05 Beware of the Serpent!

Satan had failed completely in his attempt to silence the witness of the church. However, the enemy never gives up; he simply changes his strategy. His first approach had been to attack the church from the outside, hoping that arrest and threats would frighten the leaders. When that failed, Satan decided to attack the church from the inside and use people who were a part of the fellowship.

We must face the fact that Satan is a clever foe. If he does not succeed as the devouring lion (1 Peter 5:8), then he attacks again as the deceiving serpent or an “angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:3, 13-14). Satan is both a murderer and a liar (John 8:44), and the church must be prepared for both attacks.

THE GENEROSITY OF THE BELIEVERS (4:32-37)

The believers had prayed and God’s Spirit had filled them and given them new power. The church that depends on believing prayer will know the blessing of the Holy Spirit in its ministry. How can we tell when a local church is really filled with the Spirit? When you go back to the record of the first filling at Pentecost (Acts 2:44-47), you discover three outstanding characteristics of a Spirit-filled church.

It is unified (2:44, 46).

This is a God-given spiritual unity, not a man-made organizational uniformity. The church is an organism that is held together by life, and that life comes through the Holy Spirit. Of course, the church must be organized, for if an organism is not organized, it will die. However, when the organization starts to hinder spiritual life and ministry, then the church becomes just another religious institution that exists to keep itself going. When the Holy Spirit is at work, God’s people will be united in their doctrinal beliefs, as well as in fellowship, giving, and worship (Acts 2:42).

A Spirit-filled church is magnified and will have “favor with all the people” (2:47).

In spite of the opposition of the rulers, the common people were drawn to the believers because something new and exciting was happening. When the religious leaders tried to silence the church, it was their fear of the people that restrained them (Acts 4:21; 5:26). Yes, a Spirit-filled church will have its enemies, but what the Lord is doing will attract the attention and the admiration of people who are hungry to know God.

(3) A Spirit-filled church is multiplied because the Lord will daily add new believers to the church (2:47).

Evangelism will not be the work of a chosen few, but the daily delight and ministry of the whole congregation. In the early church, each member sought to be an effective witness for Jesus Christ, no matter where he happened to be. No wonder the church grew from 120 to over five thousand in just a short time!

How did Satan’s attack affect the spiritual condition of the church? It had no effect at all! The fact that Peter and John were arrested, tried, and threatened had absolutely no effect on the spiritual life of the church, for the church was still unified (Acts 4:32), magnified (v. 33), and multiplied (v. 32)!

One evidence of the unity of the church was the way they sacrificed and shared with one another. When the Holy Spirit is at work, giving is a blessing and not a burden. We must keep in mind that this “Christian communism” was very unlike the political Communism of our day. What the believers did was purely voluntary (Acts 5:4) and was motivated by love. No doubt many of the new believers were visitors in Jerusalem, having come for the feasts, and they had to depend on their Christian friends to help meet their daily needs.

Nor should we think that every believer sold all his goods and brought the money to the apostles. Acts 4:34 indicates that some of the members from time to time sold various pieces of property and donated to the common treasury. When the assembly had a need, the Spirit directed someone to sell something and meet the need. While the early church’s spirit of sacrifice and loving generosity is worthy of our emulation, believers today are not required to imitate these practices. The principles of Christian giving are outlined in the Epistles, especially in 2 Corinthians 8–9, and nowhere are we instructed to bring our money and lay it at the pastor’s feet (Acts 4:35) as though he were an apostle. It is the spirit of their giving that is important to us today and not the “letter” of their system.

Joseph, nicknamed “Barnabas” (son of encouragement), is introduced at this point for several reasons.

First

He was a generous giver and illustrated the very thing Dr. Luke was describing.

Second

His noble act apparently filled Ananias and Sapphira with envy so that they attempted to impress the church with their giving and ended up being killed.

