Lying About Our Commitment

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I want to invite you to open your Bibles with me and turn to Acts chapter 5.
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When you arrive at Acts chapter 5, hold your place there at verse 1.
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We have been studying the missionary zeal of the early church and seeking to make application to ourselves.
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It is said that the early church turned the world upside down for the gospel, which should be the desire of the church in every generation.
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Today we are going to look at the first time that sin enters the church in a very prominent way.
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And it is a sobering scene where we see God's judgment and a reminder of our responsibility not to live as hypocrites before Him.
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So I invite you to stand.
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We are going to read Acts 5 verses 1 through 11.
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And then we will pray.
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But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property 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.
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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? 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 men, but to God.
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When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last.
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And great fear came upon all who heard it.
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The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.
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After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened, and Peter said to her, Tell me, whether you sold the land for so much? And she said, Yes, for so much.
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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.
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Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last.
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When the young men came in, they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.
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And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I ask now that you would keep me from error as I seek to bring an exposition of this word.
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I pray, O Lord, that what I say will be faithful to the text.
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And I pray, O Lord, that you would open the hearts of your people to hear it and understand it, and that we might recognize, all of us, how urgent it is that we apply the truths contained therein.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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From the day of Pentecost, the life of the early church seemed almost like a fairy tale.
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Men were preaching the gospel.
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People were being saved in droves.
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It says, day by day, people were coming to know the Lord.
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So not only was there preaching ministry, but there was also personal evangelism ministry going on.
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And there were people, copious amounts of people, coming into the church.
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Great blessing.
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Even in the threat of persecution, which we discussed last week.
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Even though Peter and John had been taken before the Sanhedrin, they'd been put down and they'd been commanded not to preach, even in the midst of that persecution.
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And the threat of persecution, they still thrived.
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The church grew and grew.
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And it would be easy to imagine that this was a time of universal Christian perfection.
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That everything was right with the world, and nothing was not as it seemed.
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However, it's important for us to realize that things were not perfect.
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We mustn't forget that the early church, though supernaturally empowered, was made up of people.
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And people, even when they are saved people, have the capacity for great failure.
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And sometimes that failure can be on a very serious level.
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And the author of Acts, who is Luke, interrupts the flow of positivity.
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You know, some pastors think that's all you should ever preach, is what's positive, what's positive.
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Always give a positive message, always give an encouraging, uplifting message.
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Always preach positivity, never say anything negative.
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But Luke doesn't do that.
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Luke interrupts the positive.
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He interrupts the good things that are happening, and all this great wondrous blessing, all this great church growth, all this powerful evangelistic ministry.
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And he says, but.
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By the way, it's the first word we see here.
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It's the second word in the Greek, but the emphasis is on the idea of but.
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Because now something's changed.
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In the midst of all this goodness, in the midst of all this blessing, Luke interrupts.
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And says, but wait, there was a man named Ananias.
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Some might think it would be good if he would have just hid this sin.
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I mean, it would have been easy to sweep it under the rug, nobody had to know.
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It wouldn't have been that, you know, if he wouldn't have read it down, nobody would have ever, 2,000 years later, we'd have never heard of Ananias or Sapphira.
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We'd have thought that things were just perfect, and things were great, and never had a problem, never had a sin, never had to exercise any discipline in the church at all.
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It was just all hunky-dory and great and no problems.
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But Luke doesn't do that.
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So as a result, this comes to us as a way of reminding us this is not a fairy tale.
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And also as a way of reminding us that in all future generations, this passage is going to function as a reminder of what God has called the church to, and that is holiness.
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And when something interrupts holiness in the church, it's dealt with.
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And see, that's something we've gotten away from today in the modern church.
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We don't want to deal with anything, especially the things that interrupt holiness.
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We don't want to deal with sin on any level.
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And yet, in this passage, God deals very profoundly with sin.
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And what I'm going to do today is we're going to read through the text, and I'm going to give an exposition, and then I'm going to make an application.
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And your outline on your worship folder, I'll give you the fill-in-the-blanks later, because that's part of the application of the message.
