Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: I've noticed in some worship we claim we do this or we claim we do that in worship songs. "I love you, Lord, with all my heart," and you're like, are you really? The Lord will convict you and you think, man, I wish that I could say I loved you with all my heart. I know that's what I'm supposed to do.

Kurt: On Today's Word, Pastor Brett Meador asks, do we have a heart for God in word and deed? Have you ever sang the song in church, "I Surrender All"? Think about that for a second. We'd be singing, "I surrender some," and I've got a lot more I need to surrender.

The story of Ananias and Sapphira from Acts chapter 5 is a lesson for the church to be more mindful that God isn't impressed by outward appearances. As Pastor Brett Meador shares with us this vivid example from Today's Word, it's revealed in the early church how hypocrisy can quietly grow when people care more about appearing spiritual than a genuine surrendering to God.

Brett Meador: In our study of Acts, one of the things we're gleaning is the book of Acts is like church 101. How do you do church? We saw in chapter 4 a real high note. We saw great power was given to the apostles and great grace was given to the church. That's what it says in verse 35 of chapter 4. The church is just getting blessed out of their socks.

But like the Bible, have you ever noticed you'll be in a happy little story and then all of a sudden something really crazy happens? That's about to happen. Here's an example of that. When Moses was getting ready to lead the children of Israel and they had all the years of struggle and slavery, and then the Lord calls Moses and Moses finally gets Pharaoh to let the people go through the plagues.

Everyone's excited because they're getting ready to go. This is just this happy, "Oh wow, they're getting ready to leave, this is awesome." And then all of a sudden, it says, "And God sought to kill Moses." You're thinking, what's that all about? It says, "And Zipporah, his wife, walked up and with a sharp stone circumcised her son. And then took the foreskin and threw it at Moses and, 'A bloody husband art thou to me.'"

I didn't know she was British. She said, "A bloody husband art thou to me." Then she stomps off, and then God decided not to kill Moses. Then they went on with the happy little story. What was that all about? If you know the story, it was one of those stories you think, why such a radical story and what does it all mean?

I think there was a great thing and it had to do with the Lord setting a precedent. Moses was about to be one of the greatest leaders in the world's history, leading two and a half million people out of slavery. And yet his own family wasn't set right. There are a lot of reasons, not just that he needed marriage counseling, it seems, but more so he hadn't circumcised his own son, which was a very Jewish thing you needed to do.

Moses's family wasn't squared away, so the Lord was making a precedent. That starts to bring up why we're going to come into another one of those types of stories here in the book of Acts. Because there's a way to rightly divide the word and teach the word and interpret Scripture. There's a fancy word called hermeneutics. It's actually a word in biblical context to rightly divide the word of truth, to rightly interpret Scripture. Let's read it and then we'll talk more about that.

It's Acts chapter 5, verse 1. "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. 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?'"

"While it remained, it was 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.

The young men arose, wound him up, carried him out, and buried him. It was about the space of three hours after this, his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. Peter answered unto her, "Tell me whether you sold the land for so much." And she said, "Yea, for so much." Then Peter said unto her, "How is it that you 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 she fell 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.

Great fear. I guess so, it was upon the church and all that had heard this. What a strange thing. In this story, you come to this question: why such a harsh judgment for these two? Did anybody lie in church after that? Think about this. "I've never lied, I've never done that." Have you ever sang the song in church, "I Surrender All"? Think about that for a second.

If this was the rule, we'd be singing, "I surrender all..." "I surrender some," and I've got a lot more I need to surrender. It makes me a little nervous to sing that song in context of this story. Sometimes worship music will do that. It convicts you because I've noticed some worship we claim we do this or we claim we do that in worship songs. "I love you, Lord, with all my heart," and you're like, are you really?

The Lord will convict you and you think, man, I wish that I could say I loved you with all my heart and I know that is what I am supposed to do. I'm thankful that this isn't the norm. Why does this happen at such a glorious time of the church? Everything's going along so beautifully, why is this happening? This is that hermeneutics I was talking about and it's called the principle of precedence.

