Read the first eleven verses,
bring a message from it. But a certain man named Ananias
with Sapphire, his wife, sold a possession, and 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. But Peter said, Ananias,
why hath Satan filled thine heart? to lie to the Holy Ghost and
to keep back part of the price of the land. Whilst it remained,
was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it
not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this
thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men,
but unto God. And Ananias, hearing these words,
fell down, and gave up the ghost. And great fear came on all them
that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound
him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about
the space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what
was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her,
Tell me, whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said,
Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How
is it 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. 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 forth, buried her by her
husband. And great fear came upon all
the church, and upon as many as heard these things." Now, beloved, Satan hates Christ.
He hates Christ. He hates the woman's seed. He
hates it. You know, he stood, the great
serpent stood when the woman was fixed to bring forth to devour
the child as quick as he was born in Revelations, and he hates
the woman's seed, and he persecutes the church, Christ. And in Christ's manifest himself,
the body of Christ is his church on this earth. We, each an individual
local assembly who believes the gospel, who trusts Christ, and
understands the salvations of the Lord, and believes Christ,
and they're saved and born through his blessed blood, that's the
church. And it's universal. And he persecutes
the church outwardly. Persecutes it outwardly. That's
what he's done in Acts chapter 3. Remember when the apostles
preached and the lame man was healed and they called him in,
arrested him? And Satan hates the message. They didn't care
about the men. They didn't care about the assembly.
They said, don't you preach this Jesus and his resurrection anymore.
Don't speak his name anymore. It's the message they hate. So
they persecuted it outwardly, so if he can't destroy the church
outwardly, what he does, he'll come in another way. He'll start
working within. If he can't destroy it outwardly,
he'll try from within. Satan is subtle. He is a subtle,
cunning above all the beasts of the field. And that's why
Paul told them, he says, I fear lest you be beguiled from the
simplicity that's in Christ by the subtlety of Satan. by the
craftiness of Satan, whereby he lies in wait to deceive. You
see, now, to set this message up, why these people, Ananias
and Sapphira, brought this money laid down at the apostles' feet.
Remember, look back at chapter four. Something had been going
on. It says there in verse thirty-two
of chapter four, "...and the multitude of them that believed
were of one heart and one soul." They were one. They had one heart. They were emotionally connected,
affectionately connected. And they all had things common,
and they supported and gave of their possessions to help the
poor in that. And then it says down in verse
34, "...neither was there any among them that lacked for as
many as were possessors of lands or of houses, sold them, and
brought them at the price of the things that were sold, and
laid them at the apostles' feet." And they started distributing
what the people brought to people that were in need. If you had
need, If you didn't have food to eat, they gave it to you.
If you didn't have a place to stay, they gave you a place.
They provided for one another. They provided for the needs of
the church, and the needs of the people, the needs of the
poor, and the winners among them. And remember, our Lord Jesus
told them, He says, you know, Jerusalem's going to be ravaged.
He said, when you see these things come to pass, you flee here.
And 70 years after our Lord's crucifixion, Titus came in there
and destroyed Jerusalem, raged it, and slaughtered the Jews
by the thousands. Just slaughtered them. And everybody
was caught in there, and these people understood that. So they
were getting rid of property because they were going to leave.
And that's why God scavenged the church to get His people
into there. So here they are, and then all of a sudden it says
here in verse 36, and Joseph, who by the apostles was surnamed
Barnabas, which is being interpreted as the son of consolation. Now,
he's called the son of encouragement. And every time you find him after
this, that's what he's called, the Son of Encouragement. Every
time you find him, mention the Book of Acts, he's encouraging
people. He's going around comforting people and encouraging people.
And that's what they call him, the Son of Encouragement. A Levite. He was of the priestly tribe,
but he was not of Israel. He lived in the country of Cyprus.
