The Acts of the Apostles 20

Subtitle: Run-in with the Law #2

Acts 5:17-32.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 9, 2022.

In today’s passage, the leaders of Israel are going to haul the apostles in because they continue to preach salvation and forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus.

It is important to pay attention to the attitude of these men as they disobey earthly authorities in order to obey God.  Some people use the idea of obeying God rather than man as a moral cover for selfish reasons.  The fruit of their life bears out the message that they are simply using it as a license for immorality. 

May God help us to be led by the Holy Spirit, rather than man.  But, may we also understand that His plan is always to give a witness to all those who are watching, whether leaders or not.  This is a holy matter and we should be careful not to muddy the waters of what God wants to say to others.  If we attempt to use this as an excuse, we will one day stand before Him with no excuse.

Let’s get into the passage.

The apostles are imprisoned (vs. 17-21)

The first arrest of any of the apostles was at the beginning of chapter four.  Peter and John were arrested, questioned, threatened and then released.  Now we have a second arrest.

It is the high priest of Israel and his religious party, the Sadducees, are filled with indignation that these men continue to teach in the name of Jesus.  The word translated “indignation” is often translated as “zeal.”  It refers to the heat and passion to defend or pursue something.  In this case, they are going to defend their actions with Jesus, and pursue the goal of shutting up these disciples of Jesus.

We must always hold our passions in check before the Lord to determine whether they are motivated by righteousness and His Spirit, rather than by our own flesh and the world around us.

The phrase “they laid their hands on the apostles” simply means that they had them arrested, most likely by the temple guards.  It is most likely that all of the apostles are arrested this time since Luke made it clear in chapter four that it was only Peter and John.  He only says “apostles” in this chapter.

The apostles are held over night in the common prison.  However, God has different plans in mind.  He sends an angel to release them that night.  The angel simply “opens the doors,” with no mention of the guards in these verses.  In a bit, we will see in verse 23 that the guards are still outside the jailhouse and don’t know that anything has happened the next morning.  Most likely a spiritual sleepiness came over them because there is no mention of them being afraid and running away as in the case of the resurrection of Jesus.

Of course, angels don’t need keys.  In Acts 12, an angel will rescue Peter from prison and it basically says that the “chains fell off his hands,” and that a large iron gate opened “of its own accord.”  The word is the Greek term automate that has the idea that it opened by itself, without the intervention of something else.

Thus, the disciples found themselves freed late at night without the soldiers and the high priest knowing what had happened.

The angel then gives them a message from the Lord.  They are to go to the temple, and “speak to the people all the words of this life.”  It is most likely a reference to the eternal life that Jesus promised to his followers and those who believed upon him through their preaching.  However, we should not separate this eternal life from the here and now.  Christian believers already have the eternal life of Christ welling up in them like a spring.  The Christian life is itself an expression of God’s life flowing through us day by day, and will climax at the resurrection when this mortal flesh is overwhelmed by the power of God’s eternal life!

When it comes to angels, the bible is clear that angels are ministering spirits on behalf of those who are being saved (Hebrews 1:14).  Their work is generally unseen.  However, from time to time and as it suites God’s purposes, they operate in a way that enables people to see them, or recognize after the fact that they have been active.  We shouldn’t address them, pray to them, or try to direct them.  We pray to God and let Him decide how we should be helped!

The apostles then waited until the temple opened that morning.  They then boldly marched up onto the temple mount, no doubt setting up in Solomon’s Colonnade, and began to declare the words of life through faith in Jesus!  At this point their lives are totally surrendered to what Jesus has for them.  There is no discussion about what is wise and what is foolish.  If the Lord gives a command, then we need to obey.  May God help us to develop and walk in such courage.

There is a sense of humor that the apostles are preaching in the temple as the Sanhedrin is gathered in order to question them, and determine their fate.  God doesn’t always do things the same way.  These men are sprung from jail, whereas, Daniel was protected in it.  Others went on to be executed, and have their heads cut off.  We need to learn to trust Jesus, to exercise our faith in him no matter what may happen.

The apostles are on trial again (vs. 22-32)

As we see, they are going to be arrested again and brought before the council of Israel, but first, there is the question of where they are.  When the council sends for the apostles to be brought before them out of the prison, the officers cannot find them.  They go back to the council and report that everything looks like it should, officers are still guarding it, the doors are locked, and yet there are no apostles.  Wasn’t that nice of the angel to lock up after they left? 