Third

Barnabas had a most important ministry in the church and is mentioned at least twenty-five times in the book of Acts and another five times in the Epistles. In fact, it is Barnabas who encouraged Paul in his early service for the Lord (Acts 9:26-27; 11:19-30; 13:1-5) and who gave his cousin John Mark the encouragement he needed after his failure (Acts 13:13; 15:36-41; Col. 4:10).

Levites were not permitted to own land, so it is difficult to understand how Barnabas acquired the property that he sold. Perhaps that particular law (Num. 18:20; Deut. 10:9) applied only in Palestine and the property was in Cyprus, or perhaps the corrupt religious leaders had become lax in enforcing the law. There is much we do not know about Joseph Barnabas, but this we do know: He was a Spirit-filled man who was an encouragement to the church because he gave his all to the Lord. Not every believer can be like Peter and John, but we can all be like Barnabas and have a ministry of encouragement.

THE HYPOCRISY OF ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA (5:1-11)

George MacDonald wrote, “Half of the misery in the world comes from trying to look, instead of trying to be, what one is not.” The name that Jesus gave to this practice is “hypocrisy,” which simply means “wearing a mask, playing the actor.” We must not think that failure to reach our ideals is hypocrisy because no believer lives up to all that he or she knows or has in the Lord. Hypocrisy is deliberate deception, trying to make people think we are more spiritual than we really are.

When I was pastoring my first church, the Lord led us to build a new sanctuary. We were not a wealthy congregation, so our plans had to be modest. At one point in the planning, I suggested to the architect that perhaps we could build a simple edifice with a more elaborate facade at the front to make it look more like an expensive church.

“Absolutely not!” he replied. “A church stands for truth and honesty, and any church I design will not have a facade! A building should tell the truth and not pretend to be what it isn’t.”

Years later, I ran across this poem, which is a sermon in itself:

They build the front just like St. Mark’s, Or like Westminster Abbey; And then, as if to cheat the Lord, They make the back parts shabby.

That was the sin of Ananias and Sapphira: putting on a lovely “front” in order to conceal the shabby sin in their lives, sin that cost them their lives.

Ananias means “God is gracious,” but he learned that God is also holy, and Sapphira means “beautiful,” but her heart was ugly with sin. No doubt some people are shocked when they read that God killed two people just because they lied about a business transaction and about their church giving. But when you consider the features connected with this sin, you have to agree that God did the right thing by judging them.

It is worth noting that the Lord judges sin severely at the beginning of a new period in salvation history. Just after the tabernacle was erected, God killed Nadab and Abihu for trying to present “false fire” to the Lord (Lev. 10). He also had Achan killed for disobeying orders after Israel had entered the Promised Land (Josh. 7). While God was certainly not responsible for their sins, He did use these judgments as warnings to the people, and even to us (1 Cor. 10:11-12).

Energized by Satan

To begin with, the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was energized by Satan (Acts 5:3), and that is a serious matter. If Satan cannot defeat the church by attacks from the outside, he will get on the inside and go to work (20:28-31). He knows how to lie to the minds and hearts of church members, even genuine Christians, and get them to follow his orders. We forget that the admonition about the spiritual armor (Eph. 6:10-18) was written to God’s people, not to unbelievers, because it is the Christians who are in danger of being used by Satan to accomplish his evil purposes.

Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.” Satan is a liar and a murderer (John 8:44). He lied to and through this couple, and the lie led to their deaths. When God judged Ananias and Sapphira, He was also judging Satan. He was letting everybody know that He would not tolerate deception in His church.

Motivated by Pride

Their sin was motivated by pride, and pride is a sin that God especially hates and judges (Prov. 8:13). No doubt the church was praising God for the generous offering that Barnabas had brought when Satan whispered to the couple, “You can also bask in this kind of glory! You can make others think that you are as spiritual as Barnabas!” Instead of resisting Satan’s approaches, they yielded to him and planned their strategy.