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But first, as is our custom, I want to read the text and give an exposition.
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But before we read Acts 5.1, I want to give you the preceding situation, because to understand the story of Ananias and Sapphira, you have to understand the context leading up to this.
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Remember, the Bible wasn't written with chapters and verses.
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Those were added many years later.
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So what we have to understand is what happened in chapter 4 has great bearing on what happens in chapter 5.
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So I will encourage you to go back up to chapter 4, verse 32, and we see the preceding situation.
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The church is enjoying blessing in the midst of persecution, and starting in verse 32, it says, Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that of any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.
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And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.
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There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold, and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
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Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.
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That's the preceding situation.
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Barnabas, a man in the church, made a noteworthy donation.
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And we're not told what happens in regard to this donation, but we do know that it was known to the church, because it's written here in the narrative.
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Whether or not he was given any sort of accolades for having made such a blessing, we're not told.
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But we know that it's given, and this is the story that precedes the but.
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And we have to connect them, because that but is giving a contrast.
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Here is Barnabas, who gave this great gift to the church.
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He went out and sold, and obviously it was something worth noting, because other people had sold things, other people had given things, but he's noted by name, which means it's probably an elaborate gift that's being given.
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There's something here that's noteworthy, enough to mention him that the apostles give him a nickname.
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He's the son of encouragement.
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And so then we move to the next part of the story.
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This part isn't in the text.
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This part is inferred by the text, and this part I call the plan is forming.
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Because what we have now is two people who conspire together to defraud the church.
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It doesn't say what the conversation was like.
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My wife and I were driving in the car this week, going to see the baby and all.
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We had this trip, so we had a little time.
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We would go all the way to Uley, and we're talking on the way.
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And I was telling her, Can you imagine what the conversation between Ananias and Sapphira must have been like? Ananias goes to his wife and he says, Look at what happened with Joseph.
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Look at what happened with...
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He's called Barnabas now.
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He got a nickname.
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He gave this gift to the church, and man, everybody's excited.
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Everybody thinks he's the cat's meow.
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He is the best.
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I like that.
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Oh, how I like that.
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I wonder if we could do that.
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I wonder...
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I wonder if we would get the same pat on the back.
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I wonder if we would get a nickname.
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Hey, maybe it would be the couple of encouragement, huh? Who knows? Who knows what could happen? But you know, that's a big gift.
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That's a lot to make an offering of.
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I mean, we're wealthy.
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And if we sold that land, it's going to bring a pretty price.
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And boy, how hard is it going to be to let go of all that? You can take many trips to Walmart on what we're going to make off this.
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You know? This is a nice gift.
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So, I tell you what.
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Sapphira...
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By the way, her name comes from the same word we get that name for the jewel, the sapphire.
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It's a beautiful name.
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He says to her, He says, Sapphira, let's do this.
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Let's sell it.
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And we'll give the church a portion of it.
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But then, we'll tell them it was the whole amount.
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They'll never know.
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It's not like they're going to go check the tax records.
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It's not like they're going to go down to the city council's office and pull out the records and know how much we spent.
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They'll never know.
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We'll get the accolades.
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Everything will be good.
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It'll all be...
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It'll be a blessing.
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And you know what? They don't have it.
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So, whatever we give them is a blessing, right? That's the other thing that you have to see about Ananias and Sapphira's conspiracy.
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Their attitude must have been at some point, well, they don't have anything.
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So, anything we give is good enough.
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You know? So, then we see the plot is hatched.
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Verse 1, it says, But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property.
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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.
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Now, it's important.
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We've noted the word but there as being a contrasting situation.
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But what's also important in this story is the phrase kept back.
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The phrase kept back means to misappropriate funds for one's own benefit.
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It's also used for the word embezzle.
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Now, it's interesting that that word is used, because that same word in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, that same word is used in the story of Achan.
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Do you remember Achan? Achan was the one who held back some of the spoils of war when God had said, leave it all, and he held back some of the spoils of war, and he hid them in his tent, and then the men lost the battle.
