Don't Lie to the Holy Spirit
The Spirit of God
Don't Lie to the Holy Spirit
Acts 5:1-14
 
For eleven weeks we’ve been studying some of the Biblical references to the Holy Spirit.  My goal has not been to provide you with a deep, detailed doctrinal study, but rather a very practical look at how God desires and designed to impact our lives through living within us.
 
And every time I think I’m through and need to move on to something else, God brings to mind another aspect of understanding and applying the Holy Spirit.  Such was certainly the case this week as God brought to mind the event we find in
 
Acts 5:1-14 
 
Now pay particular attention to the question Peter asks of Ananias there in verse 3.  “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?” 
 
Now in light of that I would submit to you that all lies are serious. And even though we know that, we sometimes tell little lies or white lies as we call them.  We exaggerate a little or we let someone believe something that isn’t true to make ourselves look better or more holy. 
 
I heard about a couple of preachers who were talking about their church statistics and attendance and the number of baptisms and one of them said, “If I lie about my attendance, and you know that I am lying about my attendance and I know that you know, then that’s just like telling the truth, right?”
We try to justify our dishonesty or we lie about things that are frivolous or insignificant.  Most folks will lie a few pounds about their weight or age.  They say the seven ages of woman are baby, child, junior, missy, young woman, young woman, young woman, and young woman. So we have convinced ourselves that some lies are whimsical and maybe even humorous or cute.
 
But according to the Word of God, lying is a very serious thing.  In fact, not lying made the top ten when it comes to commandments of God. Jesus said one of His names is Truth. Satan, the Bible says in John chapter eight, verse 44, is a liar and the father of it.
 
So what it really boils down to is when you tell the truth you are putting Jesus on display and giving God an opportunity to work and when you tell a lie, you allow Satan to be at the center of your life and prove he is working in you. 
 
So just to put it on record, all lying is serious.  But here we find a verse that talking about lying to the Holy Spirit.  If ever there was one type of lie more serious than any other, it would be lying to God.
 
To help us understand the magnitude of this sin, let me give you a little background.   When this passage was written, the church was brand new and on fire.   God was saving multitudes. Miracles and wonders and signs were being done in this church. And if you read the first four chapters of the book of Acts, you will discover the devil had done all he could do to stop it. 
 
 
Primarily, he has used persecution against the church.  But for all he did, they just seemed to do that much better.  As a matter of fact, the more they were persecuted, the more they preached about Jesus and the more people came to Jesus. 
 
By the way, there is a good lesson in that for us.  Persecution can never stop the church of the Lord Jesus. There aren’t enough devils and demons in hell or out of hell to stop any church by persecution. Persecution cannot stop the work of God.
 
So Satan changes his strategy.  Beginning in chapter 5 we see the attack change from an outer attack to an inner attack.  If he cannot conquer the church, he will corrupt the church. So he finds two likely candidates that he will use.  They are a married couple named Ananias and Sapphira.  And the corruption he uses is the sin of hypocrisy. 
 
Now here's what happened. Back at the end of chapter 4, in verse 36, mentioned almost as an incidental, we are told about a man named Barnabas who had some property and he sold it and he brought the earnings and gave it to the church.
 
Now it seems Dr. Luke just kind of picks him out of the crowd to personalize what is happening in the early church because verses 34 and 35 tell us there were lots of people doing that.  In fact, the indication is everyone was doing it.  There was so much persecution going on and so many in the church were displaced and needy that those who hadn’t been directly affected sold what they had and helped others. 
 
 
Their attitude seems to be, “How could I sit home and enjoy what I have while brothers and sisters in Christ are going without because of their commitment to God?”
 
So everyone was involved in this ministry of support and benevolence.  Then we are given two personal experiences from that crowd.  One of them is Barnabas.  He sold his land, brought the earnings and gave it to the apostles to be distributed to those in need. 
 
The second example is Ananias and Sapphira.  They also had a piece of land they sold.  But they decide to be deceitful about the sale.  Maybe they were jealous of the attention others like Barnabas were getting.  Maybe they thought nobody would notice.  Perhaps they were just greedy or stingy or hadn’t learned to trust God. 
 
But whatever reason, they concoct this plan to sell this possession, give some of the money and keep some for themselves. And as the story unfolds, they wind up lying to the Holy Spirit.  Now right off the bat, we need to establish what they did wrong. 
 