Jesus made it very clear that we must be careful how we give, lest the glory that belongs to God should be given to us (Matt. 6:1-4, 19-34). The Pharisees were adept at calling attention to their gifts, and they received the praises of men–but that’s all they received! Whatever we possess, God has given to us; we are stewards, not owners. We must use what He gives us for His glory alone (see John 5:44).

Daniel Defoe called pride “the first peer and president of hell.” Indeed, it was pride that transformed Lucifer into Satan (Isa. 14:12-15), and it was pride (“Ye shall be as gods”) that caused our first parents to sin (Gen. 3). Pride opens the door to every other sin, for once we are more concerned with our reputations than our characters, there is no end to the things we will do just to make ourselves “look good” before others.

Sin Directed against God’s Church

A third feature of their sin was especially wicked: Their sin was directed against God’s church. We have reason to believe hat Ananias and Sapphira were believers. The spiritual level of the church at that time was so high that it is doubtful that a mere “professor” could have gotten into the fellowship without being detected. The fact that they were able to lie to the Spirit (Acts 5:3) and tempt the Spirit (v. 9) would indicate that they had the Spirit of God living within.

God loves His church and is jealous over it, for the church was purchased by the blood of God’s Son (Acts 20:28; Eph. 5:25) and has been put on earth to glorify Him and do His work. Satan wants to destroy the church, and the easiest way to do it is to use those who are within the fellowship. Had Peter not been discerning, Ananias and Sapphira would have become influential people in the church! Satan would have been working through them to accomplish his purposes!

The church is “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), and Satan attacks it with his lies. The church is God’s temple in which He dwells (1 Cor. 3:16), and Satan wants to move in and dwell there too. The church is God’s army (2 Tim. 2:1-4), and Satan seeks to get into the ranks as many traitors as he can. The church is safe so long as Satan is attacking from the outside, but when he gets on the inside, the church is in danger.

It is easy for us to condemn Ananias and Sapphira for their dishonesty, but we need to examine our own lives to see if our profession is backed up by our practice. Do we really mean everything we pray about in public? Do we sing the hymns and gospel songs sincerely or routinely? “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Matt. 15:8 NIV). If God killed “religious deceivers” today, how many church members would be left?

What is described in this chapter is not a case of church discipline. Rather it is an example of God’s personal judgment. “The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:30-31). Had Ananias and Sapphira judged their own sin, God would not have judged them (1 Cor. 11:31), but they agreed to lie, and God had to deal with them.

Ananias was dead and buried, and Sapphira did not even know it! Satan always keeps his servants in the dark, while God guides His servants in the light (John 15:15). Peter accused her of tempting God’s Spirit, that is, deliberately disobeying God and seeing how far God would go (Ex. 17:2; Deut. 6:16). They were actually defying God and daring Him to act–and He acted, with swiftness and finality. “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matt. 4:7).

We must keep in mind that their sin was not in robbing God of money but in lying to Him and robbing Him of glory. They were not required to sell the property, and having sold it, they were not required to give any of the money to the church (Acts 5:4). Their lust for recognition conceived sin in their hearts (vv. 4, 9), and that sin eventually produced death (James 1:15).

The result was a wave of godly fear that swept over the church and over all those who heard the story (Acts 5:11). We have moved from “great power” and “great grace” (4:33) to “great fear,” and all of these ought to be present in the church. “Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28-29).

THE MINISTRY OF THE APOSTLES (5:12-16)

We have learned that the Spirit-filled church is unified, magnified, and multiplied. Satan wants to divide the church, disgrace the church, and decrease the church, and he will do it, if we let him. But the church described here completely triumphed over the attacks of Satan! The people were still unified (Acts 5:12), magnified (v. 13), and multiplied (v. 14). Multitudes were added to the Lord, and for the first time, Luke mentions the salvation of women. Both in his gospel and in Acts, Luke has a great deal to say about women and their relationship to Christ and the church. There are at least a dozen references in Acts to women, as Luke shows the key role women played in the apostolic church. This is a remarkable thing when you consider the general position of women in the culture of that day (see Gal. 3:26-28).

