Why Communism Ain't of God

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. This program is dedicated to helping you better understand the word of God and the doctrines of grace. The Bible tells us, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to study along. Here's your host with today's lesson, Pastor Keith Foskey.

Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira, and the Charge of Communism

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Take out your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter five. Now, while you're turning there, I wanna make a quick announcement.

We are getting close to August and August is the time of year where I normally take some time off. I always take at least one or two Sundays off and my fellow elders will preach in my stead and I take Wednesday nights off as an opportunity to sort of recharge and begin to look forward to coming back in September with new lessons and a new opportunity to kick things off and August is just my normal time of rest throughout the year.

And because of that, I've been thinking about what I'm gonna do with the show. I don't want to stop doing the show because so many of you have been so gracious to tell me that this is a daily part of your Bible routine and I don't wanna interrupt that, but what I'm thinking of doing I will probably not be videoing all of my lessons through August.

What I'm thinking of doing is switching to an audio format. Now, it'll still be on YouTube, it'll still be in a video form, but it'll probably just have a picture. Some of you say you really like the backgrounds that I use and so what I'm probably gonna have is you'll just have the background without me.

It will make it easier for me to do multiple days worth at a time because I can just sit down and do the audio and it'll make it more of a podcast than right now it's more of a video podcast or a video cast.

So we're going to probably make that switch in August and I hope you'll continue to watch and be faithful as I'm seeking to be faithful in leading those few of you who follow every day and are studying the Bible with me.

Barnabas, Ananias, Sapphira, and the Sin of Lying to the Holy Spirit

Well, again, we're going to be looking at Acts chapter five and I wanna focus primarily, there's two parts of this that are to me just hugely important. One, of course, the interaction of Ananias and Sapphira, but also the portion where the Apostle Peter says those very important words that when he's told that he must stop preaching the gospel, he says in verse 29, we must obey God rather than men.

And so having to decide between which one of those I wanted to deal with, I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna sort of split the difference and I'm gonna mention a few things about both. Let's go back up to Ananias and Sapphira first and let me make a few comments about them.

The first thing that I always like to point out to anybody who reads this is that to understand the real context of the narrative of Ananias and Sapphira, you really need to understand the end of Acts chapter four, because what it says at the end of Acts chapter four, beginning of verse 36, it says, 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.

A lot of people go to Acts five and they look at Ananias and Sapphira and they say, well, why did they go and sell a piece of property? Well, I believe the reason is, and even though it doesn't say it in the text, I believe it's implied here, is that Barnabas sold a piece of property, he gave the money to the apostles and he probably received some sort of recognition for it.

People certainly saw what he did and certainly there was probably some form of recognition for him having done that. And so they say, hey, we have a piece of property, we wanna sell it, we want the same recognition, which is often a wrong motivation, but it is a motivation that happens in the church.

People wanna be recognized for something that they do. So it says that they sold a piece of property and gave part of the money to the church and kept part of it for themselves. So far, they haven't really done anything wrong because later we're gonna see, and this is the part I wanna point out, Peter is gonna say to them, it was your property, you could have sold it or not, nobody told you you had to.

And nobody told you you had to give us all the money for it. The problem is they lie. They lie to the Holy Spirit of God. And when they lie to the Holy Spirit of God, this is what we see in verse three.

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 man, but to God. Pause right there and just for a second, that's a very important Trinitarian verse because Peter's talking about the Holy Spirit and he calls the Holy Spirit God.

He said, when you lied to the Holy Spirit, you lied to God. That's just an important recognizing the personality of the Holy Spirit, recognizing the divinity of the Holy Spirit. You can't lie to a force.

Some people believe the Holy Spirit is just a force. Can't lie to a force. You lie to a person. The Holy Spirit is a person. He is a third person of the Trinity and he is God. This verse reminds us of that.

And again, going back to this, this is Ananias and Savirah's choice. They have a choice to do this. No one is commanding this of them. What they're in trouble for is lying. They're not in trouble for not giving.

They're not in trouble for not selling or not giving the whole amount. And that's important because there is a myth, a very popular myth, that the early church was communistic. In a communist society, everything is shared and there is no private ownership.

