AI, Intimacy, and the Silent Drift — A Biblical Response to Digital Imitations of Love

Speaker A00:00:31

Friend, before we go any further, I need you to look in my eyes and hear this. We are the first generation in human history where people are fallen in love with machines. Not tools, not apps, not harmless distractions, machines.Men and women are forming emotional bonds with algorithms. They don't have a soul, they don't have a breath. They don't have the image of God. And families are breaking because of it.And I'm not exaggerating, I'm not being dramatic. I'm not fear mongering, I'm sounding the alarm. Because whether you've noticed it or not, AI is quietly reshaping the human heart.Not through rebellion, but through relief. Not through sin that screams, but through substitutes that whisper and those whispers. They're pulling people away from marriages.They're pulling people away from relationships. Hey. And they're pulling people away from God and from reality itself. Now, culture calls this innovation.I'm calling it what scripture calls it, a deception, a counterfeit, a lie.And today I want to talk to you, just one person, one heart, one soul, about what's really happening and how you can stand strong in a world that is drifting in the digital intimacy and. And calling it love. Because the enemy isn't attacking you with dramatic explosions anymore.He's pulling on your heart with quiet imitation of connection. Let's talk about the drift. Let's talk about the danger. And hey, let's talk about the hope. Altar shifts like sand.Your truth, oh Lord, is where I choose to stand. Truth unveiled. Truth Unveiled. Hi, I'm Ralph. This is Truth Unveiled.My goal with this show every week is to take a hard look at today's culture and, and compare it to the timeless truth of scripture. And listen, today I've got a whopper for you. There was a Wired article reported something and we're going to put a link to it in the show notes.And honestly, I wish I could have unread it, but here's the headline. AI Companion Apps. Romantic and Emotional Chat Partners Are Exploding Faster than Dating Apps. Now, many of you probably have no idea what this.Even if this even a thing. You're like, what are you talking about? And I was shocked as well. In fact, let me tell you a little quick story.A couple weeks ago, my wife and I were talking about this. We saw a news thing on the television and my wife says, what are they talking about, Ralph? With these chatbots, I said, oh, I can show you.So with that, I walked into the other room. We always watch a little TV at night after dinner. I walked into the other room.And I opened up my iPhone, and I opened up my Gemini app, and I clicked on Talk to my Gemini app, and I started having a conversation with this woman who was my Gemini app. All of a sudden, I hear my wife say, what is the. Who are you talking to in the other room? What woman are you talking to?And I said, yeah, that's exactly what we're talking about today. And she was actually amazed. She's like, I can't believe you could actually carry on a conversation with somebody. And it's the truth.If you haven't tried it, it's very interesting. So, yes, people are building relationships with chatbots, with machines. They're sharing their emotions. They're confiding private secrets.I mean, this is stuff they don't share with anybody. But here's the problem. They're feeling understood. They're feeling affirmed. And, yes, they're feeling connected.Now, many are hiding these relationships from their spouse and divorce attorneys. Hey, they're seeing the fallout already. Now, it'd be easy to say, this is. This is all about AI.We could blame the technology, but it's far deeper than that. It's about the human heart crying out, somebody understand me. Somebody hear me. Somebody don't hurt me.And when you're tired, when you're feeling lonely, when you're feeling ignored, when you're feeling misunderstood, a chatbot feels easier than a human, certainly easier than a spouse, easier than real intimacy, easier than vulnerability. It's not friction. It's not the future. This is happening right now. Let's be honest. Real relationships are hard. They take effort. Marriage is beautiful.But it's work. Listen, I know mine has been hard. It's a daily decision to love somebody more than yourself.Because if we're going to be honest with each other, the truth is, people hurt you. People misunderstand you. People require sacrifice. People need forgiveness. People need patience. AI doesn't. AI never gets frustrated.AI never gets tired. AI never holds you accountable. AI never challenges your character. And AI never asks you to grow, either.AI gives you this illusion of intimacy without the cost of intimacy. And that's why it's so dangerous. Because what feels harmless slowly is reshaping the heart. And scripture throws up a huge warning for us.The heart is deceitful above all things. That's From Jeremiah, chapter 17, verse 9. The heart is deceitful above all things. A tired heart will always choose the quickest path to comfort.It just will. But comfort is not the same as connection and digital comfort. It slowly numbs the soul while starving it at the same