Death and Deceit

For our meditation, let us turn to the book of Acts, chapter five, verses one through three. "Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet. Then Peter said, 'Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?'"

The book of Acts is the story of a thriving, growing church — some thirty years of history recorded by Luke the historian. In one of his books, The Living Church, John Stott sets out four marks of that flourishing congregation. The first is that a true church is a learning congregation; you see it from chapter two, verse forty-two onward, where they came together and devoted themselves to the study of God's word. The second mark is that the true church is a caring congregation — not merely learning, but going out of its way to help people. The third is that it is a worshipping church, making it a lifestyle to see God glorified in all that it does. And the fourth is that the true church is an evangelizing church, as we see in chapter two, verse forty-seven. Learning, caring, worshipping, evangelizing — this is the record Luke is writing.

This kind of congregation had been awaited for a long time. The people of Israel could not rise up to the call to be caring beyond themselves; they could not come out of their self-centeredness, could not love their neighbours the way God intended. That is why in Peter's very first sermon almost everything he says is tied to the prophets: now the day has come; Joel prophesied about this, Ezekiel prophesied about this, Jeremiah prophesied about this. That ideal congregation is here, now, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And it is a strong congregation, led by men like Peter. When persecution comes and they are told to shut down their preaching, they answer that it would be wrong to obey men rather than God — that is the boldness you see in chapter four. And when the crowd, dazzled by the healing of the crippled man, wants to worship Peter himself, he refuses the limelight: we are only people like you. A healthy church is coming up.

And yet, ever since my childhood, this fifth chapter has been like a puzzle in my mind. Why is this story here at all, in the first place? Luke, you could have skipped it. You are writing about a growing congregation that overcomes every temptation — and then comes this: Ananias and Sapphira go to the church and are found dead, both of them. Why would you place a story like that at the very beginning, in chapter five?

To get this in perspective, we should notice the summary statements in the book of Acts. The first is in chapter two, verses forty-two to forty-seven; the second is in chapter four, verses thirty-two to thirty-five. Read them closely and they are almost the same. Yes, Luke mentions the miracles, the signs and wonders, but what he highlights is the people: look at this group — weak, poor, uneducated — yet they have overcome the temptation to be self-centered, to keep the limelight on themselves. They are generous, full of fellowship, selfless. There is no needy person among them. That is what Luke is underlining in the summary statements, and it sets the stage for chapter five.

Why was the church in such a needy state? The Jerusalem congregation was a poor one. Many had migrated from the north, from Galilee, down to the south, and found it hard to make a living. Historians note another reason for this extraordinary fellowship and sacrificial giving: it was the last desire of many devout Jewish people to come to Jerusalem — close to their hearts, the place of the temple — and to die there. So Jerusalem held a larger population of the elderly, and the church reflected it. Add to that persecution and economic discrimination against the Galileans and the old, and the church was in a hard place. Yet some among them were doing very well in business and had money.

Andrew Murray, a man I admire, reflects on this early church in one of his sermons titled The Holy Spirit and Money. When Christ takes possession of us, he says — the day we confess, "Lord, you are my God" — the Holy Spirit takes possession of our money and our belongings. Nothing short of that. And that is exactly what you see in this church: no needy person among them, vibrant in their response to the word, worshipping, caring, selfless. That was the hallmark of that thriving congregation.

But it was not always so glorious. It was not all romance and righteousness, and that is what chapter five shows us — a picture of contrast. On one side, an ideal congregation; on the other, the reality. Here we are given an insight into the interior life of the church. We live in a day when so much is superficial: we judge a person by appearance, by attire, and we do not like to open our doors so that others may come in and see who we really are. But this chapter lets us see past the surface. Yes, the church is growing and thriving — and yet here, in chapter five, something makes the eyebrows go up. Really? In the early church?

Two things mark out this chapter. First, in the first fourteen chapters of Acts, every single chapter has prayer in it — chapter one, chapter two, and on through — every chapter except chapter five. That surprises me. Second, this is the first time Luke chooses to use that great word, ecclesia, church. It does not appear in chapters one, two, three or four; some manuscripts place it in chapter two, but the majority witness has it first at chapter five, verse eleven. The first time the word "church" ever appears, it appears here.

Is this a significant story to Luke? He gives it eleven verses — and that space alone tells us he does not want us to miss it. Look carefully and you will see he tells the story of Ananias and then retells it for Sapphira with the very same vocabulary. Ananias fell down and died; the young men carried him out; great fear seized all who heard. Then Sapphira fell down and died; the young men carried her out; great fear came again. Why this repetition? Emphasis. Do not miss it. That is the point. None of us at City Harvest can treat this as a passing comment on the side.

