Lying to God (Part A)

You're not great, this great guy, you know, on Sunday and then Monday comes in the genuine way and then you're now all of a sudden wrong, unless you can certainly mask that, but I mean deep inside. And I base this on the Bible's teaching about God's judgment. God's judgment is not as we covered on the prophet Nahum. It's not random, it's not capricious, it's not a whim of God.

It is careful, loaded with opportunity to escape the judgment. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Acts.

Today's message is a partial recording, but please stay with us afterwards to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Acts chapter 5 as he begins his message, Lying to God. If your God cannot tell when lies are told, you have the wrong God. You do not have the true God. Such low opinions of God turned an archangel into Satan himself. High opinions of God exalting the Lord. These are the things that are true and right and helpful, but homegrown ideas about deity, about God, are always unacceptable to him because they are insulting.

To make up things about God is an insult to God. And so before us, the story of this married couple who thought they could lie to God and survive. Satan was behind the whole thing because Satan hates the local assembly of believers known as the church. Satan is against us and God protects us. It is a high-value target for Satan to get to the church to destroy it and he succeeds many times. Christ bought the church with his blood, the Bible says.

Satan tries to cheapen the purchase and he does it through people who attend the church. Here begins Satan's first attack on the local church, the local assembly is his first attack from within the church using hypocrisy, the lie of hypocrisy as his tool. Coming from our Lord himself about Jesus, we have this information that could only be gained by someone as Jesus, God the Son. John chapter 8, Jesus speaking to the religious hypocrites of his day that confronted him, he said, you are of your father the devil and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources for he is a liar and the father of it.

Man, that's pretty intense. I mean, if Elijah had said this, it would have been scripture, it would have been powerful, but there's always something a little bit more. Am I the only one that when it's right out of the mouth of Christ, it's just a little different?

All of it is God, all of it is out of the mouth of God, but to hear Jesus say it to me, it registers in a slightly different way. Well, in this section that we're looking at, Satan's attack on the church as I've been emphasizing so far is proof, is proof that the entire church was in jeopardy and that God found this at this early stage intolerable and was determined to make a statement that would last down through the ages to this very day. Initially, the world was oblivious to what took place this day before Peter concerning Sapphira and Ananias. Afterwards, when the world learns of such things, do they understand?

Do they get it? Well, it is up to us to help them understand these things. These are distractions of hell to get people to be confused, to get people to look away from what God is saying, listen to me. This is what hell does. This is why in the sanctuary, we put such an emphasis on removing distractions so the focus can be on what God is saying through his system that he has established the church and the preachers that he appoints to preach the word to the believers that are then entrusted to go out and preach the word as God opens opportunity.

So all of that to say is very serious. We look at verse 1, but a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira his wife sold a possession. Remember, no chapter divisions existed in the original writing of the New Testament. That came centuries later. And so rightfully the way this reads is look at, if you have your Bible still open to Acts chapter 5, you look up two verses to Acts chapter 4 and verse 36, and Joseph, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles, which is translated son of encouragement, a Levite of the country of Cyprus having land, sold it and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. But a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira his wife sold a possession and kept back parts. So there's a direct connection between the two events.

This wasn't a random thing. Everything here is coordinated, both from heaven's perspective and also from the enemy. Ananias and his wife wanted the attention that Barnabas got. They wanted the fame in their thinking that he received. I mean, the apostles went out of the way to name him the son of encouragement. They embraced Barnabas.

Not only did he donate the land, I mean the proceeds from the land, but he had this character. Hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may have glory from men. Surely I say to you, they have their reward. There's going to be a pattern to all three of these rebukes Jesus lays against hypocrisy in the church. And for them it was the synagogue, which is a parallel, the Jewish parallel to the Christian church. Notice I did not say gentile church. There's no such thing. It's a Christian church.

It's comprised of Jews or gentiles or anybody else. I mean, you know, you hear a lot of hype about UFOs, unidentified fried objects, or you have a series of flying saucers. I mean, I'm not going to get into that, but just to say you're walking and somebody gets out of a flying saucer. Well, you make them an offer.

How much for the flying saucer? You preach Christ. Where do you stand with the Lord?

All right, that's just a little fantasy break in the middle of all this because we'll get back to this now. So that was the first rebuke on giving. And then when praying. Now remember, Jesus is citing these that are claiming to be devout churchgoers. When you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men. But surely, I say to you, they have their reward.

He's going to repeat that again. They have their glory of men. They have their reward. Glory of men. They have their fame, which is what Ananias and Sapphira was after. And I think, again, that link between verse one of chapter five, verses one and two of chapter five, and the last two verses of chapter four put it all together for us.

Removes a lot of the guesswork. Jesus said, when fasting, when drawing close to God, don't use it as a springboard to boast about how spiritual you are. And everybody else is not. Matthew chapter six, verse 16, Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites with a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear to men to be fasting. Surely, I say to you, they have their reward. There's no nonsense about hypocrisy, about acting faithful. It was in the vicinity of those three verses on hypocrisy, it was that Sermon on the Mount. As Jesus closes up his Sermon on the Mount, in the vicinity of those rebukes, he says this, Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not professed your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? Then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

Lawlessness, antinomianism. That means, you know, I can have my salvation. I don't have to obey. He did all the dying.

