Adrian Rogers was a motivator, an encourager, and a leader of the faith. He was also passionate about presenting scriptural application to everyday life circumstances, and you'll hear that in today's message.
Now, let's join Adrian Rogers. Would you take God's word today and open to Acts chapter 4? We're continuing in a series that we're calling that old time religion. In order to face the future, we've got to look backward to find out what God has done to see what God wants to do.
Today we come to a very interesting passage, and most of the time we're going to be in Acts chapter 5, but we need to get a running start, so we're going to go to Acts chapter 4 and read the last two verses of Acts chapter 4 and then about the first 11 verses of Acts chapter 5. And the title of our message today is God's Warning to Big Pretenders. Now, if you're a big pretender, a hypocrite, I want you to pay attention because this message has your name on it.
And when I say hypocrite, I don't mean necessarily an unsaved hypocrite. You know, we have a lot of saved hypocrites, people who are saved, but there is in their life duplicity and pretense, and folks, they are living dangerously. And I want to show you that from God's Word, but let me just say that this early church at this time was in the blaze of revival. God was blessing. There was an earth-shaking, mountain-moving, devil-defying, soul-saving, rafter-rattling revival. They were in a spirit of revival. Now, the devil didn't like it, and the devil tried to stop it. The devil tried to stop this revival with intimidation, and that didn't stop them. Then the devil tried to stop it with persecution, and that didn't stop it. What it did literally was to drive the church to its knees, and the more the revival was opposed, the more it seemed to grow, and thousands and thousands and thousands of people were being saved. And so the devil said to himself, well, if I can't conquer them, I'll corrupt them.
And so he tried a new tactic. Rather than attacking from without, he tries to find some on the inside of the church, and he found some, a man and a woman named Ananias and Sapphira, and he got them to play the hypocrite. He got them to tell a big lie, and it was an attack on the revival. However, the early church so reacted and the Spirit of God so moved that it did not stop the revival.
Actually, it only increased the revival. And that's one of the thrilling things about the book of Acts. You see everything the devil does, and the book of Acts just seems to come back on the devil's head.
As somebody said, God cuts the devil's head off with a sword that the devil himself has sharpened. And we're going to see this happen here in the book of Acts. Now, I'm going to, as I say, I'm going to start here in the last two verses of chapter four and then get a running start and go right into chapter five. I remind you that the chapter headings are not put there by divine inspiration. All of the Bible is inspired, but the chapter headings have just been added later by publishers. I really kind of think that the chapter headings have been put there, the divisions, to keep preachers from preaching too long a time. But anyway, we're going to go back and get the last two verses and then read right on.
All right, now listen. Acts chapter four, verse 36, And Joseph, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, that is, they gave him a nickname, Barnabas, which being interpreted as the son of consolation. That literally means encourager. Now Barnabas was a great encourager. He was a dear man, and we're going to see a lot about Barnabas as we study the book of Acts. I imagine since that's a nickname, we'd be all right to call him Barney, 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 part of the price, his wife also being privy to it. That is, she knew about it. We would say today she was in cahoots with him and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land? Why has it remained? Was it not thine own?
And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
Now, I want you just to underscore that because that's the key here. And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost, and great fear came on all them that heard these things. Now, I'm going to stop reading right there and say that Ananias told a lie, and right on the spot, God struck him dead. What would happen if God were to strike all the liars dead in this congregation this morning?
Now, you think about it. I mean people who lie, saved or lost, if God were to ipso facto bang, strike all the liars dead, what would happen? Now, we lie. People lie. Sometimes they lie casually. Sometimes they exaggerate. Sometimes they call it a white lie or a black lie.
Makes no difference whether you lie in black or white or living color. What would happen if God struck all the liars dead? We lie about our weight. We lie about our age.
Somebody said the seven ages of woman are baby, child, junior miss, young woman, young woman, young woman, young woman. We lie about different kinds of things. Even Peter, who was there who put his finger in the face of Ananias and said, You have not lied to men but to God. Even Simon Peter himself had just recently told a lie not so long ago when he cursed and swore and said, I never knew Jesus.
