Acts chapter 4, the last few
verses, and then we want to spend some time in Acts chapter 5. Brother Loren read that passage
of scripture over in the book of Isaiah, comfort ye, comfort
ye my people. And you know, as we read down
through here, we say, how can we get comfort out of this? Because
we have a couple of people that were in the church Now, I cannot
tell you how many commentaries told me they were saved people.
There's no way in this world Ananias and Sapphira were saved
people. Now, they wanted to act like
it, and we'll get there in just a moment. In the book of Acts,
chapter 4, I want to begin reading with verse 36, no, verse 35,
I believe it is. Just a moment here. Let's back up to verse 33 of
the book of Acts chapter 4 and this has been after that initial
persecution that the Jews had placed upon some of the disciples
and they arrive home back to the place where the Church is
gathered where their friends are gathered and they share with
them all the things that had taken place and they had a wonderful
prayer meeting and And then it tells us that the place was shaken
by an earthquake. And then we read this, and with
great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus and great grace was upon them all. Now that's
our passage of scripture for next Sunday. Witness of the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus. All right going on neither. Was
there any among them that lack for as Many as were possessors
of lands and of houses sold them and brought the prices of the
things that were sold You know, it is so much more a blessing
to have the Lord lower the gifts than us trying to raise them
the Lord touched the hearts of some people and There didn't
have to be a lot of preaching on the subject of giving. There
was just that attitude that God gave his people to give and to
give thankfully. And we'll get to that in just
a moment. Neither was there any of among them that lack for the
many as were possessors of the lands of houses, sold them and
brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them
down at the apostles' feet and distribution was made unto every
man according as he had need. And Joseph, 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. blessing was going on in this
church that had many people in it there in Jerusalem. After
the day of Pentecost and after several preaching services, we
find that there are quite a few, several thousand people in this
congregation that the Lord had saved by His grace. And they
have an attitude here that if there are other people that need
things, we will take care of them. Now just remember, in this
day and time, if the Lord saved you and you went to your place
of business and said, God has saved me, they say, you're fired. And they go home and say, God
has saved me. And he says, we don't want to
ever see you again. And they go down to the temple
and say, God has saved me. And he says, we are removing
you from the church role. So it was not an easy thing imposed
upon the people, but God gave them the grace that he has so
plenteously gives that they could endure that and not have a problem
with it. You know, I was talking to Brother
Mike this morning that there's a passage of Scripture there
in the Gospels about if a king is going to look at going to
war, then he looks at his troops and see if he can, with 20,000,
beat an army of 40,000. And if not, he goes sues for
peace. You know, I used to hear that,
but it was much taken out of context. When God saves his people,
they do not care who opposes it. They are in love with the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so we may lose family, we
may lose friends, we may lose our church, we may lose all those
things, but God will give us more than we ever had before.
Because if we meet one person that knows the gospel that God
has revealed to us, we're in better shape than we had with
50 or 100 people that did not believe the gospel. So it's much
more valuable to have someone that we can fellowship with that
knows the gospel. When we look at the gospel and
find out that God had an interest in the people before the foundation
of the world, and the two people agree, we say, hallelujah, because
if it hadn't happened, I would have never had any interest in
God. So where two or three are gathered together in his name,
it's much more valuable than us being in a group of 50, or
100, or 3,000, or 20,000. So here we have this group they
have things common and I want to direct your attention to chapter
5 now This is where we're going to spend some time today in chapter
5 but a certain man named Ananias a certain man by the name of
Ananias this person Ananias his name means whom Jehovah has graciously
given and Now in this case he was misnamed. Whom Jehovah has graciously given. Now Ananias and Sapphira were
no doubt people in this church that other people knew and you
and I have an impossible situation when it comes to telling whether
someone else is saved or not. I was asked this last Wednesday
about that, and I said, I cannot tell you that if my wife is saved. Now, I have credible evidence
that she is, but as we look into the Scripture, there are people
in the Scripture that God gave them some information, but he
never saved them by his grace until later. Paul, Saul of Tarsus,
knew a lot about the Bible, and he could quote verses of scripture,
and he was in a very important place there in the Sanhedrin,
or in the Pharisee of the Pharisees, but he didn't know the first
thing about the gospel. When God saved him, he was in
love with God's people, and he never again wanted to destroy
them, and he never again brought to them all of that theory that
he had taught before. He never brought up legalism
again. He never brought up those things.
