Holy Scriptures and Israel

Announcer: Shalom. Holy Scriptures and Israel is a ministry designed to share with the Jewish people the good news of the Lord Jesus Yeshua the Messiah and to instruct Christians on the Jewish roots of their faith. And now, teaching God's word from a Hebrew Messianic perspective, here is Gideon Levytam.

Gideon Levytam: The study of Acts chapter 4. And they kept back part of the price, his wife also being privately to it, and he brought a certain part of it and he laid it at the apostles' feet.

Now let me say this again. Did he have to do it? No. There was no forceful. There was no command here. There was no demand here. But here we see the different heart. Yourself had a state of heart that wanted to do service out of the abundance of his heart without to seek for glory for himself.

And here we see another man and his wife who wanted glory for themselves. They wanted that wow, others will impress by what they are doing. See, not only yourself can do it, I, Ananias can do it as well. That shows us that he was not content with what the Lord have allowed him to do. It's almost like a spirit of jealousy and a spirit of seeking glory for oneself.

Again, I'm not pointing to him. I'm mentioning what the scripture the text says, but we need to know that that is existing in our very own hearts. And it happens to us during our time as believers. And so, they're doing what, well, they sold the possession, he kept part for himself, and he brought to the apostle the money.

Now again, I want to say nothing wrong with keeping a part for himself. Nothing wrong with it at all. But the problem comes after. Is in verses 3, 4, and 5, Peter's questioning him. And Peter said to Ananias, and you know how Peter knows, why he asked him this question? Why Peter could have just said, you know what, praise the Lord. Ananias and Sapphira, you brought it, praise the Lord.

But Peter asking him guided by the Spirit of God. Peter said unto Ananias, "Why has Satan filled thine heart to lie against the Holy Spirit? And to keep back part of the price of the land?" You see, Peter knew that Ananias was trying to give an appearance of what others have done, but it was not truly the full truth.

And what Peter said to him, "Listen, you have lied to the Holy Spirit of God." And you notice Peter continued in verse 4, he says, "Listen, while it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own power?" In other words, he could say, "You know Peter, I came, here is some of it. I don't want to give everything because I need some things for many other needs that I have in my life."

This is not the issue here. The issue here that he wanted to give an appearance that others have had, like yourself in the previous chapter. And Peter said to him, "Listen, before you sold it, it was your own. After you sold it, it was in your own power. Why did you conceive this thing in your heart? You have not lied unto men, but you have lied unto God."

And here we find out another truth that you and I cannot lie to God. He knows everything about us. In our study of the Gospel of John, we read of Yeshua, he knowing all things that were going to happen to him, chapter 18. In chapter 2 of the Gospel of John, we read of Yeshua, he knew everything that is in the heart of men. He did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men.

The Lord knows our hearts. And how often time, more than often time, we fail him in our thoughts and in our practices. And so, he says, "You didn't lie to men, but you lie to God." You know, brothers and sisters, he lied to the Holy Spirit and he lied to God and not to men. We learn that the Holy Spirit is divine.

He is God, the Holy Spirit. He's the one that move us. He's the one that indwell in us. He's the one that have given us a new nature. It's the Holy Spirit of God. And so, Ananias in verse 5, Ananias, hearing these words, he fell down and he gave up the spirit.

You see what happened is that the movement of the Holy Spirit of God was so strong and so intimate with them early believers that such a thing, such as a lie, brought death to a child of God, physical death to a person that was part of the assembly of God.

This is called, beloved brothers and sisters, in another text of the Bible, 1st John 5:16, it's called a sin unto death. It only applied to a believer, and it only had to do with the physical death and not spiritual death. He dropped dead before the apostles. And how severe it was this type of thing.

And if we're honest before the Lord, who knows each one of our hearts, if we will be judged today in the same measure of the way that it has been happening in the city of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, we would have to say that none of us would have been here today at the meeting. Because of the fact that we all in one way or another have failed the Lord, have sinned against the Lord, have dishonored him, and lied, and all kind of things that we have done.

