Monthly Archives: February 2020

It Was Time to Break the Law – Acts 5:28-33

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

 

Summary:

When the law commands believers to do something that is contrary to what God says (Acts 5:27, 28), we are to stand with Peter and obey God rather than men (v. 29), like the 3 Hebrews did in Daniel 3.

God’s people must always obey the law, even in the Tribulation when the devil makes the Antichrist the law (Rev. 13:1, 2).  We know God will expect His people to obey the Antichrist because while Paul’s epistles are written to us, the epistles that come after Paul’s epistles in the Bible are written to the people who will come after us, the Jews in the Tribulation.  And in one of those epistles, Peter tells them to obey the king (I Pe. 2:13-17).

At first it will be easy to obey the Antichrist, for he will rebuild their temple and protect them from their enemies.  But when he declares himself God (II Thes. 2:3, 4) and the false prophet erects an image of him and demands it be worshipped (Rev. 13:11-15), they will have to obey God’s command against worshipping graven images rather than men.

God “raised up” Jesus (Acts 5:30) to be Israel’s king in the same way He raised up David to be their king (Acts 13:21, 22).  Peter says they hung the Lord on a “tree” instead of saying a cross in reference to Deuteronomy 21:22, which says men hung on trees are cursed.  In quoting that verse, Paul says Christ redeemed us from that curse (Gal. 3:13).  And the tree of Exodus 15:25 was a type of Christ!

God “exalted” the Lord (Acts 5:31), and exalt means to raise high or elevate someone, as it does in Isaiah 52:13.  Verse 14 talks about how the Jews brought the Lord low by beating Him before the cross, described in the next chapter (Isaiah 53:5, 6, 12).  The “therefore” of Acts 2:32, 33 means that the Jews also brought the Lord low by killing Him, but God exalted Him by raising Him from the dead.

Now if you think exalting Him to be “a prince” wasn’t exalting Him very highly, it’s because we think a prince is below a king.  But the word prince often means the sovereign of all, as when the Lord is called “the prince of the kings of the earth” (Rev. 1:5 cf. I Tim. 6:15).  That’s what the Lord would have been exalted to become if the dispensation of the mystery hadn’t interrupted prophecy.

It used to be that Israel’s king couldn’t be a priest.  Saul lost his kingdom offering a sacrifice.  But Christ will be a priest and a king (Zech. 6:12, 13), a prince and a savior (Acts 5:31).

Jews looked for a Savior to save them from their enemies as well as from their sins (Lu. 1:68-75), but the Lord knew He couldn’t do one without the other and still be a just God and a Savior (Is. 45:21).  Rome had conquered them because of their sins (cf. Lev. 26:14, 17), so someone had to pay for their sins before He could save them from their enemies.

In the past, God had other nations pay for Israel’s sins (Isa. 43:3).  When Assyria threatened Israel, God caused Assyria’s king to hear a rumor that those other nations were attacking Syria (II Ki. 19:6-9), and so he left Israel alone and attacked them instead!

But when Israel didn’t let their land rest every 7th year (Lev. 25:4) for 490 years, God let them be conquered by Babylon for 70 years to give their land the 70 years of rest it missed (Lev. 26:27, 33, 34; II Chron. 36:20, 21). In other words, God made the Jews themselves pay for their sins that time.

When they were captives in Rome, God had His own Son pay their ransom (Mt. 20:28).  Peter didn’t understand that yet here in Acts 5, nor that He planned to ransom the Gentiles too, so He could be a just God and a Savior to them as well (Rom. 3:24-27).  That wasn’t revealed until Paul (I Tim. 2:5-7).  Repentance was being given to the Jews in Acts 5:31, but not to the Gentiles till after Paul was saved (Acts 11:18).

The Holy Spirit witnessed to the Jews (Acts 5:32) by the miracles He was empowering the apostles to do (5:12-16).  Now you’d think the Jews would listen to the witness of the Holy Spirit of God, but they sought to kill the apostles instead (Acts 5:33).

Video of this message is available on YouTube: It Was Time to Break the Law – Acts 5:28-33

Behavior That Honors the Savior

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Recently I came across a web site called, “Lies Moms Tell Their Kids To Get Them To Behave.”  One mom was so tired of her kids misbehaving while shopping that she told them the store’s security cameras were actually Santa-cams that had a direct feed to the North Pole, and if they misbehaved, Santa would know.