He was always depending upon the grace of God. So here's a
certain man named Ananias. Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession. Now they're doing exactly what
we find those other folks in the church were doing. But as
we follow this out, we find that they were doing it for a show.
They were doing it. And that's just the only thing
we can say about this. They were ambitious and being
thought imminent disciples when really they were not true disciples
at all. So as we read this, it says they
kept back part of the price. His wife also being privy to
it and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles feet.
And Peter said unto Ananias, now what did they do? They sold
their property and told the disciples, this is everything we got out
of that property. This is the whole amount. Now
Peter's going to tell him, you know, while it was yours, you
didn't, there was no problem. You could kept back any part
you wanted to. But when you come and tell God that you've given
everything and then you kept back part, we have a problem
here. And that's what Peter brings up. You've lied to the Holy Spirit. You have lied to the Holy Spirit.
Now I can tell you point blank. I can tell you with all sincerity.
I can tell you from the truth of the gospel that a person that
is born again of the power of God cannot lie to the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit indwelling
us and we may trouble the Holy Spirit. We may do things that
are not appropriate but we cannot lie to the Holy Spirit because
he already knows what frame we are. Now, Peter and John couldn't
tell what frame Ananias and Sapphira were, but here we have Peter
coming to this, and Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled
thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? Now, you know, there's
a lot of people want to blame a lot of things on the devil.
But if we get down to the real point of this, we find out it
was Ananias and Sapphira that brought this up. Satan did not
cause Adam and Eve to sin. It was an impossibility for Satan
to cause Adam and Eve to sin. Now, he tempted them, he tested
them in some ways, but their sin was their sin and not his
sin. Their sin was, they were responsible
for their sin. They could not say, the devil
made me do this. They could not say that I had
this outside influence upon me. The point of the matter came,
it was at their feet. They're the ones that disobeyed
God, and they're the ones that lied, and they're the ones that
hid themselves, and they're the ones that provided fig leaves
for themselves, and they're the ones that were really upset when
God came down in the cool of the evening and wanted to visit
with them, and they were off in the woods there, in the trees
of the garden. As we continue down here, it
says, while it remained, was it not thine own? And after it
was sold, was it not in thine own power? this was your property. It wasn't the church's property.
It wasn't deeded to the church and he sold it out from under
him. I've heard of preachers doing that, selling church property
and keeping the money. How wrong is that? There's no
way we can come to the conclusion of how bad people are by nature
We think we hear something we say how can that happen? Well,
it's just the fall. All right, and they go on it
was yours It didn't belong to anybody else you sold it and
you could have said we're going to give half to the church and
we're going to keep half because we want to go on a Viking cruise
and We want to do something with
it. We want to give it to our kids, whatever the problem was
or issue was. But they did not. They lied in
their heart. They lied to God. They lied to
the Holy Spirit and said, this is all there was. Now, I can't
help but think that the Apostle Peter had some inside information. The Holy Spirit had revealed
some of that, or maybe he overheard them whispering about it. I don't
know. But he knew exactly what was going on with them in their
life, that they had lied to the Holy Spirit. And it's interesting
that only one comes at a time to bring this subject up. It
tells us there an Ananias hearing these words fell down and gave
up the ghost and great fear came upon all them that heard these
things. And the young man arose and wound
him up and carried him off and buried him. And it was about
the space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what
had been done, came in and Peter answered unto her, tell me whether
you sold the land for so much. And she said, Yes, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How
is it that thou hast, that ye have 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. And she fell 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, buried her by her husband. Notice verse
11, and great fear came upon all the church, and upon all
as many as heard these things. Now that's the truth, great fear. You know, this type of incident
is not new in the Bible. This type of incident is brought
out in the book of Genesis chapter 3. This type of incident is lying. This type of incident of trying
to produce your own righteousness. This type of incident of hiding
yourself. This type of incident of acting
upon darkness and not upon light. This is what our first parents
did in the Garden of Eden. They acted upon their darkness
and not upon light. When they ate that fruit, darkness
fell upon them. They died spiritually and they
were acting. Every act after that was in accordance
with being in darkness. They had no light at all. Now,
graciously, God came down. It's interesting that God did
not curse them and do away with them at that time. Now, he cursed
the serpent. But he did not curse Adam and
Eve. Why? Because this is the line
where our Savior's coming. Now, he did curse the ground.
