Alright, if you will take your
Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 5. Acts the 5th chapter. We're looking at verses 1 through
11 this morning. And the title of the message
this morning is, Tears Among Wheat. Tears Among Wheat. Acts chapter 5 and verse 1. It says, "...but a certain man
named Ananias with Sapphira his wife sold a possession and kept
back part of the price, his wife being privy to it, and brought
a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet." We saw last
week as we looked at chapter 4, we saw that the church had
been praying to the Lord and asking Him to give them boldness. boldness to speak the word of
Jesus Christ. And God answered their prayers.
He answered their request. And as the apostles preached,
the church was given to spiritual unity and spiritual giving, spiritual
giving hearts. Look at that in verse 31 and
32 of chapter 4. And it says, And when they prayed,
the place was shaken where they were assembled together. And
they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the
word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them believed
were of one heart and one soul. Neither said any of them that
all of the things which he possessed was his own, but that they had
all things common." We saw that they were united by the same
Spirit of God, around the same Gospel of Jesus Christ, and because
of God's great grace, We see that their expression of this
is by giving to the needs of the brethren in Christ. Now, the mark of the unified
church is manifest in their giving of their time and resources to
it. Jesus said, where a man's treasure
is, there will his heart be also. And if our hearts are set on
the things above and not on the things of the earth, we know
the things of the earth are of no value to our souls. And we
gladly give them to those who have need of them. I thought
of this illustration, you know, if I came to you and said, I
need some dirt, if I need dirt, And you would look at me kind
of strange and I just said, I need dirt. And you would gladly, I'm
sure, give me dirt. Why? It has no value. It has no value to you. You would
freely give that to me if I had asked it or had need of it. Well,
this is exactly how we are to view the things of this life.
This is exactly how we are to view our money, our time, and
our possessions. In light of eternity, they have
little to no value whatsoever. to us. And we should be readily
willing to part with anything in this world if our brothers
and sisters have need for the gospel of Jesus Christ, we would
gladly give it. Money and possessions in this
life should be of no value to us. And if we were to experience
poverty here in this church, we're far from poverty. Our nation
has a standard of poverty, but believe me, that's not real poverty. These people in these churches,
they were wondering where their next piece of bread was coming
from. This was real poverty. And the believers saw this need,
this great need to supply to the apostles their needs and
to supply to the brothers and sisters their needs. And they
gave them freely. He gave them freely. They were
willing to sell all and to feed God's saints. This should be
a reminder of us to give to the cares of the people of the church
of God and what we have left, give to the world. What we have
left, give to men that have need. You see, I know this by experience. I know this because I see this
in you. I see this in you. And it thrills my soul. It gives
me great comfort and joy to see when believers give of their
time and effort and see that the cares of this life are of
no value to them. But the gospel is of great value. And this is pictured by a man
named Joseph. Look at this in verse 36. They
all gave, but they used this man as an example. They singled
out one man. His name was Joseph. And who
by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, which is being interpreted
the son of Consolation, a Levite of the country of Cyprus, having
land sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles'
feet." The Scriptures here give us the example of Barnabas. His name was Joseph, but he was
called Barnabas by the apostles, meaning son of consolation. He
is a great example of the exhortation and comfort that giving hearts
are to the church. The apostles, I noticed this,
the apostles gave Him that name. Isn't that something? The apostles
saw the greatness of His kind heart and His giving heart and
they surnamed Him Barnabas because they themselves were comforted
by Him, by the selling of His lands and giving to the apostles
and the furtherance of the gospel. That's encouraging. That's encouraging
to see how much. If you take a man, say he had
millions of dollars, and all of a sudden he just gave it up.
