in this battle, folks, you're helping evil to win. We've never seen anything like this. We've never had a monster in the White House, not only who stole the election, but who is the enemy of everything that has proceeded. him and this administration, working hard to undermine our own national sovereignty, lying so brazenly, again, it's a staggering thing. I understand why people can't process it because we've never

seen anything like it, a level of lying and gaslighting, and you're talking about it right now, that these liberal elites keep accusing Trump and those who would vote for him of being against democracy. They have no facts, but they say it over and over and over again. knowing that some people are going to believe it. They're just going to believe, oh, yeah, he's evil. He's against democracy, so we've got to vote for their guy. It's just difficult to comprehend ultimately. And to your point as well, Eric, when you try to nail down what some of these people purports to care about,

I mean, like, what exactly is it in Donald Trump's track record that you are so, so, so vehemently opposed to? Now, look, I have my own quibbles as well. So, you know, for example, I didn't agree with the first step back to the 2018. a so-called criminal justice reform bill. But these people can't pinpoint policies. They can't pinpoint specific bills. They just hate the fact that he talks the way he talks, that he doesn't care about so-called norms,

that he doesn't care about what the mainstream corporate media says about him, and that he's just going to get up there as he has his entire adult life and do his thing. It's absolutely shameful. I'm so sorry we're out of time. Josh Hammer, great to have you back. Thank you. Thanks so much, Eric. For more than 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian

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pastor. My friend, Billy Halliwell, brought this book to my attention and brought Josh's story to my attention. This is this story about the power of God that many people who, you say you're a Christian, but you haven't seen the power of God to deliver people from the places that are so dark we can't even imagine. Josh Broom, thank you for being my guest. Thanks for being willing to to tell your story. Oh, so glad to be here and such an honor to connect with you again. Good to see you. Yeah, I was going to say, I can remember when you were last on the program, but your story is mind-blowing. And I think what it does is it kind of challenges people who have what I call

a fussy religious view of the faith because they're not willing to see that Jesus died to save us from evil, not to make our lives a little bit better, but to take us. from evil, from darkness into light. And no story illustrates that more dramatically than yours. Because I think that there are people that they really can't imagine. I mean, there are people. I'm one of them. You can't really imagine.

Wow. How does that happen? How does somebody get trapped in something so wicked, so dark? You know, that's the first question. But then how does God reach you? That's even more amazing. So tell us a little bit about your story. And I want to be clear, you and Billy have written a book called Seven Lies That Will

Your Life. And so that's the brand new book by Josh Broome and my friend Billy Hallowell, Seven Lies That Will Rewal, That Will Rune Your Life. And a lot of your story is woven into there, Josh. But just tell us the story. Where did you grow up and how did you get trapped in this incredibly destructive lifestyle? Yeah, I think it's like paying the picture from how I ended up there is so important.

So I grew up in a small town in South Carolina, and I was born in Charlotte, which I'm actually speaking at men's event here in Charlotte, so I'm in Charlotte right now. But I was born in Charlotte, grew up in South Carolina, and what was unique about me growing up was that, unfortunately, it's a normative thing

to grow up without a father in your home, but what was unique about my circumstance was that I had a, father that was down the street. So the town was so small that he was in close enough proximity to me where I saw him. So being a young man in need of a father or even just a man in my life to, you know, show me how to do things and nurture me and hear what we all need to hear that, son, I'm proud of you.

