The Fear of God and Encouragement — Zac Poonen

I was reminded again this morning of a verse that I hadn't noticed for a long time, but I remember many years ago observing it in the Acts of the Apostles and chapter 9. It's a story of how the early church grew in numbers and spiritually.

Acts of the Apostles chapter 9 and verse 31. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up, going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, continued to increase.

Now there are some wonderful things there that we would like to see in our churches, in all of our churches. One, we want to enjoy peace. That means peace between husband and wife and every family, peace between brothers, peace between sisters.

We want to live at peace with our neighbors. Peace is a wonderful word and above all we want to live in peace in our mind without fear and anxiety and to enjoy it. There's joy there mixed with the peace.

Imagine if it could be written of our churches, the people in those churches had joy and peace. That'd be a wonderful church. It doesn't matter what the world thinks about us, it'd be a wonderful home and it would be a wonderful church.

And being built up, built up means it was growing spiritually and that's another thing we want to see. We don't want spiritual babies to remain spiritual babies. We are delighted to have people who are born again and come as spiritual babies in the church just like every married couple would be happy to have a baby.

We are happy too when new people are born again and become children of God. But we don't want them to remain spiritual children just like no parent wants their baby to remain a baby. We want our children to grow up strong, spiritually mature, knowing God.

And one mark of spiritual maturity is that you don't have to be constantly fed by others, you can feed yourself. You know, you don't depend on just the Sunday meeting. You can hear God's Word, God speaking to you from the Word yourself every day.

Another mark of maturity in an adult is that not only you can feed yourself, you grow up and you are able to feed others. You know, mothers and fathers, even older boys and girls can help their younger brothers and sisters.

And that's the mark of being built up. And when I look around at Christendom, even among those who are born again, I'm sorry to say it's very difficult to find adults, plenty of babies. You know, we think we are spiritual just because we're happy to be fed every Sunday or Wednesday.

That's good that you have a hunger for the Word of God, like a baby cries for milk. It's a sign of health, a very good sign of health that you have a hunger to hear the Word of God. But it should not be that you're always dependent on other people feeding you.

We must learn to feed ourselves and grow up to be able to feed others. That is spiritual growth. And I want to encourage all of you, I'm not trying to condemn anybody. There's no condemnation in the Word of God.

There is no condemnation when we are in Christ. We want the Spirit of Heaven to reign in our church and there's no condemnation in heaven. But there are challenges. As long as we live on this earth, we need to be challenged.

No one ever accomplished anything without being challenged. See all these people who run the races in the Olympics, they train with somebody who can run very fast. You know, if they want to run a marathon race, well, they may be the world champion, but they get somebody to run just one mile very fast with them and somebody else to run the next mile and somebody else to run the next mile.

So they're being challenged by someone who's running very fast because they know that guy knows he's got to run only one mile, this guy's got to run 40 kilometers. So challenge is the way anybody accomplishes anything.

And we want our churches and the ministry in the churches to always be a challenge, never condemnation, to grow up spiritually. They were built up. And the other thing it says here is, the last part of that verse, they continued to increase in numbers.

We don't despise increasing in numbers. We don't place quantity above quality. A lot of churches do, unfortunately. They glory that we are a huge church of 10 ,000, 20 ,000, 30 ,000, well, God bless them.

I hope they're all disciples, but I have serious doubts because Jesus said, you got to go and make disciples in every nation. And I'll tell you, Jesus spoke to more than 30 ,000. He sometimes spoke to huge crowds, but he concentrated on 12.

He made disciples. He told them, you go and make disciples. Yeah, sure, speak to the multitudes, but make disciples. But when you make that multitude into a church, then you're corrupt to the whole witness.

And that's what's happening in many places. Just because somebody likes to come and listen, we think they are disciples. I mean, if Jesus had followed that rule, he'd have had 30 ,000 disciples. He had only 12 because the conditions of disciples were pretty strict.

So, but we do believe in growth. We believe in numbers increasing. God doesn't want just 12 disciples for 2 ,000 years. He wants hundreds and thousands. God loves the whole world and he wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

That's what it says in 1 Timothy 2, verse 4 and 5. God does not only want people to be saved. It says he wants them to come to the knowledge of the truth. And both verses mean saved from what? Not saved from hell, but saved from sin.

