I'd like for us this morning to look
again in the book of Acts, chapter 5,
and we'll read the first eleven verses of
chapter 5.
But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira
his wife, sold a possession, and he kept
back part of the proceeds, his wife also
being aware of it, and brought a certain
part and laid it at the apostles' feet.
But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled
your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit
and keep back part of the price of
the land for yourself?
While it remained, was it not your own?
After it was sold, was it not in
your own control?
Why have you conceived this thing in your
heart?
You have not lied to men, but to
God.
Then Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and
breathed his last.
So great fear came upon all those who
heard these things.
The young man arose and wrapped him up,
carried him out, and buried him.
That was about three hours later when his
wife came in, not knowing what had happened,
and Peter answered her, Tell me whether you
sold the land for so much?
And she said, Yes, for so much.
Then Peter said to her, How is it
that you have agreed together to test the
Spirit of the Lord?
Look, the feet of those who have buried
your husband are at the door, and they
will carry you out.
Then immediately she fell down at his feet
and breathed her last.
And the young man came in and found
her dead, and carrying her out, buried her
by her husband.
So great fear came upon all the church
and upon all who heard these things.
Now, what we have read this morning indeed
is a startling revelation of just how serious
it is to lie to God.
And I think it would help us to
understand this to go back into that fourth
chapter and pick up at that thirty-first
verse where we read that after Peter and
James and John and some of the others
had met together with the other believers, they
had, of course, discovered that persecution and trial
was on its way.
Everything was running so smoothly.
Men and women filled with the Spirit of
God were proclaiming a message, and results were
absolutely fantastic.
The Lord was adding to the church daily
all of those that believed, and the Body
of Christ, the church was just growing by
leaps and bounds.
But then the opposition appeared.
Satan is always alert, and when he sees
men and women responding to the divine invitation
to be reconciled to God through our Lord
Jesus Christ and his sacrifice that he made
for sin, Satan gets busy.
He's got to do something to try to
stifle the free flow of that glorious message
in the world in which we live today.
Well, they went to their own, and they
had a prayer meeting, as we mentioned last
week.
Now, they didn't pray that their persecutors and
their attackers would be silenced.
That wasn't their prayer.
It was one of the things that was
so striking about what we read last week.
They didn't pray for that at all.
They prayed very positively and said, Lord, give
us boldness to speak the Word of God.
You know, we are always praying, Lord, take
care of those that are abusing us.
Take care of those that are causing the
work of the Lord to be hindered in
some way.
Take care of them.
You know, if I learn anything from this
thought that is presented here, we need to
stay on a good, high, positive note.
Lord, I know you can take care of
the opposition.
I don't have any doubt about that.
I know you can.
But my prayer is that you would give
me the courage, the boldness that I need
to be a good witness for the Lord
Jesus Christ.
And you know, with that positive note ringing
in our hearts, I'm not concerned about the
opposition.
God can take care of the opposition, but
just keep my heart and soul in tune
with your will.
Oh, Lord, may I be filled with the
Spirit of God and speak with holy boldness
the truth of the Word of God.
That's what they prayed for, and that's what
they got.
They preached with boldness.
It was accompanied by signs and wonders, miracles.
People were healed.
Oh, there was a mighty movement of the
Spirit of God in and through the membership
that made up the body of Jesus Christ,
that infant church.
It had power, but it had something else.
It had purity.
It was pure.
It was undefiled by all of the things
that Satan, the wrecker, the spoiler, would seek
to bring into that fellowship.
Beloved, before we finish this morning, we're going
to be reminded that that indeed today is
a threat.
It's a threat to the individual and to
the corporate body of Christ.
When we allow sin in our own hearts
and it's unconfessed and it's not forsaken, something
happens.
The Spirit of God is grieved.
Deep sorrow is inflicted upon the Spirit of
God that engulfs us, that would fill us,
and as a result, we lose our power.
And little wonder in the world today that
men and women, when they hear the name
Christian, they no longer sit up and take
notice.
This has become something that you speak so
casually about, Christian nations.
In the realm of Christian profession, there's anything
and everything you want to think of today.
One of the things you can be sure
of, it has been defiled and corrupted because
of the presence of sin.
They prayed and they received holy boldness to
speak God's Word.
They performed miracles through God's Holy Servant, through
the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God.
Stop preaching in that name.
Stop teaching in that name.