He had land to be sold and brought the money and laid it at the
apostles' feet. So here's what's going on. All
these people are generous. All these people are—God's laying
this on their heart—they're given of their possessions. They're
given of their wealth and their prosperity to see the poor people
in the church was taken care of, and that they would have
something to do. Well, here comes a man named
Ananias and Sapphira. Two people comes into the picture. Hypocrites of the highest degree.
Hypocrites of the highest degree. Here the church was in such unity,
such fellowship, and one accord, one heart, one soul. Now, trouble
comes into the church. Grievous trouble. And here's
hypocrites of the highest degree. That's why the hope of the hypocrite
is, it shall perish. And Barnabas was the only name
mentioned in the Sermon of Prophets that landed at the apostles'
feet. Why? Because you'll find it mentioned
many times. But Ananias and Sapphira, because people started talking
about these people and how that they were grateful, and maybe
the possessions they were given, and get some recognition. Analyzing
Sapphire said, I want some recognition. I want folks to recognize me,
too. I want people to recognize me, too. And this is what our
Savior meant, said, when you can't serve God and men at the
same time. These people tried to do both. They've tried to serve God with
one hand, and damn it with the other. That's why I said, you'll see
that. That's what happened here. And they, well, look at their
sin, in verse 1 through 3. But certain men, they've anonized
this Sapphire, and his wife sold the possession. Don't say what
it was. And you know what their names mean? Anonized names means
God is gracious. Sapphire's names means beautiful. God is gracious, and here's beautiful.
And they kept back part of the prize. His wife's also being
private to it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the Apostle's
feet. Kept back some of it. But Peter
said unto Ananias, Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to
the Holy Ghost, and keep back part of the prize of the Lamb?
You see, outwardly, they seem just like Barnabas, and like
everybody else in the Church. But intuitively, they weren't
the same. Intuitively, they weren't the same at all. They had some
property, some possession. Don't seem to say property. It's
the possession. And they sold that property. And what they'd
done was they wanted everybody to think that they was like everybody
else, giving everything. And they said, I'll tell you
what let's do. Let's keep back some of it here for ourselves.
You know, we need it. We'll enjoy it. We'll take a
good vacation with it. But we'll go up here and tell
them that we sold it for so much, and this is the whole price of
it that we're laying at your feet. You know, we sold it for
$10,000. We decided to keep $2,500 of
it, 25%. But when we sold it, you know, we sold it for $10,000,
they'd bring it in and say, well, we sold this for $7,500, and
we're going to give it all to you. Nobody would know, but God. Now, would that be a right thing
to do? Wouldn't that be hypocrisy? Wouldn't that be lying? That's
what it would be, and so that's what they've done. They did like
everybody else. They brought in that act as if
they were giving it all, and they laid it at the apostles'
feet. The love of money, the love of money and the love of
praise was the root of their sin. And money is not Neal's
problem. It's the love of money. It's
the love of it, it's the lust for it, the desire to have lots
and lots of it. That's the problem. And as Gary
read there tonight, when it's all said and done, if you've
got a golden bowl, if you've got a silver cord, when you get
ready to leave this world, you're going back to dust. The gold
and the silver cord, it's going to stay here. And that's what
these people understood, that Christ and His gospel, that's
what we're supporting. These people understood that
clearly, that the Lord Jesus Christ and His glory and the
propagation of His gospel and the supporting of His church
is the most important thing I can do on the face of this earth.
They understood that. And then their sin was exposed,
and Simon Peter said, Ananias, in verse 3, Why hath Satan filled
thine heart, now watch this, to lie, to lie, not to me, not
to the church, not to your wife, not to John, but to the Holy
Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land. Why
has Satan filled your heart? Why has he spilled your heart?
Oh, my. Look over here at 1 Peter chapter
5. Just a moment. 1 Peter chapter 5. You know, Satan Satan is not
omniscient. He's not like God. He can't be
at the same place all the time. But he has plenty of spirits.