That caused confusion, which led to frustration. and because I could see the thing that I needed and wanted, it increased the feelings of inadequacy and I believed, well, if I do enough and obtain enough, I will feel like I'm enough. And that's, you know, that's a lie that many of us believe that if I had X, Y, and Z I would feel differently about myself. And I pursued any and everything I could, so try to make the best grades, try to be the best athlete, And those were ways that I sought out affirmation from others from doing things well. And I started modeling and acting when I was 13 or 14 years old and had some success there. And then continue living this life and go to college and I'm studying theater and really more involved in pursuing my dream of being successful in the acting and modeling space and dropped out of college, moved to high. Hollywood. And while I'm in Hollywood, I have an agent and I'm doing okay, but like many people

who moved to Hollywood or Miami or New York, while you're trying to chase your dream, you've got to mitigate your expenses. And I'm working at a restaurant. And while I'm working at a restaurant, three girls approach me and ask, do you want to be an actor? And the acting they were talking about was adult film acting. They were talking about pornography. And, and, you're talking about pornography. And you look back, well, I didn't have an example of what it meant to be, you know, really a man. I didn't have a biblical worldview. I had brokenness in my life. And I was exposed to pornography at 13 years old.

And that shaped my worldview in terms of what I thought intimacy was what I thought that, you know, a man and a woman interacting with one another in a romantic way. I thought that was what that meant. And that's why it's so important. You know, if you are educated by the world, you will behave like the world in my experience informed by decisions. And I said yes to something that I thought wasn't that harmful. And I honestly didn't think it would be that big of a deal. So I did one, and my life imploded because that the one that I did many years ago, like 2006 is when I did my first film. I did that and it went viral and a lot of people found out about it, started sharing with me.

And then at the time, my mainstream agent discovered that I had done that. And they released me from representing me and then living in a small town. Word travels pretty fast. And my family finds out that I've done this. And now there's this shame and this disconnect from everything I was pursuing. And I believed a lie that, well, because I did this, now I'm a task. to that forever, and I might as well continue doing that. But with the same mindset, well, if I become the best, if I become famous, if I make a lot of

money, that will mitigate the way that my heart feels. We have to be clear, and because I think a lot of times people forget that when you're living in the world, when you're not in a Christian community, there's nothing wrong with porn. When you're living in that world, nobody has a problem with it. They consume it. And they don't have any moral qualms. They don't have any moral qualms about sleeping with somebody before marriage. It's a different world.

And when you're in that world, that stuff becomes normative. And most people escape the horror of falling into producing pornography, but some don't. And so there are men and women being prayed upon. And you are one of them. Somebody approaches you. We've got an easy way for you to make some. money. It's just, it's so easy. You're a good looking guy. You want to be an acting, right? Let's check it out. Let's try it. And so there are many people that have been trapped in that lifestyle, in the world of prostitution.

There's so many people out there that they believe these lies. And I want to be clear that, again, this is normative in the world outside of people with a strong Christian background. You know, the idea of frowning on pornography, thinking, oh, come on, don't be. be so puritanical? What's the big deal? These people are doing it freely and on and on and on and on. And so you're one of those stories and you're trying to do the best you can. You don't have anybody telling you, hey, this is 100% wrong. You're in a world where people say, you know, why not? You know, you can get ahead. You can make some money. Yeah. I mean, in a real way. So my mom and some of my fraternity brothers from college, and there were a few people in my life saying, dude, what are you doing?

So there were. Okay. So go ahead. Yeah. So this doesn't align with who I know you to be. And I think, like, that's the beauty of having true accountability in your life. And it normally works one of two ways. Either someone says, hey, you're doing something outside of who I know you to be.

So you get, you know, someone loves you enough to tell you the truth. like Proverbs 273 talks about the wounds of a friend. You know, sometimes people need to tell you something that stings a little bit for your own good. And I had that, but I didn't respond to what they said. Instead, my shame caused me to think, well, I'm too far gone. So what I did is I removed myself. I isolated myself from them. So I disconnected from everyone.

Yeah. And I stayed in that industry for six years. I did over a thousand films. and I did everything that I thought would bring me happiness. I made, you know, I made, you know, millions of dollars, I got success, I won the awards, I did all the stuff, but after six years, and I won a Mel Performer the Year in 2012, and I thought, well, if I won that award and, you know, people say that I'm the best, and I win this award for being the best, I'll feel good about myself, but it didn't work.

