Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: So Ananias and Sapphira learned the lesson not to be phony, fake, hypocrites, lying about who they really were and what they were really giving.

Kurt: Pastor Brett Meador says you can expect a hidden sin to reveal God's righteous judgment.

Brett Meador: Satan right here was trying to get a little foothold in the early church with Peter and John, and he was going to use Ananias and Sapphira to do it. Hopefully, none of us are allowing the enemy to get a stronghold or a foothold in the Church of Jesus Christ.

Kurt: In the sharing of what appeared to be a generous monetary gift to the church, Ananias and Sapphira instead turned out to be giving Satan an opportunity to disrupt the body of believers with their hidden hypocrisy.

In today's word and from the familiar passage of Acts 5, Pastor Brett Meador reveals how God made it clear that deception and pride are serious matters before Him.

Brett Meador: So far in Acts, our story has come to this place where everything's going great. Great things are happening. In fact, we saw great power. Remember the scripture there in chapter four, it says, "And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." Then secondly, great grace was upon all of them. But do you remember what the next great was?

Great fear. That was the next one. And great fear came upon all the church and upon as many as heard these things. You say that's such a bummer. What a bummer to go from great power to great grace to great fear. But I'm not sure that's really a bummer. I think it's actually a blessing.

One of the things we need to remember as churchgoers and Christians is to have great fear. More of that healthy fear of the Lord. Are you a God-fearing person? That's a phrase they used to use. "I'm a God-fearing man," or "I'm a God-fearing woman." But we're a culture that says, "I'm not afraid of anything," and yet we're a culture that's afraid of everything. It's a weird thing.

But when it comes to this idea of the fear of the Lord, the Bible talks about the fear of the Lord, and Solomon talks in his wisdom about how the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So fearing the Lord in a healthy way, I believe that's what happens. The result of it. It was a scary story. Ananias and Sapphira kicked the bucket. But it brought great fear upon all the church and upon as many as heard these things.

We're going to find out that you wouldn't join the church unless you knew you really wanted to be a part of it. And it's because of things like this. There was a reverence, a fear, and an integrity that was going to be built into the early church because of this event that we talked about here. That's the saying, "So many Jews got saved because they were there for the Passover, and then they got saved after the resurrection."

Now many believers are all there and they make their possessions all in common. They sell their possessions and give it to the church before the apostles' feet, helping each other. We ended where Barnabas, Joses Barnabas, Acts chapter 4:36-37, we saw him selling his house and his property and his land and gave it all to the church so that people could be blessed. What a neat move of the Lord. But great fear.

And we saw that this was the principle of precedent when it comes to interpreting the Bible. We don't see people drop dead every day. Thank the Lord for that. But why does He do it this one time? The Lord is setting a precedent as He often did in His word. So Ananias and Sapphira learned the lesson to not be phony, fake, hypocrites, lying about who they really were and what they were really giving.

It was George MacDonald in the 1800s who said, "Half of the misery of the world comes from trying to look instead of trying to be what one is not." It's a good thing to try and be a solid Christian more than trying to look like a solid Christian. That was the problem with Ananias and Sapphira. The problem comes when you simply try to look the part. But play-acting or pretending, the word we saw there was hupokrités in the Greek, which means an actor or stage player, a pretender. That's the idea.

So let's take a look at this whole chapter in the context. Let's back up and start from the beginning. The first section of this chapter, I'm going to break this chapter into six sort of chunks just for helping us organize and understand what's going on. The first thing we're going to call this, verses 1 through 11, the hypocrites altering the truth.

Take a look, verse 1: "But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession." Remember their names: God is gracious and beautiful. They walk into the church. By the way, modern-day movements in the church only speak of the goodness and the graciousness and the beauty of God, and they don't often want to speak of the holiness and the righteousness and even the wrath of God.

Here is where you see Little Miss Beautiful and Little Mr. God is Gracious. That's what their names mean, Ananias and Sapphira. But don't forget He's a God that's also holy. That's the part that these two are forgetting, that He's a holy God, righteous altogether, the Bible says.

By the way, who was Jesus most gracious to in the biblical stories of the gospel? Well, as it seems, the publicans, the sinners, the prostitutes, the murderers, the tax collectors, the lepers, all the outcasts. Those are the people Jesus just was loving and gracious to.

But who was Jesus most brutal toward? It was the religious guys. In fact, keep your finger here and go back with me just for a second. We need to refresh our memories in Matthew 23. If you go back to Matthew 23, I'm not going to talk about this whole chapter because it's a huge, powerful chapter with all kinds of important things in it, but there's a nuance you can almost forget.