It's interesting. When the Lord wants to make a strong statement at one point in time, it's so that it's remembered and applied to all points in time. In other words, this story of Ananias and Sapphira, fortunately, you're probably not going to drop dead if you lie in church. But it is something that should be a flag to you and me to say, wow, that's something God obviously doesn't approve of.

It's more than just lying. It's wanting to be esteemed as someone in the church. In chapter 4, Barnabas was a Levite guy who sold all of his possessions and his house and brought all the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. That was the end of chapter 4. So Ananias and Sapphira are like, wow, Barnabas, he's going down in history. He got his name in the Bible. Let's do the same thing.

Only we'll just keep back a few dollars. Nobody will know the difference. We'll just save it for ourselves. But everybody will go, "Wow, look at Ananias and Sapphira." I remember when I was a kid I went to the Crystal Cathedral because my grandparents went there in Southern California. I remember when they were fundraising for the Crystal Cathedral and for $1,700 you could get your name etched on one of the glass panes. It's just a big giant church with glass only.

It is pretty. I think the Catholics own it now. But everybody got their name etched on the glass if they paid enough money. If you read your Bible, is that the way we're supposed to give to have our name etched in glass? I remember as a little kid thinking, that's a little weird. I wasn't a Bible scholar. I was just thinking, I think Jesus said don't let your left hand know what your right hand's doing or something like that. I remember thinking that doesn't really work.

That's why at Athey Creek I've never, not once, looked at who gives what. Because the only one that really matters is what the Lord sees and how your heart is when you give. I don't want to rob you of your reward. Here's the problem, that's one of the biggest problems. They're lying, but the reason they're lying is they want to sort of get the glory or the credit or appear to be more giving or more spiritual.

They're doing it for more of an appearance thing. It's the epitome of hypocrisy, which is something that does in fact plague the church of Jesus Christ. There are some funny, ironic sorts of truths. For example, the names: Ananias and Sapphira. In the Greek, Ananias is actually from the Hebrew, Hananiah or Hananias. Do you guys remember who Hananiah was in the Old Testament?

Shadrach. Remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Their Hebrew names, if you remember, Shadrach's Hebrew name was Hananiah, which is also the same in the Greek form of Ananias. Same name. It means God has favored. But most people would say Ananias means God is gracious. What irony. Here's Mr. God Is Gracious walking in and God kills him right on the spot.

What's up with that? I think there's a point here. Sapphira, her name means a sapphire or beautiful. So little Miss Beautiful and Mr. God Is Gracious, God slays them in front of the congregation. Why? What's the deal? This is that hermeneutical principle of a precedent that's set. This is really important to understand. The principle of precedence. God will make a strong statement at one point in time to be remembered and applied to all time.

Let me give you a few examples of those that are set. I'm going to give you three. There are a lot more. I even gave you one already: Moses and Zipporah. But let me give you three that are sort of related to the one here in the New Testament. Some of these precedents, people getting slain on the spot and stuff, it's like the Lord setting a precedent. But that's so Old Testament-y. You kind of expect that in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament we don't see a lot of that.

In fact, this might be the only time where somebody's slain by the Lord in the Bible of the New Testament. It's interesting. What's the precedent? Let's go through a few examples. Example number one: do you remember Achan? Joshua chapter 6, 7, and 8. That's the story where it starts where the children of Israel, again, a lot of these were really happy times. Happy little Bible story going along.

The children of Israel cross the Jordan River, they're taking the Promised Land, God has delivered them, they're going to the land flowing with milk and honey, everything's great. It's even greater. They go against the toughest city of all, Jericho, and they march around and the walls came a-tumblin' down. Everything was great. One of the things the Lord said, though, was very specifically: don't take of the accursed thing out of Jericho.

When you conquer Jericho, just wipe it all out. Don't take any plunder. Leave it all there and destroy it all. Achan, you know the story, he goes in, he's cleaning up with everybody else, but he notices he finds one of the houses he's cleaning out after the battle, and he sees some wedges of silver and some gold and also some Babylonish garments. That's like finding an Armani suit or something.

