September 8, 2024 SERMON

 God’s Warning to Pretenders
Acts 4:36-37; 5:1-11

We're in a series entitled: "That Old-Time Religion" And we’re taking a journey through the book of Acts to see if we can learn and become a church similar to the early New Testament church.

We're going to be in Acts Chapter 5, but we need to get a running start, so we're going to go to Acts Chapter 4 and read the last two verses and then about the first eleven verse of Acts Chapter 5, and the title of our message today, God's Warning to Big Pretenders.

I remind you that the entire Bible is inspired, but the Chapter numberings had been added later by publishers. I kind of think that the Chapter numberings were put there to keep preachers from preaching for too long. I don’t know.

This message is for those pretenders, hypocrites. I don't necessarily mean unsaved hypocrites. You do know we have a lot of saved hypocrites—people who are saved, but there is in their life deceit and pretense.

The early church at this time was in the blaze of revival. God was blessing, there was an earth-shaking, mountain-moving, devil-defying, soul-saving, rafter-rattling revival. They were in a spirit of revival. The devil didn't like it and the devil tried to stop it.

The devil tried to stop this revival with intimidation and that didn't stop it. Then the devil tried to stop it with persecution, that didn't stop it. What it did was to drive the church to its knees and the more the revival was opposed, the more it seemed to grow and thousands and thousands and thousands of people were being saved.

So the devil said to himself, "If I can't conquer them, I'll corrupt them." So he tried a new tactic. Rather than attack them from without, he tries to find some on the inside of the church—and he found a man and a woman named Ananias and Sapphira. He got them to tell a big lie.

However the early church so reacted and the Spirit of God so moved that it did not stop the revival. Actually, it only increased the revival and that's one of the thrilling things about the Book of Acts. You see everything the devil does just seems to come back on the devil's head. Somebody said, "God cuts the devil's head with the sword that the devil himself has sharpened."

I'm going to start here in the last two verses of Chapter 4 and then get a running start and go right into Chapter 5:

Acts 4:36, "And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas..." That is, they gave him a nickname, Barnabas, "... (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, of the country of Cyprus 37 Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles feet.

(The apostles named him Barnabas = The son of consolation,) = Consolation speaks of comfort, encouragement, exhortation, lifting up, cheering.

One of the greatest needs in the body of Christ is the ministry of encouragement.

Let me spend a moment on that thought before moving on in the scripture.

Life itself has a way of draining you, and sapping you of cheer and joy, and that’s before we even talk about the spiritual element of our warfare with the devil.

All around us there are people who are hurting, people who are defeated, discouraged, depressed, there are people close to you who feel hopeless, and alone, circumstances have beaten them down, many of them may be on the verge of giving up.

They need a lift. Do you care enough to take a little time and bend down and give them a lift.

At one time or another everyone needs encouragement, kings and queens, governors and presidents, Pastors, Sunday school teachers, even apostles and prophets, need encouragement from time to time and you and I can be a people lifter.

I came to church today with the intent to lift you up, to tell you, you can make it, to tell you, you can do it, to tell you never give up, don’t quit, keep on believing, keep on confessing, keep on praying, and keep on praising.

I came to tell you that your best days are ahead, God is not a man that He should lie or the son of man that He should repent, if He said it He’s gonna do it and if He spoke it He’s gonna make it good.

I came to lift your head up, to change your perspective:

Psalms 121:1 David said. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

Tell somebody: Things are looking up.

Hebrews 12:12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;

The hope of victory will do much to strengthen one almost exhausted in battle; the desire to reach home invigorates the strengh of the weary traveler.

So it is with the Christian. In persecution and sickness and bereavement, he may be ready to sink under his burdens. The hands fall, and the knees tremble, and the heart sink within us.

But confidence in God, and the hope of heaven, and the assurance that all this is for our good, will reinvigorate our strengh and enable us to bear what we once supposed would crush us. A courageous mind braces a feeble body, and hope makes it fresh for new conflicts.

The word Feeble in this Context of usage means: Lacking in physical or mental strength; frail; inadequate; Paralyzed.

Paralyze is what the devil tries to do to people, to fill them with fear and dread, and anxiety, to rob them of any hope for a brighter future, to drain them of the courage and the faith to stand and fight.

Our ministry as anointed Sons and Daughters of God is to destroy the spirit of paralysis and break the spirit of fear and the attitude of despondency and to infuse faith and courage back into the Spirit.

1 Samuel 30:6 David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, … but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.

It is true that every one needs to know how to encourage themselves, but it is also true that we need to know how to encourage each other.

The ministry of encouragement is a ministry we are all called to.
The ministry of encouragement is something that will never expire.
The ministry of encouragement is a round the clock job.

If we had more encouragers, we would have a lot less despondent, discouraged, stressed out, depressed, oppressed, people in the church and in the world.

Proverbs 12:25 Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad.

Proverbs 16:24 Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.