1 Peter chapter 5. And you know, he don't care who
he uses. He really don't. You know, he used Judas. He used
Simon Peter one time. With Simon Peter, our Lord was
preaching. And he told me, he said, I must,
I must go to Jerusalem. I must be delivered into the
hands of sinful men. I must die. I must be crucified. And Simon Peter said, Be far
from thee, Lord. And the Lord Jesus said, Get
thee behind me, Satan. And another time, he knew Simon
Peter, and before the Lord Jesus went to the cross, in his agony,
and in the soul of his, agony of his soul, he said, Simon,
Satan has sought to sit you like wheat. And the only reason he
didn't, I prayed for you. I mean, the devil, the devil,
and you know, it was the devil that was turned loose on Job.
And I mean, he is, and you know, He is there. He can't be everywhere,
but he got plenty of people, he got plenty of them spirits
to work with him, I'll tell you that. But look what it says here
in 1 Peter 5a. Be sober. This word, be sober,
means be diligent, you know, be sober. Don't act a fool. Act
like you got some sense. Be sober. Be vigilant. Vigilant. Any of y'all fellas ever when
you was in the military ever had to start to stay in guard
duty? If you had the orders of the day and if anybody think
you had to challenge them, I mean you had to challenge them right
now. Who comes there? Yeah. Oh, you had to challenge them.
You had to be vigilant. They come and taunt you and to
give us a sleep, that was court martial offense. They could strip
you down and put you in jail right then and there. You better
be vigilant, and especially if you're in a war zone, you better
stay awake and you better pay attention or you'll die, and
the people you're watching for may get killed. And that's why
he said, your soul is at stake right here. You be sober and
you be vigilant. Why? Because you've got an adversary. You've got an enemy. You've got
one that wants to destroy you, and he's the devil, and he comes
as a roaring lion, and he walks about. Look here now. Whom he
may lay hold of." Chew up, bite on. Now watch this. How are we
going to resist Him? In the faith. What's the faith?
The gospel. The faith is not your personal,
subjective faith, but in what you hear. The gospel, the faith,
the gospel, all our faith. What is our faith? Christ. What
is our faith? The gospel. What is our faith?
Christ is all I need. Christ is all my righteousness.
I have no sin, I'm righteous in Him, and that's what we have
to use against this devil. If we ever looked at ourselves,
you'd get us. And, oh, I'll tell you something, we're in a spiritual
warfare in this one. We're in a spiritual warfare.
We're not fighting flesh and blood. If you was fighting flesh
and blood, we'd just get whipped and get it over with, or we'd
whip somebody and be done, but we're in a spiritual warfare. And the only way to keep from
falling is to resist the devil. James said it this way. Resist
the devil, and he'll free from you. Submit yourselves to God.
How in the world do we submit ourselves to God? This is the
only way. We're in a spiritual warfare. Oh, submit ourselves
to God and His Word. Submit ourselves to God and His
Church. Submit our heart and soul to God and say, It's not
in me, O Lord, to direct my steps. I don't know which way to go.
I don't know what to do, and if you don't keep me and preserve
my ways and be the one that directs me, I'll go astray. And oh, by
keeping the Scriptures as your weapons, take the sword of the
Spirit, the Word of God. You can't do something you don't
know. That's why it's so important that we know the Scriptures.
That's why it's so important we pay attention to the Scriptures.
Take the sword of the Spirit, the Word. That's the only weapon
we've got. Huh? That's the only weapon we've
got. And then back over here in our
text, look what he says. Why has Satan filled your heart?