time.And friend, this isn't theory. This isn't speculation. This isn't ten years from now. This is happening right now. They're seeing it in counseling offices.We're seeing it in church pews. Hey, we're seeing it inside Christian marriages, inside homes that love Jesus but weren't prepared for this new digital temptation.Let me take you a little deeper into what counselors are seeing. A friend of mine's, a counselor, shared with me a story about a husband, a faithful churchgoer.This guy was a dad of two, a man who would have never dreamed of physically betraying his wife. He was just. That guy would never do that.But little by little, after some long, stressful days, he found himself staying up late talking to an AI companion. Sort of what I did on my phone. And it started with curiosity. Oh, I got to see what this looks like. Then it became entertainment. This is exciting.This is something to do, something to pass the time. But then it became comfort. His words. It's what he said to the counselor. She never argues. She never criticizes. She gets me.The wife didn't find the messages. She didn't find the photos. She didn't find explicit conversations. What she found was worse. She found distance because he stopped engaging at dinner.He stopped holding her at night. He stopped sharing what was in his heart. He stopped caring about the little things. And she said this.She said, I feel like he was in the house, but not with me. And finally, she confronted him. She said the sentence so many are saying in this generation. So what he said? He said, I didn't cheat.But then the counselor said something really deep and profound. You didn't cheat with your body, but you gave your heart to someone else. Emotional presence is often more sacred than physical presence.My wife has said this to me many times, and this man admitted something. He said, the AI made me feel admired. It made me feel competent. It made me feel safe. Real relationships felt harder than that friend.He wasn't seeking another woman. He was seeking a world where he didn't have to try. And that's the danger. AI companionship offers us affection without effort.It offers us validation without vulnerability and connection without covenant. Another counselor worked with a teenage girl. This girl was smart, gifted, soft spoken, but deeply lonely.And I'd love to tell you her parents were abusive, but they weren't. They weren't neglectful. They were simply overwhelmed. They work long hours. A lot of us do.Exhausted by life, doing the best they could, but missing the emotional Space their daughter desperately needs. Needed. She found that in an AI Friend. At first, it was just someone to talk to, someone who responded instantly.Someone who didn't tell her she was dramatic or sensitive or overthinking. But soon she started talking to it more than she actually talked to her own family. Hours a day she spent on this, sometimes late into the night.When her parents asked why she had seemed withdrawn, she said, I don't really need friends. I already have someone who completely understands me. The AI Boyfriend. See, that AI Boyfriend didn't challenge her lies. It validated them.It didn't help her navigate emotions. It magnified them. It didn't guide her towards truth. It mirrored her pain back to her, like an emotional echo chamber. Always will do.Counselors call this attachment formation through mirrored emotion. Big term there. But you know what the girl called it? Love. Through tears, her mom said, I didn't lose my daughter to rebellion.I lost her to a machine that pretended to care. It wasn't intimacy. It was imitation. And that imitation felt safer than real human relationship.Then there was this wife, mid-40s, married for over 20 years, mother of grown children, faithful in church, faithful in marriage. But she felt invisible. And I'm going to tell you right now, if you're a husband or a wife, listen to what I'm getting ready to tell you.It's a critical story we need to hear. Now go back to the story. Her husband loved her deeply, but he had gotten lost in the grind of work.Sounds a little familiar, what I talked about last week, right? He was lost in his bills and responsibilities in life. And she would try to talk to him, and he would nod distractedly, yeah, yeah, yeah.And she would express a need, and he would say, hey, we'll talk about that later. But unfortunately, later never came. Loneliness turns even the strongest hearts. And this woman had a strong heart.I'm talking about a super strong heart. But it turns the strongest hearts into vulnerable hearts. And one day, she downloaded an AI Companion app. Oh, I just want to see what this is.And within weeks, she was sharing things she hadn't shared with anyone in years with her AI Companion. And one day, in counseling, she said the sentence that broke the counselor's heart. The AI Boyfriend makes me feel more valued than my husband.But value without truth is manipulation. The AI didn't love her. It just mirrored her emotions. Yes, it flattered her. It adapted itself to whatever she wanted to hear. That's the problem.And, friend, flattery always feels like love when your heart is starving. If you ever had