Saved from anger. Saved from sexual lust. Saved from the love of money. Saved from bitterness. Saved from an unforgiving spirit. Saved from jealousy. Saved from pride. God wants everybody to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth about himself.

The truth that will set them free. So that is the type of increase we look for where we want numbers to increase without sacrificing quality. Think of these cars that have made a name for themselves. Really good cars.

You know, the very expensive cars like Mercedes Benz and Rolls Royce and BMW. They would never want to sacrifice their name for the sake of producing more numbers. They'd say, no, we'd rather produce less and not sacrifice the wonderful name that we have built up over many years so that if somebody says Rolls Royce or Cadillac or Mercedes Benz or BMW, it's got a name.

And a church must have a name like that. Maybe they produce hundreds of thousands of Rolls Royces, I don't know. But they don't sacrifice quality. And that's very rare to find. Most churches I find have traveled a lot, sacrifice quality to increase the numbers, and we never want to do that.

Never. We'd rather have people leave our church just like a lot of disciples left Jesus in John chapter 6 saying, this is a hard saying. I've had people come to me and say, Brother Zach, we can't join your church.

Your standards are too high. I say, OK, we're not going to lower our standards. Sorry. I hope you'll find another church that suits you. We don't wish you any evil. We wish you the best, but be a disciple of Jesus.

Don't have any regret when you stand before the Lord in the final day. But we're not going to lower our standards. So when they increased, and that's important, they didn't lower their standards. And in the middle of these phrases I just quoted are the two qualities by which they developed in this way.

And that's what I want you to look at. The fear of the Lord and the encouragement. The word comfort is the same word which Jesus used when he used the word, I will ask the Father to send you a helper or comforter.

Somebody who's an encourager. And the meaning is somebody who comes alongside you to help you. Like you're in a court and you've got the best advocate in the world standing beside you. Doesn't that give you confidence?

You're falsely accused in court by somebody and you stand there helpless, but the best advocate in the world comes and says, don't worry, I'll plead your cause. And your heart suddenly comes to rest. That is the Holy Spirit.

One called alongside to help, not only called alongside, it comes right within. To help. Helper, encourager. So they went on, it says, in the fear of the Lord. And the encouragement of the Holy Spirit.

And those are the two things I just want to speak about this morning. The fear of the Lord and the encouragement of the Holy Spirit. I find both of these are sadly missing in a lot of Christendom today.

The Holy Spirit as Encourager and the Test of Spiritual Fullness

There's very little of the fear of God among today's Christians. And there's very little of the spirit of encouragement. When was the last time you encouraged somebody? Can you think of it? When was the last time you encouraged your wife or your husband with some good words?

When was the last time you found fault with your husband or wife? That you can remember quickly, right? But when was the last time you spoke a word of encouragement and appreciation? To anybody or to a brother in the church?

Or to someone else? That shows how little of the Holy Spirit we have. Even though we think we may be filled with the Holy Spirit. I'll tell you. A man who is filled with the Holy Spirit will seek every opportunity to encourage others.

God is a God of encouragement. There's a lot of deception concerning being filled with the Holy Spirit. But a man who is filled with the Holy Spirit will encourage you. You'll love to be with such a person.

You'll long to talk to such a person. Because you know that when you go away from meeting such a person, you're always encouraged. Not discouraged or feeling condemned. We want all of us to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit is also called the spirit of the fear of the Lord. So both these qualities are related to the Holy Spirit and the acts of the apostles. Some people have said it could be called the acts of the Holy Spirit.

That's right. Because right from the beginning they were filled with the Holy Spirit. And then you see the acts of the Holy Spirit through the apostles and the other disciples. And there's no proper Christianity unless we are filled with the Holy Spirit.

And the reason why there's so much of counterfeit of the Holy Spirit in today's Christendom is because the original is very valuable. Why is there so much counterfeit gold, counterfeit diamonds? But no counterfeit newspapers.

Or counterfeit brown paper. Are you ever scared when you go to buy brown paper that you might get a counterfeit brown paper? You're scared if you're going to buy gold or jewelry or diamonds. Hey, how do I know this gentleman?

The more there is counterfeit of something, the more it proves the original is very valuable. And that's why there's such a tremendous amount of counterfeit being born again. Counterfeit being filled with the Holy Spirit.

