Satanic Attack From Inside

Acts 5:1-16

We saw in the closing verses of Acts 4, when the church is strong, there is great unity, v32.

The people are of one heart and one soul.  They begin to think on the same things, and focus on the same things, and believe these are the important things, act on the same things and so there is unity.

When a church is strong, there is also great grace, v33.  That is, undeserved favour and goodness.  There needs to be for a church made up of sinners who are so different to be united like this.

There was also great power as the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection.  Not only did people believe the historical facts of the resurrection, but it so impacted on them that it changed their lives.

In what way?

Well, lastly there was great care.  As people not only gave what that they had, but they gave themselves to one another.

When a church is strong there is great unity, great grace, great power, and great care.

Now you might ask, great what’s the big deal about that?

Well, the big deal about all that is that those things together declare the goodness and greatness of the Lord Jesus.

As what we believe and say about the risen Lord Jesus, overflows into what we value and how we treat each other, all of these things together speak loudly to a watching world.

In Acts 4, here is an attractive, winsome group that presents to the world.

Barnabas was a sparkling example of all of these things.  Barnabas was originally named Joseph, but when he met with this apostolic band he received this nickname Barny, which means son of encouragement, because that is what he was.

Every time we run into Barnabas in the book of Acts we see … encourager by name, encourager by nature.

Here, Barnabas has an estate on the island of Cyprus, and he sold it, brought the proceeds, and laid them at the apostles’ feet so they could distribute it to the needy.

So things were going great in the apostolic church.  They couldn’t be going better.

So, what’s Satan going to do, do you think? 

Here is the church, 5:14, more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women.  What’s Satan going to do?

Just capitulate (cease to resist an opponent or an unwelcome demand; yield.) and think, “Oh well, looks like these early Christians have really got it together.  I guess I’d better go place my efforts somewhere else then.”?

No.  He’s not just going to sit back and let the greatness of Jesus continue to be proclaimed unopposed – he hates the glory of Jesus!

As we’ve seen already in the book of Acts, there has been external attack through the civil and religious authorities.  It hasn’t been very creative, nor has it been very effective in shutting these Christians up (you’d think by now that Satan would realise that everything he did actually only promoted the cause of Jesus – but he doesn’t give up).

When we come to our passage this morning we see it changes to an inward attack.

The agents of the attack are husband and wife.  The wife’s name is Sapphira, which in the Aramaic means beautiful.  The husband’s name is Ananias, which means, in the Hebrew, God is gracious.

I don’t think there are any two in all of Scripture who contradict the meaning of their names more than these. There is nothing beautiful, and there is nothing gracious in the lives of this unhappy couple as they’re presented here.

V1-2 of Ch5 tell you their problem, they describe it.

But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, ² and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet.

Now Ananias and Sapphira were new members of the Jerusalem church and they had witnessed Barnabas’ magnificent gesture.

They had also seen the response of the church in respect and admiration (they’d given him a nickname) which they desired for themselves.

They also owned some property, and let’s say for the purposes of illustration was $120,000.  So they announced to the church that they were going to sell that property and give all, underline all, of the proceeds to the church, just as Barny had done.

The property sold, the money came into their hands, and they hid $20,000 in Ananias’ sock drawer, and gave $100,000 to the church.

Now I think that if that had happened today it might go something like this:

Ananias would wait ‘til the hymn I Surrender All was being played.  And then he would hesitatingly walk up to the front of the church with his cheque for $100,000.  And then he would say something like this, “I would really like to give more but this is all we’ve got and dear old Sapphira and I, you know we’re people of just humble means so this is all of it.”

I surrender all, all to thee,
My blessed saviour, I surrender all

Not so.  It was a premeditated, deception.

It wasn’t a miscalculation in the cheque book.  It was pious pretence, religious sham, simulated holiness, Christian fraud, spiritual hypocrisy…

Our text is an extremely serious text. The sin that they commit is one that comes easily to all of us.