Of course, Paul gives a different reason why children should obey their parents, saying,

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1).

This verse is positively sublime in its splendor and simplicity, for it supplies parents with the answer to the eternal question of “why?”  You tell your son to do something, and he asks, “Why?”  Instead of replying with the usual, “Because I said so,” next time try, “Because God’s Word says that obeying me is the right thing to do!”  That’s also a much better reason to ask children to behave than to win the favor of some mythical North Pole elf!         

But children are not the only ones whom God calls upon to behave.  Paul told Titus,

“But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience” (Titus 2:1,2).

Did you notice that Paul didn’t just tell aged men how to behave, he told them why their behavior should honor the Savior?  He pointed out that the things he mentions here are “the things which become sound doctrine.”  That word “become” means to make something look good, and making sound doctrine look good is something that all Christians should aspire to do!

Of course, for aged men, some of these things can be pretty challenging.  Take that last one, for example.  In the Bible, the word “patience” is often associated with patiently waiting for the Lord to come, as it is in the first time the Bible mentions patience:

“Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way” (Psalm 37:7).

Now I know that the psalmist was talking about waiting patiently for the Lord’s coming at the end of the Tribulation to set up the kingdom of heaven on earth for the people of Israel.  But the principle he expresses here holds true for us members of the Body of Christ, who are looking for the “blessed hope” of the Rapture (Tit. 2:13).  Christians of all ages should wait patiently for the Lord to rapture us to Heaven, where we’ll enjoy all the blessings of the life to come, and not “fret” over the way that unsaved men seem to be prospering in this life.  It’s easy to get impatient for the coming of the Lord if you spend your time looking at all the people in the world who are prospering in worldly things.

And being sound in this kind of patience is especially hard for aged Christian men, who have spent their entire lives watching unsaved men prosper, while they themselves gave a lot of money to the Lord’s work that could have prospered them had they kept it instead.  Add to this the aches and pains of old age, and it is no wonder Paul tells aged men to be sound in patience as they wait for the coming of the Lord!

Do you know what will help you to stop fretting over the prosperity of unsaved men at any age?  Paul gives us the secret when he wrote about being “strengthened with all might…unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness” (Col. 1:11), and then added,

“Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (v. 12).

Being thankful for the inheritance that lies before us in Heaven goes a long way in helping us look past the prosperity of others in this life.  So thank God for your salvation, and then “rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him!”

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

Two Minutes with the Bible lets you start your day with short but powerful Bible study articles from the Berean Bible Society. Sign up now to receive Two Minutes With the Bible every day in your email inbox. We will never share your personal information and you can unsubscribe at any time.

The Anger of Israel’s Religious Leaders – Acts 5:17-28

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

 

Summary:

The apostles were healing “every one” that came to them (5:16), so the religious leaders in Israel were “filled with indignation” (5:17) or anger, while the apostles were “filled with the Holy Ghost” (2:4).  We too can choose to be filled with the Spirit instead of being filled with anger (Eph. 5:18) by being filled with God’s Word (Col.1:9,10).

These leaders were so angry they jailed the apostles (v.18) for the second time (4:1-3).  But the Lord showed what He thought of their incarceration when He sent “the angel of the Lord” to spring them out of jail (5:19,20).  That exact phrase sometimes referred to a theophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ (cf. Ex. 3:2,4,6).  But here it appears to be just one of God’s regular angels, who were “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation” like the apostles (Heb. 1:14).

But if God’s people are always supposed to obey the government, why would God undermine the authority of Israel’s government by breaking the apostles that they incarcerated out of jail?  It was because those men were no longer the legitimate rulers in Israel.  The Lord had warned them He would take the kingdom away from them (Mt. 21:43) and give it to the “little flock” of His followers (Lu. 12:32). That means the apostles were the new leaders of Israel, so the old rulers were wrong to incarcerate the new leaders, and the angel did nothing wrong breaking the new leaders out of jail.

This jailbreak was predicted (Ps. 69:33).  As it says there, the Lord helped the poor at Pentecost when He had the disciples sell all they had and give the proceeds to the poor to be saved (Lu. 18:18,22), and showed He didn’t despise His prisoners when He released them.  We see Pentecost predicted again in Psalm 146:3-9, where the Jews were told not to trust princes like Israel’s leaders, the hungry are mentioned as being fed again when those proceeds were shared, and prisoners were loosed, causing the way of those wicked rulers to be turned upside down.  You see, the psalms will be the guidebook of the Tribulation that these apostles were heading into if God hadn’t interrupted prophecy.