And when it didn't work, my anxiety was amplified, my depression was deepened, and I made a very clear plan to take my life. because everything that I wanted wasn't no longer available. I tell you, when we think of, I call it the evilness of evil, how evil Satan is. Because people say, oh, yeah, Satan, the devil, but folks, the evil, the evilness of evil, the deception, to suck somebody into something and then to persuade them to take your own life. It's just so horrifying. But, you know, Josh, the good news is God reached you.

And so when we come back, I want to talk about that. The book by Josh Broome and Billy Hallowell, new book, Seven Lies That Will, I want to talk about that as well, seven lies that will ruin your life. Brand new book, Billy Hallowell and Josh Broome. This is the Eric Mattaxas show. We'll be right back. Our God-given freedoms are facing unrelenting attacks. It's a battle for truth.

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Get 15% off by using the code Eric during checkout. Go to Nutrametics.com and search health bundles. Support your health while helping others in need. Go to Neutrametics. That's N-U-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-X.com. Newtrametics.com, use the code Eric for 15% off. Again, Nutrametics, N-U-T-R-A-M-D-I-X.com. Neutrametics.com, use the code Eric for 15%.com for 15%. 15% off. Welcome back. Folks. I'm talking to Josh Broom, who with my friend Billy Hallowell has written a brand new book called Seven Lies that will ruin your life. And Josh Broom is a pastor who is serving God, but the enemy messed him up and took him to a very, very dark place. You were just telling us, Josh, that, I mean, this is like a story like it sounds made up, right? You get sucked into the porn industry. You become.

a star. You are celebrated in that industry. And all the people in that industry, you know, when you're around people, birds of a feather flock together, it seems normal. And, you know, you have metrics of success in that world. People outside the world say, what are you doing? Get out. But in that world, you are being given a lot of money and accolades and awards. And you get to the top of this industry. And you say, at that point, With all the money and all the accolades, you felt empty inside and you decided to take your life? What year was this? This was 2013.

I mean, you had actually decided to do that. I mean, why? What, in other words, where were you in your head that you didn't think you could get out of this and you decided to take that path out? Yeah, so, I mean, so in a real way, the industry in itself is built upon manipulations. and there's no real consent that exists within the industry because you are made to believe your only worth is tied to selling yourself for sex. And if you don't sell yourself for sex, then you're not good for anything else. So your no doesn't have any validity. So the only thing that you can say is yes.

So you don't even bother saying no. And you stay in a place where you could say, well, I don't enjoy doing this. I feel frustrated. I wish I was doing something else. Yet, you live in this cognitive dissidence of, well, I know that I could do something else, but what is it? You know, and it's like you're living this contradiction where, so you have to say, I love what I do while you hate it. But that's where I was. I literally wrote on a piece of paper, I will never be a father.

I wanted to become the thing I never had. I'll never be a husband. I saw my mom abused and treated terribly. I knew what a husband wasn't, and I wanted to become a husband, and I wanted to contribute to the world in a way that led to positive change. So those are three things that I wrote on the piece of paper that I was certain that I had disqualified myself from. And if I couldn't do the things that mattered most to me, and my worst mistakes are tangibly found for the world to see, then what am I to do? And what's true, Eric, is that 33, as of last week, 33 people who I knew from the industry, I've been out of that industry for 11 years, have died of suicide or overdose.

600 people in the last 20 years have died or either murder, suicide, or overdose. And the industry's not that big. And it's all because they believe they are their behavior. I've done bad things. So I'm a bad person. I don't have any value. So what's the point? So a lot of them either take their life or they put themselves in situations that they end up dying.

And that's where I was. I made a plan where I was tired of doing what I was doing. There was nothing else that I can do. I disqualified myself from everything that my heart longed for. So what was the point? And I walked into a bank and I wanted justification. I wanted someone to verify the way that I thought about myself. and on a memo of the checks that we would get,

there would be this antagonistic comment to continue the belief of, I'm not worth anything, I'm dirty, I'm whatever. So generally, I would go to ATM, Dropbox, mobile deposit, but on this day, I went into a bank and handed this check to a teller, and I wanted her to look at me and disgust or shake your head.