I don't have to do any of the obeying. That is rebuked. It is disingenuous of these two to act like they gave and to want the applause as an actor. And they didn't get it. Well, there's more to the story. This is not the end of it. You would think that the Holy Spirit would have said, let's just say they lied to me and I slew them. And then we go to chapter 6.

But that's not how it goes. He lays out these things, all of the scriptures laid out for us, because our response is, them what, Lord? Verse 4, while it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control?

Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God. While it remained, was it not your own?

Yes. God never told you you had to give any of this. It was once you made that pledge.

And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Yes, you have no one else to blame, Ananias. You have not lied to men but to God. And there again, the Holy Spirit is called God. And when you link the three verses and compare them and examine them, it doesn't take much. Verse 3, verse 4 and verse 9, the Holy Spirit is God the Holy Spirit, third person of the Godhead. So when, you know, someone go, the word Trinity is not in the Bible.

No, but the word Godhead is, and it is the exact same meaning. It's just that we know that there's only three that have been given the status, you shall baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is the Trinity. And there's more teaching, of course, on the Trinity, but that's just a quick overview. For in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead. That's what it was said of Jesus, and that's what you can say of the Father and the Holy Spirit likewise. These are the last words that Ananias heard in this life. You have not lied to men but to God. Lying to God.

That's the last thing he heard. Verse 5, then Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed his last. So great fear came upon all those who heard these things. Let me tell you, there are a lot of Christians that don't have the fear of the Church, and they are wrong. They think that it's just a place for them to go, to be accommodated, that they have entitlements. They don't see it as the house of God. Years ago when I was a new Christian, I attended an Assemblies of God church, and I believe that most of those people there, they loved the Lord. I didn't agree with a lot of their theology then, and I still don't, but I knew I had nowhere else to go, and I would fellowship with them. And the pastor there, Pastor Bear, he would get up into the pulpit every Sunday morning, and he would say, good morning, welcome to the house of the Lord, and I loved it. And at some point in my ministry, I reflected on that and said that I would be cheating the people not to say that. This is God's house, and people are welcomed here, but they're not welcomed to try to take over the place.

And this is again, who would try that? Well, many visitors come here, and they try to impress upon us what they think we should do and change, because they're lacking that fear of the house of God, which is the church, the ecclesia, the curios church that Jesus bought with his blood. And it is the role, not only of the pastor to shake up that teaching from time to time, but it is your role too.

Invite somebody to come to church with me, but let me tell you something, don't be coming up in here. We want to be loving, so you say it in a soprano voice tone, don't be coming up in here, and they won't think you're being so aggressive. We live in a time where any form of acceptable aggression is not acceptable. That's why there's this war on masculinity, on men. They say, you know what, you're too much of a threat to the wrong things we want to do.

Let's get rid of the bucks, and we can take over everything. And they've been succeeding at that, right? Turning men into something else. They're not turning them into women, they're turning them into monstrosities. So we won't insult women like that, and nor will we insult them any other way.

Femininity is a good thing, but it is dying. Verse 5, then Ananias hearing these, oh I read that, so let me just finish commenting, because I got a lot of juicy stuff on this. So he fell down and breathed his last, he died.

So great fear came on all those who heard these things. This gives the biblical meaning of being slain in the spirit. This is slain in the spirit. So I was slain in the spirit, brother, so was Ananias. Dave Hunt says the only slaying in the spirit that can be substantiated from scripture was the death of Ananias and Sapphira. If you don't know who Dave Hunt is, you're missing out. You can say the names have changed, but the facts remain.

Where are the Dave Hunts today? What a great man of God he was, and I miss him very much. I believe that the two victims in this chapter were always up to no good. You know, no one suddenly becomes base. No one suddenly becomes evil.

You're not this great guy, you know, on Sunday and then Monday comes in the genuine way, and then you're now all of a sudden wrong, unless you can certainly mask that, but I mean deep inside. And I base this on the Bible's teaching about God's judgment. God's judgment is not as we covered on the prophet Nahum. It's not random. It's not capricious. It's not a whim of God. It is careful, loaded with opportunity to escape the judgment, just like Peter here asked Ananias. Ananias could have said, okay, you got me. I repent.

His wife will get the same interview. Neither one of them will repent. Nahum chapter 1, Yahweh is slow to anger, great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked. And in that verses, God's desire to save, not to harm, but when he acts to harm, it has been well thought out on his part as a righteous God. No one becomes base overnight, not even Judas Iscariot. Judas Iscariot was chosen to be on the staff of Jesus Christ because Christ saw in him the potential to be like the other apostles. It was Judas' choice to become the traitor. Before Satan filled the heart of Judas, Judas was already embezzling from the money box. So it wasn't that night that he betrayed the Lord that suddenly this happened.

He was already up to no good. And there are other cases in scripture and we need it from scripture. I don't want to give you my opinion unless the scripture can back it up, or the scripture's always in the lead, so I don't want to make it sound like it's secondary to my opinion.