The angel told the apostles to go speak “all” the words of eternal life (5:20) because the apostles might have been tempted to omit the words the Sadducees didn’t want to hear, those about the resurrection of Christ (cf. Mt.22:23).

The only other time a “senate” (Acts 5:21) is referred to is Pharaoh’s (Ps. 105:20-22).  He saw Joseph’s miraculous interpretation of his dream and freed him from prison and put him over his senators.  That may be why the senate is mentioned here.  When Israel’s senate convened, the Jews might have thought of Pharaoh’s senate and realized that their ruler (the high priest) should do what Pharaoh did: recognize the miracles that the apostles were doing and free them from prison and put them over his senate. It wouldn’t be the first time God shamed the Jews with the Gentiles (cf. Luke 4:25-30).

The high priest sent soldiers to fetch the apostles out of prison (Acts 5:21), not knowing the twelve were already free and teaching in the temple.  The soldiers reported that the jail keepers didn’t see them escape (5:22), so the angel must have pulled an Acts 12:5-10 here.  Notice that the leaders didn’t doubt that another miracle had taken place (cf. Acts 4:16), they only doubted “whereunto it would grow.”  They feared the people would think the Spirit whisked them out of jail like He used to whisk Elijah around (I Ki. 18:12).  But what had happened was a miracle, it didn’t need to grow!

When the high priest said that the apostles had “filled Jerusalem” with their doctrine (Acts 5:27,28), that wasn’t true.  Sure, 3,000 men got saved the first day and 5,000 men the next day, but even counting their families, that was only a fraction of the estimated 600,000 people living in Jerusalem at that time.  If they had filled Jerusalem with their doctrine, they would have moved on to spread the gospel to the rest of the world as the Lord told them (Lu. 24:47; Acts 1:8).The high priest only said that to get people to overreact (cf. Jo. 12:19).

The high priest was also wrong when he said the apostles were trying to bring the Lord’s blood on them, even though they said they were willing to bear responsibility for it (Mt. 27:3,4).  The apostles had reduced the charge against them from murder to manslaughter (Acts 3:17), so weren’t.

Video of this message is available on YouTube: The Anger of Israel’s Religious Leaders – Acts 5:17-28

The Rarity of Charity

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

“…speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: That the aged men be… sound in… charity” (Titus 2:1,2).

To adorn the sound doctrine that they profess to believe, the Apostle Paul instructed Titus to tell aged men to be sound in charity.  To guide them in this, Paul gives a detailed description of charity in I Corinthians 13:4-7 that serves as a good guide for Christians of all ages.  Newer Bibles change “charity” to love here, but charity is love in action, and that’s the kind of charity that all Christians should seek to be sound in!  But Paul counsels aged men to be sound in charity because some of the descriptions he gave the Corinthians of charity are harder for aged men to exhibit.

For instance, he says that charity “suffereth long” (I Cor. 13:4).  Do you know any aged men who don’t suffer long with others, who get cranky when people vex them instead?  Paul says aged men should rather be sound in charity, and “kind” (v. 4) when people tax their longsuffering.

Charity also “envieth not” (I Cor. 13:4).  People of all ages are envious, but envy hurts more as you get older.  You see, if you spend your life envying the things possessed by others, and not getting them, by the time you get old you realize you’re probably never going to get them.  No wonder Paul tells aged men they should be sound in charity instead of being envious.

Paul also says charity “is not puffed up” (I Cor. 13:4).  That’s a reference to pride caused by too much knowledge (I Cor. 8;1).  And who has more knowledge than aged men?  If you don’t believe that, just ask one!  But I’ve known older Christian men who were puffed up by their knowledge of the Bible, and that’s not very becoming to sound doctrine.

Charity also doesn’t “behave itself unseemly” (I Cor. 13:5), a word that means inappropriately, or even indecently.  The only other time the Bible uses this term is to describe homosexuality (Rom. 1:27).  But homosexuality isn’t the only way to behave unseemly.  You’ve probably heard the term “dirty old man.”  That’s an old man who acts inappropriately toward women.