This leaves the council wondering what was going on.

At this point, someone comes from the temple and reports that the apostles are preaching on the temple grounds!  Of course, this can’t be allowed to stand, so they are arrested again “without violence”, mainly because they were afraid that the people might stone them.

This is a common problem among those who stand in the place of the law.  The power to arrest is supposed to be done in service of righteousness, and doesn’t always require violence.  However, some men do require strong force to bring them into custody.  Yet, at the same time, power can go to people’s heads, even law enforcement officers.  Those giving arrest orders, and those carrying out the arrests, can completely overstep their proper authority when their ego gets over-involved.  Thus, you can lawlessly execute a lawful order, or even lawlessly execute a lawless order.

The apostles are set before the council and the high priest addresses them.  He reminds them that previously they had been commanded not to teach “in this name.”  Apparently, he doesn’t even want to say the name of Jesus.   Yet, they have gone out and filled Jerusalem with their teaching, and appear to be intent on making “us guilty of this man’s blood.”

Think about it this way.  A lawful execution of a wicked man is not murder.  This is what the leaders want to be the official narrative.  However, the apostles are saying that the execution was not valid and that God had overturned it through resurrection.  This means that the leaders are guilty of the blood of Jesus.  His blood is on their heads in the way of guilt.

Peter serves as the spokesman for the group and gives their answer.  You can compare this answer with the one that he gave last time in Acts 4:19-20.

In Acts 4, he used the verb “listen,” but here, it is “obey.”  Also, in chapter 4 it is put forward as a question for the council to decide upon, but now Peter makes a statement.  Here are both forms.  Chapter 4: “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges!”  Chapter 5: “We must obey God rather than human beings!”    The question should never be, “What do men want me to do?”  Rather, it should always be about what God wants!

Peter then details what God has done and what He is doing just as he did in chapter 4.  God raised up Jesus whom they murdered by hanging.  Of course, the Romans did the killing, but it would not have happened without the rulers pushing it.  To add insult to injury, they chose hanging to be the form of death knowing that the Law of Moses claims that a man who hangs on a tree is cursed of God.

God then exalted Jesus to His right hand in order to make him two things.  First, it is in order to make him to be Prince.  The word prince is used here in the sense of the principal leader of a something and is synonymous with king.  This is connected to Daniel 9:25 where Messiah the Prince is prophesied to be executed.

Second, Jesus is raised to the right hand of the Father in order to make him to be Savior.  Remember that this term involves more than just dealing with sins.  It may better be translated as Deliverer- like the Judges of old.  Just as Israel needed a savior all those years ago, we too need a Savior today.  Praise God that He has already given us Jesus!

Jesus was also giving to Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins.  That is a powerful statement.  How long had they gone as a society without repenting for their past and present sins?  It had been a long time.  Through Jesus God was granting them repentance.  I would that God would grant to the United States of America repentance and forgiveness of sins for it seems that we are bent on doubling down on our sins.

Peter declares again that the apostles are witnesses of all of these things.  They don’t just have two or three witnesses, but twelve!  On top of that, there are two classes of witnesses.  The apostles are the human witnesses, but the Holy Spirit bears witness as well by healing powerfully through the disciples.

Peter ends with the statement that God is giving the Holy Spirit to those who obey.  In a sense, this is put before them laden with potential.  If they simply dropped the ego and admitted they were wrong, then they too could participate in the blessed promise of the Holy Spirit.  Alas, it was not to be so.

May God help us to make the choice today.  We will either be a part of the remnant that is receiving the Spirit of God and moving forward into blessing or we will be part of the larger group that is receiving the judgment of God and moving forward into His wrath.  Choose this day whom you will serve!

Run-in audio

The Acts of the Apostles 19

Subtitle: A Powerful People

Acts 5:12-16.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 2, 2022.

What does it mean to be a powerful person?  If we use the world’s definition of a powerful person, then we are focused on someone who is in control of their life personally, who is financially powerful, and who has powerful social influence. 

It is easy for Christians to simply “christianize” these concepts rather than seeking God’s word for His definition of a powerful people.  The above concepts are focused on manipulating the world around us so that it conforms to our desires.  Using religion to do this is the very definition of witchcraft.