No, you see, he didn't know. He didn't know that anybody would
know a thing in the world about what was going on. Huh? How in the world does Simon Peter
know this? The Holy Ghost made him know it to him. Huh? And
this is the thing. He lied to God. Down in verse 4 it says, the
last part of it, thou shalt not lie unto men, but unto God. Now
let me show you something. You keep Acts 5 and look over
here in Luke chapter 8. This is what I'm going to be
preaching on Wednesday night. I started to preach on it this
morning. I had some thoughts. Me and Todd got to working on
this over there the other day, talking about how to come up
with some awful good things to say from it. Fire, sovereign and
honor. But here, look what it says.
in Acts chapter 8 and verse 16. They're sin-exposed, and I'll
tell you something, be sure your sin will find you out. And you
just mark that down, mine, yours, or anybody else's, it'll find
us out. And our Lord said here in Luke 8 and verse 16, no man
would imply the candle covers were the vessel puts it under
a bed. Now, but He sets it on a candlestick. Now Christ, when
he saves his people, saves his church, now we're called a candlestick. The gospel and the presence of
God's called a candlestick. And when people come here, they've
got light. There's light where the gospel's at. And here's why that light is.
For nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest. When the
light comes, nothing is secret that won't be brought out for
people to see. The secrets of our hearts are made known when
we're preaching. When we're here to be preached, I remember one
time, years and years ago, and this is just one of many times,
I was sitting in a service and hundreds of people there. And
a preacher got up and all he'd done was read the Scriptures.
Paul, you know, read the Scriptures like Gary did this evening, like
you brethren do. He read the Scriptures, but if
we didn't have Scriptures, there was nobody in that building but
me. God directed them Scriptures to me, and I sat there stripped. Slain! Exposed! My heart and the thoughts of
my heart, everything about me was exposed just by that man
reading those words. And I sat there and started repenting,
asking God to have mercy on me, forgive me for thinking such
stuff. Pride and self-righteousness. Oh my! Our secrets are made manifest
when you're where the light's at. If you stay in darkness,
nobody will know a thing in the world. By the morning, terror!
Neither anything here that shall not be made known. Therefore
take heed how you hear, you better pay attention to what's being
said. And that's what happened right here. His secret, he'd come where the
candlestick was. He'd come where the light was.
He had that secret in his heart. That hypocrisy in his heart,
that covetousness in his heart, that love of men, and that love
of praise, and that love of money, and that evil covetousness in
his heart, that idolatry in his heart, and it was exposed. And
look at the foolishness of their sin. Look there in verse 4. Why did you lie to keep back
part of the price of the land? And here he shows the right of
ownership, that people have right of ownership. God don't want
you to give a thing in the world But what you want to. You don't
have to give no more of what you want to. No more than what
God has given you. And look what he says here. Was
it remained? Was it not your own? Didn't it
belong to you? You didn't have to do with it.
It belonged to you. Lock, stock and barrel. It was yours. And
then when you sold it, was it not in your own power? You could
do with it what you want to. If you'd have come in here, if
you'd have come in here and said, We sold something and we decided,
you know, the Lord blessed us with a little extra on this here,
you know, and just, if he hadn't have just said, I'm going to
keep that part for myself, and lied and come in there like he's
given everything he had. Everything he had. It was yours.
It was in your power. You could have kept it all, gave
half of it, gave all of it, gave us a tide of it, kept 90%, it
belonged to you. But you wanted to be the hypocrite. You wanted to play like you was
like everybody else. And you're not at all. You're
not at all. And then watch what he says here.
Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? That's
where sin's at. That's where it's born. Born from within,
out of the heart. You know, I used to preach against
everything. You all know that. I preached
against women wearing pants, too much makeup, and cigarettes,
and television, and everything you could think of, I was against it. I was miserable, made everybody
else miserable so I couldn't. But you know, and folks just
get a kink out of that, but now here's the thing about it. If you thought, if I was to say
I'm going to preach against sin, What would be the first thing
he ought to say? What should he preach against?
Do you know what our Lord said?
For from within, out of the heart, the first thing he said precedes
evil thoughts. Next thing is pride. Pride. I can see pride. That's what these folks, they
had plenty of it. Then they're going to pat us on the back.
They're going to say, boy, these folks, oh, they're so generous.