I don't even know the man. He was lying. He did know him.
He was one of his apostles, one of his disciples. So God doesn't strike all liars dead and people can be grateful. But he struck this couple dead.
Not only Ananias is we're going to see, but Sapphira, his wife, died for telling a lie. There's a great lesson here. We need to learn it. And it is a lesson. It is God's warning to big pretenders. It is God's warning, solemn warning against hypocrisy.
Number one, I want you to see what I'm going to call the expression of that lie, the expression of that hypocrisy. Look again, if you will, in the first three verses here of chapter five. But a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession.
Now look at the word but. The word but is there in contradistinction to what Barnabas had done. Now Barnabas had made a gift. Now Barnabas didn't have to make this gift, but Barnabas had some property, had some real estate and he sold that real estate.
He brought it all. I mean, everything he got, every red cent, he brought it and he gave it to the church. He just put it at the apostles feet. He didn't give it as a designated gift.
He didn't say buy this or buy that. He just said, take it, use it, however you want. He just laid it at their feet.
Here it is. I give it, no strings attached. I'm giving it to the Lord. He was moved by the Spirit of God to do it. Now he did not do it to be seen of men, but on the other hand, he was not ashamed of what he did. I mean, he laid it at the apostles feet.
It was obvious that he did it. Now don't do your giving to be seen of men, but don't be ashamed that you give and don't be ashamed to let people know that you give. Because the Bible says, we're to let our light so shine before men that others may see our good works and glorify our Father which is in heaven. If you do something right, you don't have to hide it and you don't have to advertise it. Just do it and do it as unto the Lord. That's what this man did.
He just did it. It was obvious that he did it and people were blessed and they were saying, isn't that like old Barney? Boy, I tell you, he's just, God uses that man. He's just an encouragement to me. As a matter of fact, his name means encouragement. Son of Consolation literally means encouragement. And here was a man through his life and through his love and through his generosity, he was just encouraging everybody there that day. Well, Ananias and Sapphira saw it and they said, look at that.
Well, we'd like to bask in some of that sunlight. And so they decided that they would do the same thing, but it wasn't the same thing. They had some property. They sold their property also. They pretended that they also had just given it all, but they'd not done that.
They kept back apart. Notice verse 2, and they kept back a part of the price, his wife also being privy to it. Now what had happened was this. It's very simple that Ananias and Sapphira were pretending that they had done something that they had not done. And so therefore they were hypocrites.
Now, I want you to notice the expression of this lie. First of all, I want you to notice that it was rooted in pride. It was rooted in pride. They were wanting to be praised. They were wanting to be loved. They were wanting to be stroked. They wanted to have preeminence, and that's why they did it.
They gave to be seen of men. Oh, how Jesus warned against that. Now listen, when there's pride in your heart, you are a sitting duck for the devil. Pride more than anything else makes you putty in the devil's hands. Peter, who was there this day and he saw all that God did, Peter wrote later on in 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 5, Be clothed with humility all of you. He said just wear humility like clothes.
Be clothed with humility. And then he said in 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 8, For your adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. I want to say to you young preachers, and I want to say to every Sunday school teacher and every deacon in this building, there is nothing that puts you further out of the devil's reach than genuine humility, genuine humility. There is nothing that makes you more susceptible to the machinations of the devil than pride, because when you have pride in your heart, you are sharing the very nature of the devil. It was pride that caused the devil and made the devil the devil to begin with. And so they allowed pride to seep into their hearts just exactly as pride came into the devil's heart so long ago and made Lucifer the son of the morning, Satan the father of the night. Now, this sin was rooted in pride and it resulted in pretense. The root was pride, the fruit was pretense. A proud person is always a pretender. He's always exaggerating.
He's always wanting people to think more highly of him than is deserved. And so pride is the background and the root of which the fruit is hypocrisy. They pretended a full dedication that they did not have.
Now, I want to make something very clear. The sin of Ananias and Sapphira was not that they refused to give, they did give. Nor was the sin of Ananias and Sapphira that they did not give everything they got for that piece of property. God had not commanded them to give everything they got for that piece of property. There's nothing here that says that God told them to give it all. Now, had God told them to give it all, then it would have been a sin had they not done it. But God didn't tell them to give it all. That was their idea. Notice what Peter says.