Don’t get me wrong.  God made us with a powerful ability to affect the world around us.  However, when we use those abilities for self-serving purposes, even to the point of co-opting religious garb to do it, we have prostituted God’s purpose in it.  Christians are those who wrestle with God in prayer over how to impact the world around them.  We don’t always perfectly understand it.  However, we must be convinced that He is the only leader that can teach us in this life.

Our passage today focuses on the powerful work that God was doing through the early Jewish believers in Jesus.  Let’s look at it.

Powerful things continue to occur (vs. 12-16)

So far in the book of Acts, we have seen some powerful things.  In Acts chapter two, we saw a powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit, followed up by Peter’s powerful sermon.  He challenged the people, “Be saved from this perverse generation...”  This led to 3,000 people being saved.

In chapter three, we saw the healing of the man in his forties who had been lame from birth.  Again, this was followed up with a sermon from Peter saying, “Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the LORD, and that He might send Jesus…”  Peter clearly saw a connection between the repentance of Israel as a nation and the return of Jesus.

In chapter four, Peter and John are arrested, threatened, and released.  However, they were not intimidated and continued to preach powerfully in the name of Jesus the Christ.

Chapter five explains the powerful deaths of Ananias and Sapphira.  This made sure that the believers and the unbelievers understood that God was at work in this group.

These verses here are another one of Luke’s summaries of how things were going with the Church of Jesus.  We are going to sift these verses into three categories: statements concerning the Apostles, statements concerning the believers, and statements concerning the others.

The Apostles-

After his death, Jesus sent his disciples to call all people everywhere to repent and believe on him.  He was God’s Anointed One, God’s savior for our sins.  He was also God’s anointed ruler for our world.  They are called apostles at this point because the term means “sent-ones.”  They are sent by Jesus to establish His Church, which means the “called-out-ones” by the way.  We are called out from among the world, but not to go away.  We come out from the spiritual prostitution of this world into the chaste life of a bride of Christ.  Our work is to pull others out from the cesspool of this sinning world.

Verse twelve reminds us that God did amazing signs and wonders through the hands of the apostles.  These are things that caused people not only to be amazed, but also to recognize that God was in them.  These apostles were just like Jesus, the same Jesus that was executed.

Healing was one of those ways that God got the attention of that first century.  Verse fifteen tells us that the apostles were healing people so much that others would bring their sick out to the street and lay them on beds, hoping that Peter’s shadow would touch them and make them well.  Now it doesn’t actually say that someone was healed this way, but that is what the people thought.  It is possible that something like this happened and word spread.  Desperate people will try anything that even has the faint odor of hope.

Yet, this is not about Peter, but rather about God’s call on his life, and his faithful, bold obedience to do what God’s Spirit led him to do.  If looking at Peter diminishes our understanding that it is the grace of Jesus that is doing this, then we need clarify the way we are looking at this.  Conversely, if we completely disregard that this is done through the hands of Peter, i.e., through his obedient faith, then we miss what God is showing us.  There are some things that God wants to do, but He has decreed that they would happen through the prayer of faith, and the actions of faith.  In short, Peter is cooperating with God, co-laboring with Jesus Christ, by the enabling of the Holy Spirit.

Verse sixteen also tells us that people from the surrounding towns and villages were coming to Jerusalem bringing sick people, and some who were tormented by evil spirits.  “They were all healed.”  This is a sign in itself.  Jesus was powerfully healing people and then the leaders pushed to have him executed by the Romans.  Yet, his disciples were now doing the very same thing.  This was getting the attention of the people.

Let me just say that it is clear that God used the Apostles in a way that was greater than those who were believing in Jesus.  It is also clear that Peter was used to a greater degree than the other eleven.  The apostle Paul was powerfully enabled among the Gentiles similar to Peter.  As Pentecostals, we can overly focus on the power aspect while missing the more important point.  The goal of the Good News is not to get more and more people doing what Peter and Paul did.  The goal is to change your mind about your sin, and about who Jesus is.  It is about surrendering your life to the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is about trusting him to cover your sins, and empower you to fight sin in your life, walking in his righteousness.  It is about that sorrowful pricking of the heart, where we turn away from rebellion against God, and turn towards faith in Jesus.  The one who believes in Jesus will walk as he did.  They will obey his word and the word of his apostles.  God will work powerfully through them, but it will not always look the same and be at the same scope.  We must quit worrying about the scope of His power in our life and simply cooperate with it.  Jesus did only what his Father had for him to do.  So, we too must not put our ego ahead of ourselves with dreams of parting Red Seas.  Instead, we are to be faithful and let God lead us in His powerful works expressed in our life.