Oh, my bless their hearts. Thank you for bringing all that
in here. Oh, it's going to be such a blessing to the church
to have all that money in here. And when they got in there, Simon
Peter says, exposed him. Expose his lies. Expose the wickedness
of his heart. That's what sin's after. It starts
in here. Starts in here. And you've not
lied unto men, but unto God. And oh, my. You know, for us
to lie to God, you know what we have to do? We have to first
lie to ourselves. We've got to lie to ourselves
before we'll ever lie to God. We have to lie to ourselves before
we'll ever tell a lie unto God. We have to deceive ourselves
before we'll ever try to deceive God. Ain't that right? And what they did may not have
mattered the most. A lot of people, you know, they'll
read that and say, boy, that's, God's awful cruel. God's awful
mean to kill folks over a little bit of money. It's not over that. It's what was behind it, the
motive behind it. The motive behind it. And you,
what they did may not matter the most. But listen to me, everything
we do matters to God. Everything we do matters to God. Ain't that right? And I'm certainly
glad that I have to deal with him and not you. That I can expose
myself to him and not to you. And I'm grateful he knows me.
better than you told me, and that he don't expose me to you.
Ain't you grateful that God don't expose us to none of that? Oh, I'm so grateful he don't
expose us to one another. It'd be awful. If he did, there
wouldn't be nobody here with us. If he just exposed all of
us to one another right here tonight, you know, we'd be married
about no one's here. So I ain't going back up there
after folks found out about me. I ain't mean to go back up there.
That's the way we feel about it, ain't it? Huh? Well, look at the results. Look
at the results of what happened. In verse 5, "...and Ananias,
hearing these words, fell down, and gave up the ghost." God killed
him. You know, God said that there is a sin unto death. Or
is the sin unto death? And I said, indeed, should I
pray for it? Evidently, these people committed it. And great
fear came all those that heard him, and the young men arose
round him up and carried him out and buried him. I mean, they
didn't wait no time. They didn't run and tell his
wife, Sapphire, your husband just had a heart attack. Your
husband just got dead. No. I mean, you know, here, this
is the most, you know, if you think about what happened while
this took place. Here you're standing, Peter's
talking to a man. People's all around. While he's
talking to him, he drops over and asks. Simon Peter understands
that God has killed this man. God has punished this man. God
has dealt with this man harshly. And they're all standing around
there, and they said, what did you, oh my. And you can imagine the
fear come upon people. Exposed his sin. Exposed his
lies. Exposed his hypocrisy. Exposed
his covetousness. Exposed his love for men. Exposed
his idolatry. Exposed his hatred for God and
love of praise, and love of men, and love of money. And he dropped
dead. And them fellas said, they wrapped people in white.
You see them over there now. At least they wrapped people
up in white, real tight. You know, you see them on the
news all the time. Grab him up and you'll see. But they wound him
up! The young men did, and they put him in this little box and
took him out and buried him. I'd say it probably didn't take
them 30 or 40 minutes. Within an hour after he was dead,
he was in the ground. And why in the world did God
do this? Well, this is a great warning. Here's all the way through
the Scriptures, when something new, is going on. God is establishing
something, something new. When God does this to warn men
and say, this is the way you're going to do things, and if you
don't do it this way, you're going to suffer for it. And if
you may not suffer for it in this world, you'll suffer for
it in the world to come. It's just like with Nadab and Abihu.
Aaron was the first priest. Nadab and Abihu were his two
sons. God says that the only fire that'll
be used to sacrifice is the fire on this altar. If you're going
to offer sacrifice, you've got to use the fire off of this altar.
When they gathered by you, they went over here and started to
fire their altar. Building the fire, and they took
the fire and was going to offer sacrifice on it, and God said,
that's a strange fire. It did not come from me. It did
not come from my altar. It did not come, it was what
I told you to use, and He killed all of them. And the priesthood
was just getting started. He said, I want you to know right
now that if you're going to worship me, and if you're going to offer
sacrifices, if you're going to use the fire to burn the sacrifices,
you're going to do it the way I said, or you're not going to
do it at all. And then there was Uzzah. They was taking the ark back
to Jerusalem, and it started wobbling a little bit, and Uzzah
rushed down and touched it. Why did God kill him for that?
