Acts Chapter 5 Verses 1 - 2

• Now as we go into this next scene, realize and notice that there is a connection between Ananias and Joses. In the end of the previous chapter, Joses (also named Barnabas by the apostles) had sold his land and brought the full amount that he sold the land for and laid it at the feet of the apostles.  Ananias essentially does the same thing but his motive is not to give all, his motive is to appear as if he has given all…the generosity and repentance of Barnabas was known by all and he was publically respected by the apostles…Ananias wanted that too…

Acts Chapter 5 Verse 2

• To keep back the proceeds was within the rights and power of Ananias and Sapphira. There was no requirement for them to do this but the word in the Greek for “kept back” is a crazy word.  It’s nosphizo!  And it literally means to steal or to pilfer and so the manner in which it was kept back was  
• So here’s the scene and it’s bad. The church is born.  Power burst after power burst…the Word of God is being unlocked, the lame are being healed, the religious tyrants are being confronted, thousands of men and women are being saved and a tidal wave of love is sweeping Jerusalem!  Ultimate momentum…but know this, in this life, where there is anything pure, anything good, anything amazing and wonderful and fueled and driven and honoring to the Lord…there will always be creeps…(in your heart and in your life…people and things and circumstance and even your own flesh) things that creep in and turn the joy to injury and the amazing to agony…but they can’t touch the PURE!  Don’t forget that!  Honor the Lord, seek Him first…and deal with the day…God is with you!

Acts Chapter 5 Verses 3 – 4

• How did Peter know? We are given no practical, logistical  There are many ways Peter could have known…He may have been friends with whomever bought the land, he may have been made aware of the details of the sale somehow…or it could have been that the amount that Ananias brought was ridiculously low.  Could be something else though…Peter may be recognizing a lying spirit…not a demonic spirit but a sense that something is off in Ananias…
• And what Peter says to Ananias is powerful…, “Why has Satan filled your heart?” Literally, “Through what cause has Satan filled your heart…?”  Wow!  And check this out, “…To lie to the Holy Spirit!”  You cannot lie to a force or to a thing…you can only lie to a Person.  And so look at this and understand that the Holy Spirit is not a force or a thing but He is a Person!  And even more than that awesome truth, Peter calls Him God…see that?
• Ananias is wrought with sin. Rarely is only one flavor of sin present.  His sin is not keeping back the money. That money was all his to keep or to give or to save or whatever.  His sin was   He wanted to be considered as much as Barnabas.  He sin was deception.  His sin was rebellion.  His sin was faithlessness.  His sin was belittling God.  His sin was greed.  His sin was rotten leadership.  His sin was horrible husbandry…we could go and on and on…
• Perhaps the worst of it is the sin of hypocrisy. We often say the church is full of hypocrites but I disagree.  Hypocrisy is completely different then duplicity.  The church is full of duplicative  Folks alive in the spirit that battle the flesh…but hypocrisy is a totally different thing…that is to deceive…to fake it for personal reasons…it’s perhaps the most harmful sin in the church…folks say, “Man, Peter was harsh!  All he did was give a little less than he was putting on…”  The truth is that’s wrong.  There is so much sin going on in the heart of Ananias…and perhaps the worst of it all, in league with the enemy…Satan filled his heart but Ananias conceived the sin…crazy! 

Acts Chapter 5 Verses 5 – 6

• Peter pronounced no death sentence on Ananias. Some would say that the purity of the church was so strong and the Spirit was so very strong that the punishment was dealt to Ananias by God Himself but I’ve got issues with that.  Jesus had paid for Ananias’ sin.  Could be that he had a heart attack right then and there.  The early church was pure, strong, like a steam locomotive and everyone wanted to be part of it and all you needed was faith to get in…rebuke in public had happened but not within the church, it was always without and here we even have the first mention of Satan in the early church…it could simply have been too much for him…
• Interesting, we see two other things here. If Satan cannot have victory by direct attack…the religious elite, the leaders of the day had imprisoned the apostles, threatened them, put hands on them and yet the gospel grew in the heart of Jerusalem…the heart of the world…if the enemy cannot have victory by direct attack, if he can’t beat them, he’ll try to join them…as we have seen with man-made religion, prosperity teaching, word faith, cults, divisions and denominations…we ought not be ignorant to his ways…
• And finally, and I like this one…notice, Peter is probably stunned…no doubt he is heartbroken…and so the young men arise, wrapped him up, carried him out and buried him. I am so thankful for the young men and women in age, in the faith and those that simply love…who are willing to arise when tragedy happens and do what they can  to serve…especially when it’s the young men and the young women by the way…

Acts Chapter 5 Verse 7

• Either gossip really was frowned upon…word of this tragedy didn’t get spread…OR…she just ain’t go no friends! HA!!  Or…or it could be that she wasn’t around the church unless it was time for church…how about you?

Acts Chapter 5 Verse 8

• Peter “answered” her…and so her demeanor at least and perhaps she was vocal, was the same hypocrisy of her husband…the same work of the enemy…

Acts Chapter 5 Verses 9 – 11

• Saphirra was a knowing and willing participant in this sin. She didn’t have to be…one person was already lost, taken out…and yet here, same sin, more victims.  If you can think clearly for just a moment in the midst of some sort of issue or fight or circumstance or junk that others are involved in…if they are in sin…don’t share in it.  You don’t have to get so angry, you don’t have to fall into Satan’s trap of denying the Holy Spirit and destroying yourself…she didn’t have to let the same sin that destroyed her husband, destroy her…but perhaps the most sad part of this story…it did…
• What was done to you when you were young, what was said, what you saw…the Lord has a way not to heal that but to harness that and powerfully make you able to stand for righteousness and love and peace and joy today…the cure doesn’t have twelve steps, it doesn’t take three prayers a day…it involves no accountability partners…the cure for your damaged soul is to love the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength…
• You know that’s really a thing to think about as we close today…if in this life I’m doing better or putting more thought and effort into anything other than loving the Lord and knowing Him…then, in a way, I am messing up…wasting my life and time…if God is God…if Jesus has revealed Himself to me and He is all that His Word says He is…and He is…how could I become an expert in anything else over loving and knowing Him in my life…if I do, I so greatly err…look at this as we close…