The followers of Jesus-

Luke mentions the followers of Jesus, or the believers, in verse twelve.  We are told that they were in one accord.  We’ve seen this word before, and it means that they were focused with one passion as a group.  That passion was to live for Jesus and to do his work.  Luke uses this phrase of the believers seven times throughout the book of Acts.  It is not until the stoning of Stephen that it is used in a bad sense for the crowd who plugged their ears, seized him, and stoned him to death.  They were focused on the one passion of extinguishing the fire of Stephen’s preaching.

Can the Church of Jesus be of one accord today?  We might be tempted to say that the Church is too fractured to be of one accord.  However, remember that Israel was a fractured people at this time.  All of Israel was considered the people of God.  Yet, the ministry of Jesus had polarized society.  Those born of the Spirit were moving to one side of the Sword of the Lord, and those clinging to the flesh were moving to the other side.  Through Jesus, the Father was making a distinction between that which is holy and that which is unholy among His very people.  Thus, Luke is referring to those who are truly following the Spirit of God, not those who only had a profession of being the people of God. 

Can you not see how the Church has progressed to the same state that Israel was in so many years ago?  We have accreted millennia of fleshly institutions and people.  However, within this mass of the Church is a true, believing people.  The denomination doesn’t matter.  If a person is truly born again of the Spirit of God, they will quickly recognize the Spirit of God in another.  I put to you today that true believers across the world are of one heart and one mind to do the will of Jesus, rather than playing a religious virtual reality game.

The caution is that we must be careful about what spirit animates us, and what passion we are unifying around.  There is a sinful passion that operates in the crowd, the mob, this world even, to resist the will of God.  We must unify around the One True Lord, Jesus, and the One True and Holy Spirit of God.

Verse fourteen tells us that multitudes of men and women were being added to the Lord.  This is despite the fear that many felt when news of the death of Ananias and Sapphira was spread.  We should also note that they were “added to the Lord.”  All believers are ultimately added to the Lord within a local context.  No church belongs to the people there.  It will either belong to Jesus or it will not.  Let us strive to be a church that belongs to Jesus alone.

This was not a comfortable time for Christians.  In comfortable times, many people will join the Church, but they can simply be making a casual commitment.  They may join because there is a beautiful girl attending, and they hope to catch her attention.  They may join because they see a promising network of clients for their business.  They may see the potential of a place to amass social pride in religious matters.  The fleshly motivations are unlimited. 

Notice that no one casually becomes a true believer during times of persecution and difficulty.  This is part of the grace of God in it.  It is sometimes led by religious people who have no relationship with God at all.  Let me just say that you cannot have a casual relationship with the Creator of the universe.  You either take these things seriously or you don’t.  A serious believer doesn’t just read the Bible, but studies it as if their life depended upon it, as if it was actually a letter from your Creator to you.  A serious believer doesn’t just say their prayers, but seeks God for direction, wisdom, and guidance daily.  A serious believer goes to war against sin in their life, which begins in their heart and their mind, and affects their outward living.  I don’t know what you are going to do, but I’m going to serve Jesus seriously!

The others-

This brings us to the third group that Luke mentions here, the others.  Verse thirteen says that “none of the rest dared to join them…”  There was a hesitancy and a cowardice that kept them back.  Of course, there were some like the High Priest and others who were taking their stand against this group no matter what.  However, this is the group in between, the almost-persuaded group.

Let me just say that God is real, and therefore, it is a good thing to be careful about jumping on His side.  However, He is not some kind of psychotic parent who is beating people for no good reason.  If God disciplines us, it is to bring us to repentance so that we can have true life.  When we daily walk in repentance, we have fellowship with Him by His Holy Spirit.  It is a relationship that brings us healing from our sins and the sins of others, from the effects of those sins.  It gives us internal peace, true righteousness, and joy like a river in our soul!

The people who weren't joining them still had a respect for them.  They esteemed them highly, held them in high regard.  The word has a sense of honor in it so that the believers were seen as an honorable thing in their eyes.  Not everyone in the world is going to think that Christians are honorable.  It is not our job to focus on what the world thinks.  Instead, we are to live a life that is honorable by God's definition.  When a Christian casts off a lukewarm life and lets God transform their thinking and living, then they will be the hope of Jesus everywhere they go. 