A few years ago, one of our former presidents was accused of acting unseemly, touching women inappropriately while taking photographs with them.  If those accusations were true, he perhaps thought it was innocent because he was so elderly.  But that is not a fitting way for a former president to act, and it is surely no way for an aged Christian man to act.  Aged men should be sound in charity instead, and charity “doth not behave itself unseemly.”

Paul also wrote that charity “believeth all things” (I Cor. 13:7). That means when something happens that makes you question the integrity of a brother in Christ, don’t be so quick to believe something bad about him.  Believe “all things” good about him until you get all the facts.

A man who used to attend the church that I pastor once said to me, “Maybe you’ve noticed that I never put anything in the offering box.  That’s because I’m getting over a gambling addiction and I’m paying off all my old gambling debts.”  I told him I didn’t make a habit of watching to see who visits our offering box, but even if I noticed that he didn’t, I wouldn’t assume he was unspiritual.  I’d give him the benefit of the doubt and believe the best about him.

Now that gets harder as we get older and more cynical.  The longer you live, the more you see the bad side of people, so you tend to believe the worst about them.  One of my assistant pastors is a former Chicago police lieutenant, and he says it is harder for some policemen to think the best of people, for they spend their lives seeing people at their absolute worst.  Because of that, they end up getting cynical about people at a much younger age than the rest of us.  But if aged men want to be sound in charity, they have to be willing to believe the best of others.

If we could all live that way, maybe the rarity of charity would become a thing of the past!

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

Two Minutes with the Bible lets you start your day with short but powerful Bible study articles from the Berean Bible Society. Sign up now to receive Two Minutes With the Bible every day in your email inbox. We will never share your personal information and you can unsubscribe at any time.

The Fear of God – Acts 5:11-16

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

 

Summary:

When Peter struck some unbelievers dead (5:1-10), why’d fear fall on the church (v.11)?  They hadn’t lied to Peter.  And why’s Paul say that we should fear God (II Cor. 7:1; Eph. 5:21; Phil. 2:12).  Well, the psalmist said that God forgives us so we’ll fear Him (Ps. 130:3,4).  Here it helps to know that the word “fear” can mean reverence (Ps. 89:7), which means respect—the kind we should always give God.

Jews in the kingdom will fear God’s goodness (Hos. 3:4,5) because they’ll think about the “many days” they spent rejecting God before the kingdom begins, and what would have happened to them had they died before returning to Him.  It’s one reason we should fear God too!

We today can’t do miracles of healing like the apostles did here (Acts 5:12) because the Jews require a sign by nature (I Cor. 1:22).  That’s because they stem from the miraculous birth of Isaac!  God also taught them to look for such signs (Ex. 4:1-4).  But salvation was of the Jews back then (Jo. 4:22), and God was using them to reach the Gentiles.

But God isn’t giving the Jews miracles any more to get them to believe and then reach the Gentiles.  In the dispensation of grace, He’s giving the Gentiles “wisdom,” so that they can reach the Jews.  That’s because Gentiles seek wisdom by nature just like Jews seek miracles by nature (I Cor. 1:22b).  And God is abounding toward us in wisdom (Eph. 1:8) just like He abounded toward the Jews in miracles (Acts 5:12).

Solomon is mentioned again (5:12 cf. 3:11) because they were looking for the kingdom, the kingdom that would be a restoration of what the kingdom of Israel was like under Solomon (Acts 1:6) when Israel was at the height of her power and influence. But hanging around the Jewish temple proves the 12 weren’t starting the Gentile church of today.

You’d think they wouldn’t be “of one accord” (5:12) after Peter struck two Jews dead (cf. Num.16:41), but they were filled with the Spirit here (Acts 2:4) and made to live “of one heart and of one soul” (4:32) even when that happened.

Mention of the “rest” who didn’t dare join the church (Acts 5:13) shows that Satan was filling the hearts of a bunch of men to try to infiltrate God’s church (cf. Acts 5:3).  They were planning to infiltrate the church so they could lead them astray as the Lord warned (Mt. 7:15).  This is still a danger even under grace (Acts 20:28,29), a great danger (v. 31).  The only way to guard against it is to be built up in grace (v. 32).

The Jews at Pentecost were right to magnify the twelve apostles (5:13), but we’re supposed to magnify Paul, as he himself did (Rom. 11:13).  If you magnify the twelve instead, you’ll probably expect the kind of results they got (Acts 5:14), and we don’t see results like that today.

