When my kids were growing up and did something they weren’t supposed to, their excuse often was, “I did it on accident, Mommy!” I’m not sure how you forget to brush your teeth on accident, but that was their response nonetheless.
Acts 5 tells the of a story couple who might have had the same excuse when they got caught in sin. Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of property, held back some of the money and brought the rest and laid it at the apostles' feet.
Peter’s first question to Ananias was, “how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit…?” When we have walked the Christian path for a while, obvious rebellion is probably not part of our daily lives anymore. So it is easy for us to kind of sweep our sin under the rug. The truth is that anytime we are caught in a sin, Satan has filled our hearts at that moment. That takes my breath away! I don’t want to think about the enemy having anything to do with my heart. And yet, Peter calls it right here. Satan is ruling our hearts when we are in sin.
Ananias and Sapphira thought their lie was known only to them. It was not obvious to those around them. They thought they could get away with it. And so the question for us is where do we think we are getting away with it? Where are you allowing Satan to rule in your heart, even for the briefest period of time?
As the story proceeds, Ananias was not given a chance to respond to Peter’s questions...or at least his response is not recorded. What we do know is that he immediately dropped dead at the apostle’s feet. One minute Ananias thinks he’s on top of the world and the next, he is laying dead at Peter’s feet. Yet it was a trap of his own making. He knew he wasn’t being truthful and he made his wife complicit in the sin too.
That can happen to us. If we are tempted to step into collusion with others, that should be a warning sign to us. When we live in the lie of our own sin, we may get buried with the consequences...and we can take someone else down with us too.
So we see Sapphira caught in the same trap. But God tried to give her one more way out. In verse 8, Peter asked her to confirm the price they received for the land, and she did. There she stands in the glare of the lie when Peter goes on to ask, “How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord?” When she falls dead, the same young men come and take her to be buried next to her husband. I wonder if she heard their footsteps out in the hall before she hit the floor?
Sapphira actually had two opportunities to save her life. Certainly God was providing her a way of escape here in verse 8.
But back in verse 2, the text says that “with his wife’s full knowledge”, Ananias proceeded with this plan. What would have happened if she had refused to go along with this lie from the beginning?
Can I just ask you to think about where you can protect yourself from the consequences of sin by not even starting the lie? Because we all know the downward spiral, right? One lie becomes another one. One small sin leads to the next. What if we just didn’t even go there to start with? What if we looked temptation in the face and walked away?
I know...none of us are perfect. And we will make mistakes and we may succumb to temptation. But maybe we can so tender our hearts to God that even the smallest misstep is noticed and corrected...before we hear the footsteps of the young men coming towards us.
- Holly Barrett
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