Those were the warnings that were given to
them.
Don't do anything in that name.
They hated that name.
They hated the person of the Son of
God.
They had crucified the Lord of glory.
Little wonder they didn't want to hear His
name.
We're talking about spiritual leaders in the nation
of Israel.
They didn't like that name.
Just don't do anything in that name.
But you know, Peter said, is it better
to obey God or to obey man?
We must do what we have to do.
We have indeed been mandated, commissioned of God
to be a witness of Jesus Christ in
this world.
We cannot stop what we're doing.
We don't want to, but we can't stop.
We're going to do what God has willed
us to do.
And that was holy boldness.
That's what we need today.
That confirmation in our own hearts and souls
that what we're doing, we're doing for God.
And God empowers us to do it.
And we have the Word of God.
And it's so clear.
It's so simple.
There's a message here.
A message of God's grace and love.
Well, as a result, that place where they
were praying, they had a little earthquake there.
It kind of shook things up.
It says the place in which they were
praying, it was shaken.
Things moved about.
But the important thing, I think, is to
remember that they were filled with the Spirit
of God.
That's so important.
I don't think last Sunday, or when I
made mention of that, that that could be
said too often.
If you're going to do anything for the
glory of God, you must do it God's
way.
You must do it in the power of
the Spirit of God.
And you know, there's no lack of the
Spirit of God.
When the Spirit of God indwells a believer,
he comes in all of his fullness.
Any concept of a person being partially filled
with the Spirit of God is not in
harmony with what the Scriptures teach.
You have all of the Spirit of God,
beloved.
And what is needed is for Him to
have all of us, for Him to have
such complete control over our being that we
will be fruitful for God.
We will be channels of blessing to the
world in which we're living.
That requires being filled with the Spirit of
God.
If you let sin come into your life,
as it does in this instance, he will
be grieved.
He will be overcome with great sorrow.
But because of the purity of the local
church, and as an example for those in
that day, and for you and I to
look very carefully at this morning, lying to
God is serious business.
Defiling or corrupting in any way one's own
personal life, once you become the property of
God, is serious business.
It's serious business.
You know, one of the things that the
Spirit of God does, verse 32 says, The
multitude of those that believed were of one
heart and one soul.
It's a wonderful thing to see God's people
gathered together, and they are of one heart
and one soul.
That oneness that is expressed in the oneness
of the body of Jesus Christ, to see
God's people loving and caring for each other
the way that they should, it's a fulfillment
of our Lord's command.
That commandment that says, I'll beseech you, brethren,
I'll preach to you, brethren, that you love
one another the same way I loved you.
And I hope and trust that you understand
the manner in which He loved you and
He loved me.
He loved us even unto the death, the
shameful death of the cross.
You say, you mean that as believers in
Jesus Christ we should love each other that
way?
Yes.
That's what He said.
And you know, that mark, if it's indelibly
impressed upon our activities as individuals and members
in the local assembly, others will take note
that we are truly disciples of Jesus Christ.
True discipleship can be marked out by how
much we love those that are in the
family of God.
And it was being expressed here.
Oh, it was something beautiful to see.
They loved each other.
They were indeed of one heart and one
soul.
Neither did anyone say that any of the
things he possessed was his own, but they
had all things in common.
In other words, they shared everything they had.
If there was someone hungry, he didn't stay
hungry long because another member recognized that and
did what he had to do to remedy
that situation.
Someone didn't have enough clothing to wear, that
situation was remedied.
Couldn't pay his rent.
He had a need.
Whatever that need was, it was addressed immediately.
Well, that's oneness in the body.
We read in the Scripture that when one
member in the body of Jesus Christ suffers,
we all suffer together.
It's not true today.
It's not true today, beloved.
I know a lot of God's people today
that are suffering.
And do you know what?
There are a lot of God's people that
don't even care.
They don't even pray for them.
They don't show any interest, any care for
them.
How tragic that is.
How far we have departed from the perfect
will of God concerning the fellowship of believers
in Jesus Christ, if there's a need.
So often people ask me, I want to
do something.
What can I do?
You can pray.
Have you ever tried loving your fellow believer
the same way Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, loved you?
Have you ever tried that?
That's a challenge to every one of us
in this room this morning.
Our Lord would have us to love each
other the same way He loved us.
I'll tell you what.