The government has control. In this case, the government would be the apostles. That's the model that's often used. They say the apostles functioned as the government. They distributed what they saw fit to the people.

And this is the example of how the early church was communistic. Baloney. It's baloney. And the reason why we know that is because of Acts 5. In Acts 5, Ananias is told, it was yours to do with what you wanted.

You did not have to sell it. Look again. Notice the passage again. He says, Ananias, let's hear. It says, verse four, while it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? Private property rights are one of the most important and foundational rights that God gives us as human beings.

It is in the eighth commandment, thou shalt not steal. Stealing is predicated on the concept of personal property. You can't steal if nobody owns anything. If everything's shared by everyone else, there's no such thing as stealing.

So the early church was not communistic. I will stand upon this. I will argue this. The early church was not a communist society. They were a society that cared for one another, and they did share what they have with one another, but they shared willingly.

They were not compelled. They were not forced. They were not demanded. They took care of one another. That's not communism. That is not communism. That's Christianity. Christianity cares. Christianity cares for brothers and sisters.

It takes care. In fact, if you look around the world at the wonderful charities and the wonderful missions and the wonderful homes for children who are orphaned, it's almost always Christian groups, or at least some other kind of religious group, because there's an impulse to do these things.

The idea that doing good to one's neighbor is only found in communism is an outright lie. I can't stress it enough. This passage does not teach communism. It teaches the opposite. The early church had private property rights.

Ananias and Sapphira are proof of that. Peter's words to Ananias are proof of that. They were in trouble for lying to the Holy Spirit, not for keeping back a portion of it for themselves. Now, having said that, this goes along almost the same lines.

Obeying God Rather Than Men When Government Overreaches

When we go down and we see this verse in verse 29, when Peter said, we must obey God rather than men, and I say, well, how do they go together? Because now Peter is dealing with another government issue, and this is the government issue of government overreach.

As Christians, we're called to be good citizens. We are called to obey the governing authorities, even when those governing authorities are not necessarily Christian authorities. Even when those governing authorities are not necessarily what we might say are godly authorities, we're still called to be good citizens and to obey the governing authorities.

The governing authorities in Paul's day were not godly, but he still says in Romans 13, we have in 1 Peter 2, to obey the governing authorities, to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, to give honor where honor is due.

But it is not without a limit. There is always a limit. And the same way there is a limit when we say wives submit unto your husbands, there's a limit to that, because if the husband is calling the wife to do something ungodly, if the husband is harming the wife and injuring her or abusing her, there is a point where she can seek to be removed or she can leave or she can stand up to her husband.

And the reason for that is because even though she's called to submit, it is not without a limit. And the same is for the government. If the government calls us to do something that is ungodly, like cancel church indefinitely because of the potential of a disease, then the church, the elders of the church may have to stand up and say, I don't think so, Skippy.

We're not gonna do that. Just last week, Dr. John MacArthur's church decided they were gonna stand up and no longer be forced to stop meeting. And he has a very large church. And they were threatened, the government threatened to cut the power if they had worship.

Well, they went ahead and had worship. And by God's grace, there was no interruption. There was no cutting of the power, at least none that I've heard of as of yet. But we continue to pray because they're taking a stand.

And they're taking the same stand, if you will, that was taken in Acts chapter five. They are choosing to obey God rather than men. We see the same stand taken in Daniel. When Daniel was commanded not to pray, he could have went into his house and prayed privately and no one would have ever known, but he didn't.

He walked outside and he prayed outside and he was fed to the lions. But guess what? The lion's mouths were shut because God is the ultimate sovereign. We have to understand that when it comes to obeying God or men, we will always have to obey God rather than men.

Now, I did a whole sermon on this a few months ago called Church and State. So if you're interested in learning more about that, I would encourage you to go to our sermon audio page and look up the sermon entitled Church and State.

Closing Remarks and Listener Call to Action

Well, this brings us to the end of this episode of Coffee with a Calvinist. I hope you have enjoyed what we have done today. And again, I wanna thank you for listening. My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.

May God bless you. Thank you for watching this episode.

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