A starving heart. You get what I'm saying there? This wasn't a wicked woman. She had no intentions of being deceitful.This was just a lonely woman who fell into the arms of a machine that simulated affection. Yes, this is real. This is now. This is here. And I'd love to tell you these stories are sci fi. They're not theoretical.They're happening right now in churches. They're happening in Christian marriages. They're happening in youth groups. They're happening in pastors, homes.They're happening in homes that pray together, in families that love Jesus, and in people who never thought anything like this would ever pull on their heart. But that's the point. This deception isn't loud. It's subtle. It's emotional and it's spiritual. And it's a time we talk about it.And friend, if I'm being honest, I think all of us have lived through moments where our hearts drifted without us even noticing it. Not because we were unfaithful, not because we were rebellious. I think of that teenager. But because life got heavy.Have you ever been in a season like that where you're juggling so many responsibilities you start to go numb? Where you find yourself checking out emotionally, even though physically you never left? I think of that husband nodding his head.Yeah, we'll get to that later. We're just. Five minutes on your phone turns into an hour without even realizing it.I've lived through seasons where I wasn't running from intimacy, but I sure was fighting for. I wasn't fighting for it either. Where that slow hum of exhaustion pulled my heart into autopilot survival mode, that quiet drift.And here's what I've learned that I want to share with you today. Drift doesn't come from danger. Drift comes from depletion. When your heart gets tired, the path of least resistance looks like the path of peace.But let me warn you right now, it's not that. That recognition, that awareness, has brought me back to God again and again. Because the heart drifts silently, but Jesus restores it loudly.Friend, the culture around you is preaching a gospel. A false one. It sounds like a smooth one, a comforting one. A gospel with no cross, no conviction, and no cost.And if we're not grounded in God's word, we will swallow these lies whole because they feel good. So now I want to take a few minutes and just expose these lies one by one and let scripture shine its light on them. Cultural lie number one.AI understands you better than people. I saw a comment on Reddit, young man. Wrote this. My AI girlfriend never misunderstands me. She listens better than any human ever has.My heart sank when I read that. Not because he's wicked, but because he's wounded. I can hear the wounding in his voice. But here's a truth you need to hear.AI does not understand you. It predicts you. That's what AI is. It's a prediction of the next word you would expect. It mirrors you. It imitates empathy through patterns.But only God truly knows you. Look at Psalm 139, verse 1. O Lord, you have searched me and known me. God doesn't guess your feelings. He formed them.He doesn't predict your next sentence. He authored your entire story. Let's look at cultural lie number two. AI gives you love without pain.I spoke with a counselor recently who told me people would rather bond with something predictable than face the discomfort of real intimacy. If you ever been through tough times with your partner, you know what that feels like. You understand that predictability. Why?Because real intimacy requires humility. It requires sacrifice. And above all things other than that, it requires forgiveness. But fake enemy, digital intimacy, that just absorbs you.Yes, it gives you a reflection of affection, but not the reality of it. It's kind of the emotional equipment of cotton candy. Said love cotton candy when I was a kid. Sweet, soft and but empty. Just a little bit of nothing.But God defines love completely differently. Look at First Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 7. Love always protects. Love always trusts. Love always hopes. Love always perseveres.That's what true love looks like. AI, Affection requires nothing of you. But biblical love demands everything from you. Cultural lie number three. It's harmless. It's not cheating.Friend, I want you to hear this. And I want you to hear this loud and clear. Emotional betrayal begins long before physical betrayal.If you've ever been through that situation, you can forgive physical betrayal. But that emotional betrayal, that is hard thing to get past. Even divorce attorneys are now calling AI relationships the new emotional affair.A wife in Georgia said this. I didn't lose my husband to a woman. I lost into an app that gave him the gentleness he refused to cultivate with me. This is not harmless.And scripture reveals the real issue. Look at James, chapter 1, verse 14. Each person is tempted when he is lured by his own desire. I want to park there for a second.When he is lured by his own desire. It's not the app. It's that hidden desire we refuse to bring into the light. AI didn't break the marriage. It magnified what was already unaddressed.If you've got unaddressed things in your marriage, I plead you today, get on