He makes it very clear. He says to Ananias in verse 4, What it remained was it not thine own, and after it was sold, wasn't it in your own power? It was your property, Ananias.
Nobody was wringing your arm. Nobody told you to come down here and say that you'd given it all. It was yours.
You could have done what you wanted. Now, I want to tell you, dear friend, had Ananias come and said, Peter, look, we've sold a piece of property. We've got $50,000 for it.
We want to give $25,000 for the work of Christ through this church. And Sapphira and I felt led of the Lord to keep $25,000 and put it in a savings account for the kids' education or for retirement. Nothing wrong with that. It would have been fine if that's what they felt led of the Lord to do. That would have been wonderful.
That would have been fine. But they came. They said, look, we sold a piece of property. Barney sold all his property, and he gave it all.
We sold all our property, and we gave it all. See, now, what happened is this. They were pretending a devotion to Jesus that they did not have. That's the bottom line. Now, if you missed that, you missed the point.
They were pretending a devotion to Jesus that they did not have, and they became hypocrites. Well, you say, that's too bad they did that. I wonder, have you done the same thing? I wonder, have you sung these words? Not that I have.
I call my own. I hold it for the giver. My life, my soul, my will, my all are His and His forever. Have you sung that? Have you meant it? Have you stood in a song service and sung, all to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give? Have you sung that? I say, have you meant it? Pretending.
Words are cheap. People sing, faith of our Father's holy faith. We would be true to Thee till death.
They don't even come back on Sunday night because they want to see the Super Bowl. Lord, we would be true to You to death. Talk is cheap, isn't it? Pretending a devotion we don't have. It's amazing to hear people get up in testimony meetings in other places and talk about how they love Jesus and pretend.
Friend, you need to be careful about that. The root of that sin is pride, and the fruit of that sin is pretense. Why God struck Ananias and Sapphira dead was they pretended a devotion to Jesus they did not have. But I want you to notice not only the expression of that hypocrisy, but I want you to notice the exposure.
Number two, the exposure of that lie. Now, in this early church it was exposed and it was exposed quite well. Notice in verses three and four, and Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land? Ananias thinks, my goodness, how did he know that? While it remained was it not thine own, and after it was sold was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but hast lied unto God.
Now, the entire thing is exposed. Now, the Holy Spirit did it. The Holy Spirit gave to Simon Peter what we would call the gift of knowledge or the gift of discernment. And Simon Peter was able with supernatural insight, because he was an apostle, to see directly into this man's heart. The Holy Spirit whispered into Simon Peter's ear and told him everything that Ananias and Sapphira had done.
And the Spirit revealed primarily two things. Number one, the Spirit revealed the source of the sin in verse three, Satan in Ananias' heart. Now, how did Satan get into Ananias' heart? Ananias was a Christian, as we're going to see.
He was saved. But you remember that Paul warned us not to give a place to the devil? Pride, as I've already told you, gave a place to the devil. And so when Ananias and Sapphira were there and they were thinking about this real estate deal, Satan whispered to them.
He had an inside track. He said, hey, tell them that you're going to give everything. It'll be all right. I mean, after all, you are giving. Just tell them you gave it all. And Satan filled their heart to lie to the Holy Ghost. Now, folks, I want to tell you that you're never more like the devil when you tell a lie, for Jesus said in John chapter 8, verse 44, that Satan is a liar and he is the father of it. And you're never more like the devil than when you're lying. You're never more like the Lord Jesus when you're telling the truth. So Satan filled their heart to lie to the Holy Ghost.
Do you know what that tells me? That tells me, Adrian, every morning, you must have the Holy Spirit of God to search your heart and make certain there's no room for Satan there. The Bible says, keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. I must not give place to the devil. And I must stay clean, because if the devil could use Ananias and Sapphira, perhaps the devil could use me.
Perhaps the devil could use you. The source of that sin was Satan in the heart. Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? But not only did the Holy Spirit reveal the source of that sin, but the Holy Spirit revealed the seriousness of that sin.