I don't know about you, but I just have never planted a seed on
my property. A weed seed. I don't have to. It shows up. Isn't it something
about weeds that they can be blown, they can be brought, they
can be dropped, they can have all these things, and when it
comes to corn, you better put it in the ground by yourself,
or potatoes, or beans, or peas. Anything that we want to eat
has to be put in the ground by us. It's very seldom that we
even get a crop afterwards by that which is left, and most
of that is not good quality material. So here we have, we have all
the weeds that we can handle. Where did they come from? That
was part of the curse that God gave Adam and Eve in the very
beginning, thorns and thistles the ground shall produce. So
I'm just taking the assumption from that point that they were
not present until the fall. And after the fall, we've been
dealing with that ever since. And by the sweat of their brow,
you're going to make a living. Well, it hasn't been that long
ago that we did sweat when we were making a living. It was
hard work. We're thankful for the way that
jobs have come along, but we still are involved eight, 10,
12 hours a day to make a living, to produce, to buy the milk and
bread that we want to feed to our children and to ourselves.
So that was an incident. But there's another one that
I'd like to look at, and that's found over in the book of Leviticus
chapter 10. In Leviticus chapter 10, we went through the book
of Leviticus 10 or 12 years ago, and I so much enjoyed it. When I first started it, I just
thought, You know, what are we going to get out of here? And
then about three years later we found out there's a whole
lot here in the book of Leviticus. And Brother Mike mentioned that
today. If you ever think that you've never sinned, just go
to the book of Leviticus and you'll find out that the sacrifices
that you were required to bring if you had sinned. And one of
those was a sacrifice for sinning unwittingly. You didn't even
know you did it, and then God revealed it to us. Now I'm convinced
that there were not very many of those sacrifices offered because
there were not very many sinners. There were all sinners, but there
were not many that knew that they were sinners. The rest of
them were living off of their own self-righteousness. So here
in the book of Leviticus chapter 10, verses one, two, and three,
we have the account of two priests. They are the sons of Levi. And
in the book of Leviticus, it tells us the grandeur of their
uniform, the grandeur of their robe and the hat and all the
things that went with it. These guys were dressed grandly
in accordance with the Word of God. They had much the same attire
as their dad did. They were not high priests, but
they had much the same attire, and they had some of the same
responsibility. But as we read here, we find
in the book of Leviticus chapter 10, there in verse one, and Nadab
and Abihu, the sons of Aaron. Let's go right to the source.
These are the children of Aaron. You know, it was only after the
Lord saved me, and I got acquainted with people who believed in sovereign
grace. that I found out that the priests
could have sons and daughters that were not saved. Because
in religion, that's your responsibility to get it taken care of. And
the earlier you get it taken care of, the better off it is
because when they get older, you know, they're gonna be rebellious.
Well, we'll get it taken care of soon. And then if they're
rebellious, they still got it. And they're 50 years old and
the mother still says, you know, my son has been walking away
from the Lord all these years. He's, well, that's just too long. It's not going to be that way.