Speaking of old hymns there was one well known pastor who, on the basis of this text, would not allow his congregation to sing the third verse of At Calvary.

Now I’ve given to Jesus everything.
Now I’ll gladly own him as my king.

His rationale was this: if God acted today like he acted then, every church basement would be a morgue and there would be a mortician on every pastoral staff. I would also add, there wouldn’t be a pastoral staff either.

Now the question is, why did Ananias and Sapphira do this?  What were their motivations?

Perhaps one of their motivations was, they just wanted to be in.  They wanted to be seen to be on the inside.  Which makes sense – none of us wants to be on the outside.

Perhaps insecurity contributed to it.  In their insecurity they craved the blessing and the recognition of the leadership in the church.  They wanted that.

Or perhaps it was the bandwagon effect.  Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon.

It was highly probable that they simply wanted to be loved.  They wanted the applause and the admiration of the church around them. They wanted a reputation.  Well, now they have one.

Maybe they overestimated their capabilities and their commitment. They certainly underestimated the holiness and glory of God, and what was fitting in the kingdom of the resurrected Lord Jesus.

They just finished singing I Surrender All, and Ananias’ heart is beginning to thump.  He feels a little dizzy because Peter is not smiling.

Peter speaks in v3, But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? ⁴ While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”

Poor, wretched Ananias.

V5, When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. ⁶ The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.

You see Peter explained to Ananias that it was his money, he could do whatever he wanted to do with it.  He didn’t have to give it to the church.

In allowing himself to be filled with Satan, the dreadful contrast to being filled with the Holy Spirit, that in lying to the congregation he had not lied to them, he had lied to the Holy Spirit, he had lied to God.

He then fell down dead.  He was judged of God.  Peter didn’t kill him.  God did.

Then they buried him.

The sad thing is, the first funeral held in the early church was the funeral of a hypocrite.

Just imagine how this must have been.  No wonder in vv5 and 11 great fear came upon them.  People began to think about their own lives, whether there was deceit in their own lives.

Can you imagine if one of the elders was preaching a falsehood to the church and suddenly fell over dead?  What do you think that would do to us?

You’d really begin to think about where we are.  Our integrity.

What was their sin?

Now let me say, before we go any further, exactly what Ananias’ sin was.

It wasn’t casual deception.  It was a calculated, public attempt to create the idea that he was very spiritual.  It was a public, calculated attempt.

Specifically, it was to give the idea that there was a greater commitment that existed in his life.

We also see this in our own lives.  We share Ananias’ sin, not if other people think we’re more spiritual than we are.  That doesn’t mean we share Ananias’ sin.  We share Ananias sin when we attempt to create the idea among other people that we are godlier, and more dedicated, and more committed than we are.

We share Ananias’ sin when we promote the idea that we’re people of prayer, and we’re not.

We share Ananias’ sin when we promote the idea that we’ve got it all together.  We consciously engineer that illusion.

We share in his sin when we give the idea that we’re generous when actually we’re so tight we squeak when we smile.

When a preacher urges the congregation to a level of devotion which he implies that he has, and they should attain to it, but he hasn’t attained to it, he partakes of Ananias’ sin.

When we draw undue attention to our self, when really the attention should be on Jesus, we find ourselves here.

That gives us a lot to think about, if we really will think about it, because there is no one here that is free from this, nobody.

Ananias and Sapphira didn’t have to do this, they could have gone to the congregation and said, “Friends, Peter, we said we were going to give everything, but when it comes down to it, we feel we need to keep some for our own needs.  We’d like to be in Barnabas’ league, but we haven’t quite got there.  We’re really sorry we gave this false impression.  Please forgive us.”

Of course there would have been mercy and forgiveness extended.

What we see in the text, however, is that spiritual deception is heinous to God.  It is anathema (a detested person or thing).

What was their sin?

In short, they wanted to use the very thing whose main objective was the declaring of the glory of Jesus,

“My glory, I will not share with another,” says God in Isaiah 48.