If we are going to be despised, then let it be for following Jesus, not for following our own flesh and desires.  Every time a story comes out of sexual abuse, or financial embezzlement, it only shows that the mentality of Ananias and Sapphira is still with us.  You can't control other Christians, and shouldn't want to do so, but you can keep your eyes on Jesus, and live to honor him!  That will make you a person who is spiritually powerful.

Friend, no matter how bad a sinner you are, you can come to Jesus, that is if you are tired of struggling in those sins, and desire to be free.  Jesus can forgive you of your past, fill you with his Holy Spirit, and enable you to powerfully walk away from your sins!  Let’s be a people of power who are powerfully cleansing our lives of sin, powerfully guarding our hearts from the lies of this world, and powerfully doing the work that Jesus has given us to do!

Powerful People audio

Barriers to Jews Believing in Jesus

This sermon was preached on September 25, 2022 by Missionary Robert Specter of Rock of Israel Ministries.

There will not be an article on this sermon, but the audio is now available.

Barriers audio

The Acts of the Apostles 18

Subtitle: Lying to the Holy Spirit II

Acts 5:7-11.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on September 18, 2022.

Last week, we dealt with the death of Ananias, and today we will deal with the death of his wife, Sapphira.

Ananias is a Greek form of the Hebrew name Hananiah.  It means ‘the favor of Yahweh,” or “the grace of Yahweh.”  Sapphira’s name is a reference to the sapphire gem.

Though one could think of their names as ironic in this story, it is more likely that they serve to emphasize the tragedy of their lives and their fall into judgment.  God was pouring out the greatest grace and favor that the world had ever seen in the work of Jesus.  He followed this up with the amazing gift of pouring out the Holy Spirit upon those who believed in Jesus.  How tragic to fall short of the grace of God.

Similarly, Sapphira’s name should remind us of God’s ultimate goal for believers, which is spoken of in the Old Testament.  Daniel 12:2-3 says that the righteous who are resurrected will “shine like the brightness of the firmament,” and “like the stars forever and ever.”  This imagery of shining stars is used in the Bible for spiritual beings.  It also is connected to gems.  Read Malachi 3:15-18.  God speaks of a day in which He declares that the righteous will become His.  “’They shall be Mine,’ says the LORD of Hosts, ‘on the day that I make them My jewels.  And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.’”

This story is a tragedy of the highest level.  May God hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

Let’s get into our passage.

His wife follows him in his sin

It might seem strange to us that Ananias is buried without his wife’s knowledge, but it would have been similar to her husband being in the morgue.  In those days, a family would typically have a tomb that had a platform in the middle.  The dead body would be laid on the platform and allowed to decompose over the course of a year.  Later the bones would be gathered up into a bone box called an ossuary and deposited within one of several niches that would be in the walls.  Whole families would be buried in the same tomb this way.  Also, It would be necessary to deal with a body right away due to the heat.

Verse 2 tells us that Sapphira knew what her husband was doing.  We should pause and discuss the difficulty of having a spouse who is pursuing sin.  Many Christians have had to deal with being married to unbelieving spouses.  In fact, the Apostle Paul encourages such to stay married as long as the unbelieving spouse is open to it because you never know how God may use it to save their soul.  It can be more nuanced if you have a “believing” spouse who is serving their flesh rather than Jesus.  Regardless, Sapphira had a choice to make.  She could refuse to stand with her husband in this sin, or she could join him in it.  Sadly, she chooses to join him in his sin.

Don’t get me wrong.  There is no reason to make Sapphira to be the instigator, or innocent bystander.  Perhaps she was like Jezebel goading Ahab on in worship of Baal.  Maybe she was not.  All spouses should recognize that their life deeply affects their spouse for good or for bad.

It is three hours after the death of Ananias that Sapphira shows up.  It would stand to reason that she is looking for him, wondering why he is taking so long.  She gets there minutes before the men who have buried her husband make it back to the place where Peter is. 