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Israel loses the battle, and they say, But God, we weren't supposed to lose.
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You're supposed to be on our side.
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And God said, But wait, one of you has committed a sin.
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And so they threw lots, and they determined which tribe he was from.
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Then they threw lots, and they determined which family he was from.
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Then they threw lots, and they said, Oh, it's Lot.
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And he has done it, and he and his whole family are stoned.
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Because not only had he stolen, but he caused the death.
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I've taught on this before.
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He caused the death of over 30 men.
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He caused 30 families to be destroyed.
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The death of the parents.
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Because of that embezzlement, because of that stealing, because of that holding back something that God had said, let go.
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And that's what we see here.
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John Stott makes this note.
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He says, The same word was used in the Septuagint of Achan's theft, and it is only other New Testament occurrence it means to steal.
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We have to assume, therefore, that before the sale, Ananias and Sapphira had entered into some kind of contract with the church to give the total amount.
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Because of this, when they brought only some of it, they were guilty of embezzlement.
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This is what the word is implying here.
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And what I think, based on this word, has occurred is they made a promise.
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They said to the church.
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They saw what Barnabas had.
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Maybe it was in the midst of Barnabas' accolades.
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They said something to the effect of, Hey, we'll do the same thing.
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We'll go sell, and you can have all the money.
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And then they went and sold the money.
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And guess what? It took a little bit more than they thought they were going to get.
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Maybe it sold for twice what it was worth.
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And now they're like, Oh man, we made this promise.
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We said we were going to do it.
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And now, oh boy, now we've got to figure out what we're going to do.
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The next thing we see is the pretense exposed in verse 3.
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Ananias lays the offering at Peter's feet.
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Verse 3, it says, 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, 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 men, but to God.
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You see, Peter's point is simple.
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You didn't have to make this promise.
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You didn't have to do this.
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And even after you made the promise, you didn't have to give it.
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You could have come in and said, Look, it took more than we wanted.
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We're going to give this amount, and everybody would have been fine.
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This is not necessary.
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This is one of the things that I think confused people about the early church.
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People think the early church was communistic, in that everybody had to sell everything, and everybody had to give everything.
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Everything the early church did was voluntary, and this is proof right here.
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Peter says it.
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He says, It was your property.
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You didn't have to sell it.
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When you sold it, you didn't have to give us all the money.
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You were under no obligation.
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So the great sin here is what? The lie.
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It's the lie.
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Certainly, holding back was wrong, especially if they had made the promise which is implied in the text.
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But that's not the sin for which they're being judged.
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The sin for which they're being judged, the condemnation for what has happened here, is the lie that they're living.
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So we see the penalty leveled in verse 5.
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It says, When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last.
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Call that DRT.
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Dead right there.
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Right down.
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It was DRT.
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He didn't have time to walk anywhere, do anything, say I'm sorry.
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Nothing.
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He died.
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And here's one of the great times in Scripture where we have an understatement.
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And great fear came upon all those who heard it.
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Can you imagine if you came in this morning and held back something you had promised? Or you saw somebody else do it, and they fell flat dead in front of the communion table? You know, we don't often read the Scripture experientially, but we should.
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We should remember that these are real people in a real place at a real time in history.
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And we should read it experientially.
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We should read it and remember these are real people watching someone die.
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Right in front of them.
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He falls to his death immediately.
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I can't even imagine.
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Just the experience of that.
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Of being in the midst and just fall dead.
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Right there.
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You know, we talked earlier about Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron.
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They brought this censer before the Lord.
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And what happens? The fire comes out and consumes them both, and they're both dead.
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Right there in front of everybody.
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Later in the history of the Old Testament, there's a guy by the name of Uzzah.
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And Uzzah, poor Uzzah.
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Uzzah, I always feel bad for Uzzah.
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In my flesh, I feel bad for Uzzah.
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Because the ark toppled, he reached out to catch it.
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He did what most everybody would have done.
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And that is simply have the reaction of steadying the ark.
