The Apostle Paul once said, “According to the righteousness of the law, I was found blameless.” When he testified before a high priest in Acts 23:1, “I have lived with a perfectly good conscience before God until this day,” what did he mean? He meant that he was keeping all the commandments. What commandments was he keeping? Only the first nine, because he's honest enough to say in Romans 7:7-8, that when he came to the tenth commandment, which said, “You shall not covet, you shall not lust,” he “found lusting of every kind.” He discovered every type of lust - a lust for money, a lust for other people's wives and daughters, lust for honor, and every type of lust - within himself, and realized he could not keep this commandment.
When the Apostle Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit in his heart (just like when the Holy Spirit came and filled people on the day of Pentecost), he says in Romans 8:2, that “the law of the Holy Spirit - which is not ten commandments but - the law of life in Christ Jesus, set me free from the law of sin that kept causing me to fall into anger and lust and everything else,” and he goes on in verse 4 to say, “the righteous requirement of the law - which is “You shall not lust” - is now fulfilled inside of us because we don't walk according to the flesh, but we walk according to the leading of the Holy Spirit.” This was impossible under the old covenant.
When Jesus spoke about overcoming these sins in Matthew 5, He was talking about something that is impossible for a man to do without the power of the Holy Spirit. If you read Matthew 5, 6 and 7, you find that, at the end of those three chapters, the most important question has not been answered. What is that? “Lord, how do I live this life?” That’s not even mentioned in Matthew 5, 6 and 7! The Sermon on the Mount just shows us the standard of life that God expects of a new covenant Christian, of a born-again Christian, but how to get there is not mentioned in the whole sermon.
Then how in the world will we know what to do? I believe that Christ only proclaimed the Sermon on the Mount to create a desire in our heart for this life, and that, if a person has a longing for this life, he will go to God and say, “Lord, what's the solution?” And Lord will say, “You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You need to be strengthened in the inner man.”
The great Apostle Paul was a very upright man according to the law, but even he could not overcome this desire until he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and then the Spirit of God set him free. This is like Jesus opening the blind man's eyes: the blind man couldn't open them by himself.
It is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that this is possible. In fact, we can live up to everything Jesus spoke about in the Sermon on the Mount only if we are filled with the Holy Spirit.
I'm not talking about the cheap counterfeits that are going around today under the name of “fullness of the spirit”. If the fullness of the spirit that you claim to have experienced made you shake, roll on the ground, laugh, and speak in tongues, but you are defeated by the sins like anger and sexual lust, if you still raise your voice at your wife or husband, then you have not been filled with the Holy Spirit. Don't let anybody deceive you. Many people are deceived. The Holy Spirit gives us a new tongue, not just the ability to speak in unknown tongues, but even to control our mother tongue. It is of no use to speak in unknown tongues on Sunday morning in church and yet shout at your wife in your mother tongue on Sunday afternoon. That's not the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
The fullness of the Holy Spirit gives us control over our tongues. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control, and He gives us control over our tongues 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If this is not the case, you should ask God to give you a genuine fullness of the Holy Spirit. Thank God for the gifts of the Spirit, but ask God for the genuine fullness of the Spirit, which is beyond just having the gifts of the Holy Spirit. That’s the only way to overcome. There is no other way.
James says that every animal has been tamed by man, but no man can control the tongue (James 3:7-8). Only the Holy Spirit can. If you're 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. Sinning with the tongue, and sinning with the eyes. Both are very, very important.
Don't ever be satisfied with any cheap counterfeit of the fullness of the Holy Spirit if it does not give you control over your tongue and control over your eyes. Go before God and say, “Lord I've got a cheap counterfeit. I want to be honest with You. I'm just convincing people that I’m filled with the Holy Spirit, and that is worth nothing. I don't want to miss out on the genuine fullness of the Holy Spirit.”
When I was a young Christian, I was defeated in both of these areas. As I sought for the fullness of the Holy Spirit, people sent me to different assemblies, but I was so disappointed with what I saw there. I heard a lot of noise and I said, “Lord, this is not what I'm looking for. I’m looking for power to overcome sin. Even if it takes ten years, I want the real thing. I want what Peter, James and John got on the day of Pentecost, not the cheap counterfeit that's going around the world today.”
The devil wants people to be satisfied with some counterfeit. If you were going to buy gold or diamonds, or even currency notes, how careful you would be to ensure that you don't get a counterfeit. If you know there's a lot of counterfeit currency going around, you will be careful to look at the five hundred rupee notes you pick up. How much more careful we need to be about something that concerns our eternal destiny: the genuine fullness of the Holy Spirit!
Don't be satisfied with a counterfeit. If you are not satisfied with counterfeit gold and diamonds and currency notes, how much more you should not be satisfied with counterfeit in the area of the fullness of the Spirit. This is the test: has the Spirit of God set you free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2)? That's the test.