I mean, just sold everything. This is what this man did. This
man had land and he sold it and he gave everything he had to
the Gospel. Friends, let us take note of
this man. He's not in the Scriptures to fill space, is he? Nothing
in the Scriptures is there to fill space. But this man is an
example of what an encourager does. He saw the things of this
life to be of little value and he saw the gospel of Jesus Christ
to be of great value. And so Barnabas, Barnabas saw
little of the things of this world and he freely with joy
gave it away. He freely gave it. And I'll tell
you this, people say, well, I don't have money to give. Give time,
time, effort. These things are gifts. These
things are freely given by us to the furtherance of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. Freely give your time to declare
the gospel. I remember preaching at a hospital
before I came here. You see, that was a joy to my
heart. I know that God called me to preach, but there are other
things that people can do besides preaching. I remember Don Fortner
talking about a lady planting flowers. And he said, well, that
just looks beautiful. And she said, well, I can't preach,
but I can plant flowers. I can do that. And they do this
freely. We should take this example and
do this to see it for the needs of others and see the need of
the church. But here in chapter 5 in our
text, we're going to notice something, a contrast. You see Barnabas,
the son of consolation, an encourager, he took everything he had and
gladly gave it to the church for the furtherance of the gospel.
And the verse word in chapter 5 is a word, but, conjunction. In other words, He is going to
give us a contrast between two different types of people. He says, but as certain man named
Ananias with Sapphira, his wife, sold their possessions. They sold their possessions. You see, they had no doubt saw
this man Barnabas. They saw what the Lord had done
through him. They saw that the apostles gave
him a surname. They said, man, that guy, he
got a surname. I want one of those. I want one
of those. And so they determined to give. They said, well, let's do this.
Let's give to the church so that we too can have the preeminence
in the church like Barnabas. And so they did determine to
sell their possessions. See, so they took it and they
sold it and there they are with all that money in their hands.
Imagine that. They didn't have checks back
then. You know, you didn't have a check. They had to actually
give you cash if you were going to sell something. So there they
are. They have all this cash laying in front of them now.
And something happened to their determination to give. Something
interfered with that. And after they sold it, seeing
the money, they said, listen, we can have both. We can have
both. We can have preeminence in the
church and we can have our money too. And they said, let's do
this, let's lie. Let's lie and give a portion
to the church and tell them we gave all so that everybody would
look on us like they looked on Barnabas. And all the while we'll
have possessions of ourselves so we can do what we want to
with them. And so they did that. They sold
it all and then they took part of it and gave it and they kept
the rest. But something happened that they didn't expect. Look
at this in verse 3. And Peter said, Ananias, why
has Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and
to keep back part of the price of the land? You see, Peter had
a gift. He could see the intent of the
heart. He knew when this man laid that
down, he knew he only gave part and kept the rest for himself.
This is kind of like Elisha. Remember Elisha? When Naaman
came, he came with all those gifts, and Elisha said, I don't
want none of that. And that servant, he ran after him. He said, well,
I do. And he got it and brought it back. And Elisha knew that
he had lied and deceived him. And leprosy fell on that man.
But Peter had this same gift. And as we read the Scripture,
and as we see in our experience of the Christian church, There
have always been two types of people, haven't there? There
have been these people kind of like Ananias and Sapphira. There
have always been people like Barnabas, and there will always
be these two in the church. Always these two people. In the
physical, visible church, there shall always be wheat and tares,
sheep and goats, lost and saved, unregenerate and regenerate,
professors of faith and possessors of faith. And I want us to see
three things about these tares this morning. Ananias and Sapphira,
they were tares among the wheat. They were tares among the wheat.
