Somebody Loves You

Guest (Male): God desires that husband and wife would be fully committed by walking by faith and receiving God's holiness in their lives. And the reason is because God wants your children and your grandchildren and maybe even your great-grandchildren to see that you're a man and a woman of integrity. That's very important.

Announcer: Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. We are in the middle of a study on Scripture's instructions for a healthy, God-honoring marriage. Today, Raul will urge you and your spouse to stay honest and transparent, both with each other and with the Lord.

Exploring the catastrophic outcome of one couple's decision to put greed before God, you'll get a challenge to consider the destructive nature of spiritual hypocrisy. In Acts chapter five, here's Raul Ries with our study, "A Hypocritical Marriage".

Raul Ries: This morning, what I would like to speak to you, it's actually a real situation that we find here in the early church that had arisen with Ananias and Sapphira. You probably have heard the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Usually, they teach it in Sunday school. If you grew up in Sunday school, you heard it many times of what happened to Ananias and Sapphira.

But many times, we don't really understand why would God want to deal with this man and this woman in such an incredible way by bringing death to them. One of the reasons that God not only judges or deals with people is because of their hypocrisy that each person may have within their own personal lives.

And I believe that in a size of the congregation that we have here and because the church is so huge, not only here but all across America and the world, there are some hypocritical marriages existing today. In this instance here that we have of Ananias and Sapphira, this husband and wife had been totally blessed by the Lord financially.

But somehow they decided to lie to the Holy Spirit by not giving to God what belonged to God. And so God smote both of them, and they died because they lied to the Holy Spirit, which the Holy Spirit is God. I think that we have to be so careful that we never compromise with any one of our mates, whether they're a husband or a wife. If one or the other are in sin, you do not have to compromise with them when it comes to sinning against God.

We must stand in righteousness. We must speak the truth about God. This compromise caused both partners to be judged by God. God desires that husband and wife would be fully committed by walking by faith and receiving God's holiness in their lives. And the reason is because God wants your children and your grandchildren and maybe even your great-grandchildren to see that you're a man and a woman of integrity. That's very important.

When you look at this text here in Acts chapter five, you have these two hypocrites that got married and they became pretty wealthy. But at the same time, they were pretty greedy people, and they did not speak the truth when it came time to give. They wanted to appear as if everything in their marriage was okay and that they were very giving people, but they were not. They got caught in the very act of sinning against the Holy Spirit.

Look what it says beginning with chapter five, verse one. "But a certain man by the name of Ananias and Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession and he kept back part of the proceeds, and his wife also being aware of it." Underline that, aware of it. She knew what was right. She knew what was going on. She was not ignorant of what was going on with her husband. "And they brought a certain part and they laid it at the apostle's feet."

"But Peter said, 'Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?'" Notice who's the one that caused Ananias and Sapphira to sin: Satan. Satan came in like a flood. He says, "How come you allowed Satan to fill your heart and to lie to the Holy Spirit and to steal and to keep part of the price of the land for yourselves?"

"While it remained, was it not your own? And after you sold it, was it not in your own control to do whatever you wanted to do with it? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart?" Notice where sin starts, in the heart. "You have not lied to men but to God." Then Ananias, hearing these words, he fell down and breathed his last, which means he died. And great fear came upon all those who heard these things.

Now, you would think that as God gives you the liberty to possess, to do however, whatever you want to do with your own finances, that you would not want to lie to God. And yet I have found out in my counseling that there's literally a lot of people that are really in trouble financially in their marriage.

Overspending. Buying those things which you cannot afford because you think that plastic is money. So if I can buy it, I'll just charge it. I have a philosophy: if you can't afford it, then don't buy it. Live without it because it can really put a strain on your marriage. Many people are so strained by finances that they not only separate but even divorce because there's no peace in the marriage.

And the problem that we have here before us is a husband and wife getting blessed financially but lying to the Holy Spirit as they were giving to God. On the other side, there are couples that God has blessed them, but everything they have is only for themselves. They're not a giving person. They spend it for themselves and only themselves, and they become very greedy when it comes to their finances.