Now we're gonna find out why they died. Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? Later Peter says, you've not lied unto men. You lied to God.
And then later Peter says to Sapphira, you have tempted the Holy Spirit, tested the Holy Spirit. Now, this is the seriousness of the sin. Now, folks, it's serious to tell a lie. It's more serious, for example, to tell a lie to a judge. If you're in a courtroom and you've sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, and you tell a lie to a judge, you're in trouble, because they'll get you for perjury. But I want to tell you it is unspeakably serious to lie to the Holy Spirit, to lie to the Spirit of God.
Now we're getting down to the seriousness of this matter. You didn't lie to men. You lied to God. You lied to the Holy Ghost.
You tempted the Lord. By the way, I want to tell you, not only is it so serious, but it's so foolish to try to lie to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was there when the deal was made. I mean, the Holy Spirit was there when Ananias and Sapphira got into cahoots and talked about what they were going to do. The Holy Spirit was there when they brought the money.
He was there the whole time. You're not going to fool him. Listen, folks, he's inside of you. I heard the other day about a man who is a shoplifter, and he stole an alarm clock, put it in his coat and tried to walk off, and it went off before he got outside the door. And they arrested the guy because the alarm clock was ringing right in his chest. Well, the devil doesn't want you to know that God's alarm clock is right there in your bosom.
That is the Holy Spirit of God. And how foolish to think that you can escape detection when you have the Holy Spirit of God in you. It was so serious, and it was so foolish to try to con God, to lie to God, who knows all things. But of course, you see, their problem was they were more concerned with what people thought than with what God thought. And so they were trying to impress people, and at the same time, they were lying to God. Now, what was the seriousness of this thing? It was this, that what they had done was not what we would call a white lie or an exaggeration, though all lies are bad.
No, I'm not trying to put approval on any kind of a lie, but have you ever told a lie that you didn't really mean to tell? The phone rings middle of the night. Hello?
Hello? Did I wake you up? Oh, no, no, no, no, you didn't wake me up.
You didn't know good. Well, they woke you up. You know, as a preacher, no matter when the phone rings, I think I'm supposed to say, hello, wide awake, you know, like I've been up all night reading a book of Lamentations or something like that. And we try sometimes to act like, oh, no, no, we're awake. And then later on, the Holy Spirit said, why did you lie?
Why didn't you just tell them you were asleep? You know, but you weren't primarily lying to the Holy Ghost at that time. It's wrong.
I'm not trying to say it's right. But now what Ananias and Sapphira did was different. What they did was premeditated. What they did, they had to think about and write down on paper.
Not only did they do it independently, they did it together, they did it in collusion. And the whole time they were doing it, the Holy Spirit was saying, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that.
Don't, don't, don't, don't. Over and over and over again, the Holy Spirit of God was warning them and they stonewalled God's Spirit. They said no to God's Spirit. They lied to God's Spirit. They tempted the Spirit of God. It was a sin against the Holy Spirit. It was a direct challenge to the Holy Ghost of God in the heat of white-hot revival. Mister, I would advise you not to try it.
Don't try it. Don't tempt God. You're dealing with serious matters when you're dealing with the moving of God's Holy Spirit. You're dealing with serious matters when God's Holy Spirit is moving in revival fire and power. And you become a tool of the devil to stop revival. And you oppose the work of God. And you knowingly, willingly, deliberately, and even in collusion with somebody else stand against God.
That's dangerous. The source of the sin was Satan in the heart. The seriousness of the sin is this, that you have lied to the Holy Ghost. I've talked about the expression of that sin and I've talked about the exposure of that sin. Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about the expulsion of that sin. I want you to see what happened.
I want you to see what God did. God judged it. Ananias and Sapphira, of course, died. We begin reading again in verse 5, and let's read this. And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost. In plain English, he expired. And great fear came on all them that heard these things.
I imagine so. Suppose a preacher were to stand up and rebuke a church member here in the modern-day church and immediately he falls down dead. It put fear in people's hearts. And the young men arose and wound him up and carried him out and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. She's three hours late for the service.