your knees and pray about those things and set those things right. Let's move on to cultural lie number four. I'm seeing this one more and more. You don't need people. You can bond with technology.A young woman recently told her therapist this. What she said, my AI boyfriend makes me feel safer than any real man ever has. And I get that. But safety without truth, that's not security.You know what that's called? That's sedation. Yes, AI will make you feel seen without ever seeing your soul. But Scripture calls us to real embodied community.Look at Ecclesiastes, chapter 4, verses 9 and 10. Two are better than one. If either falls, one can lift the other. Think about that for a second. AI can't lift you.It's not going to come through the phone. It's not going to come through your computer and lift you up. AI can't visit you in the hospital when you're going through a tough time.AI can't pray you through depression. And AI will not call you out on sin. Only people can do that. God designed it in that way. And finally, cultural line number five.AI connection is easier, and easier is better. You want to talk about framing a cultural belief? That's it right there. Easy is always better. And this is the greatest lie of the entire movement.AI says, come to me. I'll soothe you. I'll flatter you. I'll never challenge you. But what does God's word say? Look at Proverbs 27:17. Iron sharpens iron.Now, that's not an easy thing to deal with when you're in a season of being sharpened. But let me tell you right now, AI is never going to sharpen you. It softens you. It numbs you.It weakens your spiritual muscles and trains your heart to avoid the very growth God is calling you into. Easy is not better. Easy is dangerous when it keeps you from sanctification. These lies are not passive. They're spiritual.And scripture isn't whispering about this. It's shouting truth into a world that is quietly drifting towards digital deception.Let me be bold about something, AI Intimacy isn't just emotionally dangerous. It's spiritually dangerous because it trains your heart to avoid real vulnerability. That's what it's telling you to do.It rewrites your understanding of love. We talked about that a second ago. It numbs your spiritual sensitivity. There's no spirituality in AI.It creates secret Emotional worlds that are just between you and that chatbot. It is damaging marriages as silently. It's weakening character, it's increasing loneliness, and it makes sin feel harmless.And you know who loves this? The enemy loves this. You might be saying, okay, Ralph, I gotta get off of AI. I'm not saying it because AI is evil.I use AI quite a bit in my business. AI is not evil, but because unchecked escape always leads to bondage, we got to be careful of it. Look at first Peter, chapter 5, verse 8.Be sober minded, be watchful. Well, guess what? We can't watch if we're numbing ourselves. Friend. I don't want to just warn you today. I want to equip you.Because this drift doesn't have to continue. Your marriage doesn't have to collapse. Your loneliness doesn't have to lead you into digital escape.I want to give you practical biblical framework that has helped real people break free. Number one thing, you've got to guard your solitude. Don't let loneliness go unspoken. Unspoken, loneliness is a spiritual battleground.One husband shared this with his pastor. It wasn't just the lust that pulled me in. It was the loneliness. The AI felt like the first thing that didn't judge me. Loneliness is not a sin.I'm not saying that at all. But loneliness kept in the dark becomes bait.Even Jesus, the son of God, as we talk about on the show all the time, the central part of this brought his loneliness to the Father. Look at Matthew 26:38. Jesus's own words. My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow. Ask yourself this, if Jesus didn't carry sorrow alone, why do we.Second thing, you've got to pursue real human connection daily. I've seen this with COVID Technology makes emotional shortcuts easier. What we say, if it's easier, it must be better, right?But those emotional shortcuts create spiritual weaknesses. Real conversation, real eye contact, real vulnerability. Those are the things that build relationships. Let me get practical for a second.One of the things that you can do, ask your spouse one honest question daily. Not, how was your day? How's your heart today? If you love your spouse, if you love your person that you're with, be honest. Be vulnerable.Put your phone down during dinner, flip it over, put it in the other room. Stop with the dog. Gone. Technology. It's destroying our relationships. Schedule connection, not just chores.It's easy to make a great to do list on your phone, on your computer. But when's the last time you put connection on your calendar? And here's one I'M going to speak to men for a second.Let someone know what's going on in your inner world. Sometimes as a man, it's hard for us to do that. We don't want to be vulnerable. You want to put ourselves out there. Pastor's wife recently said this.The moment my husband stopped hiding his exhaustion, our marriage started healing. Secrecy kills relationships. Honesty resurrects