Then there are those that are not good stewards and what they do, they overspend. They overbuy. They live over their means. And that's not a good thing for Christians to have in their lives. It's not a good testimony. Ananias and Sapphira had the freedom to give to God. They didn't even have to give if they didn't want to give.

But the sin that actually took them down is the sin of lying, pretending to be something that you're not. That is hypocrisy. Look what it says again. This is her husband, now the wife, in verse five. "And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed his last. And so great fear came upon all those who heard these things. And the young men arose, wrapped him up, carried him out, and buried him."

"And now, about three hours later, when his wife came in, not knowing what had happened, Peter answered to her and said, 'Tell me, Sapphira, whether you sold the land for so much.' And she said, 'Yes, for so much.'" Notice that she already made up her mind that she was going to stand with her husband and lie against the Holy Spirit. She didn't have to. She had three hours by the grace of God to repent. But she didn't know that her husband was dead.

And then Peter answered and said to her, "How is it that you have agreed together to test the Holy Spirit of the Lord? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out too." And immediately, she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. And the young men came in, and they found her dead. And they carried her out and buried her by her husband. And so great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things.

Now, it must have been quite a thing in the early church to be able to see that if a person was living a life of sin, immediately they would drop dead. Fear came upon all the church. Now, maybe people are not falling dead today, and we are living in New Testament times. But I feel the problem is not people just dropping dead. The problem is people not recanting, not repenting, not making things right before God and man, but to continue in that stubbornness of sin even after you hear the knowledge of the truth.

The name that Jesus gave to this practice is hypocrisy, which simply means the wearing of a mask, playing an actor. And when you think of hypocrisy, we must not think that failure to reach our ideals is hypocrisy because no believer lives up to all that he or she knows or has in the Lord. Every one of us at some time have failed in that area of our lives. We have played the hypocrite.

Hypocrisy is the deliberate deception, trying to make people think we are more spiritual than we really are. How sad that is that his wife decided to be part of her husband's deception. Maybe there are some of you here today this morning that find yourself in the place of Ananias and Sapphira in your own marriage, where your children are getting stumbled and people around you are getting stumbled because they see your hypocrisy, that you have totally a hypocritical marriage.

You're not right on. You're just playing the part. God desires that every husband should love his wife and every wife should be in submission to her husband in the Lord. That the husband should be the leader of his home. The husband being the spiritual leader of the home, being the financial guide and steward of the home so that there's no financial problems as wife and husband come together and in agreement by the power of the Lord in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Otherwise, if a house is divided, then how can it be united? How can you agree if you disagree with each other? And that causes problems in the home and it causes problems with your children.

Announcer: This is Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. For resources to help ground your home in God's truth, visit us anytime at somebodylovesyou.com. You can also join Raul for Straight Talk on the Somebody Loves You worldwide YouTube channel every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific. Now back to more with Raul Ries and our study, "A Hypocritical Marriage".

Raul Ries: Let me ask you a few questions that I thought would be very interesting here as we look at this point because when you think of your marriage and you think where you are today financially, are you being a wise steward of what God has given to you today? Is your marriage, first of all, Christ-centered? Is Christ the main thing in your marriage?

Secondly, is everything that you own God's? Do you look at it that way, that everything I have is God's? Thirdly, if God has blessed me with so much, am I a giving person and am I giving to myself everything or am I overspending my boundaries? Are you hooked to credit cards, using credit cards but you won't admit it?

Are you willing to correct your problem and to repent and to make things right so that you can not only have a good marriage, but you can have a good testimony and you can be a woman and a man of integrity? Are you willing to do what is right at all times, or are you doing what this couple did before God? And you continue to lie, and you continue to buy, you continue to spend, and you continue to steal from God what belongs to God. That can only be answered by you.

And yet here God is not only trying to speak to our own hearts, but God wants us to be wise in every decision that we make. Whatever you do in having children, in buying a house, in buying a car, whatever it is, it's a family effort. It's not just one man or one woman ruling over the home. Christ has to be in the center of the home.

That's why Paul the Apostle, in speaking of our giving to God, said, "So let each one of you give as he purposes in his own heart, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loves a hilarious giver." As you purpose in your heart, how is God blessing you? You give to God. God is not demanding anything from any one of us. We give because we love him, not because we have to.