But there wouldn't be any in the fellowship
of God's people that were hurting and feeling
alienated and feeling left out if they had
that assurance from God's people, from God's family,
that they were loved dearly by the family
of God.
The greatest of all gifts is love.
All other gifts may fail and pass away,
but love endures forever.
What a challenge to you and to me.
The Spirit of God so kindly reminds us
again of the necessity and the importance of
the resurrection.
When you read in that thirty-third verse,
it says, And
I want to say this because it's so
important.
You know, if Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, is not a risen Savior, we ought
to all pack up and go home right
now.
If He's still in a tomb and He's
not a resurrected, glorified Savior at the right
hand of God, our faith and everything that
we say we believe is a sham.
And we are, of all men, most miserable.
We're just playing a silly game if Jesus
Christ is not a risen, glorified Savior.
Don't forget that.
He is a risen, glorified Savior at the
right hand of God.
And the Spirit of God was quick to
remind us that with great power, that holy
boldness, isn't it wonderful that when you tell
someone about the truth of the gospel of
Jesus Christ, you have that opportunity of telling
them, He loved us, He died for us,
He was buried, but He arose from the
dead.
Oh, what a mighty victory for God!
It was God's seal of approval upon all
that the Son of God had done in
perfect accord with the will of God.
So perfectly fulfilling that will, accomplishing all that
God had entrusted Him to do to provide
salvation for poor sinners.
There is quite a bit mentioned in Scripture
about the resurrection.
And again, without that resurrection, without the divine
power that accompanies the resurrection, the Apostle Paul
prayed, O that I might know Him, the
power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His
sufferings being made conformable unto His death.
Paul wanted to know something about the power,
resurrection power.
Well, listen, we are new creatures in Christ
Jesus.
New creations in Christ Jesus.
A man that is born again, a woman
that is born again into the family of
God.
You are a new creation.
You are God's new creation.
No longer dead in trespasses and sin.
No longer just marked out by all of
the defilement that is associated with being lost
and dead in trespasses and sin.
Alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
How wonderful that is!
O things pass away, behold, all things they
become new.
There is that passage in Colossians chapter 3
that encourages believers, If you are indeed redirected
with the Lord Jesus Christ, think upon heavenly
things.
And you know, very often we have to
be reminded of that.
We become so earthly minded and we concern
ourselves with so much that is a part
of this world that we are living in.
We don't have time to think about God.
We don't have time to think about these
things that are indeed so special and so
precious and so profitable for us as believers
in the Lord Jesus.
But these closing verses of that fourth chapter
from verse 34 down through 37, the need
of all was supplied.
There was no poverty.
There was no want here.
The person had a need.
Other members of the body responded immediately.
It's like those white corpuscles in your body.
I'm told that they fight infection and all
that sometimes attacks the body.
And you have a point of attack by
some virus or something.
Those white corpuscles, they rush right to that
area.
Well, we're in the body of Christ.
And when there's a need by one member,
all the other members are attracted to it.
And they attack that problem.
And they solve that problem.
And, of course, there's blessing.
The only thing about it, it only lasted
for a brief time.
Isn't that sad?
Something that starts out so beautiful, empowered by
the Spirit of God, the fulfillment of the
will of God, so perfectly being carried out,
and it is such a brief duration.
In fact, the chapter that we've read this
morning introduces us to the cause of the
problems that were soon to arise and would
indeed permeate even that special, special thing that
God had created by His Spirit through faith
in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Chapter 5's, But, tells you why.
But, But.
That chapter seems to set the scene for
a change that takes place.
From the beautiful picture of the Holy Spirit
filling and working in the hearts to the
record of Satan's work.
That's what we're told.
The question is put to Ananias.
Why has Satan filled your heart?
I have to conclude that at that point
in time, Ananias wasn't filled with the Spirit
of God.
Because had he been, he would have been
fortified against this satanic attack.
It shows you how easy you can get
out of touch with God.
And the Spirit of God so jealously guards
over us.
Walk in the Spirit.
Let your life be controlled.
Be yielded to the control of the Spirit
of God.
And you will not fulfill the lust of
the flesh.
This man wasn't filled with the Spirit of
God.
And the lust of the flesh took over.
Oh, how defiling it really was.
It was to indeed hinder the work of
the Spirit of God from working in the
hearts of His people.
This record of Satan's work of evil.
That word, but, again.
It speaks of failure.
It speaks of a decline.