All types of gimmicks and stupid things people do today and say it's the Holy Spirit. And I always test it by Jesus. Jesus is the perfect Spirit-filled man. And when I see somebody doing something, I say, can I imagine Jesus doing that?

No? Then forget it. That's not the fullness of the Holy Spirit. That guy's emotion. Maybe he's an emotional creature and he acts like that. I've got nothing against him. But brother, please don't call that the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Don't insult the Holy Spirit by doing that. I can't imagine Jesus doing what you're doing. The same way a Spirit-filled man will speak in a certain way. And I say, can I imagine Jesus speaking like that?

Boy, then it's Spirit-filled. But if I can't imagine Jesus speaking like that, to me it's not the fullness of the Spirit. And Jesus, I tell you, he wasn't always gentle. He said, come to me all you who are laboring and heavy laden.

And he said, how shall you escape hell, you generation of wipers? It was grace and truth in Christ. A man filled with the Holy Spirit will be filled with grace and truth. So, let's look at the fear of the Lord first.

Jesus Christ and the Spirit of the Fear of the Lord

Isaiah chapter 11, it says, referring to the Holy Spirit that's going to be upon Jesus Christ. This is a prophetic reference. Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, that's the father of David.

And Jesus called the son of David. And from him, the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him. That's referring to Christ. And he's called by the seven-fold title. You know, the seven-fold spirit you read in Revelation, it's all here.

One, the Spirit of the Lord. The second, the Spirit of Wisdom. Spirit of Understanding. Spirit of Counsel. Spirit of Strength. And sixth, Spirit of Knowledge. And seventh, the Spirit of the Fear of the Lord.

Did you know that the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of the Fear of the Lord? That means the Spirit who brings the fear of the Lord into our heart. And this Spirit was resting on Jesus. Did Jesus need the fear of his father?

Yes. When he was on earth as a man, just like us, he needed the Spirit of the Fear of the Father. And this Spirit, and out of all these seven things, characteristics of the Holy Spirit, one is picked out.

And that is the fear of the Lord. Verse 3. The Holy Spirit will make him delight in the fear of the Lord. Now, a lot of people don't delight in the fear of the Lord. To them, you know, the fear of the Lord is like some painful injection, which they have to take, or some chemotherapy, which they don't like, but they have to take, because they've got to get rid of the cancer.

It's not something they enjoy. I mean, whereas here, it's a delight. It's like having ice cream. I mean, there's a lot of difference between having ice cream and having chemotherapy, right? But here's something you delight in.

Delight in the fear of the Lord. If that hasn't happened in your life, I'll tell you, brother and sister, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That's what you need. The real Holy Spirit that filled Jesus.

When you're really filled with the Holy Spirit, and not some counterfeit spirit, it will make you delight. The fear of the Lord will be like ice cream for you. Every day. You'll delight in it. And one of the results of that fear of the Lord will be, when you delight in the fear of the Lord, verse 3, you will never again judge by what your eyes see.

You'll never again judge, make a decision, merely by what your ears hear. I think it means merely. It's not that we shut our eyes and shut our ears and live in the world. Jesus didn't live like that. He observed.

He heard. But he didn't make a decision based on those things. Because he had recognized, I may be deceived by what I see. I may be deceived by what I hear. There may be more to the truth than that. So he would not judge, pass a judgment by what he saw, or make a decision by what he heard.

Just think of those two things. From the time we come to an age of understanding as little children, all of us, we have absorbed a lot of information into our minds from our parents, from our home, from neighbors, from good friends, from bad friends, from school, all the dirty things people taught us in school and all the good things we learned in school.

And we come to the church and we mingle with God-fearing people in the church and we mingle with hypocrites in the church and very often there are more hypocrites than God-fearing people in every church.

And we are exposed to what we hear and see, critics, gossips, and the powerful messages. Now the question is, all this information that comes into our mind, it's on that basis of that information that we take decisions.

It's like a computer, where you put in a lot of data, data, data, data, data, data, and then the computer gives you a result. That's how our brain works. We get all this information and we produce a decision.

Now if you feed wrong information into the computer, you know that you're going to get a wrong answer. You know that very well when it comes to computers. But it's exactly the same with our mind. If I feed polluted, sinful information to my mind, you're going to make a wrong decision in life, which there'll be consequences years later.