And instead, she said, Joshua, are you okay? Joshua, how can I help you? because she saw me trembling before her. And her words and her response, it provoked me to run instead of die. And I, again, I found myself, I left. I quit the industry that day. And I called my mom and I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina.

And I started another identity. But it was the same thing. I worked in the health and fitness space. I became, you know, I worked in a gym. and I got all the credentials and got a lot of personal training clients and started making money and started aesthetically looking like my life was put together while inside my life was a wreck. I like to say I was trying to put enough good dirt on my bad dirt so I didn't feel dirty. What was true is even if I didn't look dirty inside, I was dirty and broken.

And after two years of that, I meet this girl and I'm like, man, I'm so sick of these like empty relationships or these situations where someone finds out who I used to be and everything blows up, or I lie and I get found out. So I'm just going to tell this girl the truth. And I told her to the truth. And I'm like, hey, and then after hearing this five-minute monologue of this guy who grew up fatherless and made all these mistakes and all these mistakes are tangibly found. And I'm just this horrible person.

Her response was, well, are you doing those things now? And I said, no. And she said, well, a person's not defined by the worst thing they've ever done. And they're not defined by the greatest thing they'll ever do. There's a creator that exists outside of time, space, and matter. And he created you and he created me. And he has the final say, do you know God? And, you know, that walk led me on a journey where she challenged the way that I saw myself.

And then we walked and talked, and she invited me to church. And it was in church that next week where I heard this sermon about in 2nd Samuel 9 about my fable chef and how he was summoned by David and he saw himself as deserving of death. And he saw himself with this dead dog. But David was so insistent on showing him the loving kindness of God. It changed his life and changed everything. I want to hear the rest of the story. Folks, this is called a cliffhanger.

We're going to hear the rest of the story. We're talking to Josh Broome. The brand new book, Seven Lies That Will Ruin, You. your life. Don't go away. As you know, Mike Lundell has a passion to help you get the best sleep of your life. After he invented the world's best pillow, he created the famous Giza Dream Sheets. They're the best sheets you'll ever sleep on. The best night's sleep just got even better. For a limited time, you'll get a queen size set for 5998, King's size just 6998. The lowest prices in history, Mike and the My Pillo employees continue to be canceled by big box stores and attacked by the media. They appreciate all of

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Folks, go to MyPillow.com and use the promo code Eric. Great Bargains, MyPillow.com, promo code Eric. Folks, welcome back. An amazing story. I'm talking to Josh Broome, who just wrote a book with our friend Billy Hallowell. It's called Seven Lies That Will Rewan Your Life. And you're telling us, Josh, your story. I mean, this is an amazing story of God's redemptive power, stunning, really.

And so you meet this young woman. Obviously, you care about her. She cares about you. and she accepts you and your past and basically says you need God. And you go to this church service with her a week after you have this serious conversation. And you're just describing that you're hearing in this sermon stuff that's speaking to you. So keep going. Yeah.

So I hear this sermon about my Fethelfelfth in 2nd Samuel, Chapter 9. And it's really just a picture of God's grace where we were all sinners, Romans 323, and we're deserving of death, Romans 623. And there's something that we need that we don't have access to, which is a relationship with God. But Jesus comes, being fully man, fully God, died on the cross, and it raises on the third day. And through what he did, it gives me access to God

and changes everything for me. And so for me, like hearing the gospel, in its totality, I surrender my life to Christ. And so many beautiful aspects of that story. So number one, that girl that went on that walk with, her name is Hope, and we've been married for almost eight years. And we have four boys. We have four sons. We have a five, a three, a two, and a seven-week-old.