And in a word, it was hypocrisy.  They pretended to have a devotion to Jesus that they did not have. So let’s think first of all about
 
1. The Deception of Their Sin
 
The root of their sin was pride. To highlight that, let’s think about the gift that Barnabas had given.  We’re not told a lot about Barnabas, but reading between the lines, he must have been a good, compassionate man. 
And since we are given no further details about his gift, I think it safe to assume he gave the right way.  He didn’t draw attention to himself.  He didn’t ask for a plaque on the wall.  His gift was just a spontaneous act of love, motivated by the Holy Spirit, and he brought it.
 
Ananias and Sapphira decided that they would do something similar. But pride got involved in the process.  You say, “How do you know?”  I know because the root of their sin was pride, but the fruit of their sin was hypocrisy and hypocrisy always flows from pride. 
 
As we saw, Peter asks Ananias why he is lying to the Holy Spirit.  It’s really very cut and dried.  They had sold a piece of property and pretended they brought all of the money and gave it to the church.
 
Now understand, they didn't have to sell that piece of property.  There's no commandment in the Bible.  There was no compulsion from anybody in the church telling them that they had to do that.  It was their right to keep the property if they wanted to.
 
And once they sold it, they didn't have to give the money to the church.  They didn’t have to give any of it and they certainly didn’t have to give all of it.  In fact, that’s exactly what Peter says to Ananias in verse 3. 
 
It was your land to do with what you wanted both before and after it was sold.  So the problem was not that they only gave part. The problem was that they only gave part and then tried to make themselves look good by lying about giving it all. 
 
They pretended they had given everything to God and wound up lying about it. They wanted credit for something they had not done. It's just as simple as that. The root of their sin was pride and the fruit of their sin was pretense,  They were pretending to be something they weren’t. 
 
Do you ever do that?  I had to check my heart, as I prepared this sermon.  I had to ask myself, “Terry, when you preach do you pretend a devotion that you don't have? Do you preach things that you don't experience? Do you say things that you don't believe? Do you declare commitments that you've not made?”
 
And while we’re asking, what about you?  How about you, deacon?  Do you have a reputation around church of being something you aren’t?  Do you have the reputation of being a tither and giver when you’re stingy and tight?  Are you known for your compassion when you never make a visit?  
 
How about it, Sunday School teacher?  Do you teach things that you don’t practice?  Do you wish you’re class was reaching more people, but you don’t visit? 
 
How about it choir member and soloist?  Do you sing things and lead the church to worship that aren’t true of you?  Does your life back up the message you’re proclaiming? 
 
How about it committee members?  Do you make decisions regarding finances and property and programs and your heart is far from the very things you are touching and influencing?    
 
 
I want to tell you something.  When I ask myself those questions, it strikes fear into my heart.  To be honest about my honesty is frightening.  We all need to ask those questions. The question is not how much we give of our money or of our time or our devotion or anything else. That's not the question. The question is how much do we say that we give in comparison to what we give?
 
God detests the sin of hypocrisy, the sin of pretense,  of saying we are one thing and really being another or letting people believe something about us when we aren’t that at all. 
 
The sternest words Jesus ever spoke were in regard to hypocrisy.  To the church at Laodicea He said, “You’ve got a reputation for being alive, but you are dead and don’t even know it!”
 
I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I won’t my life to be honest and transparent and true.  I wonder how many hypocrites that we have in our churches, many of them considered to be some of the best members.
 
We stand and sing, “All to Jesus I surrender.” Have you done that? Or do you just sing it? “I surrender all, and we don't.”
 
We pray God will bless the offering that we don’t give.  We ask God to use the talents and gifts that we don’t offer.  We give the world a cheap, plastic imitation of what a life lived for Jesus ought to look like. 
 
And just so we’re real clear, I want you to what you do not willingly give, God neither needs nor wants. Understand that.
We're not here to put any pressure on you or to twist your arm, or to say you must give anything.  But on the other hand, you better make certain that what you give, you give from a pure heart.
 
It is a dangerous thing to pretend a devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ that you do not have. The root of their sin was pride. Wanting others to brag on them, and therefore they opened themselves up to the devil and they are forever recorded on the pages of God’s Word as the hypocrites that they were.  
 
So the first thing we see is the deception.
 
