OUR BIBLE CLASS.
Ananias and Sapphira.
(Acts v. 1-16.)
In the second chapter of Acts we learn how the Holy Spirit was, on the Day of Pentecost, just after Christ's ascension, poured out upon the apostles, how they preached the Gospel in languages they had never learned before, and how three thousand of their hearers were led to confess their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. These were baptized according to His commandment, and added to the company of disciples at Jerusalem, partaking of the Lord's Supper as He had bidden them, and continuing in fellowship and prayer. But besides all this, they made a rule for themselves which Jesus had not actually laid down for them. The richer members gave up their money and goods, and all shared alike. Thus beautifully did they obey the spirit of His new commandment, "Love one another, even as I have loved you" (John xv. 12).
But this happy state of things did not long continue. Satan and sin soon interrupted its trustful, unselfish course, and we never find again that they that believed had all things common, after the events recorded in Acts v.
A man named Ananias and his wife Sapphira joined the Church, and seeing that others parted with their possessions, they also sold a piece of land, and laid a portion of the price at the apostles' feet, pretending that they had given up the whole of the money received. Peter, being divinely inspired, detected the falsehood, and Ananias fell down dead at his feet, was carried from the place of meeting, and buried immediately. Sapphira, ignorant of the dreadful fact, came to a later service, and repeating the lie to Peter, she also was struck with death in a moment, and was borne to her husband's grave.
His seems to have been an acted, hers a spoken lie. In each case the falsehood was partly true, but the intention was to deceive, and this is the very essence of a lie. It was hypocrisy. They "played a part," like actors on the stage. They pretended to be different people from what they really were, and they wanted to be thought of as loving, sincere, and generous Christians, while they were false-hearted and hollow all the time.
May we never try to deceive others, to make a false impression—to seem better than we are. God sees and knows us altogether. May it be our chief desire to have our hearts and lives right with Him.
But why did such a terrible doom fall upon these two false ones at the very beginning of the Christian era? In the olden time God's judgments fell upon transgressors in a sudden and fearful way, but under the gracious reign of Jesus we might scarcely have looked for such a display of wrath. Yet, though "God is love," He is also "a consuming fire," and there is not all that difference between the old dispensation and the present one which might at first appear. David was forgiven ages before, and these sinners were destroyed in Gospel times. Then, "God was greatly to be feared in the assembly of His saints," and still He must "be had in reverence of all them that are about Him."