Consider even the names. Ananias means "the Lord is gracious"; Sapphira means "beautiful." When we had our twin girls we searched the Scriptures for names and were glad to find Joanna and Susanna in Luke chapter eight — but I have never seen anyone name a child Ananias. Why has it become a bad name? Think of that Jerusalem church the first time this family walked in: the elders must have felt, "This is the family we have been waiting for." A gracious uncle, a beautiful lady — a promising couple who would surely take up some important role, leading the choir, helping with the children. A promising family indeed.

Now look at chapter five, verse one. The very first word unlocks the narrative. In the Greek it can be rendered "now" or "but," and I go with the contrast: "But Ananias." The chapter division must be read together with what comes just before, from chapter four, verse thirty-six. There the contrast is drawn against the inspiring model of Barnabas. His name was Joseph, but the church gave him a new name, Barnabas, "son of encouragement" — the man you meet again in chapters nine, eleven and fifteen, working with John Mark and introducing Paul to the church. He embodies every quality of that thriving congregation. Verse thirty-seven says he sold a field he owned and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. Who would do such a thing but by the power of the Holy Spirit? People might have said, "Are you crazy? God gave you that property; be a good steward of it." But Barnabas said, "No — the Spirit is prompting me; I must sell this and meet someone's need." On one side stands this inspiring model; on the other, the frightening example of Ananias and Sapphira. From this passage I want to bring three lessons.

The first lesson is the error of holding things back. Peter says Ananias "kept back" part of the money — held it back, kept it for himself. Now, was it a rule in the early church to sell your property? We must be careful how we read the Bible. There is no absolute principle in Acts that a genuine believer must sell his possessions. The narratives show that some sold, but chapter four, verse thirty-four, says that "from time to time" those who owned lands or houses sold them — from time to time, because from time to time needs arose, and the Holy Spirit moved some to sell in order to meet them. It was never a blanket rule. People still owned homes: in chapter two, verse forty-six, and chapter five, verse forty-two, the church met in houses; so too in chapter eight, verse three, and chapter twelve, verses twelve and thirteen. I stress this because a subtle deception of the enemy can lead us off the track into thinking that some ascetic, possessionless lifestyle is what finally pleases God. That is not what is taught here. Some sold, as the Spirit prompted them; not everyone did.

There is a sharp contrast in the original language that our English and even our vernacular translations can blur, though I have checked some, especially Malayalam, where it comes through. Two different words are used for what was sold. Barnabas sold a "field" — the Greek word is agros, from which we get "agriculture." He sold his one agricultural plot, the land he owned. But Ananias, in the next verse, did not sell a field; he sold "a piece of property" — literally a possession, a treasure. Picture a man with shares in many places and investments in several plots — one in Mathikere, one in Kammanahalli, one in Hennur — and out of all of them he sells just one. That is the contrast. So why did he need to keep anything back? When I was young I imagined he was holding it back for his children's education — perhaps to send them abroad one day for a medical degree. But that is not the case; he had many investments and sold only one of them.

The word used for "keeping back" appears in only one other place in the entire New Testament, in Titus chapter two, verse ten, where it is translated "stealing," or pilfering. It means he embezzled, he misappropriated; he was unfaithful. The same word stands in the Old Testament — and I do not think it is a coincidence that Luke uses it — in Joshua chapter seven, verse one, of Achan's sin, where the people of Israel "broke faith in regard to the devoted things." They were unfaithful. That is the meaning of keeping back. So the question this morning is: are we keeping back? Are we deceiving ourselves? Are we true to the confessions we make on Sunday — in the singing, at the Lord's Supper, in the tears and the devotion — from Monday onward? Or are we holding back something that belongs to God, keeping for ourselves what is due to Him? They were guilty of embezzlement. They never intended to give everything, but they created the impression that they were.

The second lesson is in Peter's words: "You have lied to the Holy Spirit." That is a great statement, and the next verse presses it home — "You have not lied to men but to God" (verse four). This is one of the texts that affirms the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Many imagine the Spirit to be a vapour or a mere feeling — "I sense something." No. He is God. We serve a triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three distinct persons, one in essence. And notice: where did Ananias put the money? In the same place as Barnabas — at the apostles' feet (verse two). Outwardly you could not tell them apart; both came to the church, both laid their gift at the apostles' feet. To lay something at the apostles' feet is an expression of submission to authority — the same phrase is used in chapter seven, verse fifty-eight, when those who stoned Stephen laid their coats at the feet of Saul. So by this act Ananias and Sapphira were confessing, "Peter, you are God's appointed leader; Lord, you are the Lord of all our lives." But inwardly they were not true to that confession. That is the lie.