He's all excited. He stashes the clothes and he gets the wedge of silver and gold and hides it. He sneaks it back to his tent and he thinks, ha, nobody knows, I got away with it. It seems that his family helped him hide the stuff that he got. It went along, everything's great. Happy little story keeps going. Until they come to the town of Ai. They're supposed to conquer Ai. Ai's just a small little town. This is going to be no big deal.

So Joshua sends his army over to crush Ai. But shockingly, Ai conquers the Jews in that battle. Jews were slain in that. Jericho was huge and it was a piece of cake and what's the deal? Joshua's like, "Lord, you told me everywhere we put the sole of our foot you're going to give us that land. What's going on?" And the Lord says, "You guys have taken of the accursed thing. You have sin in your camp, Joshua."

So Joshua gets all the children of Israel, two and a half million Jews in the wilderness there just outside of Jericho. He starts picking through the crowd. He says, "Someone's taken of the accursed thing." I wonder if Achan's like, "Ooh, this is a problem, but hey, I'm in two and a half million people, good luck finding me, Joshua." Joshua's first thing he does is says, "Okay, all you of the tribes go home except for the tribe of Judah. You guys stay here."

All of them went home except for the tribe of... now Judah was a giant tribe, still tens of thousands of people. I'm sure Achan's like, "Whoa, what a lucky guess, one in 12." Because Achan was in the tribe of Judah. Then Joshua says, "Okay, of all the family of Judah, you can all go home except for the family of the Zarhites." Guess who the Zarhite was? It was the great grandfather of Achan.

Now we're down from ten thousands to thousands of people, the Zarhites. Then it just gets worse as far as that goes. Then it goes down to the Zabdi, the family of Zabdi, which was Achan's grandfather. "Okay, everybody go home except for the Zabdi people." So the Zabdi people stay and now we're getting into hundreds. Achan's part of that group. He zeroes in and says, "Okay, now the descendants of Carmi."

Now we're down to dozens of people. Achan's standing there and Joshua turns to Achan and says, "Why have you taken of the accursed thing? Why have you sinned against the Lord?" What a story. Achan, if you remember, all his stuff, his whole tent, his family, everybody was killed and burned in a fire. That's one of those shocking stories. Why would they kill the whole family and what's the deal?

There's a lot going on there, but there are lessons to be learned. For example, husbands, dads, when you sin, it's not just you who's affected. It's actually your whole family. You say, "Brett, I don't know, is this really connected to the story in Acts chapter 5?" It is, I'll tell you why. Remember, something really fun's happening: the church is being blessed. Something fun's happening: the children of Israel are going into the Promised Land and they've had victory in Jericho.

But there's somebody who's doing a sinful thing and God says, "I'm not going to let that keep going. This is going to hurt the whole thing." In fact, there's an interesting thing in verse 3 when it says here in our text, why would Satan fill your heart to lie against the Holy Ghost and to "keep back" part of the price of the land? The words "keep back," it's actually one Greek word, *nosphizomai*.

It's the same Greek word that's used in the Septuagint. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the one that Jesus quoted from. In the story of Achan, it's the same word that's described to Achan's taking of the stuff. It's not just me that's making this connection. If you like the old commentaries, one of those guys, F.F. Bruce, he said this: "The story of Ananias is to the book of Acts what the story of Achan is to the book of Joshua. In both narratives, an act of deceit interrupts the victorious progress of the people of God."

I think that's exactly correct. So you got the story of Achan. What a picture. What is God doing? He's setting a precedent before the children of Israel get too settled in the Promised Land. He wants to say, "Don't be crossing my word. Don't let the sin get in your camp." He sets this precedent. The children of Israel will sin after Achan, and they'll lie and cheat and steal and worship idols, and God's not going to do the same thing to everyone that he did to Achan. Achan was a precedent-setter.