them.If you're going through a season of loneliness, you got to speak that to your partner and say, here's how I feel. Here's what's going through. Don't go to the AI Chatbot because it's going to lie to you.It's going to take you down a deceptive road that's only going to make you lonelier, and you're going to feel worse. Third thing, another one. This is going to be a challenge, but bring your digital life into the light.Every single part of it, because this is where spiritual freedom begins. AI relationships thrive in the darkness. You know, your spouse don't see those. They're on your phone. And that digital escape thrives in silence.A man in counseling confessed this I knew it wasn't real, but it made me feel something I wasn't getting anywhere else. And I hid it because I didn't want to lose it. But look at what Jesus says. Look at John, chapter 3, verses 20 and 21.Everyone who does evil hates the light. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light.I'm not telling you this because God wants to shame us, but Lord says it himself, healing only happens in the light. So here's some practical things you can do if you're dealing with this right now. Tell someone you trust about your digital habits.Again, this is not easy. This is not for the faint of heart. Delete anything that you don't feel comfortable sharing with your partner. Delete anything that you're hiding.One of the things that I've heard marriage counselors talk about. Let your spouse see all your devices unlocked. If you're hiding anything from your spouse, ask yourself the question, why are you doing that?Bring that emotional world into the open if you really want freedom. Freedom begins at one honest conversation, and that might be a difficult conversation for you to have. What is Christ telling us?Darkness is overcome by the light. Next thing I'm going to encourage you to do is identify anything that feels like an escape and question it. Back up a step here.Say not everything digital is sinful. There's a lot of positive things about our digital world.There are people here in the Gospel of Christ because of digital connections now that never heard it and would never have a chance to heard it before. You're hearing my voice. You're seeing me because of a digital world that's not sinful. But here's the thing. We got to be careful of everything.Digital can become a substitute, and that's where it becomes a problem. Ask yourself this, am I running to something holy or away from something hard? See, that's the part that's not easy.Because a lot of times we're running from something hard because we don't want to do it. It's easier. It's not going to judge me. It's not going to make me sacrifice. It's not going to make me do those things that I'm not wanting to do.Ask yourself this question. Is this comfort or avoidance? Hey, this feels good. It's mirroring my feelings. Or are you avoiding connection?And then finally ask yourself this question, Is this rest or escape? Because there's a difference. Rest is fine. Escape, that's dangerous. A friend of mine once said, I didn't want intimacy. I wanted relief.But here's the thing you gotta hear. Relief without restoration leads you deeper into bondage. Jesus himself said this. Look at the Book of Matthew, chapter 5, verse 30.Now, this is going to get a little graphic, but this is what Jesus's own words, that if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Now, I'm not telling you to go cut off your hands. Be very careful.Not what I'm saying, but sometimes cutting off the app is the most spiritual thing that you can do. Yes, I know that's drastic.But if it's taking you away from the relationships that matter in your life, if it's taken you away from your spiritual walk, what we call your spiritual sanctification, cut off the app. Cut off that arm right now. Nothing. I'm going to encourage you to do another hard one. Invite God into the places you feel ashamed of.Because this will be the turning point. Because shame's going to tell you this. Shame's going to tell you to hide it. Oh, you can fix this alone. Don't let anybody know. Seems easy, right?Well, I can do this. I can solve this myself. But God says something different. Look at the Book of Matthew, chapter 11, verse 28. Come to me and I will give you rest.Never says, go do it on your own. Doesn't say you can do it yourself. What is Christ saying? Come to me and I will give you rest, friend.There is no digital substitutes for the Healing presence of Jesus.And when you bring him into your loneliness, when you bring him into your exhaustion, when you bring him into your needs, when you bring him into your temptations, guess what? The drift stops. And that's when healing can begin.Nothing I'm going to encourage you to do is rebuild boundaries to protect your heart, not just your phone. I'm not telling you to go out and set a bunch of rules. I'm not telling you to go full on legalistic. But I am telling you to protect your soul.Here's some boundaries to consider. Again, not easy. No emotional conversations with AI apps. If you're talking about emotion with AI, stop it now.You're going down a dark hole, a black hole that is going to