22
Acts 5:1-11 LESSONS FROM ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA
Introduction:
In
our text today we witness a great sin being committed by A husband and
wife
who were in the membership of the church at
how the Lord dealt with them because of
their sin. There are lessons in thie
event for both the saved and the
unsaved.
I.
The setting for the text
In
our text last Sunday we saw a great unselfish spirit in the church at
the church. Then later about 5,000 were saved as a result
of the witness of
Peter and John when a lame man was
miraculously healed and apparently they also
joined the church. Most of these people had come from distant
lands and had
left their homes and jobs back home and
when they came to
not come to
they joined the church there and just
stayed. Pretty soon whatever funds they
had brought with them were gone and they
had no means of lifelihooe. They
needed assistance until they could find
work. Some of the people in the church
sold property and donated the funds to the
church to meet the need of these
people.
In
our text today we see one of the men of the church by the name of
Ananias
and his wife Sapphira commit a great sin against the
Lord. We will also
see how the Lord dealt with their sin and
prevented the entire church from
suffering a great setback because of the
sin of this one couple.
II.
The sin and punishment of Ananias
V.
1-2, “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.” Luke
tells us that Ananias
and Sapphira owned some property at
to help buy food for those who were in
need. At least that was a part of their
plan.
In verse 3 we will see that the property which they sold was a piece of
land.
Ananias and his wife Sapphira
discussed the matter beforehand and they
both agreed to sell this piece of land and
give only a part of the money into
the church treasury to buy food for those
in need. In keeping with their plan,
Ananias
sold the land and brought part the money to the church and laid it at
the feet of the apostles to be used to buy
food for the needy church members.
That
sounds great. Doesn’t it? Up to this point it all sounds so
generous.
It sounds great. It sounds great
until --- as Paul Harvey says--- we
know the rest of the story. What we will learn as Luke gives us the rest
of the
story is that Ananias
pretended to give the entire amount that he got from the
sale of the land, but he didn’t. He pretended to give it all, but he actually
kept back a part of it for himself and Sapphira.
When
Ananias laid that money at the feet of the apostles,
he must have
felt rather proud of himself. He must have thought, “We are pretty
smart. The
people will all think that we have given
all of the price of the sale to the
church, but actually we will be keeping
back a part of it for ourselves. They
will brag on us an praise us highly. But they won’t know that we have kept back
part of it for ourselves.”
Now
I take note that Luke does not tell us how much they got in the sale
of the land. Neither does he tell us how much they kept
back for themselves.
In the realm of possibilities they may have kept back only
a small part of the
money for themselves. Or they may have kept most of it for
themselves. Luke
does not say. I think they gave enough into the church to
make it appear to be
the entire amount of the sale. If they brought too small amount to the
church
the people would surely know that they got
more money than that for it. But I
think they kept back all they could and
still leave the appearance of giving it
all.
I
think you can see the problem which Ananias and Sapphira faced. They
wanted to keep everything they possibly
could for themselves. But they wanted
the praises of men badly enough that they
were willing to give to the church.
So they chose to pretend that they gave it
all when in reality they kept back as
much as they dared for themselves.
V.
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?” After
Ananias
laid the money at the feet of the apostles I can almost envision the
proud look on his face as he stood waiting
for Peter or someone to speak words
of praise.
Can you imagine how shocked he must have been when the Apostle Peter
and asked him why he had allowed Satan to
fill his heart and persuaded him to
lie about the amount of money he had give
to the church. Can you imagine how
the expression on his face changed. I can envision that his face first turned
as red as a beet and then turned as white
as a sheet.
Peter
continued to dress him down right there in front of all who were
present.
V. 4, “Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was
sold, was it not in thine own
power?...” Ananias
did not have to sell his land
so that he could give to the poor. land.
The church did not require of him to
sell his land. Neither did the Lord require of him to sell
his land. He could
have kept his land.
Even
after selling the land he did not have to put the money into the
treasury of the church. Peter said, “Was it not in thine own
power? You could
have kept the money. You didn’t have to put any of the money into
the church
treasury for the needy. It was yours.
You could have kept it all.”
Peter
asked also, “Why did you lie about it?
Why did you pretend to be
putting the entire amount of the sale into
the treasury when you were keeping
part of it for yourself?” (V. 4), “...why hast thou conceived this
thing in
thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men,
but unto God.” Peter said, “You lied
and you thought you were just lying to
us. You thought you were lying to us
apostles and to the church.” But Peter said, “In reality the One you lied
to
was God.
In effect you told God that you were giving your all, but you knew
that you were lying all the time. You lied to God.”
V.
5, “And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and
gave up the
ghost...”
Ananias fell down and his last breath went out
of his body right
there in front of all who were
present. Let me point out to you that
Simon
Peter did not cause the death of Ananias. The rest of
the apostles had nothing
to do with his death. They did not cause it to happen. The rest of the church
members had nothing to do with his
death. It was to God to whom Ananias lied
and it was God who killed Ananias. He killed
him on the spot.