So you've got Achan as my first precedent. Let me give you another one that you might consider. Do you remember the story of Uzzah? The death of Uzzah. What was that all about? In 1 Samuel chapter 4, it starts when the children of Israel thought, "Let's get the Ark of the Covenant. It'll save us from the army of the Philistines." They were making a miscalculation. They thought the Ark of the Covenant, even though it was an implement of the Tabernacle and it was where God's glory shone above the mercy seat, they made the mistake of thinking the Ark of the Covenant was God in a box.

They said, "Get it, it will save us." Not God, the Ark will save us. So they got the Ark of the Covenant, and the Philistines go to war with the children of Israel. They think because the Ark is with them, they're going to be saved. What happens is the Philistines crush them, steal the Ark of the Covenant, and bring it to their town there in the cities of Philistia where they put it right in the Temple of Dagon.

There's the Ark of God sitting right next to the half-man, half-fish god, Dagon, in the Dagonian Temple. If you remember, that's a funny story because the Philistines are like, "Cool, two gods for one. We got the god of the Jews, we got our god, we're covered." But they got up the next morning and their fish-god had fallen down before the Ark of God on his face. They had to prop their god up. Sideline, if you're propping your god up, you probably got the wrong god.

They propped their god up and the next morning they come back in and it had fallen down a second time. This time the hands and the head fall off of Dagon and they have to glue their god back together. Sideline note, if you're gluing your god back together, probably not a good god to be following. But there's a third problem. Not only did it fall over once, then twice, now they all have hemorrhoids. Brett, you're making this up. Nope, huge hemorrhoids. Bible says that. All of them.

The Philistines are running around with hemorrhoids. They know it's because the Ark of the Covenant's there. So they say, "We got to get this thing out of here. So what are we going to do? Get rid of it." So they stuck it on a cart and attached the cart to two cows and then they slapped the cows and said, "Get out of here." The cows start wandering off away from the land of the Philistines.

After a little wandering, the cows make their way up northeast. The first town they came in contact with was the town of Beth Shemesh. The men of Beth Shemesh, they see these cows coming and they can't believe their eyes: the Ark of the Covenant's on this cart coming their way. They're like, "Wow, glory be to God, our Ark is returned." They brought it up to the top of the hill there in Beth Shemesh.

They thought, "We better check and make sure they didn't steal the stuff in the Ark, the Ten Commandments, bowl of manna, the budding rod of Aaron." So they opened it up. Tens of thousands of them died that day for opening their... see that Raiders of the Lost Ark, you saw their eyeballs melting and all that stuff? No, that was just the movie. That's why the movie does that, because of the Bible story of the men of Beth Shemesh. When they opened the Ark, tens of thousands of them died.

The people of Israel freaked out and they just put the Ark aside and said, "Don't touch it. We don't know what to do with it. Run for your lives!" David at that time, now we fast forward to 2 Samuel chapter 6, David wants to bring the Ark of the Covenant back to the Tabernacle, back to Jerusalem. He decides to do it. So they stick the Ark on a cart and get a couple dudes to drive the cart and they're going to bring it like on a pickup truck back to Jerusalem.

The two guys: Uzzah and Ahio. Uzzah, his name means strong. Ahio, A-H-I-O, it means bro. It means brotherly. So you've got Mr. Brother and Mr. Strong driving the cart back to Jerusalem. They think it's going to be great. One of the oxen driving the cart stumbles and the Ark starts to slide off. Mr. Strong reaches back and goes to steady the Ark of the Covenant. As soon as he touches the Ark, boom, he's dead. Just killed right there by God.

The people are freaked out. David's freaked out. They don't know what to do, so they quickly scurry the Ark away to the nearest house, a guy by the name of Obed-Edom. They stuck the Ark in his house and just said, "Whatever you do, don't touch it, but we're leaving it in your house." David goes back and he's sitting there in Jerusalem going, "Oh, man, how can I get the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem?" David feels bad because now Uzzah, Mr. Strong, is dead.