They were lost and professors of faith, but not possessors
of faith. First of all, I want us to see
that they are children of Satan. Flip over to Matthew chapter
13 with me real fast. Matthew chapter 13 and verse
37 and 38. Jesus here, speaking of the parable
of the wheat and the tares, says this concerning the explanation
of it. He says, He that soweth is the
good seed, is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the
good seed are the children of the kingdom. But the tares are
the children of the wicked one. The tares are the children of
the wicked one. You see, in every good thing
of God, there is a counterfeit. In every good thing, there's
a counterfeit. Think about the Trinity. We have the blessed
Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's good. But do you
know that Satan has a counterfeit Trinity? He does. It is the beast, the false prophet,
and the Antichrist. That is the false, evil Trinity. And so it is that God has a good
seed. The good seed is sown by Jesus
Christ. We are children, if we are believers
in Christ, we are children of the Father. But also the evil
one has sowed his own seed, which is the children of darkness,
the children of Satan. And they are a counterfeit seed,
who believe a counterfeit gospel, who bow to a counterfeit Christ. And as God has seen fit for the
good, good for the wheat and the glory of His grace, He has
seen fit to allow these two to grow together." There was Barnabas
and there was Ananias and Sapphira in the same church, and by all outward pretense,
doing the same thing. You see, they both were giving,
weren't they? They both were giving. But there was one great
difference. Barnabas was a child of God,
and Ananias and Sapphira were children of the devil. They were
children of Satan. And God has seen fit that the
tares and the wheat grow together, so that we're not able to see
many times the difference between the two. I'll tell you this,
if you go around trying to point out wheat, I guarantee you, more
times than not, we'll point out tares. We can't tell. We can't tell who the wheat and
the tares are, but God knows. Know this, God knows whose His
children are and who they are. You see, men can lie to us. They can deceive us. They can
come out and say, well, I believe this, and I believe this, and
we're brothers in Christ. I say, okay, that's good. That's
good, I like that. Well, whether that's true or
not, I don't know. I'll take you at your word on
that. But know this, you may deceive men, and you may deceive
yourself, people may deceive themselves, but one person they'll
never deceive is God. God was not deceived by their
treachery. He was not deceived by it at
all. Man, Ananias and Sapphira seemed like Barnabas in all outward
circumstances, but some believe him, and some believe him to
be one of the 120 that received the Holy Spirit. I read that
this week, that some believe him to be one in that upper room
where he received the gifts of the Spirit of God. He received
the gifts of the Spirit of God, and like Barnabas sold his land
and put it at the apostles' feet. The difference is found in verse
3. Here it is, Satan hath filled
thine heart. Who does that remind you of?
When I read that, immediately I was reminded of Judas Iscariot.
Judas Iscariot was given gifts to heal and he was given power
to do many wonderful miracles. What does it say concerning him?
It said, Satan filled his heart and he went out and betrayed
the Lord Jesus Christ. Like Judas, Ananias was filled
with Satan. Satan filled his heart. And so
it happened to Ananias and Sapphira. This cannot happen, though, to
a true child of God. Satan cannot fill the heart of
a true child of God. You see, because God, when we
are born again, we are born again after holiness and righteousness. We're created new creatures in
Christ. And in that new creation, there
can dwell no evil whatsoever. Now, this old flesh is rotten,
it's corrupt, and it's depraved, it's sinful. And it doesn't change. But we have a new nature. And
in this new nature, it rules in our hearts so that Satan has
no right to come in here. He has no right to come in here.
Now I know this, believers, we are at times tempted by Him. We are at times in the outward
circumstances, God allows Him as He did Job to bring many pains
in our life. But there's one thing He'll never
do and that's destroy our souls. He can't. He has no power. Has
no power. The child of Christ is free from
him. Remember, he was a strong man armed at one time. In our
hearts, he was a strong man armed and he kept his palace at peace.
But when Christ came, he delivered us from that strong man and cast
him out. He has no right or place in here.
But professors of faith are altogether different. Professors of faith
You see, they can be possessed by Satan. If you go to Matthew
chapter 12, you see this. The Lord giving a parable there.
Matthew 12, verse 43-45, He said, When an unclean spirit is gone
out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and
findeth none. And he saith, I will return to
my house from whence I came. And when he is come, he findeth
it empty, swept, and garnished. And then goeth he, and taketh
with him himself seven other spirits. more wicked than himself,
and they enter in and dwell there. And the last state of this man
is worse than the first, even so it be also with this wicked
generation." You see, a man may be allowed at some point, even
though he's a captive of Satan, to reform. He may be allowed
to be moral. He may be allowed to turn over
a new leaf. He may be allowed to become religious. But if there is no new nature
in Him, what's to stop the evil spirits from coming back? Nothing. Nothing. And that's exactly what
happened to Ananias and Sapphira. Their evil nature and their evil
hearts, when they swept and garnished them, they came back even more
wicked than they were to begin with. I know this to be true of those
who profess faith in Christ. Peter says it would have been
better had they never heard, than to reject the gospel, than
to turn away from it. False professors are still susceptible
to be filled with Satan and his influence, while believers may
be tempted, but never can be destroyed. Number two, the tares
do not give with a pure heart. You see, we saw Barnabas. He
gave with a pure heart. He gave freely. He gave out of
the love of his heart. But that's not the case with
Ananias and Sapphira. They gave out of a lie, out of
a scheme, in order to get the preeminence in the church. That's
the only reason they gave. He gave because he loved. They
gave out of their greed. They sought only to be recognized.