The sons of Aaron took either of them his censer. Now this
censer has been given to them. It has been assigned to them.
Now I cannot tell you at the moment what it was like, but
I do know this, that they put fire therein and put incense
thereon. It was their censer. It had been
assigned to them. And you would think that if they're
dressed in this great fine robe and they have a censer given
to them that they are going to go in around the tabernacle and
offer this incense that they would have a heart that would
be enjoying this process. And yet we find out they did
not have a heart to love God. God had never touched them with
his grace, because it goes on to tell us here, "...and put
incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord,
which he commanded them not." This command came from the Lord
and they were not to do this. They didn't do this ignorantly. They did this premeditatedly. They took their censer and their
fire, strange fire, and all that means, whether they didn't take
it off the right altar or whether they created it themselves, it
was against the rules of God with regard to them as a priest. They put and offered strange
fire. And where did they offer this?
They offered it before the Lord with the idea that God would
accept their sinful acts. They offered it before the Lord.
What a situation we have here. And you know how many people
today that we are acquainted with, because I was one of them
at one time, how often we do things before the Lord, we found
out was absolutely trash before the Lord. There was no quality
in it whatsoever. We thought there was quality
in it, but there was no quality in it. So these offered fire
before the Lord, which he had commanded them not. And there
went out fire from the Lord. Now notice this. These two men
are pretending to serve the Lord at the tabernacle, and instantly
God sends out fire. What's it say? There went out
fire from the Lord. So they come with the idea that
their strange fire could be offered to the Lord, and He gave them
fire back. It says there, and there went
out a fire from the Lord and devoured them, and they died
before the Lord. And Moses said unto Aaron, this
is it that the Lord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them
that come nigh to me. And before all the people, I
will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace. Now, when we went through this,
it appeared that God burnt them up inside of their ropes and
their ropes were not destroyed. Now He wanted them to know that
He alone could do that, and they had their fire given right back
to them. Now the Lord is sharing with
us that even though they did all the things that they thought
they should do, you know what? They were dressed properly, they
had their censers properly, they had their incense properly, and
yet their heart was not right with God. And when our heart
is not right with God, we cannot offer a sacrifice that is well-pleasing
unto the Lord. We can't offer even a sacrifice
of thanksgiving if our heart is not right with God. Because
we will be like Ananias and Sapphira, and they're there with the idea
that they want to be like the rest of those saints, and they
think they can be like the rest of the saints if they offer up
some of their property to be distributed to the rest of the
folks. Well, as that went on, turn with me to the book of Numbers,
if you would. The book of Numbers. In the book of Numbers, we have
a similar incident. In the book of Numbers, chapter
14, right among Israel, You know, the Bible says, and
all Israel shall be saved. Now, what Israel is that? The
church of the living God. National Israel, we find out
about them, they all died in unbelief. They marched around
until the carcasses of all of them were on the ground and someone
came along and buried them. Now a whole bunch of them thought
they were right with God, but when it came time for them to
be exposed, God exposed them and they were not right with
God. Here in the book of Numbers chapter 14, would you join me
there? Numbers chapter 14. One of the sad times, we have
a number of sad times with Israel here in the Old Testament, but
one of the sad times in Israel is when Moses sent 12 spies into
the land. Now Moses is never going to go
into the land, but he got to see it and he saw that it was
good land, highly productive. My goodness, there are vineyards
we don't have to plant. There are orchards we don't have
to plant. There's all of this stuff here
God is going to give us. And then we find out that 10
of those spies came back with a bad report. What was that bad
report? We know God can't do it. Now when we come back with that
kind of report, our heart is not right with God. We have no
grace given to us. All things are possible with
God. So here we have this incident
in Numbers chapter 14 beginning with verse 36. Would you join
me there? Numbers chapter 14 verse 36. And the men which Moses sent
to search the land who returned and made all the congregation
to murmur against him by bringing up a slander upon the land. Now this, as we read this, God
had already given the information, the battle's mine, it's not yours. And you know that's the same
with us today. The battle is not ours, the battle is the Lord's.