Because people say, "I'm just going to love like Jesus. I'm only going to talk about what I'm for, not about what I'm against." It rolls right off the tongue. "I'm going to talk about what I'm for and not about what I'm against. I'm going to be just like Jesus, who's all about love." Yes. But love sometimes is tough.

If you don't believe me, let's do a high-level view of Matthew 23. Look at verse 13, Matthew 23:13: "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" Is that talking about what He's for? Does that sound very loving? If I walked up to you and said, "Woe unto you, you hypocrite," that's not very loving. Jesus is the embodiment of love. And guess what He said? He said, "Woe unto you."

Now how serious was He about this? Look at verse 14: "Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites." Look at verse 15: "Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites." Look at verse 16: "Woe unto you, blind guides." Look at verse 17: "You fools and blind." Look at verse 19: "You fools and blind."

Look at verse 23: "Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites." Verse 24: "You blind guides." Verse 25: "Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites." Verse 26: "Thou blind Pharisee." Look at verse 27: "Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 29: "Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 33: "You serpents and you generations of vipers."

Are you kind of getting the point here? Wow, Jesus is letting them have it. Man, can you imagine if somebody were to act this way today? Well, that's the way Jesus acted. And one of the things we have to remember: Yes, praise the Lord, God is merciful. And yes, praise the Lord, God is gracious. But He's also full of wrath and judgment and righteousness and holiness.

And so this whole mushy gushy sort of thing where people like to only talk about the fluffy stuff, which I love talking about too. Thank the Lord, there's plenty of good things to talk about in the Bible like grace and mercy and kindness and patience and compassion. Oh man, those are wonderful themes. But I'm not sure you're fully going to understand how amazing God's grace is if you also forget that He's full of wrath and judgment.

I think there's a reason modern-day Christianity says, "Yeah, we love Jesus and it's all about love and all that stuff." But meanwhile, they're sinning it up and doing a bunch of sinful stuff and they think that because God's grace, it's a place you can, like the doormat, you can wipe your feet on God's grace as you're coming into church on a Sunday morning. That's not the Church of Jesus Christ.

The idea is to have that healthy fear of the Lord. It seems like Ananias and Sapphira, the Lord's setting a precedent saying, "Yeah, there's beautiful things going on here and the church is great grace, great power, but also great fear is going to come upon them because they sort of forgot this." Don't forget, everyone's going to appear before God.

The question is, are you going to appear before the Great White Throne judgment or the judgment seat of Christ? All of us are going to stand before God someday. I hope you're not at the Great White Throne judgment because that's the judgment of doom. The judgment seat of Christ talked about in 2 Corinthians chapter 5:10, it says, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, everyone, that they may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."

You're going to be judged according to your works, not for salvation. You're going to make it to heaven if you're making it to the judgment seat of Christ. But it's the rewards you get in eternity that shake out. Romans chapter 14:10-12: "But why dost thou judge thy brother? why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For as it is written, 'As I live,' saith the Lord, 'every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.' So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God."

So not all appearances before God will be wonderful and good, especially if you're at the Great White Throne. If you're wondering what that is, that's Revelation 20. We've talked about that in previous studies. But some will hear when they stand before God, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the rest." Like, some will receive that. Others will hear those horrifying words, "Depart from me, I never knew you."

So don't make the mistake of Ananias and Sapphira. "Hey, look at the wonderful church and all the wonderful giving and grace and the power of God through the apostles, wonderful, wonderful." But they forget that God's still righteous and there is still wrath and judgment. We worship a true and living God. And one of the things He's setting a precedent here is this sort of pretend play-acting, a hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira.

Well, back to Acts chapter five, now verse two. They sold the 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?"

Notice just a couple of things here. Number one, the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was energized by Satan. Here in verse three, it says, "Why hath Satan filled your heart to lie?" This raises an interesting question: Were Ananias and Sapphira Christians? It doesn't seem like maybe they were.

And it has to do with Satan filling their heart. But this is a tricky topic. If Satan wants to mess with Christians, can he possess Christians? No, that's an important thing to know. There's a lot of weird people on YouTube or on Instagram or social media talking about this demonic deliverance ministry. And they go into churches and talk about how you can be delivered from the demon of backache. It's ridiculous. It's not even biblical.