And then so, yeah, and her name is Hope. So how cool is that? And so that's amazing in itself. But, you know, you read Second Corinthians 517 where, you know, that you understand that, you know, the old is gone and the news here, and you're not who you used to be. But it continues. So you're not only saved from something, you're saved for something. And I started getting disciples. Three days after I gave my life to Christ, I went to this church. And I'm like, hey, I got a story. And I think I need to be able to understand the Bible to tell it well.

And this guy, Andrew Yates, that just finished at Dallas Theological Seminary, he had moved to Raleigh, and he was a new pastor there. And he had disciples me. We spent around 10 hours a week together for a few seasons. And then I went to Liberty University and studied Christian ministry. And I served on staff at a few churches. And God continued to open door after door. But what he did, he hid me for a season because there needed to be healing. There needed to be a foundation of my faith to be built.

They needed to be all these things that I needed to heal from so that now I have a wound in my story. but that wound has been healed and that wound there's a scar, but that scar it doesn't point to fatherlessness or pornography.

It points to the only one that can heal who is Jesus. And I love sharing my story and the book in itself is, hey, here is the lessons from someone who is believed the lies of the world

and the lies that destroyed myself, but there is a person of Jesus that has come and I can have a reconciliation with God. So that's the starting block.

But also, how do you rebuild your life? Because there are so many people that's like, okay, now what? You know, I give my life to Jesus, now what? What does it look like the practicalities of me transforming your life? Like, how do I be in a relationship with someone where we're going to be, a walk in purity? We're going to be absent after I live the life that I live. We're going to go to premarital counseling.

I'm going to learn all these things. And it's like there's so many fail to. attempts is we're trying we're trying to modify our behavior through the management of our heart but our heart is as jeremiah talks about is wicked and deceitful among all things we can't trust it um and there's this this cognitive dissidence wearing like roman seven where you know we we want to do things that we ought not do and we struggle to do the things that we can do and to your point why is that because there is an enemy that wants to destroy there's an enemy that wants to distract, destroy, kill, and keep you from the abundance that is found in the person of

Jesus. And that's what this book is about. There is an enemy that wants to destroy you. There's lies that he wants you to believe. He's the father of lies, but there's also true. And let's be clear, folks, you can be born again. You can say, I accept Jesus into my heart, yada, yada, yada, yada, but you can still believe a bunch of lies. And that's the process of sanctification and redemption. That you're not done when you get saved. You just cross the starting line. not the finish line. That's the starting line. Now you can ask God to heal you.

Some people need deliverance. There are tons of Christians that need actual deliverance, that need inner healing, that need counseling, that need teaching. And God is in that business. And so I hope that Joshua's story encourages you. Josh, what are some of the lies? The title of the book is Seven Lies That Will Ruin Your Life. Let's just go through a few of them in the time we have left.

Yeah, I would say, I mean, the first one is this, this lie of approval, so false approval, and thinking that you can earn the approval that you need from having enough people in your life, having the right people in your life, if you have enough affirmation, if you have enough achievements, if you have the right car, the right house, the right amount of followers on whatever social media platform, if you have the blue check mark, you will feel as if you are approved. but we were built to operate from approval through what happened on the cross. We're not to earn anything.

If we understand we are operating from approval, that is because of what Jesus has done, and there's nothing that we could ever do to obtain that, it changes everything. But the world tells you that, well, this is what success looks like. This is what happiness looks like. This is what sex is. This is what marriage is. and it's everything but what is true. And if you,

in that points to the second line, this, you know, the God of the self. And there's this really beautiful story in Exodus 32, where you see Moses is up on the mountain, getting the Ten Commandments, and Aaron and his band of misfits are waiting,

and they think it's a good idea to melt down all of their jewelry and make this golden animal. sometimes we're referenced as a golden calf, and they even call it Yahweh. And what we've done many times in American culture is we take our presuppositions, our pain, our sin, our preference, and we superimpose those onto what we call our worshiping Jesus, but actually we've created a God in our own image with our own preferences and our own thoughts, and we've extracted the beauty and the purity and the righteousness of a holy and perfect God. So what we're worshipping is not ourself. We're worshipping exactly what Satan wants us to worship.

