All That Jesus Taught : Bible Study Part 18 | Zac Poonen

Our theme for this study is ‘All that Jesus taught’. This is very important because Jesus told us in Matthew 28:20 to teach disciples in every nation every single thing that he has commanded. Until we have done that our job is not complete in fulfilling the great commission. We’ve been looking at the things that Jesus spoke and taught and commanded beginning in Matthew 4 and we’ve reach up to Matthew 5 now. We were looking at anger and sexually lustful thinking. Let’s look at Matthew 5:27 today, you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. That was the standard under the Old Testament law but I say to you Jesus was explaining what was behind that command. Not just a question of physically avoiding adultery but inwardly not even lusting after a woman.

Now God has put a strong sexual desire in all men. All men know that this desire rises up to our hearts in our early teenage years and it becomes strong and last for many, many decades in our life. Why has God allow such a strong desire with in men? A woman does not have such a strong desire for sex as a man. God could have kept the sexual desire low in a man just like in a woman but in his great wisdom he’s made it much stronger in a man. There is a reason for it. God wants us to be over comers and here is an area where we should overcome before he could get married. God could have made man in such a way that he didn’t get this desire to leave as 25, 26 and he could get married straight away and be free from it but yet he has allowed this desire to come up to our heart when we are 12 or 13 years old. From that time we are to battle it and God wants to overcome this in our thought life before we get married. That’s why he gives us 13/14 years to fight, and struggle, and overcome it before we get married. It doesn’t need to take that long if you’re faithful. It can be much quicker than that. We got to have a radical attitude if you are to overcome it. We got to be honest and acknowledge that it is impossible in our human power to overcome it. Even the great apostle Paul was a very upright man according to the law acknowledge as e saw in our last study that he could not come over this desire until he was filled with the Holy Spirit and the spirit of God set him free. Like Jesus opening the blind man’s eyes which they couldn’t open by themselves. It’s only through the power of the Holy Spirit that this is possible. In fact everything in the Sermon on the Mount we can live up to this standard only if we are filled with the Holy Spirit. I am not talking about the cheap counterfeits that are going around today under the name of the fullness of the spirit. If all of the fullness of the spirit that you have claimed to experience has made you shake, and roll on the ground, and laugh, speak in tongues and you are defeated by these sins like anger, and sexual lust. If you still raise your voice to your wife or husband, you have not been filled with the Holy Spirit. Don’t let anybody deceive you. Many people are deceived by that. The Holy Spirit gives us a new tongue, not just speaking in an unknown tongue, even in our mother tongue. There is no use in speaking in unknown tongues on a Sunday morning in a church shouting at your wife in your mother tongue. That’s not the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The fullness of the Holy Spirit gives us control over our tongue.

The fruit of the Spirit is self control. It gives us control over our tongues 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If it is not that, let me tell you what you should do. Ask God to give you a genuine fullness of the Holy Spirit, thank God for the gifts of the Holy Spirit but ask God for the genuine fullness of the Spirit which is beyond just having the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It’s the only way to overcome. There is no other way. James says, every animal has been tamed by men (James 3) but the tongue no man control but the Holy Spirit can. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit he will give you control over your tongue and over your eyes. These are the two parts of the human body that Jesus spoke of in relation to sin in Matthew 5: 21-32.