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Not realizing, remembering, I guess, that he wasn't supposed to touch it.
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Or maybe he did, and he was doing it in rebellion.
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Whatever happened, he put his hands up, he grabbed the ark, and he died.
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Because he knew from birth, because he was one of the Levitical class, that he was not supposed to touch that thing.
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And he put his hands on it, and he died right there.
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The same thing.
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When God's holiness is exposed to us, even for a moment, it is a very frightening thing.
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When Isaiah was in the temple, and he saw the Lord, Isaiah 6, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple, and he saw the Lord, he didn't say, Hey God, what's up? You know, I hear these guys today, well, I saw God, and we walked together, and we had a cup of coffee on Hallelujah Boulevard.
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No, you did not.
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Your little pants are on fire.
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No, you didn't.
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Because when the holiest man in Israel, Isaiah, saw God, he put his hand over his mouth, and he said, Woe is me.
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This is the holiest man in Israel.
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This is the head prophet.
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This is the guy.
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At the time, I don't think anybody else could have claimed more closeness to God than Isaiah, and yet he took a step, and he took his hand over his mouth, and he said, Woe is me.
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The holiness of God is a scary reality.
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And that's what we're getting a glimpse of here.
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God is holy.
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His holiness has now been tarnished by this sin, which has made its way into the church.
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So God says, For this moment in time, it's not tolerable.
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And so He releases His grace, and dispenses His justice in an instant.
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We forget, I think, that we are always under God's grace.
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Every moment of our life is spent under God's grace.
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Our heart is beating right now at the tempo of the grace of God.
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At any moment.
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As, what was it, Jonathan Edwards, he preached, Sinners in the hands of an angry God.
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He said, We are all as a spider going over a web which is spun over a flame.
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At any moment, the web could break.
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And this is what we see, a moment, web breaking.
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Right here.
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The web has broken.
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All the penalty has fallen, and an immediate judgment has happened.
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People want to argue as to whether or not Ananias and Sapphira were believers who had backslidden, or who were unbelievers who were false professors in the church.
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And I want to tell you, I'm not going to argue either side for you.
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I will tell you this, the Bible says in 1 John, that there is a sin that we can commit unto death.
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It talks about the fact that believers are disciplined in Hebrews chapter 12.
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Could it be that they were believers who had made a momentary lapse and mistake? Possibly.
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Could it be also that they were false professors in the midst of the true, and God is pointing them out? Possibly.
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I'm not here to argue that point with you.
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My point is this, when God lifts the veil of His grace, it's frightening.
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And that's why it says, Fear fell upon them all.
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But I want to show you this though, because it didn't stop there.
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The penalty was leveled against Ananias, but it was extended to his co-conspirator.
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Look with me at verse 7.
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After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in.
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Now, there's a question as to whether or not, why three hours? Pastor Brian Boardman in speaking on this passage said, well maybe she was trying to extend the accolade.
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You know, because if Ananias comes in, gets all the pats on the back, hey, you brought this gift, woohoo, you're a great guy.
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If she waited a little while, and came in after him, then it would all start up again.
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And if they really were glory hounds, and they really wanted the accolades that Barnabas had received, or whatever they were, this was a way of extending out that glory.
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Because they're going to glorify Ananias, and then they're going to glorify Sapphira, three hours later.
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John MacArthur, a little bit more simply said, well maybe she was spending the money, as she made the extra money.
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We don't know why she waited three hours.
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The text is not telling us.
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We can assume some things.
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But whatever the reason, she comes in unaware.
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But she comes with expectation of course, because she expects the accolades that Barnabas has received.
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She expects that something is going to happen positive, when she walks in those church doors.
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But instead, when she walks in, there's no Ananias, and there's no pat on the back.
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She walks in, and again, you got to think, everybody knows but her.
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I can't imagine three hours going by, nobody went and told her.
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Husband's dead and buried.
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I think the fear is probably what kept them from going.
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She comes in expecting one thing, boy she gets something else.
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She gets brought right up to Peter, and the question comes, opportunity for repentance by the way.