Of course, really why she was late, I believe, is she wanted to make a grand entrance. Oh, and here comes Sapphira. Sapphira, it's wonderful what you all did to be given that property, see. And so here she comes in and Peter answered unto her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much. One more time she's getting a chance. She says yes for so much. She's lying. She knows she's lying. She's lying to God's man.
She's lying in the face of great revival and she's lying to God, really, not to men. Peter said unto her, how is it that you've agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet and yielded up the ghost.
And the young men came in and found her dead and carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church and upon as many as heard these things. Listen, dear friend, here is the expulsion of sin in that early church. I want to say two things about that. Number one, it was a severe judgment. Very severe.
I mean, they died. Now, I want to tell you, even though you're saved, God may deal with you severely. Really, the Christian has three judgments that he faces. He will be judged as a sinner. He will be judged as a servant. And he will be judged as a son.
Now, pay attention. He's judged as a sinner at Calvary. My judgment for my sin was at Calvary. When Jesus Christ died for me, I died with him, and therefore the judgment of my sin was when Jesus died on the cross, okay?
Thank God that's over. And I've settled my case out of court because Jesus died for me, okay? That's my judgment as a sinner. And the Bible says there's therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. No judgment for those who are in Christ Jesus.
We pass from death unto life. Now, God also will judge me as a servant at the judgment seat of Christ. And I'm going to come to the judgment seat of Christ, and I'm going to have to give an account for the way that I've lived. And the Bible says the day shall declare it, for every man's work shall be made manifest, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. One of these days, I'm going to give an account for my stewardship. I'm going to face the Lord Jesus, and I'm going to have to answer to the Lord Jesus for what I did with what he did in me and through me.
Have you ever thought about that? Now, friend, we're saved by grace, but one of these days, we're going to face the judgment seat of Christ and going to be judged as stewards. And our Lord is going to say to us, give an account of your stewardship. Now, some people get the idea because we're saved by grace. It makes no difference how we live, that heaven is going to be the same for everybody, but that is not so. Jesus said, lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven. Now, that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever if everybody has the same.
No sense whatever. Jesus said, behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me to give to every man according as his work shall be. According to your works. You're not saved by works, but you're rewarded by works. You were judged as a sinner at Calvary. You're judged as a servant or as a steward at the judgment seat of Christ. But you are being judged right now as sons. You're judged as sinners, as servants, and also as sons.
Hebrews chapter 12. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, for whom the Father loves he chastens and scourges every son whom he receiveth. Now, that judgment of sons is the way the Father disciplines us and grows us day by day. Now, what happened to Ananias and Sapphira was they were not being judged primarily as sinners. Nor were they being judged as servants, but they were being judged as sons, in Sapphira's case, as a daughter. And this judgment can be sometimes very severe.
Sometimes our judgment can lead to premature death. I want you to take God's word, and I want you to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11 here for a moment, and I want you to look at verse 19. Paul is going to warn the church about sinning against holy things. Let me tell you, one of the most holy times that any church will ever have, if they rightly understand it, is when they take the Lord's Supper. It's a very holy, a very sacred time, because we're holding in our hands those emblems that represent the very broken body and shed blood of the Lord Jesus.
Nothing, nothing is more precious than the blood of Jesus. If you were to sin or make a travesty of anything, dear friend, please don't make it over the Lord's Supper and over communion. But there were people in Corinth who were doing that, and Paul warned them. I want you to see what Paul said here to these people as he warned them here in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 29. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. The word damnation here literally means judgment.
For this cause, because you ate and you drank the Lord's Supper unworthily, for this cause many are weak and sickly among you. Now watch this next, and many sleep. That word sleep is a Bible word that refers to the death of the saints. It doesn't mean now I lay me down to sleep.
It means D-E-A-D, dead. Many sleep. Now notice in verse 31, for if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we're chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world. Now here God links judging with chastening and chastening with death.
Judging with chastening and chastening with death. God will chastise one of his own, sometimes so severely that that child of God will die prematurely. You can find the same thing in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 5.