What's God doing there? When people are dropping dead, this is a precedent set in Scripture. It's a principle of hermeneutics. What it is, what we're supposed to do is say, why is this such an important thing? Again, it's about doing it right, doing it the way God wants you to do it. David had blown that off altogether. How is David bringing the Ark back? The same way the world did it.

I wonder if sometimes we churches try to be too much like the world. "Let's do it just like the world and we'll draw people to the church by being like the world." Watch out, that's like David bringing the Ark back on a cart. How does a real believer in God bring the Ark back? If you know your Bible, David had to go back and do some research. He realized Levites are supposed to carry, like sons of Aaron, the priests.

They're supposed to be part of this whole thing and they're supposed to be carrying with the poles through the rings and there shouldn't be a cart involved at all. It's supposed to be carried and it's a holy and a very somber kind of an occasion. The Ark needs to be covered. There were rules. David goes back and researches. Now he hears that Obed-Edom's house, while the Ark's in his house, Obed-Edom's getting his socks blessed off.

His house is blessed and David says, "Okay, that's it. Let's bring the Ark. We need that blessing here." He does his research, goes down, and he gets the priests to carry it somberly. It's even more than the rules of the Old Testament. In 2 Samuel chapter 6, it says that every six steps they would take, they would then sacrifice another offering before God. This is a journey that's miles away. Every six steps, sacrifice. Every six steps, sacrifice. Can you imagine that?

David had to realize and the precedent was set: don't do things the way the world does it just because it worked for them doesn't make it the right way to do things. So you have another example of the principle of precedence. Really, this is what we're seeing here in the book of Acts.

Kurt: Pastor Brett Meador just partway through a revealing look through Scripture of the serious response of God concerning hypocrisy and deception occurring in the church. I hope you'll be along for the conclusion of this message in Today's Word next time. There's also much more to come as Pastor Brett will join me here in just a moment to share a little more about how he grew up.

First, let me tell you more about Brett Meador. He's the senior pastor of Athey Creek Church just outside of Portland, Oregon. Brett's been the pastor of Athey Creek for 30 years where he goes verse by verse in his study of the Bible. We invite you to listen each day for more. If you've missed any portion of our study, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com. All right, Pastor Brett is with me now. Brett, I know you grew up in a Christian home. Your folks were very involved in ministry. Do you have some stories about those experiences that might have made an impression on you and how you minister today?

Brett Meador: Growing up in a Christian home really was a giant blessing, and I think I'm realizing even more and more how huge that was for my ministry right now. I think I'm only now fully starting to realize. My parents, hard-working people, they were fairly new Christians when I was born, but they were hungry for the Word.

My dad being in construction, we'd travel around different cities on the West Coast, different construction jobs in Southern California all the way up into Oregon. We attended churches: Baptist church, Assembly of God, Nazarene, wherever the nearest church was we'd go. As a little kid, those churches all left impressions and I think were largely part of shaping what I thought about church in general.

Finally when we settled sort of in Southern Oregon, my parents, there wasn't really a great through-the-Bible teaching church that was nearby. They called up a friend from Southern Cal and they came up and started a church in my own home. I had an experience going from a church with 10 people in my living room and that church grew to over 7,000 people in about a 25-year trajectory.

It was by that experience I became deeply involved in ministry from a very young age just because it was what my family did. I don't remember anything but serving, watching my parents serve people quietly, praying with sincerity, studying the Word faithfully. Those impressions really stuck with me.

One of the biggest things I learned from my parents is it's not about the spotlight. It's just about being faithful. My parents really modeled that. They weren't the front of the sanctuary kind of people as much as they were behind the scenes just serving. That was a giant thing for me personally.

Kurt: Well, thank you, Brett, for sharing some of those personal stories about your upbringing. And like you said, what a blessing to have parents like that to model Christ and service to you.

Brett Meador: Yep.

Kurt: Well, if you'd like more information about Athey Creek Church, Pastor Brett Meador, or Today's Word, you can visit our website at todayswordradio.com. Well, next time, Pastor Brett will explore why God made an example of those in the early church of the serious nature of hypocrisy. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.