One of the things you have to remember: Satan is alive and he is certainly powerful, but greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. And so if you're a Christian, you have Christ in you, which is really important to know. And good news, the light of Christ is in you. If you have Christ in you, then light and darkness cannot coexist. Where there's light, there can be no darkness. That's an important thing to understand.

But the truth of the matter is, can Satan fill your heart with an idea? He may not be able to possess you, but I believe what happened here to Ananias and Sapphira can happen to the Christian. Not possession, but the enemy can whisper in your heart something about, "Well, people will like you and it'll be amazing." And he'll whisper in your ear, "If you do this or if you do that, then you're a little bit of a sinner but cover that up, be a hypocrite in the church."

And here's Peter saying, "Why hath Satan filled your heart to lie?" If Satan can't defeat the church from attacks from the outside, he will try to divide the church from attacks from within. So far we've seen attacks from the Sanhedrin, from even the Romans against Jesus and against the church. But now we're seeing the attack within. Satan's trying to mess.

Maybe you could call it spiritual jealousy. They wanted to be like Barnabas of chapter four when he was esteemed as giving all of his possession. So number one, the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was energized by Satan. But number two, the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was motivated by pride. They wanted to be esteemed by others. That's why they were making up this lie.

Remember Proverbs 8:13, this is something the Lord hates. It says, "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate." This is something the Lord hates. And so He's setting the precedent. And the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was also directed toward the Lord Himself, which is kind of interesting.

When you sin, remember that you've sinned against the Lord, not necessarily just sinning against the church. Check it out, verse four. It says, "And while it remained, while it was still your money," he said, Peter goes on, "was it not your own?" In other words, you could have done whatever you wanted with that money. You were free at that point.

"And after it was sold, was it not thine own power? You could do whatever you want. Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." When you sin, you sin against the Lord, not just against men. I think you could say you sin against men, of course, but there's some interesting Bible stories.

Do you remember when David committed adultery? Who did David sin against? When David gets caught by Nathan the prophet, do you remember what he said? In verse 13 of chapter 12 of 2 Samuel, David said unto Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." This is an important thing to remember. When you sin, you're not just sinning against Bathsheba or Uriah the Hittite.

Or against, he was the king of Israel, you might even say he was sinning against his own nation as the king. But when David comes clean, he says, "I have sinned against the Lord." This is a common theme. Do you remember the story of Joseph there with Potiphar's wife? And Joseph, he uses this as a rationale why he doesn't want to sin. Let me just show you that.

It's kind of a cool section of verses. Genesis 39:7: "It came to pass after these things that his master's wife, Potiphar's wife, cast her eyes upon Joseph, and she said, 'Lie with me.' But he refused and said unto his master's wife, 'Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath to my hand. There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?'"

You could argue he'd be sinning against Potiphar, the husband in the story. When you and I sin, one of the things we need to remember is we're sinning against the Lord. And that's a big point that Peter makes here in our story. He's saying, "Why is it that you're going to sin against the Lord?" Did you notice in verse four, he says, "Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God."

Then in verse three, he said, "Satan hath filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost." There's kind of an interesting sort of proof of the Trinity. Who did they lie to? The Holy Ghost, or God. Well, which one? Yes. They're both part of the Holy Trinity. And that's kind of an interesting addition there. But when we sin, we sin against God Himself. That's sobering. It should be something that gives us pause when we're ready to take up that sin and do that thing. It's tempting to do it, but if you remember, "Man, I'm not sinning against my family or my church or I'm not sinning against my own self; I'm sinning against the Lord," that should give us caution and even concern.

Well, verse five. It says, "And Ananias hearing these words fell down and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose and wound him up," that's in grave clothes, "and carried him out and buried him." Now there's a reason the Jews did that. When somebody dies, they just put them in the ground quickly. In a lot of these cases, there would be no real embalming even. There would just be a laying in the ground in these kinds of situations.

So they carry him out and bury him. Verse 7: "And it was about the space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, 'Tell me whether you sold the land for so much?' And she said, 'Yea, for so much.'" Now some of you might be thinking, is this a setup? Is Peter just purposely trying to set her up?

I think Peter's trying to discern. It's weird that he got a word of knowledge obviously in verse 3. "Satan hath filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and keep back part." That's a word of knowledge. That's one of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12, given a word of knowledge. But in this case, it seems that Peter's actually just logistically trying to get to the bottom of the truth.