Think of some of the foolish decisions you made in the past, and the consequences that lasted for a long time. Some of you got into debt and suffered for years. If you had just listened to God's word, which says, oh no man, anything, your life would have been saved from all that.

People who get into credit card debt are the most foolish people on the face of the earth. They're just ruining themselves. Their lust to buy something without having the money for it. Neglecting the word of God.

If Jesus were living today, I'm absolutely sure he would never be in credit card debt. He'd have paid his credit card bills every month. And if he couldn't afford something, and he felt by next month I won't be able to pay this bill, he wouldn't buy that.

Even though he had the opportunity with a credit card. He wouldn't do it. That's what the fear of the Lord brings. It's very down to earth and practical. It makes our life happier. The early church grew in the fear of the Lord.

And that's what we want. He would not make a decision by what his years, you know all these advertisements that tell you in the newspapers, on the billboards, you can't live without this. I say I can.

Man lived without that for 5 ,000 years. How did man live for 5 ,000 years? Don't believe all these ads. That you can't live without this, you can't live without that. Yes, you can't satisfy your lust without that.

That I agree. But you can certainly live without it. If you want to. If you want a peaceful life and a joyful life. You listen to that inner voice of the Holy Spirit. And you make a decision in righteousness.

And the same thing with what we hear about other people. You hear somebody say so-and-so did this, so-and-so said this. I'll tell you honestly, I can't throw stones at anybody. Because I've made mistakes myself.

I've sometimes heard something horrible about some brother in some church over which I have some responsibility. And immediately I say, boy, that's terrible. You've got to do something about it. And I've always regretted whenever I have acted immediately.

But I've learned through the years there are three sides. When there is a dispute between two people, there are three sides. What side A says, what side B says. And the third is the truth. Which is probably neither of these two or somewhere in between the two.

I've learned that through painful experiences through many years. And now I think I've learned it. That I'm not to believe what I hear. I'm not even to believe what I see. Supposing I see a brother going into a bar on Brigade Road.

Well, he may be going there to witness to somebody. But if you've got a polluted mind, you say, boy, I saw that man going into the bar. What for? I know brothers who go into bars to witness for Christ.

They usually get thrown out, but that's what they go for. So there could be many things like that. You'll be very, very happy if you follow Jesus. Who did not make a decision by what he heard. Or would not judge by what he saw.

But waited for the Holy Spirit to tell him. He took that information in, but sifted it and filtered it. And said, what is righteous, O Father? Now there's a verse in Romans chapter 3. Which tells us. Romans chapter 3 tells us a description of the condition of the world.

Sinful world. There are many things written there from verse 10 to 18. Describing how all the world is guilty. He's saying in verse 9 that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. The last part of verse 9, Romans 3, 9.

As it is written, and there's a huge list of things mentioned there. None righteous, no one who understands, no one who seeks after God. All have turned aside. Verse 12, no one does good, not even one.

Their throat is an open grave, and so on and on and on. And he says to sum it all up. Verse 18, it's like totaling it all up. The sum of it all is, there is no fear of God. Before their eyes. They don't fear God.

In that one sentence, you have summed up the sin of the whole world. They sin because they do not fear God. Though the opposite of that must be true. That if I do fear God, I'll stay away from sin. Paul says, you know, some people think fear of the Lord.

Hey, that's an Old Testament concept. Isn't it grace of God in the New Testament and fear of God in the Old Testament? See, there are two types of fear of God. One is the fear that God may hurt me. And the other is the fear that I may hurt God.

You understand that? The fear that a child has, my father may hurt me if I do this. And the fear that an adult son has. I may hurt my father if I do this. It's another type of fear. And that's the type of fear we should have.

The fear that I may hurt God by what I say, the way I speak. The way I do something, the way I treat somebody. I don't think any loving father will hurt. And I don't think God hurts his children. But he's very disappointed with a lot of his children.

He's sad more than he's hurt. So our prayer is, Lord, point out anything in me that makes you sad. It's a lovely paraphrase of the last verse of Psalm 139 in the Living Bible. Lord, point out anything in me that makes you sad.

You remember we printed that out in a card and gave it out some time ago to a number of people. Lord, point out anything in me that makes you sad. So that's a New Testament concept, all right, the fear of the Lord.