And then we would say that none of us would have been here at the meeting today. Had he been speaking and doing, acting in the same way that he have acted in Acts chapter 5 in the early part of the church age. And so look, you think that is the end. So, he gave up the spirit. Great fear came upon all them that heard these things because, I mean, can you imagine to see a person that lied dropping down dead? It is amazing. Fear come to your heart.

And so in the next verse we find out in verse 6, there was a burial of Ananias. In verse 6, the young men arose, wound him, in other words, they covered him with the special covering that we have that the Jewish people in biblical time was covering the dead person and burying him. And so it says here in verse 6, "They carried him out and they buried him."

And so in the next verses, 7, 8, 9, and 10, we see the dealing with Sapphira, his wife. Because in the next verses, and it was about the space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what was done, she came in. And Peter answered unto her and says, "Tell me, whether you sold the land for so much."

Now again I want to suggest, brothers and sisters, she could say, "You know what, Peter, the truth of the matter, no, we just sold it for that much, we didn't want to give everything. We have other issues that we want to deal with." She could just tell the truth. That's it. No force, no obligation. But you see what she did, she also, there was a plan that was made by both of them in the first two verses of chapter 5.

And so, what we find out that she did know what happened to her husband. Three hours passed by. And so, she says in verse 8, she says, "Yes, for this much." And Peter now tells her in verse 9, Peter said to her, "How is it that you have agreed together to tempt or to test the Holy Spirit of God?"

See, we can't tempt God, but often time we test him by the way that we conduct ourselves. Oh, if we would ask him to guard us, to watch over us, because we are prone to wonder, we are prone to dishonor God, we are prone to test him, but if we would ask him, and if he would help us that we will not test him, because God is holy.

And he must judge sin. But we test him again and again. And here he says, "How is it that you have agreed to test him, to tempt the Holy Spirit of the Lord. Behold, the feet of them which have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out." Look at the power of the Spirit of God using the apostles in 1st century.

I am telling you, what Peter was used, the way that Peter, Simon Peter, was used in 1st century is not what's going on a lot today that we see on television. It's not, it's completely different. It is a real genuine work of the Holy Spirit of God in the midst of his saints, in the midst of the people of God.

And so he says in verse 9, he says, "Behold, the feet of them which have buried your husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out." And it says here, "Then she fell down straightway at his feet and yielded up the spirit." She died. See, here is the same, again I want to say, there is a sin unto death.

That sin in a case of Ananias and Sapphira was lying. And it is only physical death. It is not spiritual death because they belong to the people of God and they are absent from the body and present with the Lord, but they have been removed physically out of this world because God have taken them prematurely because of the sin unto death.

And so it says here, "The young men came, they found her dead, they carried her forth, and they buried her by her husband." Now to understand a little bit that sin unto death. Let's remember that there is a different between what we have in the gospel where we read the blasphemy of the spirit that the Lord was mentioning in the gospel, and what we read in 1st John chapter 5, there is a sin unto death.

Those are two different things. The blasphemy of the spirit applied to unbelievers. The sin unto death of 1st John 5 is apply only to believers. The unbelievers by blaspheming the Holy Spirit of God are rejecting the testimony of the Spirit of God concerning the person and work of Yeshua the Messiah.

When Yeshua said it, he said it to the Pharisees who rejected the Messiahship of Yeshua. But when the apostle John wrote in 1st John chapter 5 and verse 16, "If any man see a brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death."

This is a physical death and it is applied only to believers to remove them prematurely out of this world. Let me show you please a text in the book of Corinthians. Can you turn to 1st Corinthians please? 1st Corinthians chapter 11, the apostle is there speaking to the Corinthians, and he's saying to them in 1st Corinthians chapter 11, specifically those verses in verse 26, there was disorder in the Lord's table.

And he says, verse 26, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death until he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, in unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat this bread and drink that cup."

Now notice verse 29 and verse 30, "For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body, and for this cause many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep." That sleep has to do with death for a believer. It is the many that have been put to sleep, prematurely die because their way of conduct in the midst of the people of God.

That is called the sin unto death. Physical removal, physical death of a person that God knows the heart of this individual, in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, it was lying. In the case of this chapter, 1st Corinthians chapter 11, is the treatment, the conduct among the people of God at the Lord's table.