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Did you sell it for this much? At that moment, she could have said, you know Peter, we didn't.
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But no, she doubles down on her sin.
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She can't see Ananias.
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Maybe she's trying to back him up, thinking he's off somewhere getting the royal treatment.
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She'll be right behind him.
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And Peter said to her, verse 8, tell me whether you sold the land for so much? And she said, yes, for so much.
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But Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to test the spirit of the Lord? There's the conversation.
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They came together, they agreed, they conspired to do this.
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Behold, the feet of those who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.
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Immediately she fell down at his feet, and breathed her last.
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And when the young men came, and they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.
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And great fear came upon the whole church.
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Again, an understatement to say the least.
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And upon all who heard these things.
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Now, one might think that an episode like this would have killed the church.
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I hear people all the time today, you can't have church discipline, that'll kill your church.
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You can't practice church discipline.
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If you discipline one person, you'll end up on Fox News.
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Some churches have.
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And so you can't do it, because it'll kill the church.
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Let me tell you something, what's killing the church today is not church discipline.
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What's killing the church today is churches unwilling to bring about any discipline, unwilling to have any holy standards, unwilling to stand up for truth.
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That's what's killing the church.
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Don't tell me church discipline is killing the church, because it's not.
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Because here's what happened right after that.
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Again, I want to read what's before and after, because it tells us what's going on.
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Read verses 12-14, it says, Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles, and they were all together in Solomon's portico.
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None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.
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And more than ever, believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women.
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More than ever, the church is growing.
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Why? Because she was sanctified.
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That's got to be brought into our mind.
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The reason why the church is seeing exponential growth is because she was holy.
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And when sin came into the camp, it was dealt with.
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Might I say it was dealt with in a different way than we would do it today.
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We don't slay those who lie to the church anymore.
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We don't slay those who are committing adultery.
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We don't slay those who are embezzling.
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We don't slay those who are living in sin.
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But we do separate.
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We have to.
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If we're not holy, then we're not right.
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So, that's what's happened, and that's the result.
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And as I was considering this week what applications I wanted to draw from this text, there were so many that we could draw.
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We could talk about the reality of the wrath of God, which is seen clearly in this text.
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We could talk about the deity of the Holy Spirit.
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You know, this is one of the one passages where the Holy Spirit is referred to as a person, and He says, you've not lied to men, but to God.
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You've lied to the Holy Spirit.
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The Holy Spirit is referred to as God in this passage.
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And when we talk about the Trinity, this is one of the passages we go to, to help define the person of the Holy Spirit.
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We could talk about the purity of the early church, or the sanctity of the modern church, and their call for sanctity.
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All those things are important, but here's where I want to go as far as application.
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And as we know, there's one meaning, but several applications that can be made.
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Here's the application.
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Because I want us to consider this narrative from the perspective of commitment.
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We've been talking about going beyond our borders.
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That's our series.
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That's our subject to this year's missions work, going beyond our borders, doing what God calls us to do, and being committed to what He's called us to do.
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And today I want to talk about dishonesty in our commitment.
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Now that we understand the text, I want us to look at three things.
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Because what we see in this narrative is a couple who ultimately are lying about their commitment.
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And in your notes, if you want to write these down, I'll just give them to you very quickly.
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They lied to the church, they lied to themselves, and they lied to God.
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They lied to the church, they lied to themselves, and they lied to God.
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So let's look first at the first one.
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They lied to the church.
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Well, Peter says in verse 4, you have not lied to men, but to God.
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So I want to clearly address that and say what Peter is saying is not that they didn't lie to the church at all.
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What he's saying is that your judgment is coming because of your lie to God, not to men.
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So he's making a distinction there about why they're under the condemnation that they are.
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But there's no doubt they lied to the church.
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When Ananias and Sapphira came before Peter, they were openly lying to the church.
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And as we noted, they had likely already agreed to give the full price, but yet now were holding some back.
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And this lie, beloved, is the lie of hypocrisy.