It is at this point that Peter questions Sapphira about the value of the property sold.  It would be easy to blame Peter here.  Couldn’t he have led with the fact that her husband had lied and had been struck dead by God?  Yes, he could have.  However, Peter questions her to see if she is in on it.  I mentioned last week that I don’t believe Peter knew up front that Ananias was going to die.  Otherwise, we would expect him to pronounce something so, like he does here with Sapphira.  God had made it shockingly clear to Peter that this was to be taken seriously, and Peter is only taking this seriously.  How bad has this wickedness spread?

Tragically, Sapphira lies to Peter, and therefore, lies to the Holy Spirit as well.  Peter rebukes her for her sin, and adds some further light to why this is taken so seriously.  Sapphira will fall down dead and breathe her last as her husband did.

The first part of this rebuke is in reference to the Holy Spirit.  Sapphira had agreed with Ananias to “test” the Holy Spirit.  The Greek term it translates is often used of the devil tempting us.  It typically means to test so as to make someone fail.  A test can be a good thing that measures your progress and helps you to see where you need to improve.  In general, teachers are not actually trying to fail their students, but they do have a duty to make sure that the kids are learning the material.  This will ensure that the student is able to get more work on the failed problems.

The plot of Ananias and Sapphira is not devised to strengthen the Church, Peter, or God.  They hope to get the social reputation of donating all the proceeds of their sale without having to do it.  Their lie is selfish, and somehow, they believe that God won’t do anything about it.  This begs a lot of questions.  Were they actually saved, or only going along with the group because amazing things were happening?  Did they actually believe God was behind these things, or did they somehow believe it was more like magic, the involvement of an impersonal force?  Of course, we cannot know.

I believe that America is testing the Holy Spirit today, and has been for a long time.  We have been coasting on the grace that prior generations have won for us, but now, the judgment of God is in our land.  Everywhere around us, we see the crumbling culture.  The principle of death is being breathed into the land through every action of sin.  Yet, there is still hope.  We can see the turmoil and repent. 

In fact, God generally sends his judgment in increasing waves.  This makes me wonder if Ananias and Sapphira hadn’t had some warnings from God earlier.

Peter tells Sapphira that the same men who were coming in the door from burying her husband will now bury her.  She then dies as Peter has prophesied.  No leader should ever dare to utter this kind of statement unless it is really from God.  As I said, God had made it clear that He wasn’t letting this pass.

Whether I am judged by God on the spot or after 80 years of this life, the testimony of Scripture is that Jesus is a righteous judge.  He knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts.  You cannot fool God.

Yet, none of us can be good enough to merit grace in that hour.  I don’t believe that God wants us to be unsure of that day.  1 John 5:13 states that we can know that we have eternal life.  Still, there is a tension between being confident of our salvation, and yet not letting that become an excuse for sin.  The saved person will fight their own sin.  There will be losses and wins in that battle, but the Lord will deliver them from them all.  This tension can be described as a tension between being afraid of God and having a healthy fear of the Lord.

Luke mentions twice that fear came upon everyone who heard about the story (vs 5, 11).  For Christians, it would be the fear of the Lord that wisely fights against sin in their life.  For unbelievers, it is more than likely a fear of the unknown.  It would be a fear of not knowing what is really going on among those people.

Just because this is the Age of Grace does not mean that God is no longer making judgments.  If we eat up His grace and spend it on our lusts, instead of putting our faith upon Jesus, working to become like him, then we will pay with our life.  We will receive eternal life or eternal death, eternal glory or eternal shame.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  It teaches us to stop asking how close to the cliff we can hang out without falling.  The whole point is to want to be close to Jesus, to have intimate communion with him.  I fear the holiness of God too much to try and lie to Him.

Of course, any time we tell Jesus that we love him, we are somewhat like Peter was in John 21.  My words may be greater than my flesh can back up right now, but Lord you know my heart.  You know that my spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak.  God is gracious and is not looking for an excuse to take you out.  That tells me something drastically wrong was going on inside of Ananias and Sapphira.  I should not try to look like anything more than a sinner being set free from my sins as Jesus helps me.

Now, let’s come full circle on God’s love for us.  Remember, God is not willing that anyone perish, but that all come to repentance and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.  More than that, God wants for you to be the recipient of His grace and favor.  He wants you to be at His side shining like the stars.  In fact, a beautiful thing about gems is that they don’t have internal light.  At His side, we will not only be gems, but the most dazzling light of God will be shining through us.  What a day that will be!

Lying to the Holy Spirit II audio