Here is the heart of it: they were pretentious. They wanted the credit and the prestige of sacrificial generosity — the affirmation Barnabas received, with Peter holding him up before the church — but without the inconvenience of it. Their motive in giving was not to relieve the poor but to fatten their own ego. It was a falsification of the work of the Spirit: the Spirit was not moving them, yet they manufactured the impression that He was. They fell into the very sin the apostle John names — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16). They wanted honour; they wanted Peter and the others to say, "Brother, what a blessing you are to this church." On hypocrisy, J. C. Ryle writes that it is a religion that is public and not private: plenty abroad, but none at home; plenty without, but none within; plenty on the tongue, but none in the heart. The heart is not involved. And I am not surprised that the word "heart" runs through this passage — Satan had filled their heart, and Peter asks how they could contrive this deed in their heart. In the same Spirit-filled church where, in chapter four, verse thirty-one, the Spirit filled the gathered believers, and in chapter four, verse eight, Peter was filled with the Spirit — in that very church one family gave Satan room to fill their heart. When I preach this, I preach to myself: I want to be genuine before the Lord, and I know that is possible only by the grace of God at work in me.

Holding back is stealing; lying belongs to Satan, who comes to steal, to kill and to destroy — and so Luke lets us see the interior life of the church. This family was in the church; they had been baptized; they held a Bible in their hands. Yet stealing and lying were making them more like Satan when the call was to become like Jesus. Consider too their togetherness. We talk much these days about family-enrichment programmes, and here was a couple perfectly together — no gap between them. When Sapphira came in three hours later and Peter asked whether they had given the full price, she answered without hesitation, "Yes." The night before, in their comfortable chairs over a cup of lemon tea, they had discussed it and agreed; they tell the same story. They were together — but their togetherness violated the togetherness of the Christian community. For our spirituality is measured in the outworking of our life in community, not in seclusion. The best fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, patience and the rest — is borne in how we live together. Here that fruit was counterfeited: they stole, they deceived, and they deceived the church.

So the call today is to be real. The principle I draw from this passage is this: why the stealing, why the lying? Because they wanted to become someone else — they wanted to be like Barnabas and have a name. The lesson for me and for all of us, to carry out of this place, is that we do not have to be pretentious about our spiritual life. We need only show on the outside what we have on the inside. If grace has enabled us to give only half, we need not pretend we are giving more. If you come broken, seeing yourself as unworthy, then be real in the house of the Lord and before the Lord. Hypocrisy will only damage your life; a mask may win respect for a while, but one day it will be torn away. Overcome the lie with the truth. Come to God as you are: "This is what I am; this is where I have been. Give me grace to overcome the love of money and the things I struggle with. I do not want to wear a mask."

The third lesson is in verse nine, where Peter says to Sapphira, "How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord?" To test the Lord — this language is frequent in the Old Testament, in passages like Deuteronomy, recalling how Israel in the wilderness repeatedly put God to the test. This gracious uncle and beautiful auntie reasoned, "We belong to a big church. How big? Three thousand in chapter two, five thousand in chapter four. In a crowd that size no one will ask about this small thing we did; how would the pastor ever know us?" That is testing the Lord — to steal and to lie and then to walk in as though nothing will come of it, just as Israel, the covenant people, time and again took God's grace for granted. So this morning is a wake-up call: let us not presume upon the presence and the grace of God, telling ourselves, "So far nothing has happened; I have been at this for years and no one has said a word." Heaven is watching us. Lying, stealing, pretending and playing the hypocrite will not last and will not carry us far.

Here is a picture of God judging, and the natural question is: why does it not happen like this now? Are there no Ananiases and Sapphiras in the church today? The best answer I can give myself is to learn the lesson: what awaits all of us at the end happened to them right there at the beginning — that is the only difference. We must all give an account for everything we do: the way we speak, the transactions we are involved in, even the one instrument in our hands, the mobile — how we use it, the calls and video calls, the apps we have downloaded. We will give an account for all of it. So let us not hold anything back; let us not take what is due to God; let us not falsify the work of the Spirit by creating the impression that He is moving when He is not.

I invite you to respond to this word. You have heard a message that is not merely soothing to the ears, but I dare not hide so important a truth: from Acts five we learn to take stock of our lives and to examine them daily. Perhaps this is the day to pause and look back over your decisions — the transactions, the building projects, the papers you are signing. Is there any falsifying? Is there any holding back of what belongs to God? Is there a lie involved, anywhere we excuse ourselves with "it is okay, it is okay"? We are not talking about being perfect; we are talking about pressing on toward perfection by the working of the Holy Spirit within us. Let us live as those who know that God sees into the soul.