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What is a hypocrite? A hypocrite is someone who does what he does as a show before people, but it's not what really is in his heart.
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Jesus told us this in Matthew chapter 6.
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He told us three times what a hypocrite is.
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He said, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do.
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That's a hypocrite, somebody who does what they do as a show.
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Chapter 6 verse 5, he says, when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues, that they might be seen by others.
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Chapter 6 verse 16, and when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces, that their fasting may be seen.
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So what is a hypocrite? It's a person who wears a mask.
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It's a person who does what he does for show.
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It's a person who does what he does in front of others, but in his heart and in his life, it doesn't match the mask.
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The hypocrite is always a liar.
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Even when they don't hold back an offering, like Ananias and Sapphira did, they're still liars.
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They're liars because whatever they do, no matter how noble, it's done as a show to the church.
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It's not done with the motivation to serve God, it's done with the motivation to receive some form of recognition.
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Even very little recognition.
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Here's how it often goes, a person has no affection for God when at home or away from the church, but when he comes to church, it's a different story.
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When he's at church, he's interested in all things godly.
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He's carrying his Bible.
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He uses God language.
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He uses church in ease.
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He speaks in the language of the church.
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He may even be popular within the body.
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He may even hold some position within the church.
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Yet, when he's at home, when he's away from the body, he lives like the world.
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He has no desire for the Bible.
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He has no desire for prayer.
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He has no desire for personal devotion.
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He has no desire for discipleship.
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He has no desire for these things, but he comes to church and he puts on a good show.
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And by the way, it's not just limited to the he's, ladies.
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I could have said the same thing.
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She comes to church.
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She puts on a show.
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But she goes home and leaves it all behind.
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If our involvement with the things of God is limited to what we do one hour per week here in this building, then we are living a lie.
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We are hypocrites.
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And in the same vein as Ananias and Sapphira, because the only reason why we come to do what we do is because in some way we think that this is a show and we're the actors in the play.
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So one, they lied to the church.
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Pretty serious.
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Second, they lied to themselves.
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At some point, Ananias and Sapphira convinced themselves that what they were doing was right.
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They probably said something to the effect of, well, the church doesn't really need all this money.
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We have needs in our family, needs in our home, needs in our lives.
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Certainly God will understand.
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It's amazing what we can convince ourselves.
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I've known men who convinced themselves, you know what? God said it's okay for me to cheat on my wife.
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God said it's okay for me to divorce and leave my family.
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God said it's okay for me to live in perpetual sexual immorality.
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God says it's okay for me to have pet sins or for me to do these things because they make me happy.
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We convince ourselves of these things all the time.
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At the heart of the problem is self-deception, and the Bible makes a big deal about self-deception.
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It talks about it a lot.
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Jeremiah 17, 9 says, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.
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Who can know it? You know what the worst thing that I hear in counseling? It was right in my heart.
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You know what my response is? Well, your heart's a liar because God said it was wrong.
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Don't come and tell me that your heart told you it was okay when God told you it weren't because I'm going to take you to Jeremiah 17, 9 and I'm going to sit you down and I'm going to make you read it until you get it because obviously you ain't yet.
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If you're coming to me and telling me your heart told you it was okay, our heart is a liar.
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It's desperately wicked.
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Who can understand it? No one.
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And so when we convince ourselves as Ananias and Sapphira at some point in this, they came to the realization, at some point, they suppressed truth enough to say, this is right.
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And that's why they stepped ahead.
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We can deceive ourselves about the most important things.
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We can convince ourselves that our sin is not sin when it is.
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We can convince ourselves that our bad deeds are good deeds.
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And we can even most frighteningly convince ourselves that we're believers when we're not.
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Matthew 7 says, On that day many will say unto me, Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name and perform any mighty works in your name? And yet I will say unto you, Depart from me, I never knew you.
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You know what? That person is.
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That person is self-deceived.
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They lied to themselves about their commitment to Christ.
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It's scary.
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When you lie to others, it's hypocrisy.
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When you lie to yourself, it's fantasy.