First of all, first of all, he thought he was doing what he
thought was best, instead of what God said. And secondly,
he thought God needed his help to steady his arm. And it says in that particular
place that they did not do after the manner of the Levites. And what about Korah? Korah,
250 pages. Moses was the mediator. Moses
was God's representative on this earth at that time. Everything
God had to say to Israel, He said through Moses. And everything
God wanted people to hear, He spoke through Moses. Well, one
day this fella got up named Cora. He said, you know Moses? He said,
we're just as holy as you are. And he said, I know as much about
the law as you do. And I'm a pretty good singer
on top of that. He said, you just absolutely
think you're running this whole outfit. He said, it's about time
you let some of the rest of us do something. It's about time you let the rest
of us run this outfit. God said, Moses, get out of my
way, I'm going to kill him. Moses said, everybody that's
on the Lord's side believes opposite of God, that I'm God's mouthpiece
and I'm God's mediator, you get over here. Everybody that's on
Korah's side and believes that he ought to have some power and
ought to have some authority and ought to take care of things
just like I do, you get over there to him. He got over at
them, and all of a sudden, while they're standing over there,
you think that earthquake over in Hawaii or something? God sent an earthquake
right then, and it was just so localized, that it just got caught
in 250 people at one time. God, as old Martin said, he sent
them to hell, and that thing was just packed suitcase. So, you know, God, you know,
God's not playing this. All these things happen for us,
and warnings to us. Warnings to us. This tells us,
if you give it, God don't want you to do a thing in the world
that's not in your heart to do. That's why we don't make any
vows. And oh my, how about anger? God
said, don't you, when you go into Jericho, don't you take
a thing in the world out of that place. Don't you do it. He got down
there and he saw this gold and he said, oh my goodness. He said,
man, I'll fix the line. That'll take care of me for the
rest of my life, winning the lottery. He got that, and he
took it and he hid it. You know what it cost him? It wasn't the gold, it was the
love of it. It was the love of it that destroyed him. And then
the line about on top of that. Ain't that right? You can't serve
God's amendment. And then look what happens now
to Sapphire in verse 3. And here's about the space of
three hours. Sapphire don't have an idea her husband's dead. Don't
know a thing of the world what's going on, what the conversation's
been about. When his wife, not knowing what
was done, she came in, Peter said to her now, tell us, did
you sell that land for this price? Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did. Yeah,
we did. Then said Peter unto her, How
is it that you have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord?
Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at
the door. They're standing there waiting for you to come in. And
they're going to carry you right out. Then fell she down straightway
at his feet, and she died. A young man came in, found her
dead. carried her and buried her right
next to her husband. And while he's seeing his wife,
it says back up there in verse 2, being part, privy, also being
privy of what was going on. And you know she was as guilty
as he was. Yeah. She could have said, now Sapphire,
Ananias, no, we don't need to do that at all. It belongs to
us. All we got to do is tell them, you know, we want to have
some of it, we're going to keep back some of the money for ourselves
and have it to do some things with and do some things and say,
we're just going to give this much. She could have done that,
but she didn't. And she repeated everything,
she repeated her husband's lie. And I'll tell you what, and this
is the thing about them, everybody tries to shun their responsibility,
but here she was just as guilty as they were. That's why they,
you know, the fellow that drives the getaway car, he's going to
go to the same place that the fellow went in the bank with
the gun. She's going to go to the same place her husband did,
because she partook of his sin. And we work hard at shunning
responsibility. We work hard at shunning our
responsibility. This is the day and age, you
know, and you know, whatever happens in Las Vegas stays in
Las Vegas. In other words, you can do what
you want to and nobody's going to tell you, you don't even have
to have guilty conscience. That's where we're going, where people
trying to verbalize to convince you, you don't even have to feel
guilty about what you've done. Your conscience is, that bombard us
with this. But we're so, we work hard at
shunning responsibility. We'll use statements like, it
was the way I was raised. Somebody mistreated me when I
was young. That's a favorite thing now for being an idiot. Somebody mistreated me when I
was young. My daddy beat me or my mama whipped me too hard.