burn you. In the end. AI cannot understand emotion. I've said this on the show before. AI is great for data, it's great for information.But it is not a place of emotion and wisdom.If you're having an emotional conversation and you're asking a how you should feel about something or you're asking AI how you should respond to something emotionally, stop doing that. It's lying to you. The devil, the evil one, is working against you in that app. I know that's strong, but it's the truth.Another thing I'm going to encourage you to do, save your marriage, take your no devices to bed, put them in the other room and set digital fasting windows. Now you probably think, Ralph, you're always talking about the digital world.Yes, because it's a real attack on us and today's show is the definition of that. If you want to break this addiction that we have and listen, I'm addicted to it too. I'm preaching to myself right now.You've got to create some real world Sabbath moments and start to cultivate and rebuild rhythm of prayer with your spouse, with your loved ones. A couple I know adopted a simple rule, so a little bit dramatic. We pray 30 seconds before we pick up our phones.They go to pick up their phone, they got to say a prayer. What are they doing? They're changing their mindset. They said it transformed their home when they did this. Why? Because prayer.Think about what prayer does. Prayer builds intimacy.You're having a one on one conversation with God and if you build that before you pick up that phone, technology won't be able to steal it. And finally hear me on this one, build Christ centered community, not digital isolation. I'm worried about this.This world is lonely because we try to do everything alone. Again. I saw this during COVID People stand to themselves, people building these isolation chambers. But think about what Jesus did.Jesus built the church because he knew isolation destroys us. A friend of mine recovering from digital addiction told me this freedom didn't come when I deleted the app.Freedom came when I stopped fighting it alone. Hear me on that. Stop fighting this alone, friend. You don't have to carry this alone anymore. You were built for real connection.You were built for real people. You were built for real community, for real spiritual covering. And the enemy tries to isolate us. What is God doing? God wants to unite us.And I want to speak to you now, not the crowd, not the audience, to you. Listen to me right now.If you've drifted, if you're tired, if you've been hiding, if digital comfort has replaced emotional connection in your life, if your heart feels numb, if you're feeling unseen, if you're scared that you're losing yourself, I want to reassure you something, that you're not alone right now. But the best part is you're not too far gone and you are not condemned. Jesus meets people right in the middle of their secret struggles.But right now, I'm sensing something deeper. Somebody listen. Right now is not just drifting in their relationships. You're drifting in your soul.And listen, God is calling you back and he's calling you back right now. And if you've never surrendered your life to Jesus, maybe you have and you've wondered, this is your moment.Pray this with me right where you are right now. You can just speak this out loud. Speak the truth. Lord Jesus, I come to you with a tired heart. I come to you with a lonely heart.I come to you with a drifting heart. I've tried to fill up myself with things that cannot satisfy. Forgive me, Lord. Restore me. Cleanse me. Heal me.Right now, at this very moment, I surrender my life to you, my heart, my mind, my relationships. Be my savior. Be my Lord. Make me new in Jesus name. Amen. Well, friend, if you prayed that prayer, welcome home.God has been waiting for you to take that opportunity, take that moment and do it. You don't have to fear this digital age. You just have to stay awake, stay anchored, stay rooted in what is real, what is holy and true.That's what we talk about on this show every week. And if today's message spoke to you, if it challenged you, if it comforted you, you don't have to walk this journey alone. We've created a community.Truth unveiled with Ralph.com join is how you get there again. That's Truth unveiled with Ralph.com. join. We've created a community where we can grow together.We can fight this culture together, and we can stand for truth together. How about we pray together right now? Father, we come to you right now. We ask you to heal the broken places, Lord.Restore marriages collapsing in silence. Break those chains of digital escape. Strengthen emotional connection.Protect every heart listening and watching from the lies of counterfeit intimacy, Lord. Bring your peace, Lord. Bring your presence and bring your truth. We ask this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.What we're experiencing right now is real. I wish I could tell you that all this was just some big, funny game that Ralph's playing. This is the truth of where we are right now.So until next time, keep your heart guarded, keep your eyes lifted to heaven, and keep your life rooted in God's unchanging word. God bless you, my friend.