Then we move to
 
2.  The Detection of their Sin
 
Look at verse three again
 
Peter immediately saw the deception.  How?  How did he know that?  I don’t think he took a look at the books or talked to the treasurer.  I don’t think he necessarily knew whoever did the transaction or brought the property or knew the price. 
 
I think the Holy Spirit is at work here, and Peter was given the ability to discern this.  This is pretty bold on Peter’s part because everything is going really well.  Peter might have said, “You know, things are going so well.  The church is booming, people are being converted.  This is a glorious time.  There’s so much love and so much unity, and we did get a lot of money from Ananias and Sapphira. 
 
 
 
Maybe I ought to just cool my heels here a little bit.  Why do I want to make an issue out of this?  It’s better that they sold the land and we got what we got.  After all, Ananias and Sapphira are some of the wealthier people in our congregation. 
 
We need his shekels coming in to keep the work going, and he was generous, and we want to be appreciative.”  Those are not his thoughts.  Those are the thoughts of a rationalizing compromiser.
 
Ananias comes to church, and he’s ready to receive honor from the apostles for the money that he places at the apostles’ feet in verse 2, and instead after he’s made the gift, Peter says, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?” 
 
And there was this immediate perception on the part of Peter that Satan was involved.  The root of their sin was pride but according to this verse, the source of their sin was Satan.
 
Satan found fertile soil when he found pride.  Here's a man with a heart full of pride, and Satan says, "I can work with that heart" and he whispered to Ananias when he saw that pride, "tell them that you're giving everything, they'll never know the difference."
 
 John eight verse forty-four says that Satan is a liar and a murder. My dear friend, when you lie, when you're a pretender, when you have pretense, you're acting like the devil himself.
 
 
 
 
How important it is that we pray for daily deliverance from the one who would fill our heart. Guard your heart!  If you don't, Satan will fill your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. 
 
The Holy Spirit revealed the source of the sin, it was Satan. And the Holy Spirit revealed the seriousness of the sin.
 
Verse 4
 
Now as I said earlier, it's a serious thing to tell any lie. But there are more consequences for telling lies in certain circumstances.  For instance, it's more serious to tell a lie to a judge. When you get in the courtroom you better tell the truth or you'll perjure yourself. And it is serious beyond words to lie to God. And not only is it serious, it's foolish. I mean you can fool a judge sometimes.
 
I heard about a man who was in a court room for stealing a watch.  They tried to prove he stole it but they couldn't prove it and so finally the judge said, "Well you’re acquitted."  He said, “Does that mean I have to give the watch back?”
 
You can fool an earthly judge, but you don’t get by with anything with God.   Ananias and Sapphira forgot God was there when they decided what they were going to do.  He was witness to the whole thing.  He knew all about it.
 
In fact, the Holy Spirit had warned them about what they were about to do.  Read this passage and you can tell that they had not sinned ignorantly. They had not sinned carelessly. They sinned against light.
 
It was an intentional error, it was a conspiracy, it was willful and it was inexcusable.  In fact, it was a direct challenge to the Holy Spirit.
 
Verse 9
 
It's very obvious the Spirit of God had been working with Ananias and Sapphira and they brazenly, flagrantly, defiantly decided to test God.  They may not have said it verbally, but in their heart they knew what they were doing. It was a direct challenge to the Holy Spirit and you can’t get more foolish than that. 
 
And that’s what led to
 
3.  The Destruction of Their Sin
 
Verse 5
 
That was certainly not what Ananias expected when he went to church that Sunday.  He went early, all decked out, going to make his presentation.  He will be the talk of the church tomorrow.  Sapphira’s not there.  She needs three more hours to do her hair.  But he’s there and he’s ready for his big moment. 
 
He walks up, lays down his money with a smug look on his face and Peter says, “You arrogant Satan-influenced liar!” in front of the whole church.  How do you suppose old Ananias responded?  Whatever he’s going to do, he better do quickly because in just a few seconds he will be dead. 
 
He showed up wanting to be the talk of the town and sure enough he was! 
 
Three hours later, Sapphira shows up.  My personal conviction is Ananias and she planned it that way so they could get double the attention.  If they’d showed up together, it would have been over, but this way, he gets the first round and then the crowd can start over with her.
 
So here she comes to church.  She’s got her hair done and her best dress on.  Her nails are polished and she’s all decked out. She knows by now everybody knows  they’ve given their gift. 
 
She walks in not knowing her husband is already dead and buried.  Peter says, “Tell me about your land deal.  Was the sales price this much?” 
 