And he gives her a chance to speak the truth. This is something your parents probably did to you. Didn't you hate it when your mom said, "Brett, is there something you need to tell me?" And you're like, "Oh man, which one? Which one?" You have to try to think. It puts you in a tough spot. Peter does that, and he's just being wise. He wants to know if she's lying against the Holy Spirit too.

So he gives her an opportunity. Did you sell it for as much as Ananias said? She said, "Yes, I did." That's the correct answer. Well, no, it's the lie. Verse 9: "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 many as heard these things."

So what a sad thing. God is gracious, but God is also righteous. That's Ananias' name, God is gracious, but don't forget He's also righteous and holy. Sapphira, her name means beautiful, but there was an ugliness on the inside of her pride and hypocrisy. And a good lesson to remind us to not play-act and to make, play games with God.

So they shouldn't have been messing around with sin. What is the church meant for? It's meant to be a place where you see truth. We're supposed to point to the truth, and these people were bringing their lies into the church, and the Lord says, "I'm not going to let that happen at the beginning." There was such a beautiful act of the Lord going on, and the Lord says, "I'm going to make sure this precedent is set."

It reminds me of part of the reason the church exists. You can jot it in your notes, 1 Timothy 3:15. It says, "But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of truth."

The church is supposed to be a place that is a pillar of truth, a place where the truth is found. And sadly, I believe that's not really the condition of much of the church today. The church has allowed a lot of Satan's lies to get into the church. And the only way I know to check and see if a church is really a pillar of truth, it really has to do with what do they do with the Bible.

If a church is talking about all their favorite topics and the pastor's many fine points of his sermons and stuff, and maybe a tacking on of a scripture here and there, I'd be leery of that. I'd watch out for that. Look for a church that's all about the word of God. Letting the word be the foundation, letting the word set the tone. It's about the word, it's about the scripture. The church is the pillar, the ground of truth. That's what it's supposed to be. And man, that area's been graded very badly.

But also, the church is where God dwells. Remember 1 Corinthians 3:16: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" Paul said there to the Corinthians. God is going to dwell in the church. That's another thing you look for. But also, God's army. 2 Timothy 2:3-4: "Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier."

You and I have been called, it's a battle, and we're soldiers, and you don't play games when you're in the military kind of mode. So Satan right here was trying to get a little foothold in the early church with Peter and John, and he was going to use Ananias and Sapphira to do it. And hopefully, none of us are allowing the enemy to get a stronghold or a foothold in the Church of Jesus Christ. We're supposed to be the pillar of truth, God's army, doing the work of God, and pointing to Jesus Christ. So that's the first section of this chapter, the hypocrites altering the truth.

Kurt: Pastor Brett Meador reminding us by way of the story of Ananias and Sapphira that despite the enemy's attempt to deceive, God and His word remain the ultimate truth. And there's much more of this verse-by-verse study of Acts chapter five to come as we continue in today's word. And I invite you to stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me here in a moment to talk a little bit more about the Acts of the apostles.

But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church in the Portland, Oregon area where Pastor Brett Meador is the senior pastor. We invite you to find out more about Pastor Brett and Athey Creek Church by going to todayswordradio.com. If you missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com.

All right, well Pastor Brett is here now and Brett, as we continue looking at the Acts of the apostles, we now see the church flourishing, and that seems to be the point where Satan really attacks. And he's attempting to stop the growth. And that's something that Satan is still doing in our churches today, isn't he?

Brett Meador: Yeah, Kurt, we see it over and over again. It's like Satan runs the same play that he did 2,000 years ago. But in Acts you see both pressure from persecution on the outside, but there was also compromise from the inside. From both inside and out, with Ananias and Sapphira. Notice in the book of Acts, there's an interesting mathematics. In chapter two, it says the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved, in Acts 2:47. In chapter six, it says the number of the disciples were multiplied.

But between the addition and the multiplication, there was subtraction where Ananias and Sapphira were removed in chapter five, where we are in our study. And sometimes that happens to us as well. Things are moving along good, we're growing, we're being added to, and then suddenly we're hit with a painful period of subtraction. And if you're in that place today, I'd just say take hope. It means good things are coming. As He did in the book of Acts, the Lord will subtract before He multiplies. And this is a great example here in Acts chapter five of how God is able to take what Satan means for evil and turn that around for good.

Kurt: Brett, this text in Acts chapter five is such an encouraging passage for the church today. Thank you for sharing that. Well friend, if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett Meador or Today's Word, just visit our website at todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com. Well next time, Pastor Brett will describe more about how Satan attempted to stop the growing power of the church but God's truth prevailed anyway. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.