Pastors like to say that we could if we were as faithful as they were, but God predicted their growth (Isa. 44:3,4).  You see, He planned to plant them in the earth to get the “city” of Jerusalem to believe (Ps. 72:16), and then use them to reach the world (Zech. 10:8,9 cf. Mark 4:30,31).  He planned to make that tiny group of 120 disciples (Acts 1:15) into the greatest kingdom on earth (Mark 4:32).

So don’t be discouraged that we don’t see “multitudes” getting saved in one day like the apostles did.  God’s not starting the kingdom today like He was then!  They were simply in the right place at the right time.

Our dispensation will end with a departure from the truth, not growth (I Tim. 4:1).  “Some” there probably means most (cf. Heb. 3:16).  So what should we do about it?  Paul told Timothy to take heed to himself and the doctrine (I Tim. 4:16) and so should we!

Peter’s shadow healing (Acts 5:15,16) fulfilled John 14:12, a taste of the kingdom (Isa. 32:1-3).  Jews were always trusting in the wrong shadow (Isai 30:1,2), and someday will trust in Antichrist’s healing shadow as well (Judges 9:15 cf. II Thes. 2:8,9).

If modern “healers” can’t heal “every one” like Peter could (Acts 5:16), they must not have a God-given gift of healing like Peter did, because God can heal all diseases!

Video of this message is available on YouTube: The Fear of God – Acts 5:11-16

How Aged Men Should Behave

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Recently I came across a web site called, “Lies That Moms Tell Their Kids To Get Them To Behave.”  One mom told her kids she had a new phone app that could tell her when they were misbehaving behind her back!

Well, while children should heed Paul’s advice to “obey your parents in the Lord” simply because, as Paul went on to say, “this is right” (Eph. 6:1), the apostle Paul says that “aged men” should behave themselves for a different reason.  He told Titus,

“…speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: That the aged men be… grave… sound in faith” (Titus 2:1,2).

Aged Christian men should behave themselves because it is becoming to the sound doctrine they profess to believe.  That word means to make something look good.  Officers in the military can be charged with “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” if they misbehave and make the military look bad, but aged Christian men should want to make the sound doctrine they believe and teach look good!

And that includes being “grave,” a word that means serious—deadly serious!  As men grow old, they tend to mellow, and not take things as seriously as they did when they were young.  While that might be okay in some areas of life, Paul is talking about being serious in spiritual matters, and the gravity of spiritual things doesn’t diminish with age.  So if you are an older Christian man, you might want to take stock of your life to determine if you are as serious about serving the Lord as you were when you wore a younger man’s clothes.

Paul says that aged men should also be “sound in faith.”  The word “sound” means healthy, wholesome and strong.  When Isaiah wanted to describe how sinful the people of Israel were in his day, he compared them to a diseased man’s body (Isaiah 1:5), saying of his nation, “there is no soundness in it” (v. 6).  So being “sound in faith” means having strong and healthy faith.

Maybe you noticed that Paul didn’t say that aged men should be sound in the faith.  That is, he didn’t say they should be sound in the body of truth given to Paul for the dispensation of grace.  That’s true, but that’s something Paul expressed earlier in this epistle (Tit. 1:13).  Here the word “faith” means faithfulness, as it does when Paul wrote of God’s faithfulness to the people of Israel despite their unbelief (Rom. 3:3).  So in saying that aged men should be “sound in faith,” Paul is saying they should be strong in their faithfulness to the Lord.

And now that I’m getting to be an aged man myself, I think I can understand why the apostle says this to aged men.  It is the same reason he tells us all, “be not weary in well doing” (Gal. 6:9).  That’s challenging for believers at any age, but it is a particular challenge when a man starts getting on in years.  I still love studying the Word and teaching it, but I have to tell you, I’m getting tired!  So I can see why Paul would tell aged men that they should be “sound in faith,” and not let weariness or anything else affect the soundness of their faithfulness to the Lord.

So if you’re a Christian man who is willing to admit that the word “aged” might describe you, I hope that the words “grave” and “sound in faith” can also be used to describe you.  If you’re as serious about serving the Lord as you were when you were young, it will surely show in your faithfulness to Him.  And Paul says that these are “things that become sound doctrine.”

Of course, one of the ways to help ensure that you’ll be sound in faith when you get old is to start while you are young!

“Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them” (Ecclesiastes 12:1).