Now we can go on and I can show you also from the Old Testament that there is a sin unto death even in the Tanakh prior to the coming of Yeshua. You remember what we have just recently studied about Moses and about Aaron his brother. And you remember in our study, we have looked at the book of Numbers in the first verses of the book of Numbers, and you remember God said to Moses, "You do not strike the rock, you speak to the rock."

But Moses because of anger, and rightly so you may say, and I may say, he was upset at the nation of his own people, the people of Israel, the people of God, and what did he do? Out of anger, he took and he smote the rock with his stick, he smote the rock with his staff. And what came out? But you know God was not pleased with that.

Because God said to Moses, "Moses, you are not to strike the rock, you are to speak to the rock." But Moses disobeyed and you know what God said? After it says, "Moses, verse 11 of Numbers 20, Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod, and he smote the rock twice. And the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank and their beasts also."

So you would think everybody is happy. You see, now the people have water, Moses gave them the water and everybody is drinking, but then look what the Lord said in verse 12. "The Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron." And he said, "Because ye, not only you Moses, also Aaron as well, because you did not believe me to set me apart in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given unto them."

God says, "You are not going to bring them in. You are prematurely going to be taken out of this world and not enter with the people of Israel to bring them into the land." And now notice verse 23 of Numbers chapter 20, it says, "And the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron in Mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom."

And he said, "Aaron shall be gathered unto his people for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel." Why Lord? Verse 24B, "Because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, bring them up to Mount Hor, strip Aaron of his garment, put them upon Eleazar his son, and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people and shall die there."

Now, brothers and sisters, I won't read everything because Deuteronomy also tells us about how Moses died, and God reminded Moses, "Because you did not honor me before the people of Israel." God have removed him out of this world prematurely. So you have Old Testament believers who are among the people of Israel like Moses, like Aaron.

You have New Testament Jewish believer like Ananias and Sapphira, and some of the believers in Corinth that God have removed. John said, "There is a sin unto death." And there's no one particular sin that we all can know. In one person it may be striking the rock. In another person's case, it may be lying.

And in a third person's situation, it may be not properly conducting oneself at the Lord's table. These are the texts that we have in God's word. And so we learn from all this the ways of God's dealing with mankind. And when the Spirit of God moved in 1st century, there was a real change is there, there was a real effect.

And now quickly, just to move to the last verses that we have read in chapter 5 of Acts, from verse 12, just those other five verses, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, we see the powerful ministry of the apostles, the evidence of the movement of the Holy Spirit of God. And so we read in verse 12, "By the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people."

"And they were all with one accord in Solomon's Porch." Again use the word one accord, one heart, one soul. And God used the apostles to have all kind of signs and wonders being done. Can you imagine signs and wonders wrought among the people, they were all with one accord in Solomon's Porch. They were all there could experience the move of the Spirit of God with signs and wonders.

And I can tell you, brothers and sisters, this is not what is called today signs and wonders. These are signs and wonders that accompany the early church, the early assembly, specifically the apostles who were empowered by God to do things in order to show the nation of Israel that Yeshua was truly the promised Messiah of Israel and the savior of this world.

So we find here in these verses three things. In verse 12, the church was unified. In verse 13, the church was magnified. In verse 14, the church was multiplied. Unified, magnified, multiplied. Beautiful. In verse 12, one accord. In verse 13, for the rest, there is no man joined himself to them.

By the way, people did not just come in and join themselves to the believers. They knew. You cannot come to be among the believers and claim to be a believer and sit in a pew and sing the song and say Hallelujah and not have your sins dealt with before the Lord. They did not come and become Christianity.

It was a real genuine work, everyone that came among the believers who had to realize, wow, I'm a sinner, I need to accept the Messiah. How many today in so-called Christendom, people so-called go to church meetings without really born from above. They look like the others, but never had a change of their heart. Never had a confession of their sins.

See, it says in this verse, "And of the rest, there is no man joined himself to them." They didn't dare. That's the early assembly in the city of Jerusalem. And then it says in verse 13, "But the people magnified