When it comes to our salvation, the battle's the Lord's. When
it comes to our service, the battle is the Lord's. When it
comes to our hope and trust, the battle is the Lord's. And
here it says that these men came back with an evil report, verse
37, even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land,
now notice this, died by the plague before the Lord. He took care of the problem.
Did that take care of anybody else's problem? No. I just say this again, fear will
never bring anybody to the gospel. The Bible tells us it's the love
of God. that does that, and His eternal
love, His everlasting love, love before the foundation of the
world, that He has set His love upon His people, and He will
draw them in time and bring them to Himself, and they will agree
with Him with regard to the gospel and all things that they learn
from the Word of God. So here we have these ten men
consumed right before the people of Israel. Their parents, their
aunts and uncles, their children was consumed immediately upon
bringing back that report. I don't know if God does that
today, but He did it then. Now travel
with me, if you would, to the book of Numbers 13. Numbers chapter
13 in Numbers chapter 13 we have an illustration given to us by
the Lord himself Numbers chapter 13 in Numbers chapter 13 and
47 verses 47 and verse 48 Numbers chapter 13 verses 47 and 48 It
tells us here again He's bringing up a point over
and over and over. Excuse me, the book of Matthew
chapter 13. Sorry about that. Matthew chapter
13. Matthew chapter 13. In the Gospels,
the Lord brings us up. In his teaching ministry, he
said again, now he's gone over this subject several times, and
this is not the last time you'll go over it. He's giving us an
illustration. He's sharing with us a type,
a shadow, a picture. He said again, the kingdom of
heaven is like unto a net. that was cast into the sea and
gathered of every kind. I don't know if you've ever watched
those fishermen up off the coast of Alaska, whatever that show
is. And, you know, they're after
a certain kind of crab. They're after a certain kind
of fish or several kinds of fish. And in the midst of that, they
get some trash fish. And that's just the way it is. Inedible,
bony, can't do anything with them. And so, what do they do? They sort them out. It tells
us here in the book of Matthew chapter 13, it says, which when
it was full, they drew to shore and sat down and gathered the
good in the vessels, but cast the bad away. Now he's saying,
this is kind of like the visible church. This is kind of like
the people that gather together and worship God. In the midst
of them have been brought in. have been gathered in, those
that will be cast away, they shall be cast the bad away. So
shall it be at the end of the world, the angels shall come
forth and sever the wicked from among the just." So we have a
promise from God as He illustrates this point. If you go down with
a net fishing and you pull in a drought of fish then, by and
large, you're going to have some fish in there that you're not
interested in." And he said, this is going to happen in the
church. There's going to be people that
come into the church, and they're going to settle down in the church,
and they're going to find out, in the end, they were not part
of the church. Why? God had never saved them
by His grace, and they're there for their own purpose, and not
for the purpose of God. So as we look at Ananias and
Sapphira versus Barnabas, we find out Barnabas was there because
he wanted to be there and he shared what he had. And Ananias
and Sapphira, they wanted to be there, but they wanted to
be there for show. They wanted people to notice them. They wanted
people to notice what they were giving. And it may have been
a great amount. It doesn't say. Gathered the
good vessels, but cast the bad ones away. Thank God. You know, someone asked me one
time, do you practice church discipline down there? And I
said, I don't have to do much of it. Because people will come
and say, do you sing the old hymns? Oh yes, we sing the old
hymns. Well good, I'm looking for a
church that sings the old hymns. And they may attend for six months,
and finally they hear something and they don't like it. They
hear the gospel. They hear about the gospel, at
least. They hear about election, predestination. And that just
runs roughshod over natural man's thinking. And so they'll leave.