(V.
5), ...and great fear came on all them that heard these things.” The
punishment that God brought on Ananias was swift and it was severe. But God got
the attention of all the rest of the
church members. I think I can assure you
that nobody else lied to God about what he
was putting in the church treasury.
I think we can say that they did not dare
to lie to God about anything.
Whatever their faults and wrongdoing may
have been, they confessed it to God.
They didn’t lie to God about it. They didn’t pretend that they had done
nothing
wrong.
V. 6, “And the young men arose, wound him up,
and carried [him] out, and
buried [him].” Without any delay, without any embalming,
without even
contacting his wife, and apparently
without any weeping, the young men wrapped
his dead body and buried it. They were all pretty much in a state of
shock.
III.
The sin and punishment of Saphira
V.
7-8, “ 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 ye sold the land for so much? And
she said, Yea, for so much.” Simon
Peter did not at first say anything to Sapphira about what had happened to
Ananias. Rather he asked a question which would reveal
whether or not she had
been in conspiracy with her husband in
lying about the matter. He apparently
named the amount of money that Ananias had brought to the treasury and asked her
if that was price that they had gotten
from the sale of the property. She
confirmed that this was the amount they
had gotten for the land.
It
was then that Peter informed her what had happened to her husband. V.
9, “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.” Like Ananias,
Sapphira must have
been stunned. And like Ananias,
she, too, suffered the same severe penalty for
her sin.
V. 10, “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.”
IV.
Lessons from this event
V. 11, “And great fear came upon all the
church, and upon as many as heard
these things.” I have already pointed out to you that all
of the rest of the
church learned a valuable lesson from this
event. They learned that it does not
pay to lie to God. There are severe consequences when one lies
to God. I am
sure that they were very careful not to
make the same mistake that Ananias and
Sapphira
made in lying to God.
We
should learn the same thing. We should
learn not to lie to God about
what we give to Him through the
church. Oh, I am sure that nobody would
claim
that he is putting a hundred dollar bill
in the plate when he is only putting in
a fifty.
But Christians have been known to stretch the truth when they did not
give anything in to the church. They have been know to say, “I wanted to
give,
but I just didn’t have it to give” when
the truth was that they did have it to
give.
They just chose not to give. And
Christians have been know to say when
they just gave a small amount, “I wish I
could have given more, but I couldn’t.”
In
addition to the matter about lying, I think they must have also learned
a lesson about pride. It is a sin to be lifted up in pride so that
you have an
excessive desire for the praises of men. It is a sinl to be
so filled with
pride that your ego has to be fed with the
praises of men. If Ananias
and
Sapphira
had not been so concerned about getting the praises of their fellow
church members they would hve told the truth and they would not have gotten into
this trouble. Peter said, “You did not have to sell the
land. And after you
dild sell it, you didn’t have to
give all the money to the church. You
could
have pept part
of it. You dinn’t
lave to lie about it. You did not have
to
give any of it to the church. You could have kept it all. You didn’t have to
lie, but you wanted the paises of man and that got you into trouble.
They
learned that sin cannot be kept secret from God. It cannot always be
kept secret from one’s fellow man. It can never be kept secret from God. God
always knows what we do.
They
may have also learned a lesson about covetousness. The last of the
Ten Commandments says, “Thou shalt not
covet.” They had an excessive desire for
mopney
and for the material things of life.
They desired them enough that they
lied in order to keep some of that money
in their possession. They simply did
not want to part with it and they were
willing to do wrong in order to keep it.
They were willing to lie in order to have
it.
Luke
also informs us that not only did the church people learn a lesson
from this, but all of the people out in
the general public who heard about the
event also learned a lesson. They learned that God is a High and Holy God
who
does not tolerate sin. They learned to respect God’s position as the
Supreme
Ruler of the Universe and they had a great
reverence for God as a result of what
had happened to Ananias
and Sapphira.
We,
too, who are present here today are now hearing about this event and
we, too, should learn to reverence
God. Sin has grave consequences. It is not
just the sin of lying, the sin of pride or
the sin of covetousness brings severe
punishment from God. But all sin brings the severe punishment of
God. Adam ate
one piece of fruit and look what
happened. God’s punishment on the
unsaved will
be severe -- very severe. The sad truth is that unless we repent we
would all
suffer severe punishment for our
sins. We will all stand before God in
judgment
and unless one has been saved by the grace
of God through faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, then he will suffer the
consequences for his sin throughout all
eternity.
Even
those of us who are saved need also need to learn that there will be
consequences for our sins. Those of us who
are saved will go to heaven in spite
of our sin because the blood of Jesus
Christ has cleansed us from all sin. But
we should not think that we can sin and
get by with it. . We will suffer the
chastisements of God in this life. Let us seek to live our lives in a way that
pleases God.