God gave the apostles power to perform great miracles. While it is true that some of the ordinary members exercised miraculous powers (Acts 6:8), it was primarily the apostles who did the miracles. These “signs and wonders” were God’s way of authenticating their ministry (Rom. 15:18-19; 2 Cor. 12:12; Heb. 2:4).

Just as there were special judgments at the beginning of a new era, so there were also special miracles. We find no miracles performed in Genesis, but at the beginning of the age of law, Moses performed great signs and wonders. Elijah and Elisha were miracle workers at the beginning of the great era of the prophets, and Jesus and the apostles performed signs and wonders when the Gospel Age was inaugurated. Each time God opened a new door, He called man’s attention to it. It was His way of saying, “Follow these leaders because I have sent them.”

The mighty wonders performed by the apostles were the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise that they would do “greater works” in answer to believing prayer (John 14:12-14). When Jesus performed miracles during His ministry on earth, He had three purposes in mind: (1) to show compassion and meet human need; (2) to present His credentials as the Son of God; and (3) to convey spiritual truth. For example, when He fed the five thousand, the miracle met their physical need, revealed Him as the Son of God, and gave Him opportunity to preach a sermon about the Bread of Life (John 6).

The apostolic miracles followed a similar pattern. Peter and John healed the crippled beggar and met his need, but Peter used that miracle to preach a salvation sermon and to prove to the people and the council that he and John were indeed the servants of the living Christ. One of the qualifications for an apostle was that he had seen the risen Christ (Acts 1:22; 1 Cor. 9:1), and since nobody can claim that experience today, there are no apostles in the church. The apostles and prophets laid the foundation for the church (Eph. 2:20), and the pastors, teachers, and evangelists are building on it. If there are no apostles, there can be no “signs of an apostle” as are found in the book of Acts (2 Cor. 12:12).

This certainly does not mean that God is limited and can no longer perform miracles for His people! But it does mean that the need for confirming miracles has passed away. We now have the completed Word of God, and we test teachers by their message, not by miracles (1 John 2:18-29; 4:1-6). And we must keep in mind that Satan is a counterfeiter and well able to deceive the unwary. In the Old Testament, any prophet who performed miracles but, at the same time, led the people away from God’s Word, was considered a false prophet and was killed (Deut. 13). The important thing was not the miracles, but whether his message was true to the Word of God.

A radio listener wrote me and wanted to debate this issue with me, insisting that there were instances today of people being raised from the dead. I wrote him a kind letter and asked him to send me the testimonies of the witnesses, the kind of evidence that could be presented in court. He wrote back and honestly admitted that that kind of evidence was not available, but he still believed it because he had heard a TV preacher say it was so. Most of the miracles recorded in the Bible were out in the open for everybody to see, and it would not be difficult to prove them in a court of law.

Peter and the other apostles found themselves ministering as their Lord had ministered, with people coming from all over, bringing their sick and afflicted (Matt. 4:23-25; Mark 1:45; 2:8-12). The Twelve must have found it very difficult to walk down the street, for people crowded around them and laid before them sick people on their pallets. Some of the people even had the superstitious belief that there was healing in Peter’s shadow. It is significant that all of these people were healed. There were no failures and nobody was sent away because he or she “did not have faith to be healed.” These were days of mighty power when God was speaking to Israel and telling them that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed their Messiah and Savior. “For the Jews require a sign” (1 Cor. 1:22), and God gave signs to them. The important thing was not the healing of the afflicted, but the winning of lost souls, as multitudes were added to the fellowship. The Spirit gave them power for wonders and power for witness (Acts 1:8), for miracles apart from God’s Word cannot save the lost.

The greatest miracle of all is the transformation of a lost sinner into a child of God by the grace of God. That is the miracle that meets the greatest need, lasts the longest, and costs the greatest price–the blood of God’s Son.

And that is one miracle we can all participate in as we share the message of the gospel, “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Rom. 1:16). Acts 4:32 - 5:12