So we didn't have to do anything about it. Now, thank God they
didn't cause a stir. I'm just thankful they came and
sit and then finally decided it was time to leave. I'll never
forget an incident down in North Carolina where Brother Rupert
had somebody in the church and he was attending and every Sunday
he tried to get people around him after the service and teach
them his philosophy of premillennialism. And Rupert caught him doing that
and he says, you can come and you can sit and you can listen. But if you're going to do this,
you're not welcome. Well, the guy was insulted and
left and never returned. So they practiced church discipline. The guy left on his own. How
glorious that is. All right. Turn with me, if you
would, to the book of Second Timothy. 2nd Timothy. We have this principle throughout
the scriptures. 2nd Timothy brings it up. We
read about it there in the book of Genesis, our first parents.
We read about it about Nadab and Abihu. We read about it those
ten that came back with an evil report. They were taken care
of. The Lord took care of them. And then we read here in the
book of Matthew that if we go out, we cast a net into the sea.
You know, we don't know what we're taking in. We can only
go on what people say. And sometimes what they say and
what we say are the same. And then down the road they,
you don't have to trap them, they say something that is so
contrary to the word of God. And then you know. 2 Timothy chapter two, verse 20. But in a great house, There are
not only vessels of gold and silver. Boy, the price of gold right
now is about $3,000 an ounce. Have you ever held an ounce of
gold? It's about that small. $3,000 worth. Silver, $30 an ounce. So if you have a lot of it, you
have a lot of money. And here it says, the church, the great
house, there are many vessels of gold and silver. What is he
talking about? God's people in there, the ones
he saved by his grace. You know, we all fill our place
in the church of the living God. We have all been appointed a
place by the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. He's the one that
has put us in the place that we are in. Whether it be hospitality,
whether it be prophecy, whatever it be, the Lord puts his people
where he wants them. And we find out in the church
that there's no jealousy over that point. We're not jealous
of God choosing people to fill the points, the places that he
intends to be filled. Well, I can't do that, but they
can. God's given them that. Well,
it says here, but also of wood and of earth and some to honor
and some to dishonor. We have a verse given over there
about the wood, hay, and stubble, gold, silver, and precious stones.
And I had a discussion not too long ago about the wood, hay,
and stubble. And he says, those are just safe people that are
not very safe. Well, they don't act like they're
safe. They're safe, but they're not—well, no. Safe people are
gold, silver, and precious stones. Now that doesn't mean that God's
not going to take off the facade and show in his presence that
this one has been gold, silver, and precious stones from eternity. I'm taking off the facade. I'm
removing religion. I'm putting away all the things
that they have held to. And you know, I find a lot of
people, that's what God has done. We thought we had the proper
garment. We thought we had the proper
place. We thought we had the proper
works. And God comes along with His gospel and reveals to us,
we didn't have anything. And if we do, it is Him and Him
alone. So these instances that we find
throughout the scriptures, and if you'll turn with me, to the
book of Acts again, the book of Acts. Here's a guy that is
brought up by the Bible, and you know, we would have not known
about Ananias and Sapphira if it was not recorded in the book
of Acts chapter 5, and there's a very brief statement about
it. Now God intends for us to know about Ananias and Sapphira,
and he intends for us to understand something about this Simon the
magician. And that's found in Acts chapter
8. You turn with me to the book of Acts chapter 8, verse 4. Acts chapter 8, verse 4. Therefore
they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the
word. Isn't that what we're supposed
to do? Declare the Word of God. Cast out the seed. Preach the
gospel of a successful God from the foundation of the world,
a successful God that's going to save His people from their
sins. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.