You see, that's the most beautiful thing about this, and that's why Ananias and Sapphira blew it. They didn't have to give one penny, but they decided to do it probably to impress the church and the disciples of Christ. "Hey, look, we're giving all to Jesus. Man, we are giving people. We are spiritual." And they ended up lying to God, lying to the Holy Spirit because in their hearts, they were playing the hypocrite and they were not giving to God what belonged to God. And God smote them.

We have to understand that God gives us the privilege of giving to him from our best, not our cast-offs. But usually, people are giving their cast-offs or leftovers to God. And if I have at the end of the month something, I'll give it to God. But then God is not in the center of your camp. God is not number one in your life because you're putting God last and God should always be first.

God has to be first and has to get the best. Every area of our lives has to be the best. When I give to God, my body, my hands, my eyes, my life, my money, everything that I have, my children, everything has to be the firstfruits to God that I give to him.

That's why Matthew 6:33 says, "But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." When Moses was building the tabernacle and his wife and all of the people were together, and he came to the people and said, "Look, you guys, God wants us to build this place so that we can come and worship him, and this is what you do. Hey, whatever you want to give to God, you go ahead and give."

And remember, they were in the wilderness. They had taken from Egypt the gold and the silver that was handed to them by God. And every person came, the Bible says in Exodus 36, and they came and they gave, and they gave so much that Moses—this is the only time in the Bible that it says Moses got up and said, "Stop giving, we got too much."

When do you hear evangelists on TV say that? You don't hear that. They're always saying, "Give more, we want more, we need more." But Moses said, "Hey, we got too much." Why? Because the people were not robbing God. The people gave willingly, hilariously to the Lord as God had blessed them.

It says, "And the material they had was sufficient for all the work to be done, indeed it was too much." And Moses said, "Stop your giving." And then Malachi said, "Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me. How, in what way have I robbed you, God? In tithe and offerings. You are cursed with a curse for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes into my storehouse that there may be food in my house and try me now." This is the only place where God tries a person, in their giving. "And try me now in this," saith the Lord God, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven to pour out such a blessing on you that there will be not enough room to receive it." Imagine that.

What a challenge. Open windows pouring out as much as God wants to give to us where men will be so blessed by the Lord. And it doesn't mean that if I give a dollar today, God's going to give me back ten. If I give ten, he's going to give me a hundred back. No, it doesn't say that. I may give everything and receive nothing but the spiritual blessings that God gives to me is abundantly a blessing in my life.

That's why in Acts 20:35, the only place we find the words of Jesus, he said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." And what do married couples do and single people do? We always are taking for ourselves. We're very selfish people. Instead of building the kingdom of God, we build our own kingdom. Because the first thing you have to look in your marriage, "How much am I really giving to God of myself, my children, my finances? Is God first in my life?"

Remember Job, when Job was tested by God, he lost everything. And he stood there instead of cursing God. Job arose, he tore his robe, shaved his head, he fell on the ground and he worshipped God and he said this: "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." That's what Job said.

We are never in control in this life. It's the Lord controlling us. But he's wanting us to be not robots, but he wants us to be free agents of his love. I remember the story in somewhere in Asia where they actually capture monkeys and they eat monkeys. And the way they do it is they don't have any cages. They don't have anything that's a trap where a monkey falls into a hole and they trap him or they spear him.

What they do is they actually cut out coconuts. They get these coconuts and they take the coconut and they actually bore a hole in the center of the coconut, and they drain the milk out of it and they put rice inside. They don't even tie the coconut. They just leave it right next to the coconut tree. And these monkeys will come down from the coconut tree, they hear this little noise inside the coconut, and they look inside of it and they'll stick their little hand inside of it and they'll grab the rice.

And as they grab the rice, they'll make a fist. And then they'll try to pull their hand out, but they can't. So what they do, they start hitting the coconut on the tree, and that tells the man they got a monkey on their hands now. They can go up and just kill it and take it with them. And all he has to do is just let go of the rice and he's fine. He's free to go. But he's so stubborn, so greedy, and it's a picture of many of us. "I don't care what they say, I'm not letting go." And isn't that the way sin is in our lives? It gets a grip on us and we hold on to it and God says, "All you have to do is let it go."