New Covenant - Overcoming Temptation - Part 3 — Zac Poonen

The Old Covenant's 613 Commandments

Up and found, you know how many commandments there were in the Old Testament? 613. You know ten of them in the Ten Commandments. There are lots of other commandments in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy.

You total them all up, there are 613 commandments. And even if you kept all of them, you still wouldn't get life. It was hopeless. And it was commandments, commandments, do this and do that and do the other thing and do the other thing.

Following Jesus Rather Than External Rules

And a lot of Christians try to live by that, do this, do this, do the other thing. That's not Christianity. Jesus said, follow me. And the difference, as I've often said, is the difference between explaining to you on a blackboard how to swim and saying, okay, go jump in the river now, do what I told you, breathe like this and move your legs like this and you'll drown.

The other is teaching you to swim by me getting into the river and say, follow me. Which is easier? Which would you rather, which way would you rather learn? That is the difference between Old Covenant and New Covenant.

Christ's Example in Overcoming Temptation

The Old Covenant was a list of commandments on the blackboard. Do this, this, this, this, this and you can't do it. And Jesus said, I'll show you. I'll be tempted in every single point that any of you at any age in your life have been tempted.

I'll overcome. And at the end of my life I will say, follow me. And there will be people like Paul who will say, 1 Corinthians 11 .1, follow me as I follow Christ. And who will say in Philippians 3 .17, brethren, follow us.

And others like us who are an example. The Christian world today lacks such men and women of God who can turn around to others and say, follow me as I follow Christ. That's not pride. It's faith. A lot of people think humility is to say, oh, don't follow me.

Honest Testimony and the Reality of the Gospel

Why in the world are you saying anything? Don't tell anybody something that didn't work in your own life. If the gospel hasn't worked in your own life, you've got no business to share it with anybody else.

But praise God, it can work if we have faith and we need to be challenged. We need to be stirred up out of our lethargy, laziness, unbelief especially, to see that Jesus was tempted like us. The second thing, as I said, the first is that they didn't have an example in the Old Testament.

The Holy Spirit and the Inner Life

Now we have an example in Jesus. The second is they didn't have the Holy Spirit indwelling them in the Old Testament. So it was impossible. Everything in the Old Testament was external. You could only clean the outside of the cup, not the inside.

Nobody could clean the inside of the cup. Even in the list of 10 commandments, you could keep nine of them. But when you came to the 10th one, who could keep it? You know what the 10th commandment is?

The Tenth Commandment and Inner Lust

The first nine commandments are very easy. There are many, many unbelievers, ungodly people in the world who keep it. You know, there are many ungodly people who don't worship idols. There are certain religions where they just hate idolatry, other than Christianity.

And there are many people who fear God and honor their father and mother, don't commit adultery, don't murder, and don't bear false witness in a court, etc., etc. But when it comes to the 10th commandment, you shall not lust after your neighbor's wife or your neighbor's daughter.

Every girl in the world is your neighbor's daughter. Who kept it? Paul was honest and said, when I came to the last commandment, Romans chapter 7, I found all types of lusts in my heart. The word covet there means to desire something God hasn't given you, to look with desire at something God hasn't given you.

It's not your wife, anything. To desire somebody's property, to desire a sari that somebody else is wearing. You're broken, the 10th commandment immediately. You don't have to go and grab it to steal.

That's another commandment, thou shalt not steal. To steal your neighbor's wife or steal your neighbor's daughter, it's another commandment. You may not do that, but the 10th one is you shall not desire that in your heart.

You shall not lust after that. And when a man is honest like Paul to say, I couldn't keep it, God will lead him to victory. Because that's after he says in Romans 7, I found all types of lusting in my heart.

Confessing Sin and Receiving Deliverance

Are you honest enough to say, oh, how many Christians pretend as if they're not tempted, liars, hypocrites. But Paul was honest. He said, I found all types of desires and lusts in my heart. And he says, but, and he says, oh, wretched man, at the end of Romans 7, how shall I ever be free from this?

Have you had a cry in your heart like that, a longing to overcome temptation, saying, oh, wretched man that I am, I get angry, I lust. Lord, I slip up here, I slip up there. I've hurt people, oh, wretched man that I am.

Instead of saying, oh, wretched woman that she is, oh, wretched man that he is, you'll never get victory that way. When you say like Paul said in Romans 7, 24, oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?

He moves on to Romans 8, 2, and 3, where he says the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free. The law of sin and death was what the law could not do. God did. That's Romans 8, 2 and 3.

Fleeing Temptation and Testing

So there we have an example. And that's why we have given the example of Jesus being tempted. And we see here that the fact that we are tempted doesn't mean that we are in the wrong path. Some people think, now, you can put yourself in temptation unnecessarily.

You can open a pornographic book and say, Lord, lead me not into temptation. That's a lot of rubbish. You know, you keep cigarettes in your drawer and say, Lord, please don't let me smoke, Lord. Destroy those cigarettes.

You can't keep sources of temptation around you and say, Lord, deliver me from temptation. The Bible says, run away from temptation. But God allows us to be tempted. It says, who led him to be tempted?

The Wilderness Before Public Ministry

The Holy Spirit. Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit, and the very next thing the Holy Spirit was leading him into wilderness. And we think as soon as we are anointed with the Holy Spirit, we're going to go out and become great preachers.

Hang on. Before you become that great preacher, you got to be tempted. You got to overcome the devil in private before you have a public ministry. That's what we learn in this New Covenant, in New Covenant truths.

Private Victory and Spiritual Discernment

The Old Testament didn't have to be like that. Moses didn't have to be an overcomer in private before he proclaimed God's word or even wrote scripture like the first five books of the Bible. No. And Old Covenant preachers, and there are plenty of them today, can be defeated in their private life and get up and preach wonderful sermons, as wonderful as the books that Moses wrote.

But a man with discernment, only about 1 of Christians like that, can see through that. 99 of Christians are fooled. Boy, what a wonderful preacher. I want to say to you, my brothers and sisters, God wants us to serve him powerfully.

But that power can come only as we spend our lives studying God's word. And that's one of the things Jesus did. We know that he knew the scriptures at the age of 12. And the very first answer to temptation here, we will come to that, is he spoke about the word of God.