Your sins are put away. How glorious that is. So we go
out and preach the gospel. Then Philip went down to the
city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. No better message
could be preached." Isn't that interesting that when Philip
met the guy in the chariot, he began at the same place and preached
unto him Jesus? Here we're preaching unto Christ,
same person. And the people were with one
accord, gave heed unto those things which Philip spake. You
know, it's so interesting to find out that God appoints the
preacher to go down to a place that has some sheep. There's
a bunch of sheep here. And he sends a preacher down
there that preaches Christ, the good shepherd. And Philip went
down and says, and people with one accord gave heed unto those
things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which
he did. For unclean spirits crying with a loud voice, I'll tell
you what, the worst unclean spirit we ever run into is ourself.
and other people that are claiming to know Christ and don't know
the first thing about the gospel. That's an unclean spirit. Came
out of many that were possessed of them and many taken with palsies
and they were lame and were healed and there was great joy in the
city. But there was a certain man called
Simeon, which before time in the same city used sorcery and
bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some
great one." You know, to me, this is about like someone who
depends on the everyday astrology report in the newspaper. He's
a somebody, and I want to go ask him about something that's
going to happen. And, you know, I'll never forget
about a friend of mine. He was, he had enlisted in the
Navy, and he was, I believe in San Francisco, and here was one
of those ladies had a read your palm thing. And he went into
there, and she read his palm and says, you're going on a long
journey. Well, a man in a Navy uniform at wartime, it doesn't
take a, Doesn't take much brains to figure
that out. Well, he paid his dollar To be told that he what he already
knew. Well, I don't know maybe that's
happening with this guy Whom they all gave heed from the least
of the greatest saying this man is a great power of God and to
him They have regard because that of long time he hath bewitched
with sorceries But when They believed Philip
preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name
of Jesus Christ. They were baptized, both men
and women. Then Simon himself believed also. And when he was
baptized, oh, hallelujah, we got the sorcerer taken care of.
My goodness, we've been praying for him for years down here,
and now he's taken care of. We got him baptized, in fact.
And he continued with Philip and wondered, beholding the miracles
and signs which were done. And if we drop down to Verse 18. And when Simon saw
that through laying on of the apostles hands, the Holy Ghost
was given, he offered them money. Saying, give me also this power
that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. And Peter said unto him, thy
money perish with thee. Didn't matter whether he believed,
didn't matter whether he'd been baptized. His heart betrayed
him. Says, thou hast neither part
nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not right in the sight
of God. So we have these incidents throughout
the scriptures about these who had pretense. They had interest,
but it was only skin deep. They had no interest in the gospel.
They have no interest in staying with the gospel, and they're
soon left. Simon is cast out by Peter here. He's no longer
part of us. You have no interest in what
we're doing here if you have that. You know, as we go back
to the book of Acts, the question comes to my mind, what does the
Bible say about giving them? Now, this is my second or third
message on giving in 37 years. You know, and we may not get
too far on it. It hasn't been that long ago.
I found out in 19 or 2018, we needed a new roof. And Mike was
handed a check before we even knew the amount, a check that
covered it every bit of it. We needed new heaters, air conditioners. And a check came in that covered
every bit of it. And not a word was said. We're
not meeting the budget. We are, because God's in charge
of the budget. He lowers the money. We don't
have to raise it. God loveth a cheerful giver. Now, in the Old Testament, there
was a lot of thought about tithing. Tithing was under the law. Only
two times in the New Testament is that word used, and it happens
to be about people that are using tithing as a way to make themselves
acceptable before the Lord. The Lord loveth a cheerful giver. He did in the Old Testament.
He does today. We'll look at that. Later and
when you do your giving don't let your right hand know what
your left hand is doing It's not for someone else to know
I'm not putting this out Having that box at the back of the building
just helps us out a whole lot There's one person in this church
that knows and he has never told me What people are giving? It takes a special person to
be able to do that. I And he takes care of it, and
when we have a need, he writes the check for it. And we find
out, he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. With simplicity. Now we'll pick this up next time,
not next Sunday, because we want to bring a message on the resurrection
of Jesus Christ, but after that. All right, Brother Mike, if you'll
come.