She said, ‘Yes, that was the price.’  Peter said to her, ‘Why it that you have agreed together to is put the Spirit of the Lord to the test?  Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they’ll carry you out as well.’  And immediately she fell at his feet and breathed her last. 
 
The upside was her hair and makeup was already done for the funeral and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.
 
Now notice the question in verse 9. “Why is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test?  Are you trying to see if the Holy Spirit can spot hypocrisy?  Is that the test?  Is that what you’re doing?  Do you think you can deceive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God?”
 
Is that not stupidity at its most obvious?  There wasn’t any question about the Holy Spirit being present. 
From the Day of Pentecost, when the Spirit of God came, there were visible demonstrations of the Spirit’s power.  Languages were being spoken people didn’t know.  There was a loud noise like a mighty rushing wind.  There were tremors.  There were all kinds of phenomenon going on, and then there were miraculous signs and wonders being done at the hands of the apostles.
 
It was very clear that the Holy Spirit was present and powerful.  How spiritually stupid do you have to be to think you can ignore the Holy Spirit and lie in front of Him and get by with it?  And before the day was over, there were two brand new tombstones in the cemetery testifying of their spiritual stupidity. 
 
Now you say, “Pastor, do you believe that God would do something like that in our services today?” Let me ask you a question in response:  “Do you want to be the one to test Him and see?” 
 
I do believe God can and may do something like this in our day.  So why don’t we hear about it more often? 
 
I think it is because the level of our commitment is so low, there's no fear of God. We don’t allow the Holy Spirit of God to work like He did then.  If we were to be living in the kind of environment they were we would see more of the Holiness of God in judgment on hypocrites. 
 
No doubt this was a sever judgment, but it was also a saving judgment.  Why did God judge Ananias and Sapphira the way He did? I think first of all, to save Ananias and Sapphira from deeper sin.
 
I believe He loved them and He saw this hypocrisy in their heart and He took them home early.
 
1 John 5 reminds us that it is possible for a Christian to commit such sin that God will kill them and take them home to heaven. Paul talked about turning a church member over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.
 
And it just may be that God delivered Ananias and Sapphira to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that their spirit would be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus? Could it be that God, in mercy, let them go home early, that they would not heap sin upon sin?   
 
But I'll tell you what else He wanted to do. Not only did he want to save Ananias and Sapphira from further sin, He wanted to save that early church from further pollution.
 
Verse 11
 
When God brings this kind of judgment, it brings fear upon other people.   These people were a pure people and they were a praying people. And because of this, God moved in this swift and strong judgment.
 
I'll tell you a third reason that He did it. I believe not only to save Ananias and Sapphira from further sin and to save the early church from further pollution, but it was to save the lost from Hell.
 
As a result of God's judgment upon Ananias and Sapphira, the Bible says that believers, verse fourteen, were more added to the Lord multitudes, both of men and of women.
And so, we see the terrible, horrible sin pretending a devotion to Jesus that we do not have.
 
I'm finished with the message, but let me make four observations, and from those draw four pleas.
 
Number one, sin among the saints is more serious that sin among the lost. And sin when God is working in revival power, is the most dangerous of all sin.  If you’re a child of God, you need to be very careful how you live your life and present yourself to the world.  
 
Number two, sin against the Holy Spirit is extremely serious. Do not tempt the Holy Spirit of God. Do not be a pretender.
 
Number three, be on guard against hypocrisy in your own life. It's far better not to be what you ought to be than to pretend that you are what you're not. Do not pretend. As a matter of fact if you're having problems, confess it for the sin it is. 
 
If only Ananias and Sapphira had come and said, “”Simon Peter I've got a problem. I'm jealous of Barnabas. He's getting all this praise. I know it’s not right and I don’t want to be this way.” 
 
Then Peter could have said, “Ananias, I can understand that.  I’ve had some problems myself and still do. Let's pray about it Brother Ananias.”
 
Don't pretend that you're something that you're not. Don't put on a show for the church.  Don’t let others believe you have a devotion to Jesus Christ that you don't have. Don't lie to the Holy Spirit. 
 
And last of all, don't let some hypocrite keep you from getting the best out of life. There are Ananias and Sapphiras everywhere you look.  I've seen many of them in my ministry but they cannot hold back the power of God in revival if we keep our eyes on Jesus.
 
 Let's bow in prayer.