My opinion's secondary to scripture and so is yours. So this judgment of Peter's, it's not man's jurisprudence, it's not man's court of law where the best litigator wins regardless of the facts. This is the king's court and he doesn't have to say, well we know you did this and here's why. He's actually saying, you did it.

We're not asking you if you did it. Psalm 98 verse 9, for he is coming to judge the earth with righteousness he shall judge the world and the peoples with equity, unlike the court of men. I mean there are some good judges but there are great many foul people who should be nowhere near a courthouse, they should be in jail. And they are loose and they are out there. It continues here in verse 5, so great fear came upon all those who heard these things. Well again, no surprise, at this point only a handful heard these things within three hours. This would have been suppressed or twisted by the evening news. If the evening news got hold of us, what? The church is able to do this to people?

We ain't telling anybody that. Or those butcher Christians took out machetes and you know they would twist it or suppress it but they would not uphold it. Words spread around Jerusalem with sobering results. Imagine you go home, how was church today? Well they do it like you do every sermon. The sermon was the best I've ever heard. And then if you come to this church, other churches, you know the sermons were the second best I've ever heard, you should hear Calvary Shavu of Casa. Okay if you're visiting you have to know I'm serious. Okay, just kidding. But, so you go home, how was the sermon? It was good.

All right, you go home from this. What happened in church today? Two people were struck dead by the pastor.

Whoa, so that's sobriety. Just like with Achan and Judas Iscariot, they did not live to profit from their gain. Achan did not get to spend any of the spoils he had taken. Judas did not get to spend thirty pieces of silver. Sapphire and Ananias, the wages of sin is death. It's very serious.

And again I have to preface that because we all struggle and that's not what is meant by that. It's the one that is bold-faced. When Ezekiel in chapter 18 talks about the one that sins will die, he's talking about idolaters that are amongst the Jews. He's not talking about every little thing. He said if you're into idolatry, you're done. And if you come out, if you're a good person and you go into idolatry, you're going to be judged for that sin of the first commandment. Peter did not throw a stone at him, did not smote him with his hand. He exercised the gift of discernment in the office and power of a prophet twice within three hours with the same result. If God slew religious deceivers today, there'd be nothing, there would be what is called, there would be no what is called the prosperity movement. As though we're the ones, God wants us to prosper. God wants everybody to prosper in their service to him. And men and women have gone to their graves doing that, not trying to amass material wealth in this world. Verse six, and the young men arose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. It's kind of cute almost how that's said.

Like they were sitting outside, you know, just waiting, and they arose and went and got him and buried him. And of course, that's just Luke reducing the story down, just getting to the point. We have no record of Jesus Christ slaying anyone at his first coming. But at his second coming, he will slay entire armies. The world needs to be told these things.

They shall go ahead and mock now. I wouldn't if I were in your place. Make no mistake, he is the lion and the lamb. Which one do you want him to be towards you? It's totally your choice. To the righteous, of course, he is the lamb who was slain and who lives forever.

And to the world, he will come as a lion. Verse seven, now it was about three hours later when his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Now, I'm not trying to be funny when I say she's probably out shopping because they got this money. I mean, they got all this money.

What else you got? They're burning a hole in her pocket. And she's maybe looking for a new house. Who knows? But that's my first thought. I can't, well, I can back it up.

No, I can't. Anyway, wherever she was, she now comes to the church, and when she's invited to go see Peter, she's probably thinking I'm going to his office to receive accolades. He's going to tell me. He's going to give us a nickname like Barnabas. He's going to tell everybody how wonderful.

That's where she's probably going to the office thinking. How many people leave this world thinking, well, you know, I wasn't so bad of a guy. Yeah, but you rejected Christ. Yeah, he'll figure it out. He's already figured it out.

You're the one. Again, the severity of our message, the cross is an emblem of death or life, your choice. But verse eight goes on to tell us, but Peter answered, his response to her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much, and she said yes for so much. So Peter gives her a chance to confess. He doesn't even bring up, oh, by the way, your husband's dead, which to me is, this is how the Holy Spirit wants us to examine this verse.

Basically, you can't read into it. She's in his office, or before him, because the first church didn't have a church building. And he gives her this chance. By omitting the fact that he's dead, the Holy Spirit is saying lying to the Holy Spirit comes before condolences. God is first. And it is sobering to read this story with thinking it through like this in verse nine, at least to me. Then Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord?

Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out. Well, the collusion that has brought this conclusion for her, Jesus gave his pastors authority to make field decisions. Now, I'm not saying he's given the, you know, this is how pastors, this is not what anybody would want. Peter certainly wouldn't have wanted this, but John's Gospel, chapter 20. This is Jesus speaking to the apostles after he's risen. This is the chapter where he said, you know, tend my sheep and feed my lambs. And this is where Jesus was ordaining Peter and the apostles to care for the flock. We call them the apostles, but they were pastors. They were the ones that shepherded the flock. And James and Hebrews gets into, this is a serious calling. So in John 20, Jesus said, if you forgive sins of any, they are forgiven.

If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. Uh, that's pretty big. You've been listening to Cross Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply visit crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Acts, right here on Cross Reference Radio.