But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece
of property, and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the
proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet. But
Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit
and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it
remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not
at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart?
You have not lied to man but to God.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell
down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. The
young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.
After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not
knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you sold the
land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” But Peter said to her,
“How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord?
Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and
they will carry you out.” Immediately
she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in
they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her
husband. And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of
these things. (Acts 5:1-11)
Yes, I have
kazillions of questions about this. However, they come down to two main ones.
Why doesn’t God judge liars in the church today the way he did that one time?
And what is the church to do about lying, hypocrisy, cheating in business,
deceiving, bearing false witness, and whatever synonymous expressions come to
mind?
When we face
scenarios where God did something once and it never appears to be repeated, I
see it as God serving notice. A singular event can still reveal things about
what God is like as a person, what he wants us to understand about what he’s up
to, and how he works to get things done. Noah’s flood will never happen again,
but we certainly learn a lot about God in that unique event. Moses’ burning
bush was a once-in-history experience, but through it we come to know so much
about who God is as the great “I AM”, and how he speaks to his people about
what he is doing so we can join him in his work.
When we come to God’s
death sentence on Ananias and Sapphira, and the way it instilled godly fear in
everyone when they realized how seriously God took dishonesty, we must accept
that this is still what he is like, it is still how he feels about falsehood,
and he still wants us treating lying and deceiving as seriously as he does.
The church is
living between that unique event when God pronounce a death sentence on Ananias
and Sapphira, and the coming judgment when “all liars, their portion will be in
the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death”
(Revelation 21:8). God has served notice through his judgment on the church’s
first two liars, and he has served notice of the judgment that will come on all
who live in such sin.
When I then
consider how the church is to live in light of this revelation of God, I am
aware that many of us may wonder why God doesn’t do this judgment again with
those people who have hurt us so terribly by lying about us, bearing false
witness about us, and deceiving people into believing their lies instead of the
truth. Yes, I have often asked God why it wouldn’t be advantageous to stop
liars from doing so much damage to the church!
The problem is
stated by the Psalmist: “I said in my alarm, ‘All mankind are liars’” (Psalm
116:11). You see, if God put to death every liar in the church there wouldn’t
be any church! Okay, maybe that is an exaggeration, but I think you get the
point. Who hasn’t lied? Who hasn’t pretended to be doing well when inside we
are really dying? Who hasn’t listened to slander about another believer because
it was one of our favorite people telling the story? Who hasn’t answered
someone to their face with one story and then gone and told our people a
totally different one?
My point is that
God served notice how he feels about the sin of lying, and we are now to help
one another in the church take this seriously. This means that the church, the
body of Christ, must address lying in the church without favoritism or
partiality. We side with the truth. We “speak the truth in love”. We worship
God “in spirit and in truth”. We seek to be our real “in Christ” selves with
all people so that, even when we can’t tell people everything going on inside
us, we certainly don’t promote external appearances that contradict our inner love
of truth. We must express genuineness, realness, sincerity, so that, even if we
keep to ourselves things that only concern us, what we express and say to
others is still our truthful and real expression of trying to “Let no
corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building
up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians
4:29). We can absolutely aim to do that in sincerity and truth even while
having other struggles and difficulties inside us that we are dealing with just
between us and God.
Obviously, there is
much more to say on this matter. However, the main point for me is that,
through Ananias and Sapphira, God has told us how deadly serious he is about
lying because it is so not him, and it is so Satan. We can ask God if it would
be advantageous to do this again in scenarios that seem even more grievous to
us than what that first partners-in-crime brought into the church. However, he
has left church discipline to the church, so we must follow Jesus’ instructions,
follow the apostles’ teaching and examples in the New Testament, and be
absolutely truthful in any participation regarding lying, dishonesty, and
deception in the church no matter who it is we must side with and who it is we
must hold to accouny for sin.
And, since so many
churches can’t discipline the liars because of the power of church politics, we
need to be at peace with God that “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave
it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,
says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19).
Today we must look
in the mirror of God, his word, and his Spirit, confess anything in us that
smacks of dishonesty, repent and reconcile with people we have hurt with our
lying, entrust to God’s sovereign goodness and justice anyone who has wronged
us and never repented, and go into our days seeking to “walk in the light, as
he is in the light,” because that is the way “we have fellowship with one
another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:7).
© 2025
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
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