Godly Fear, Prayer, and Victory Over Sin

And I'll show you that. It says about Jesus in Hebrews chapter 5, Very often we wonder why our prayers are not heard. I think every Christian would have this question in his mind. I prayed so many prayers, and a lot of them have not been heard.

Why is it some people's prayers are heard more than other people's? Why does it say in James 5 verse 17,. The prayer of a righteous man avails much before God, has tremendous power before God. The prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

Why? Because that man fears God. It says about Jesus in Hebrews 5, In the days of his flesh, this is verse 7, Hebrews 5, 7, In the days of his flesh, and during those 33 and a half years, He offered up prayers.

Jesus prayed. Prayer is always a sign of weakness. Need for God's help. People who are strong and don't need God's help, don't pray. People who think their money is more than enough, don't pray. People who are powerful, strong personalities, think they can manage life, they don't pray.

But people who recognize, Lord, I can't make it through this earth without your help, they pray. The more self-sufficient you are, I can tell you the less you pray. And if you didn't know it, put it the other way around.

The less you pray, whether you know it or not, The more self-sufficient you are. But the more we feel the need of God, like we sing that song, I need thee every hour. I remember hearing about a man who heard that song, I need thee every hour, and he said, no, that's not enough.

And he wrote another song called Moment by Moment. You know that song. He wrote it because he said every hour is not enough. Moment by moment, I'm dependent on you. It's like that. Prayer. Jesus prayed.

And supplication means specific requests. Specific requests. With loud crying and tears. And that's why he went off into the wilderness. So he wouldn't disturb anybody when he prayed. Why did Jesus on earth pray with such loud crying and tears?

He was earnest. You know, when you're earnest, you really pray from your heart, even if you don't raise your voice. Think if your child was seriously sick in a hospital, and the doctors are about to give up hope, how will you pray?

Boy, you'll really pray with crying out to God. God, please heal my child. Because you're desperate. Now your money doesn't help you. You've got the best doctors because you're rich, and they can't help you.

Now you say it's only God. He prayed. He prayed like that because he felt his desperate need of help from the Father. And his prayer was not for money. His prayer was not for comfort. His prayer was to save him from death.

Now there are two deaths mentioned in the Bible. Physical death, spiritual death. Physical death comes to everybody, believers and unbelievers. Spiritual death is a result of sin. James 1 says, sin when it is finished brings death.

Wherever there's sin, there's spiritual death. Even if you touch it for a second, there's death. The Old Testament, the Lord taught the priests like that. He says, if your sanctified clothes which you're wearing, or some sanctified vessel you're taking, according to the Old Testament standards of sanctification, touched something unclean, it's spoiled.

You know, like a surgeon. Why does he scrub his hand for so many minutes and wear sterilized gloves? Because he's digging inside somebody's body. He doesn't want to take infection in there. And supposing his glove drops to the ground.

Do you think he'll pick it up and put it on again? No! Unless it's some third-rate hospital. Otherwise he'd say, get me another glove. Boy, I wish we Christians would live like that. You know, death.

There's germs there. I know it fell to the ground only for a second. I can't pick it up. We can learn a lot from those surgeons. Because we can pass on infection to others when we are polluted ourselves.

So Jesus wanted to be saved from death. And we know that it was spiritual death. Because the next verse says, his prayer was heard. His prayer was not heard to be saved from physical death. He never prayed that prayer.

He was not saved from physical death. He was saved from spiritual death. He avoided sin throughout his life. Whenever he was tempted. Hebrews 4 .15 says, he was tempted like us. But he never sinned. Why?

Because he prayed like this. For help. He could have come here on earth and lived as God. You know, temptation would have rolled off him like water off a duck's back. Then he would not have been an example for us.

Because you and I know what a struggle it is to overcome sin. Even for 24 hours. You know that. I mean to live 12 hours a day without sinning is tough. Never speak an angry word. Never have a dirty thought.

Never have anything but purity and love and goodness and humility in our mind. Can you keep that up? No. And Jesus kept it up for 33 and a half years. As a man. Because he was filled with the Holy Spirit.

The spirit of the fear of the Lord. He walked around the earth. And all this information was going into his mind with eyes and ears. But he filtered it out. No, that's not for me. Suggestions like turn the stones into bread.

No, I won't do that. Because the father doesn't allow that. Why don't you go to the top of the temple and jump down. And test God to see whether he will protect you. Claim a promise like when you're sick don't take any medicine.