Now Ananias is already cold in his grave.  And Sapphira comes along sometime later.  We don’t know why she came along later.  Perhaps she had some additional papers to sign at Century 21 Real Estate.  We don’t know.

But we read the result, in v7 and following.

After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. ⁸ And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” ⁹ But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” ¹⁰ Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

Now that is severe.  That is the severe, unbending judgement of God.  So it may not surprise you that there are people, commentators, who say that can’t be.

They reject this passage of Scripture.  They say that it was wrong, because Peter didn’t give them a chance to repent, he didn’t tell Sapphira that her husband was dead.  They say it’s out of keeping with the long suffering and love of the Lord.

When we ask the question, ‘why was God so severe?’ it has to lie in what we’ve alluded to.  That this was a pivotal time in the history of the church.  And what they were doing was so utterly opposed to the purpose of the whole thing.  If what they were doing had have continued on, it would have undermined the whole movement.

From church history we know that hypocrisy has always been a problem in the church, down through the centuries.  We know that it’s a secular by-word today for church-goers – “hypocrites”.  We know it infects and diseases local churches.

Paul said in Eph 4:25, Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

Spiritual deception poisons relationships in churches.  It does untold damage.  We know the consequences of this are big.

It is so easy, and so natural to fall to spiritual deception.

We are deceivers by nature.  Jesus tells us that Satan was a deceiver from the beginning; that by deception he brought the fall of the human race and that we are the children of deception.

If you add to this that we live in a culture riddled through with deception.  Our media, and our media hype, give us a continuous stream of hyperbole (exaggerated statement) and exaggeration and deception.  With “unbiased” surveys and fake news and … well what is truth really?

Have you ever been talking enthusiastically and freely and having a great time in conversation and are you really getting going when all of a sudden you realise you aren’t telling the truth anymore?

Deception can become a habit.  It’s easy to fall into habits of deception.

Samuel Johnson said, “Custom your children constantly to this; the telling of the truth.  If a thing happened at one window and they say when relating it that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them.  You do not know where deviation from truth will end.”

It is because we are deceivers by nature, in our old nature, because we’re surrounded by a culture that is permeated with deceit, and because we’re creatures of habit, we are not immune from this internal attack.

God is saying in the most dramatic way that it cannot be, it must not be, this way.

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another.

Am I, in general, a person who tells the truth?

Or, more specifically, am involved in conscious spiritual deception?  Do I try to make others think that I pray more than I do?  That I give more than I do?  That I am more dedicated than I am?  That I care more than I do?  That I love Jesus more than I do?

Do I consciously try to promote that?

These are serious questions.  I don’t think that this story was a joke.

Sure, it may not bring death to me physically, but it may bring death to us as a church.

We need to take an honest look at ourselves and ask, “in my life am I given to a pattern of deceit and misrepresentation and falsehood?”  Just generally.

Am I actively in my own life promoting the idea that I am more spiritual than I am?  Trying to make people think that I have something, or some quality, that I don’t have?

This is one of those ones where I might actually take somebody else to tell us.  A trustworthy friend to help you see what you perhaps don’t see.

Although one test you could do yourself is when you read this passage, if your initial response is not there but for the grace of God go I, then you’ve probably got a too high view of yourself.

Sometimes the attacks of Satan will come from the outside.  Sometimes they will come from the inside.

Do you love the thought that this church exists to make famous the name of Jesus?  Do you love the thought that you exist to display the glory of Jesus? 

Are you glad about that; that he is the goal of it all, that he is the centre of it all?  Are you satisfied in that, or do you recoil from that wanting for yourself some of that glory?

Do you love the truth that all of history is designed by Jesus to one day be a completed picture that displays in the best way possible his greatness and beauty?

This is why you and this church exists.  To see and adore and show the glory of Christ.

It is when we see that, we can ask ourselves “why would I care about my own reputation, or that I had a cool nickname like this other person does, or that I’m seen to be super-spiritual?”

Why would we have silly thoughts like that when we realise we belong to such a glorious saviour, and have the privilege of declaring his glorious name?