You’ll be eternally glad you did!

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

Two Minutes with the Bible lets you start your day with short but powerful Bible study articles from the Berean Bible Society. Sign up now to receive Two Minutes With the Bible every day in your email inbox. We will never share your personal information and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Uncommon Selfishness – Acts 5:1-11

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

 

Summary: 

We know the disciples at Pentecost sold all they had and gave all the proceeds to the poor in order to be saved (Luke 18:18,22), for Peter had no money (Acts 3:6).  So when a married couple only brought part of their money (Acts 5:1,2), we know they couldn’t have been saved, and couldn’t be allowed to join the church.

They must have said they brought it all, however, for Peter said they “lied” (v. 3).  Peter was a prophet, and prophets just knew stuff like that (II Ki. 6:12; John 4:16-19, 28, 29).

When Peter says Satan filled his heart (Acts 5:3), he knew that Satan hadn’t snuck up on Ananias and filled his heart to lie against his will.  He knew this for he’d heard the Lord say that “deceit” like that comes from the heart of men (Mark 7:21-23).Men don’t need any help from Satan to sin, the fall-en nature we inherited from Adam makes us sin on our own

Now we know Satan was involved in Judas’ sin (John 13:2). But even then he couldn’t have been if Judas hadn’t let him.  He let Satan fill his heart because he was covetous and want-ed the 30 pieces of silver the priests promised him for selling the Lord out.  And Ananias let him because he wanted in on the blessing of living with all things common. He just didn’t want to sacrifice all his money.  That’s why Peter asked him “why” Satan filled his heart, i.e., why he let him do it.

Ananias had lied to Peter, but Peter told him he lied to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3) because he was filled with the Spirit (Acts 2:4).  Peter told him he “conceived” the lie and James must have had Pentecost in mind because he too wrote about conceiving sin (James 1:15).  He also warned about double minded men like Ananias (1:8).

When James also said that rich men would die (1:10,14), that too goes along with what was happening at Pentecost.  The only rich people at Pentecost were those who didn’t sell all their things and share the proceeds, the ones who weren’t even trying to join Peter’s church.  That means they couldn’t be saved (Mt. 19:23, 24; Lu. 18:23, 24).

Acts 5:3 says Ananias lied to the Spirit, but verse 4 says he lied to God because the Spirit is God.  Of course, some deny that the Holy Spirit is even a person, saying He’s just some kind of force like in Star Wars.  But you can’t “lie” to a force!

Ananias’s sin brought forth death, just like James said it would (Acts 5:5).  People get uneasy when I say Peter struck him dead, but that wasn’t the only time God gave men the power to inflict death and physical punishment (II Ki. 1:9, 10; Acts 13:11), and it won’t be the last (Rev. 11:3, 5).

When Ananias’s wife was also stricken dead (Acts 5:6-9), that proved his death wasn’t a coincidence.  “Tempt” (v.7) can mean to provoke (Ps. 78:56).  Those Jews knew it was wrong to make a graven image, so when they did it they provoked God to anger and jealousy (v. 58).  “Tempt” also means to test (Rev. 3:10) or prove (Heb. 3:9).  When they made that image, they were testing God to see what He’d do, and Sapphira was testing God to see what He’d do too, when she and her husband tried to lie their way into the church.

All this was a “taste” of the “powers” that men of God will have in the kingdom (Heb. 6:4, 5).  They will need power like that, for there will be “leaven” or sin in the kingdom (Mt. 13:33).  Saved men won’t be able to sin (I Jo. 3:9; 5:18) but they’ll have kids who will have to grow up and get saved.  If they sin before they do, they’ll be executed like this, or by the flying roll (Zech. 5:1-4).

This roll will be a copy of the ten commandments.  Notice both are written on both sides (Ex. 32:15).  One side of both says don’t swear, the other side of both says don’t steal.  If men swear or steal in the kingdom, they will die.  If they go 100 years without sinning and then sin they’ll still have to die, and will be considered a “child” (Isa. 65:20) since they should have lived as long as men did in early Genesis.

Satan can’t be everywhere at once, but he dogged the Lord’s steps and then the disciples, and now he’s after believers—especially grace believers like you!  That’s why it is important to be here in church learning God’s Word, to learn how to defend yourself!

Video of this message is available on YouTube: Uncommon Selfishness – Acts 5:1-11