Just jump off and claim the promise that the Lord will heal me. Or by his stripes I'm healed. Or something like that. Don't let the devil make a fool of you. Jesus said no, I will not tempt God like that.

It's all tempting God trying to claim a promise. And God has provided stairs. Why should you jump off the roof? Isn't that sensible? When God has provided food. Why should we say God make me strong without eating food?

Medicine is another type of food. When God has provided medicine to say heal me without medicine. That's tempting God. Many things like that. There's all these ideas people put into his head perhaps. He would filter it all out.

No, no, no. You cannot avoid information coming into your head through eyes and ears. But you've got to filter it out if you fear God. The spirit of the fear of the Lord made him not make decisions by what he saw and heard.

There was an inner filter. All of us need that. The fear of the Lord is like a filter. You know, as I said, as long as you live in the world. You read the newspapers. You sit at the computer. There's information flooding your mind.

You've got to have this filter. Otherwise you'll be polluted. And you will destroy yourself. And you may imagine that you're a disciple of Jesus Christ. You're not. You're just a third-rate Christian like all the rest of Christendom.

It's not a question of what denomination you sit in. Do you have the fear of the Lord inside? We're to be disciples of Jesus Christ. You know, I sometimes meet people who have left our church and gone to another church.

They say, God bless you, brother. I'm happy to meet you. I don't care what church you go to. Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ? Are you following him every day? That's what I want to know. That's the important thing.

And if you are, I don't care what church you go to. Be a disciple of Jesus Christ in daily life. In your home. In your place of work. When you're traveling. The bus or the train. On the roads. When other people are full of road rage.

That you behave like a Christian. That's discipleship. For that we've got to pray. And it says his prayer. This is the point I wanted to come to. He was heard. Hebrews 5, 7. Because of his godly fear.

Why did the father listen to Jesus? Because of his godly fear. Why are our prayers not heard so often? God loves us as he loved Jesus. He'll treat us exactly like he treated Jesus. And if Jesus' prayers were heard because of his godly fear.

I believe my prayers can be heard if I have godly fear. And if I don't have godly fear, my prayers are not heard. You say, oh father, why aren't you hearing my prayer? Because you're not like Jesus. You don't want to be like him.

You're being influenced more by the spirit of the world than by Jesus Christ. So you see how important the fear of the Lord is. Be sensitive. I was studying the fear of God once. And I noticed that the first time in the Bible.

The word fear of God comes. Very interesting. It's good to have a concordance to study the Bible. First time the word fear of God comes is in Genesis 20. And it's in relation to sexual sin. That's the point I noticed.

You know Abraham was in a strange place. And he was afraid the king there would kill him and take his wife. Because even though his wife was 80 years old, she was pretty. And he told his wife Sarah, please say you're my sister.

That's one of Abraham's mistakes. Like saying, it doesn't matter if they rape you. My life should be saved. So don't think Abraham was always a great man of God. Sometimes he did some selfish things. God forgave him.

Because he was under the old covenant. He didn't have the Holy Spirit. I hope none of you say that. Anyway. Abraham explains to that king why he said it. Abimelech said, verse 10. Genesis 20, verse 10.

Why have you done this? Why did you tell me a lie? I could have sinned by having sex with your wife. And Abraham said, verse 11. Because I thought surely there is no fear of God in this place. And they will kill me because of my wife.

There is no fear of God. These fellows are sexually polluted. And they don't have any sexual standards here. So I noticed that it's interesting that the first time the Holy Spirit uses the phrase the fear of God is in relation to sexual sin.

As I meditated on it, the Lord showed me. That it is through sexual temptation. More than in any other area. That I test whether men especially fear me or not. That was a great help for me to know that.

From scripture. Because I asked the Lord, I said, Lord, why do you allow sexual desire to arouse? Start, rise up in a boy when he is 13, 14 years old. When he can't get married sometimes for the next 10 or 15 years.

Why didn't you let boys be like innocent sweet little 2 year olds till they are 28 years old? Wouldn't that be wonderful if 28 year old boys were innocent like 2 year olds? Mingling freely with boys and girls.

And then they can get married at that age. And the Lord said because I want them to conquer in the sexual area before they get married. Did you hear it? That's why the desire starts when you are 13. God who created us could have made the desire start when you are 25 or 28.