Ananias and Sapphira - Acts 5:1-11 - Comments by Mike Kines

The story of Ananias and Sapphira is often seen as extreme and unfair, but it's important to understand that death is a consequence of sin. In the early church, believers were selling their belongings to help the poor, but this couple lied about their donation. They were not true Christians and only wanted position and prestige in the church. Their sin of lying to the Holy Spirit resulted in their death. Lying is a serious sin, deserving of death according to the Bible. The solution is to repent and have faith in Jesus, who died for our sins. I'm in the section of scripture on Ananias and Sapphira and this is Acts chapter 5 verses 1 through 11. This is a sad story. A lot of people think that this story seems extreme or unfair or unjust that all these people did, they've tried to paint this couple, Ananias and Sapphira, trying to do a good deed and you know, they want to give to the church but they won't tell us to take care of their own self and so here they are being struck dead by the Lord. A lot of people don't understand this story. They think that this is a strange story, it's unjust and it's unfair of what happened to this couple. However, if you want to really take things into perspective and think about things from the whole Bible, all the way back in Genesis, God told Adam and Eve, don't eat that tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and the day you eat it, you shall die. And so this sentence of death has been passed upon all man and so God's not unjust when anybody dies, God's not unjust when people die. Because God gave us a choice and we made the wrong choice and we brought the sentence of death down upon our own selves and so we can't never point the finger at God when people die in this world and say that this ain't wrong and what kind of God is this that he lets people die. We are at fault. We are the ones who has brought the sin and death into this world and we are the ones that are responsible for this. So back to the story about Ananias and Sapphira. Now if you remember from the previous chapter, Christians in that community, because of their love for one another, were selling their goods and their stuff and they were giving their stuff to the poor people in the church. They were selling what they had and they were bringing it to the apostles and the apostles were distributing to everybody according to whoever had need. And like I talked about before, I don't believe this is communism, I don't believe this is, I believe this was a communal living situation where people were helping one another and I don't think this was any type of political ideology that these people had when they were selling their stuff and giving to each other and distributing to people. Now having said that, I think that this couple, I don't believe they were Christians because this scripture says that Satan filled their heart. I believe that that scripture there is on purpose specifically to let us know that what you're dealing with here, these were not people who were Christians. These were people who were in the church and they were pretending to be Christians but they have their own reasons and motives for being there. And more than likely, what their motives were was for position and prestige and to gain some type of position in that church. And they thought that they could buy this position with money. But as we'll see later on, Peter even told this other fellow that your money perish with you. You can't buy a position. Now in today's church in America, that's not true. There are churches where men can come in, businessmen who have a lot of money, they can come in and they can buy their way in. And they can become deacons and they can gain power and prestige in that church and take over. But that's not really the true church though, is it? If it was a true church, you'd have an apostle like Peter standing up against that kind of wickedness of people coming in and trying to take control because they have prestige in their communities. Or they have money and they come in and just buy out the church like this. So you've got to be very careful about people in a community coming in with a lot of money and trying to buy out the church. But the Holy Spirit wasn't going to have that in this church. This was the early church and there was a precedent that had to be set in this church. And so the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. And that's exactly what they got. They got death. And you may think, well, what was their sin that they got the sentence of death? They lied. They lied to the Holy Spirit. And you say, well, a lie? Is a lie worthy of death? Well, let me read you another scripture over here. Revelation chapter 21, verse 8 says, So the fearful and the unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. So yes, to answer your question, lying is worthy of death and lying is not only worthy of death, but it's worthy of a lake of fire. So really we should be asking ourselves the question, how can we avoid this type of penalty? Well, the Bible says in Romans 6, 23, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So the answer to your sin problem is to put your faith in the Lord Jesus. Repent of your sins and put your faith in the Lord because he died on the cross for our sins. The scripture says that Christ died for our sins. He was buried and he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures. Amen. Well guys, the Lord bless you and keep you and we'll make his face shine upon you and the Lord give you peace.