You see, what Satan wasn't able to do
by attacking from without, he had them thrown
in prison.
He had the opposition mounted against him.
It wasn't working.
It wasn't working at all.
Later we'll discover that in Jerusalem, persecution and
trial resulted in those Christians going everywhere, carrying
with them the message of the gospel of
Christ.
The outward attack, the frontal attack wasn't working.
And you remember this.
Satan is no dummy.
He is no dummy.
What does he do?
Well, if it won't work this way, I'll
try another way.
What does he do?
He goes within.
Within.
He infiltrates.
He comes in as an angel of shining
light.
We were reminded of this just recently.
So often people think they've had an encounter
with the Lord.
They speak of seeing Jesus in all of
His glory.
They may have just gotten a glimpse of
Satan, the angel of shining light.
It also reminds us that Satan has his
ministers of righteousness.
And they perform his bidding and they do
his will.
So here is an infiltration tactic that Satan
employs.
Can't hurt them from attacking them from without.
We'll get within.
We'll do our work on the inside.
He enters the flock and begins his work
within.
He uses two believers to start out.
Ananias and Sapphira.
I have to believe that what they did,
they did ignorantly.
I don't think in the vaguest moment in
which they were thinking about this that they
realized the seriousness of what they were fixing
to do.
They were going to pretend they were going
to lie to God.
And you know, what happened is such a
shocker that I trust that it will arrest
every one of us this morning and cause
us to think very seriously.
The next time that I have an encounter
with the Lord, when I have that which
I have claimed was my total best that
I'm giving to Him, any circumstance in which
I'm dealing with the Lord, and I pretend
that I'm giving it my best when I'm
not, all this complete commitment to the Lord,
and it's all a show, there wouldn't be
any of us in this room this morning
as believers in Jesus Christ, I'm convinced of
this, at some point in life, somewhere along
the way, even if we've been self-deceived
to the point that we didn't even know
what was happening, we have lied to God.
And it's only by His mercy and grace
that He didn't strike us dead, just like
He did Ananias and Sapphira.
If that grips our hearts and we are
aware of the seriousness of this business of
lying to God, pretending, pretension and hypocrisy, we
can speak of Pharisees and indeed we come
down hard on them.
Our Lord said some hard things about them
and we say, that Pharisee, that hypocrite, you
know when you're pointing that old finger out
there and you're singling out those Pharisees and
those hypocrites, that big thumb just comes right
back and hits you in the eye and
says, you may be the biggest one of
all.
Don't be judgmental in that sense.
Just positively say, I want to be sure
that I am absolutely truthful with God.
What He asks me to do, I'll do
it and I don't make excuses.
The very moment you make an excuse, you
are drawing a fine line.
You may be right on the threshold of
telling a lie.
It would be much better to say, Lord,
I don't want to do it and I'm
not intending to do it.
I don't have any appetite for those things.
So often we make appeals and we say,
you know, if you'd help us with the
Iwana club, you'd help us with this or
become involved or whatever.
And some people are very, very open about
it and they say, no, I'm not going
to help with the Iwana.
I have no inclination whatsoever to help with
the Iwana.
Praise the Lord, that openness, that frankness.
Others say, I'll pray about it.
And I have no more intention of praying
about it than their puppy dog.
That's the truth.
And God hears it and God knows it.
The seriousness of this dreadful sin in this
passage has to be impressed upon our hearts
this way.
I know there's an account in the Old
Testament.
It's found in Joshua chapter 7 about Achan
and that experience at Ai for the children
of Israel in which a man did something
that he wasn't supposed to do.
God had very forcefully said, don't take any
of the spoils.
And you know, that man, no doubt, he
just looked upon some things that looked real
good.
Some garments and a wedge of silver and
whatever.
It wouldn't be in hire and I'm just
going to take this.
Nobody will know.
But God knows.
Do you know it cost that poor man
his life?
It cost him the lives of all of
his family and everything that he had was
stoned.
And the account in Scripture is that that
monument to his failure and to his act
of lying to God, that will be there
as a monument and something to remind us
of the seriousness of disobeying the Lord.
Let that truth kind of grip us and
say, I'm going to examine what I do
in the future with my life as a
believer.
When it comes to that moment of commitment,
saying I will or I won't, I'm going
to be very careful what I say.
I Corinthians chapter 6, I think, gives us
some pointed instructions along this line.
I think it will serve to bring it
into focus.