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And there are a lot of people that live a fantasy life when it comes to Christ.
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We listen to ourselves instead of the Word of God.
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We trust in our wicked hearts instead of in Scripture.
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Ananias and Sapphira knew what they were doing was wrong.
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The Scriptures told them what they were doing was wrong.
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Not to bear false witness.
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Not to steal.
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And yet they did it anyway because they convinced themselves it was right.
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They lied to the church.
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They lied to themselves.
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But most importantly, the one that Peter points out, they lied to God.
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This is the sin for which they are condemned.
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If lying to the church is hypocrisy, and if lying to self is fantasy, what's lying to God? Absurdity.
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Absurdity.
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There's a place in the Middle East called Bahrain.
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I knew a young man that I used to teach karate to.
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He went in the army.
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Ended up being stationed in Bahrain for a long time.
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And when he came back, he said, Keith, Bahrain is like the Las Vegas of the Middle East.
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He said they've got alcohol and all kinds of stuff that you can't get anywhere else, but they have it there because there's the belief among some, not all Muslims, but there are some who believe that God can't see that place.
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Some believe there's a cloud that hangs above it that God can't see.
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Others believe there's a mountain nearby that God can't see over.
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So they have this place that they go.
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And they can go there and they can spend all their time just sewing all the stuff, having all the crazy parties, doing whatever they want to do because that's the place God can't see.
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You know why atheism is so appealing to people? Because the idea that you can't hide anything from God is a scary proposition.
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What does the atheist want? He wants freedom from the eyes of the Lord.
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So he says he's not there, thus he cannot see.
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Tom Stoppard said this.
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He said, Atheism is a crutch for those who cannot bear the reality of God.
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How many times have you been told religion is a crutch? I always turn around.
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They say, your religion is a crutch.
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You can't deal with life, so you make up God.
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I say, no, you have the crutch, my friend.
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You can't deal with the fact that God exists, so you deny His existence.
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That's the reality.
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The Bible is clear that there is nothing hidden from God.
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Nothing hidden from God.
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And John MacArthur says this.
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He says, Secret sin on earth is open scandal in heaven.
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And when Ananias and Sapphira brought their gift, no one would have known except them and God.
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But God made it clear so that their sin would find them out.
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On the surface, their commitment was commendable.
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But beneath the surface, there was hidden a terrible lie.
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They claimed a level of commitment that they didn't possess and they wanted the accolades for that commitment.
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So here's the question of the day.
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Here's what I leave you with.
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Here's what I want you to take out of this place and into your homes and into the week.
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I want you to deal with this question because it's very simple.
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Are we lying to someone this morning? Are we putting on a show when we come to church but live like the world when we're away? Are we convincing ourselves that God doesn't care about our commitments or our pet sins? Are we trying to hide things in our life believing somehow that God won't see them? Who are you trying to fool? Who are you trying to fool? The church? Yourself? God? The Bible takes integrity seriously.
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How much do we have when it comes to the things of God? Let's pray.
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Father, we are struck with the reality that your word does call us to be people of integrity, to not be hypocrites, to not convince ourselves that our sins do not matter, to not try to hide from you who sees all things.
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Father, I know that in a group this size there are folks here who are happy in their hidden condition and yet what is hidden on earth is open in heaven.
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I pray, Lord, that you would convict us this morning, that you would convict us to repent of those things that we think are hidden but are open scandal in heaven.
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Father, if there are those among us who know not Christ, I pray that they would understand that all sin, for those who have called upon the name of the Lord, has been nailed to the cross and is forgiven in Him.
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And I pray this might be a day of conversion for them.
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And Lord God, for the converts, for the believers, if there are those here who have been living a life that is unpleasing to you, Lord, I pray that you would convict them to seek your face, to repent of their sins and to commit themselves to Christ fully and completely.
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We thank you for your word.
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We thank you for these narratives which we use to draw from great truths.
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And it's in Christ's name we pray.
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Amen.
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We will stand now and sing.
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If you have a need for prayer, you're encouraged to come.