They no doubt saw what great blessings upon Barnabas, but
they longed for that themselves. and they longed to keep their
money. They said, we'll lie and we'll keep the rest for ourselves.
Remember, Jesus said you cannot serve God and mammon. You cannot
have them both. You cannot have this world and
Christ too. You either have one and despise
the other or you will serve the one and reject the other. You
cannot have them both. And notice there was nothing
wrong with this. There was nothing wrong with
the amount that they gave. I want you to know that. They
had that land. Peter said they had that land.
It was yours. When you had it, it was yours.
You weren't obligated to give it. And when you sold it and
you had the money in your hands, it was still yours. You could
have kept it. Nobody made you give. But because
you desired to lie unto God and to God's people, God punished
him. God showed exactly what he was. He tried to lie to the Spirit
of God. They tried to deceive the apostles
to bestow on them some title. How many people have come into
the church seeking that? Think about this. I know people
who have gave thousands and thousands of dollars just so they can get
their name on a plaque in the church. You know, they wanted
some recognition. And that's to be expected of
a tare. Recognition is something expected
of the false believers in Christ. He said they could have gave
anything, but you gave to receive the preeminence. And that's what
tares do. And lastly, let us know the result
of this. When they did this, When they
did this, the Scripture says in verse 11 of our text that
great fear came upon the church. Great fear came upon all the
church. And this same fear that is mentioned
here, I believe is the same fear that came upon the disciples
when Jesus said, one of you shall betray Me. Remember that? He
was sitting at the table and He said, one of you shall betray
Me. What was the response of the
apostles? Is it me? Is it me? Will I betray you, Lord?" And
of course, last of all, Judas kind of figured he was caught. And so now, knowing that he was
caught, he came up and said that too. But the apostles said it
out of fear, because they knew what kind of creatures they were.
They knew the kind of sin that was in their hearts. And they
asked, Lord, is it me? Is it me? And this is the same
fear that happened in the church at this time. People were looking
at Ananias and Sapphira and they said, is that me? Do I give like
that? Is that how I am? Am I a tare
or am I a wheat? What am I? I know as I read and study, many
times I ask that same question. As I studied this text, I asked
that same question. I ask the same question, is it
I? Let us then examine ourselves. Let us examine ourselves. It
is good to make our calling and election sure, my friends, to
look again at the source of our hope, to look again and see are
we giving of a heart of love to Christ, or do we give only
a portion so we may keep it to ourselves? Let us examine ourselves and
hold to the greatest treasure, to find what the greatest treasure
is to us in this world. Is it the things of this life,
the comforts of this life, or is it Christ? That's what the
church had to do when they came to this place. They had to examine
to see where they were, who they were. Is Christ our treasure
or are the pleasures of this life our treasure? Are we seeking
preeminence? Are we seeking the glory of God
in everything we do? Are we seeking our own good or
the good of our brethren? Are we lying to Christ? Or are we living for Christ? The tares, my friend, they bother
little with this question. Oh, but the wheat bother much
with it. The wheat are much trouble with this. But take comfort, you that believe. God said, Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, saith the Lord. Why? We need comfort. We are
a skittish people. We are skittish people. It's
good for us to examine, but then after we examine, let us see
if our faith lie in Christ. See if we rest in Christ, and
if we do, then take comfort. If we do, take comfort. I pray
the Lord will bless this to our hearts.