It says, Or do you know that your
body is the temple of the Holy Spirit
who is in you, whom you have from
God, and you are not your own?
Verse 20 says, For you were bought at
a price.
Therefore glorify God in your body and in
your spirit, which are God's.
Now, did you know, did you know that
you as a believer in Jesus Christ are
indwelt by God's Spirit?
Do you know that anything that you let
come into your mind, your heart, your soul,
become a part of your being that is
impure and unholy?
It defiles that temple.
Now, for those that would teach and defile
the family of God and the body of
Christ through false teaching, that comes as a
strong warning.
Because the Word of God would tell us,
and if you read in that 15th verse
or the 16th verse, Do you not know
that you are the temple of God and
that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If anyone defiles the temple of God, God
will destroy him.
For the temple of God is holy, which
temple you are.
Listen.
The body of Jesus Christ, God's Son, indwelt
by the Spirit of God, is holy in
the sight of God.
He doesn't want anything to defile that temple.
Oh, how careless, how indifferent we are sometimes
to what we allow to come into our
lives.
I'll tell you one of the things that
to me becomes more and more alarming is
what we receive through the eye gate by
looking at a stinking television.
That thing is going to corrupt and defile
every one of us if we don't do
something about it.
You say, what do you want to do,
burn all the televisions?
No, I want God's people to wake up
and to realize that what's coming in through
that eye gate, what you are viewing, those
movies, is that defiling stuff that they are
just sending out.
They're just bombarding homes, families.
Little boys and little girls are being raised
on a die of filth.
How defiling it is.
How it must grieve the Spirit of God.
All purpose to pray about that and to
do something about it.
We are bought at a great price.
Ananias and Sapphira, you were purchased with the
precious blood of the Lord Jesus.
You were incorporated into the body of Jesus
Christ through that new birth.
You were indwelt by the Spirit of God.
Yes, they were believers in the Lord Jesus,
yet they lied to God.
God says, I'm going to see to it
that this sends fear into the hearts of
those that would behold such an act and
realize that God does not for a moment
look upon sin lightly.
They drop dead.
1 John 5, 16 tells us that we
can send a sin unto death.
I think there are many, many of God's
people that have gone home to heaven prematurely
because they didn't realize the seriousness of defiling
that which God calls holy.
Lying to God.
Corrupting the purity of the body of Christ.
It's serious business.
It must be dealt with in a manner
that impresses this upon the minds of every
believer.
Well, the but bears out to us the
threat and what happened.
But one thing was accomplished.
In verse 11, it closes with, Great fear
came upon all the church.
Listen first.
Fear came upon all the church.
Beloved, that's where we want to start.
Let's get some awe and wonder in our
souls about our God and how He looks
upon sin.
We laugh at sin.
We're entertained by sin.
And yet God hates sin.
And He says it's sin that's defiling.
It's sin that's robbing you of your power.
And we laugh at it.
We're amused by it.
We like it.
God is merciful.
God is gracious not to strike us dead.
Take us home to heaven.
But there was a great sense of God's
attitude toward all sin, and especially that which
would defile the body of Christ.
Do you remember a little leaven will leaven
the whole loaf?
Well, it started with Ananias and Sapphira.
A little way down the road, no longer
this very strict, this very drastic measure of
striking people dead.
But power was gone.
The enemy infiltrated the body of Christ.
He learned how to work and manipulate God's
people.
He knows how to manipulate and work you
and me so that we are no longer
any value as far as being a bold
spokesperson for our Lord Jesus Christ.
The message is so clear.
Let us bow in a word of prayer.
Our Father in heaven, send within each of
our hearts this morning, by the power of
the Spirit of God, a deep sense of
reverence for your holiness.
Oh, the Word of God says, Be holy
like your holiness.
Lord, too often we find ourselves very comfortable
with sin.
We have looked at Ananias and Sapphira.
These two dear ones long ago went to
be with the Lord because they took lightly
sin.
They lied to God.
Oh, we pray thee this morning, speak to
our hearts.
Remind us that to be sanctified and separated
from all that is a part of the
defiling things in this world is so necessary
if we are to have power with thee.
Speak to our hearts this morning.
Send us away from this place different people
from what we came into this room.
Oh, our God, cleanse us as we confess
and forsake all sin.
For we ask this in the precious name
of the Lord Jesus.
Amen.
Our brother has a verse of a hymn.