I tell you, this is, I mean, I talk about this. I have a book coming out called Religionless Christianity. There are a lot of people doing dead religion. You're going to church. You're going through the motions in your heart. You're getting it wrong. It's important we understand these things. The book is seven lies that will ruin your life.

Seven lies that will ruin your life. Josh Broome is my guest. We'll be right back. Hey, get rhythm. When you get the blues, come on, get rhythm. When you get the blues, get a rock and roll feet. Hey there, folks. You want to talk about redemption? I'm talking to Josh Broome, who was leading one of the darkest lives imaginable.

And God brought him out of that. has been in the process of sanctifying him. He is now a pastor, father of four boys, a husband of an extraordinary wife, obviously, since we've been hearing the story of how that happened. Just beautiful. And I think we need these stories, Josh, because a lot of people, you know, they don't,

first of all, they're not aware of evil. They're not aware that there's a devil who wants to take whomever he can into the darkest places and throw away the key. And God is in the business of redeeming. And your story is that story. It's amazing.

So the brand new book is seven lies that will ruin your life. So what are some of these lies? We mentioned a couple of them, but let's keep going. Yeah. So we talked about, you know, this false approval, you know, believing that you can find approval in the world. We talked about this God of self and thinking that, you know, from the garden, if I can create my own autonomy, I can know what's best for me and what is true.

we're a terrible Lord, and that's exactly what Satan wants for you. And I think a really important thing that I can speak into in a unique way is this counterfeit intimacy, like counterfeit intimacy. And intimacy from a biblical perspective is not sex, while sex can be part of what exists in the realm of intimacy. Intimacy in itself is proximity to God. And if you understand that intimacy is found in the presence of God, surrender to the person of God satiated by the Word of God, then that's the only place that you can find satisfaction.

That's the only place that your soul can be at rest because you were created to desire that thing. And while all emotions are God given, if you believe a lie that you can find intimacy in a counterfeit place and it will satisfy you. I mean, that is, you know, why the pornography industry is so, like there's so much proclivity around that because, I mean, you look at Major League Baseball, NBA, NFL, all combined, and it pornography grosses far more. You take Netflix, Disney combined, pornography grosses far more.

33% of all data transferred on the Internet on a daily basis pornography. 54% of the divorces that happen in America have something to do with pornography in it. And you believe the lie that people are products and sex is transactional, and you think I can consume this thing and I can find satisfaction because I'm not going to experience rejection, but it all goes back to this identity crisis. And if I am not understanding who I am through sonship or being a daughter or a son of the king of kings, if that is not where I get my identity, I'm going to believe that I can obtain it elsewhere. And that's why pornography is so prevalent in this culture because, you know, even if I'm honest, that's why my strong

story is such an anomaly because we've made sex a God and we worship it. So me coming out of that industry and preaching the gospel was such an anomaly because we worship sex. If you want to sell, you know, if you want to sell movies, what, sex and violence? So I would just say, man, God is better. And until you understand that, like to your point, there's a generation of people who have experienced the forgiveness that comes from First John, but they haven't experienced the deliverance and healing that comes from James 516. There's a spirit of confession that needs to happen. The thing that you struggle with, you feel like is unmentionable, once you speak it,

the enemy loses its power over you. And once you speak that thing that you've been just dwelling on for so long that you hope no one will find out about or you're too ashamed to talk about, that is how the enemy is holding you hostage. And truth is the thing that's going to say. And that is the power. Yeah. That's the power of your story.

that you give people hope, people who have no hope, check out this man's story and you will see what God can do. Just a joy, Josh, to have you back. Josh Broome is my guest, the book Seven Lies, that Will Ruin Your Life. God bless you, Josh. Thank you. Thank you so much.