There was a man who was living in flagrant sin against a clear warning, and the apostle Paul said, Deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus for the destruction of the flesh. You can read the same thing in James, chapter 5, verse 16, where the Bible says, If any man see his brother sin a sin, which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death.
I do not say that he shall pray for it. That means, ladies and gentlemen, that a brother, a child of God, may cross God's deadline. He may sin against light. He may sin against the Holy Spirit of God. He may sin to death and die.
That's what happened to Ananias and Sapphira. In my estimation, God was dealing with them as with his own children, but their sin was so flagrant, so obstinate, that God dealt with them this way. It was a severe judgment, but I want to say this. It was a saving judgment.
It was a saving judgment. Why did God do this? Well, number one, God did it for Ananias and Sapphira. God did not do this to get even with them. God, in mercy, took them out early to keep them from further sin.
Come on home if you're going to live that way. You can find, dear friend, in the Bible, where God did the same thing to Moses. Moses was a man after God's own heart, but Moses never got in the Promised Land because Moses did this same thing when Moses struck the rock, and that rock pictured Christ. That is when he sinned so against knowledge, so against light.
God says, come on home, Moses. You know, the Bible says when Moses died, the desire was not dim. Neither was his strength abated. Well, he died in full health. Died prematurely.
I mean, he stepped over to the other side. Moses is in heaven. He appeared with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, but he got there too soon because he played with holy things. Sinned against light. God, in mercy, took him.
Let me tell you something, folks. Some of you may get to heaven a lot sooner than you need to get there, and it will be a saving judgment just to keep you from disgracing yourself and the Lord even more. But not only was it a saving judgment for Ananias and Sapphira, it was a saving judgment for the church because the Bible says there in verse 11, I believe it is, that great fear came on the church. I mean, listen, God showed that church once and for all.
Look. Look, this is the way God fears about sin. Now, God did not continue this sudden death syndrome, but what God did, he gave an example.
This was a first case. You find God giving examples. God gives examples. For example, he gave an example of Sodom. You read in Jude, verse 7, the Bible says that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, leaving them for an example to those that after should live ungodly. God left Sodom with its smoking ruins.
He wants to show you how he feels about sodomy. And God doesn't destroy every Sodomite city, but God destroyed one and left it for an example. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 that God destroyed a generation of Israelites, and then the Bible says that God did that as an example. Now, God did this as an example. Number one, to save Ananias and Sapphira. Number two, to save that church from further hypocrisy.
Number three, to save souls. Do you know what happened as a result of this? The devil thought he'd stopped the revival. It only extended the revival. I want you to notice, if you will here, as we look in this passage of Scripture that a great number of people were saved and came to the Lord as a result of this.
Look with me, if you will. Go back to Acts chapter 5 and notice in verse 14, and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. Let me see if I can wrap this up and put it in conclusion. Number one, if you're a child of God, let me tell you this, that sin in your life is more serious than sin in the life of an unsaved person, for you're not your own.
You've been bought with a price. Second thing I want to say to you is this. Be very careful that you do not lie to the Holy Spirit. Be very careful that you do not lay cold and callous and profane hands on holy things. If there is a man of God, a work of God, a move of God, a truth of God, I beg you and I plead with you, don't tamper with it.
It may mean sudden death. I've seen it happen, I believe, three times in my ministry where members of churches that I pastored committed this sin. People who knew the Lord, when they did it as the pastor, I felt that they had done it. And I warn them, sometimes with fear in my own heart, say, I beg you, don't do this. I plead with you, don't live this way. I beg you, don't! But they did.
And all three of them died. Graphically, dramatically, needlessly, sinning against the Holy Spirit of God. Don't do it. I would say, last of all, dear friend, don't let some Ananias and Sapphira keep you from the things of God. Don't be turned off from the Lord and from religion by some hypocrite.
Don't do it. It didn't stop this early church. It needn't stop the Church of the Lord Jesus today. Hypocrites come and go, but the Church of the Lord Jesus marches on. If you would like to learn more about how you can know Jesus or deepen your relationship with Him, simply click the Discover Jesus link on our website, lwf.org. For a copy of this message or additional resources, visit our online store at lwf.org, or call 1-800-274-5683. Thank you.