Somebody touched me or something, you know. And then another one
is, I'm just made like that. That's just the way I'm made. Nothing I can do about it. We'll use these kind of things
to excuse our bad temper, or lying, or something else we do. But the problem is this. What
we excuse in ourselves, and allow ourselves to do, we want to lie
in other people. It's like a little boy told his
mother, said, Mama, why in the world when I do something wrong,
it's because I'm a bad boy? Why when you do something wrong,
it's your nerves? It's your nerves. Mama had a
reason for her being mean. She had bad nerves. Little boy
just mean. Ain't that the way we do? But here's the thing. She was
just as guilty. She could have shunned that responsibility,
but she was just as guilty. We can blame all the people we
want to. But still, what we do is in the
sight of God. Everybody who's blamed somebody
else for everything they've ever done, they're going to face God,
and God's going to hold them responsible for everything they've
done. Not for what somebody's done to them, what they've done.
Now, ain't that right? God charged Ananias and Sapphira
for not what Peter done. Not what anybody else in the
church done, but what they did. What they did. Oh, let me tell
you this in closing, and then look what happens here. It says
there in verse 5, and you know, and great fear came on all those
that heard these things. This fear comes on me when I
read these things and deal with these things. Fear comes on me.
And down in verse 11, and great fear came upon all the church.
Oh my, it come upon me too, and it's you. I'm afraid. That's
one thing I don't want to do. I don't want to have a sham religion.
I don't want to play church. And I've known as many as heard
these things. And this tells us this. Oh, Mr. Spurgeon. Some
people came to him and said, Mr. Spurgeon, we're going to
be leaving. Why are you leaving for us? He said, well, we're
going to, we don't like some things happening out here. We're
going to find us a church that we think is a little better.
So we go, we're looking for a place that's perfect, that suits us.
He said, oh, Mr. Spurgeon, what are you going
to do when you find it? Don't you dare join it. Oh, why? I said, you'll ruin it. And that's the way we think.
Huh? Oh, there'll be no perfect church.
There'll be no perfect church. A local assembly. Why? Because
me and you're in it. Shall we quit or go somewhere
else because it is a perfect church? No. If we do, we'll just
take our problems somewhere else. So just stay where you are. It
has nothing to do with one another. It doesn't learn one another.
that follows us. And you know, and last of all,
one of these days, we're going to be carried out. He read it. We're going to dustly come, the
dust we're going to go, and the Spirit's going to go to God who
gave it. We're going to be carried out one day. God help us to honor
Him with our hearts, with our lips, with our substance, and
do it willingly, generously, gladly, thankfully and joyfully
to His glory and the good of His church while we live on this
earth, so that when we're carried out, it won't be like this. Amen? Father, we thank You for Your
precious Word, glorious Word. Lord, thank You for these warnings,
these great caution signs, warning signs you give us, that, as the brother read tonight,
that goads us, that nails us, that pierces us. And, Lord, they make us sometimes
feel uncomfortable, but, oh, Savior, Savior, we need them,
and we thank you for them. You put them there to teach us,
to instruct us, to admonish us, and instruct us in the things
and ways of righteousness. God bless the words, our hearts,
and our understanding. Thank you for the day you've
given us. Thank you for the songs. Thank you for the scriptures.
Thank you for the prayers. Thank you for the saints. Thank
you for the gospel. Thank you for the blood. Thank
you for these dear saints of God. Bless our hearts together
and unite us and make us as this church here was, one heart, one
soul, one purpose, and that's to honor our blessed Savior.
Thank You, Lord, for making us this one in Christ. We bless
You and praise You in His name. Amen.