Proverbs 11:11 By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted: but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.

Proverbs 10:11 The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.

Okay, back to the scripture "... a Levite, of the country of Cyprus, Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet. But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it..." and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.

3) But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things."

I wonder what would happen if God were to strike all liars dead? Think about it. I mean people who lie, saved or lost. Folks, people lie. Sometimes they lie casually. Sometimes they exaggerate. Sometimes they call it a white lie or black lie. Makes no difference whether you lie in black or white or living color. What would happen if God struck all the liars dead?

We lie about our weight. We lie about our age. Somebody said the seven ages of woman are baby, child, junior miss, young woman, young woman, young woman, young woman. We lie about different kinds of things.

Even Peter, who put his finger in the face of Ananias and said "you have not lied to men, but to God," even Simon Peter himself had just recently told a lie, he cursed and swore and said, "I never knew Jesus." "I don't even know the man." He was lying. He did know him. He was one of his apostles.

So God doesn't strike all liars dead, and people can be grateful. But he struck this couple dead. Not only Ananias, but Sapphira his wife, died for telling a lie. There's a great lesson here. It is God's solemn warning, against hypocrisy.

Look in the first three verses here "But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession..." Look at the word "But." The word "But" there is counter distinction to what Barnabas had done. Barnabas had made a gift. Barnabas didn't have to make this gift, but Barnabas had some property which he sold and he brought it all and gave it to the church.

He was moved by the Spirit of God to do it. He did not do it to be seen of men, but on the other hand, he was not ashamed of what he did. We don't do our giving to be seen of men, but don't be ashamed that you give, and don't be ashamed to let people know that you give, because the Bible says we are to let our light so shine before men that others may see our good works and glorify our Father which is in heaven.

If you do something right, you don't have to hide it and you don't have to advertise it either. Just do it, do it as unto the Lord. That's what this man did.

Here was a man through his life and through his love and through his generosity, who was just encouraging everybody there that day.

Ananias and Sapphira saw it and they said, "Look at that. Boy, we'd like to bask in some of that sunlight." So they decided that they would do the same thing, but it wasn't the same thing.

They had some property. They sold their property also. They pretended that they also had just given it all, but they didn’t, they kept back a part. Notice verse 2, "And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it..."

Ananias and Sapphira were pretending that they had done something that they had not done. Therefore they were hypocrites.

I want us to notice that this lie was rooted in pride. They wanted to be praised. They wanted to be loved. They wanted to be stroked. That's why they did it—they gave to be seen of men. Oh how Jesus warned against that.

Listen; when there's pride in your heart, you are a sitting duck for the devil. Pride, more than anything else, makes you putty in the devil's hands.

Peter wrote later on in 1 Peter 5:5, "Be clothed with humility all of you." He says, "Just wear humility like clothes." Then he said in 1 Peter 5:8, "for your adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour."

There is nothing that puts you further out of the devil's reach than genuine humility. There is nothing that makes you more susceptible to imaginations than pride because when we have pride in our heart, we're sharing the very nature of the devil. It was pride that made the devil the devil to begin with.

So they allowed pride to seep into their hearts just exactly as pride came into the devil's heart so long ago and made Lucifer the Devil.

This sin was rooted in pride and it resulted in pretense. The root was pride, the fruit was pretense. A proud person is also a pretender. He's always exaggerating. He always wants people to think more highly than is deserved, so pride is the background and the root, of which the fruit is hypocrisy.

They pretended a full dedication that they did not have. God had not commanded them to give anything they got for that piece of property. There's nothing here that God told them to give it all.

Notice what Peter says. He makes it very clear. He says to Ananias in verse 4, "Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power..."

It was your property Ananias. Nobody told you to come down here and say that you had given it all. It was yours; you could have done what you wanted. But they came saying, "Look, we sold a piece of property. Barney sold his property and he gave it all. We sold all our property and we gave it all. See!"

What happened was they were pretending a devotion to Jesus that they did not have. That's the bottom line. If you miss that, you miss the point. They were pretending a devotion to Jesus that they did not have. And they became hypocrites.

I wonder, have we done the same thing. I wonder, have we sung these words—Naught that I have I call my own, I hold it for the Giver/My life, my soul, my will, my all/Are His and His forever. Did you mean it? Have you stood in a song service and sung, All to Jesus I surrender/All to Him I freely give. Did you mean it? Pretending—words are cheap. People sing Faith of our fathers, holy faith/We would be true to thee till death, and they don't even come back on Sunday night because they want to watch a ball game. "Lord, we would be true to you till death!"

Talk is cheap. Pretending a devotion we don't have. It's amazing to hear people get up in testimony meetings and talk about how they love Jesus and pretend.

We need to be careful about that. God struck Ananias and Sapphira dead because they pretended a devotion to Jesus they did not have.

In this early church, it was exposed and it was exposed quite well. Notice in verses 3, 4, "But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?"

Ananias thinks, "How did he know what?"

"Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God."

The entire thing is exposed. The Holy Spirit gave to Simon Peter what we would call the gift of knowledge, or the gift of discernment, and Simon Peter was able to, with supernatural insight see directly into this man's heart. The Holy Spirit whispered into Simon Peter's ear and told him everything that Ananias and Sapphira had done.

The Spirit revealed the source of the sin in verse 3—Satan in Ananias' heart. Now how did Satan get into Ananias' heart? Ananias seem to have been a Christian. But you remember that Paul warned us not to give a place to the devil?

Pride gave a place to the devil and so when Ananias and Sapphira were there and they were thinking about this real estate deal, Satan whispered to them. He said, "Tell them that you're going to give everything. I mean after all, you are giving. Just tell them you gave it all. And Satan filled their heart to lie to the Holy Ghost.

I want to remind us, that we're never more like the devil than when we tell a lie; Jesus said in John 8:44 that Satan is a liar and that he is the father of lies, and we're never more like the devil than when we're lying. So Satan filled their heart to lie to the Holy Ghost.

That tells me every morning, we must have the Holy Spirit of God to search our heart and make certain there's no room for Satan there. The Bible says "keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

We must not give place to the devil. And we must stay clean because if the devil could use Ananias and Sapphira, perhaps the devil could use me. Perhaps the devil could use you. The source of that sin was Satan in the heart. "Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?"

Later Peter says, "You're not lying unto men, you lied to God." Peter says to Sapphira, "You have tempted the Holy Spirit." This is the seriousness of the sin. It is unspeakably serious to lie to the Holy Spirit of God.

Now we're getting down to the seriousness of this matter. "You didn't lie to men; you lied to God." You lied to the Holy Ghost. You tempted the Lord. Not only is it so serious, but it's so foolish to try to lie to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was there when the deal was made.

I mean, the Holy Spirit was there when Ananias and Sapphira got into cahoots and talked about what they were going to do. The Holy Spirit was there when they brought the money. He was there the whole time. You're not going to fool him, He's inside of you.

Their problem was they were more concerned with what people though than what God thought, so they were trying to impress people and at the same time, they were lying to God.

I'm not trying to put approval upon any kind of lie, but have you ever told a lie that you didn't really mean to tell. The phone rings in the middle of the night, "Hello?" Hello, did I wake you up?" "Oh no, no you didn't wake me up." You know good and well they woke you up.

As a preacher, no matter when the phone rings during the night, I think I'm supposed to say, "Hello!" wide awake, you know like I've been up all night reading the Book of Lamentations, "Oh no, I’m awake." Then later on, the Holy Spirit says, "Why did you lie? Why didn't you just tell them you were asleep?"

But you weren't primarily lying to the Holy Ghost.  It's wrong, I'm not trying to say its right. But what Ananias and Sapphira did was different. What they did was premeditated. What they did they had to think about and write down on paper. They did it in collusion. And the whole time they were doing it, the Holy Spirit was saying, "Don't do that! Don't do that! Don't do that! Don't, Don't, Don't, Don't!"

Over and over and over again, the Holy Spirit of God was warning them and they stonewalled God's Spirit. They said, "No!" to God's Spirit. They lied to God's Spirit. They tempted the Spirit of God. It was a sin against the Holy Spirit. It was a direct challenge to the Holy Ghost of God in the heat of white-hot revival.

I would advise you not to tempt God. You deal with serious matters when you're dealing with the moving of God's Holy Spirit. You're dealing with serious matters when God's Holy Spirit is moving in revival fire and power, and you become a tool of the devil to stop revival. And you oppose the work of God.

You knowingly, willingly, deliberately and even in collusion with someone else, stand against God. That's dangerous. The source of the sin was Satan in the heart. The seriousness of the sin is that you have lied to the Holy Ghost.

I want us to see what God did. God judged it. Ananias and Sapphira, of course, died. We begin reading again in verse 5, "And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost..." In plain English he died. "... and great fear came on all them that heard these things."

I imagine so. Suppose a preacher were to stand up and rebuke a church member here in modern church and immediately he falls down dead. It'd put fear in people's hearts.

"And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in."

Three hours later, and notice the service is still going on. So here comes Sapphira "And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much?" One more time she's getting a chance.

"And she said, Yea, for so much."

She's lying. She knows she's lying. She's lying to God's man. She's lying in the face of great revival. But really she's lying to God.

Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.

Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things."

Somebody said that’s why churches started having cemeteries in their yards.

Do you know what happened as a result of this? The devil thought he'd stop the revival; it only extended the revival. I want you to notice here as we look in this passage of Scripture that a great number of people were saved and came to the Lord as a result of this. Look with me in verse 14, "And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women."

Don't ever turn away from the Lord because of some hypocrite—don't do it! It didn't stop this early church. It needn't stop the Church of the Lord Jesus today.

Hypocrites come and go, but the Church of the Lord Jesus marches on.