(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

The chapter that I'd like to focus on is in the beginning of the chapter where the story is given of Ananias and Sapphira. And before I jump into that part of it, jump back to chapter 4 verse 36. Actually go back to verse 34 just to get a little bit of context here. It says, Neither was there any among them that lacked, and this is talking about the early church, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, which is being interpreted the son of consolation, a Levite and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet. So the Bible is telling us how there were people in the early church that had physical needs, they had financial needs, and they needed some help. And so this guy named Joses, among many other people, sold various properties and houses and lands that they had, and they brought the money in, and they laid it at the apostles' feet. They brought in an offering in order to help meet that need. And the Bible says in verse 1 of chapter 5, But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold the possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remain, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not of thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. So Peter explains this gentleman, Ananias, who comes in, and he brings part of the price. He sells land, and he brings just a part of the price. But here's the thing, he was pretending, and he was stating it as if he had given the whole price. So he was trying to get the glory, and the accolades, and for everybody to see him, having given all of what he sold, when in reality he only brought a part of the money, and just lied about how much he sold the money for. Now Peter tells him in verse 4, Whiles it remain, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not of thine own power? He said, why did you do this? It's your money, it's your possession, you can do what you want with it. You didn't even have to give this money. There's nothing in the Bible that tells us that we must sell our property, and bring the money, and lay it down at the local church. That's not a command of God. Now if you would flip over to 2 Corinthians 9, keep your finger there in Acts 5. Go to 2 Corinthians 9. Here's where the Bible is talking about people giving, above and beyond just tithing, but just giving abundantly of their money, and trying to help the poor, or to give it to the Apostle Paul so that he could go out and preach the gospel in all these different places. It says in verse number 6, he's talking about those that are giving, it says, But this I say, he which soweth sparingly, shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully, shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give. Not grudgingly, or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. So God's explaining here that if you give an offering, if you bring an offering, and you give extra unto the church, or even just giving alms, or giving to the poor, or helping someone out. He says, don't do it and have a bad attitude about it, or do it because you feel like you have to. He said, God loves a cheerful giver. Do it because you want to, and don't do it because you want to be seen of men, or you want to get the glory, or you feel like you have to because so and so did it. And so the Bible's clear, nobody has to bring all their money and just lay it down at the church. Now, this guy is claiming that that's what he's doing because he's trying to put on a show before everyone else and say, hey, look at me, I sold my land and I gave all the money to the church. And so the sin here was lying, and that's what he's rebuked for. Peter says to him, why has Satan filled thine heart, verse 3, to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land. It says in verse 5, and Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost, and great fear came on all them that heard it. Of course, fear came on all them that heard these things. He brought in this money, and imagine, put yourself in this service. You know, you're sitting there in church, and other people have done it, other people have brought in sums of money, laid it down at the apostles' feet, sold something, brought in all the money. You're sitting there in church, and here comes a guy in with a bunch of money, and he gives it to Peter and says, hey, this is to fill the need financially, here's this money. You're expecting Peter to thank him? You're thinking, wow, that's great, how generous he is. And just right away, Peter begins to rebuke him, call him a liar, and then he just falls over dead. And they carry him out. I mean, that's a pretty crazy story. And there's so much we can learn from this story. And first of all, I want you to notice that God is not impressed by how much you give him. That's not what impresses him. Because you remember there's a story in Luke chapter 21, where there was a widow who just threw in two mites which make a farthing. I mean, she just threw in a tiny amount of money, just a little bit of spare change, not even a buck. And Jesus said, did you see what that woman just did? She cast in more than they all, because other Pharisees and Sadducees, who had all kinds of money, a lot of it from dishonest gain, had thrown in great sums of money. And Jesus said, wait a minute, these guys are rich. They're giving up their abundance. They're giving up what they have extra. But this woman cast in everything that she had. I mean, she cast in everything. Even though it was just a small amount, she gave everything. So God isn't just up in heaven just in need of money, just desiring you to give all this money because he just got to have your money. And the more you give, the better it is in his eyes. Because look, this guy gave a lot, but he lied about it. And so God didn't have respect under his offering at all. If someone else would have put in far less, but just been honest about it and just put in what they put in and this is what I have, here you go, it would have been a good thing. But this was not the case. He's a liar. And he's trying to do it for the glory of men. Now, his wife comes in a little bit later, just in case some might think it might have been a coincidence that Ananias just happened to die at that moment. Maybe he just had a heart attack when Peter got in his face. You know, Ananias just fell over and just scared him so much and he's a very excitable guy. Well, if you look down at what happens next, it says in verse 7, it was about the space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered. Oh, he's little. Of course, he's late to turn. His wife's late, you know. But anyway, it says, Peter answered unto her, verse 8, tell me whether you sold the land for so much. He gives her a chance here to tell the truth or to lie. And she said, yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, how is it that you've agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet and yielded up the ghost. And the young men came in and found her dead. And carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church and upon as many as heard these things. Now God is trying to send a real strong message here because it's not that often in the Bible where God just strikes people dead, right there on the spot. Now one thing that's interesting about this is that this is in the New Testament. And a lot of people have this idea that the God of the Old Testament was somehow different than the God of the New Testament. You know, the God of the Old Testament is just striking people dead and pouring out his wrath and he's raining fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. But now he loves all queers and he loves everybody and he will never do anything like that. It's all grace and peace and mercy and so forth. But really, if you read the Bible, you know that there's no difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament in regard to the character of God. Now his covenant with man is different. The Old Covenant, the New Covenant. His covenant with man has changed, but he has not changed. He is the same person, Jesus Christ the same, yesterday and today and forever. He doesn't change his beliefs on things, he doesn't change his views. And he has just as much wrath in the New Testament as he had in the Old Testament. Now people think that the New Testament God is the loving God and the Old Testament God is the wrathful, vengeful God, but there are numerous verses on the love of God in the Old Testament. In fact, there are probably a lot more verses in the Old Testament on the love of God. Part of that is just because the Old Testament is a lot longer than the New Testament. But there are tons of scriptures in the Old Testament that talk about God's mercy, his grace, his love, his gentleness, his long suffering. We see all of those attributes, all the commands to love thy neighbor as thyself. That's all in the Old Testament just as it's in the New Testament. But people want to blind their eyes to the fact that God still hates sin and he still punishes and judges sin even in the New Testament. And really the most wrathful, vengeful book in the entire Bible is the last book in the Bible, Revelation, at the end of the New Testament. I mean if God would have ever cooled down and relaxed, I mean it would have to be by then. It's the last book. He started out really mad, he had time to cool off in the New Testament, and at the end it's all sweetness and light. No, the last book in the Bible is where he's pouring out his wrath, he's making the people drink blood, he's pouring out fire and brimstone and damage. Look, in the Old Testament he poured out fire and brimstone on a few cities. Sodom and Gomorrah, Adman and Zeboam. But in the New Testament he's going to pour out fire and brimstone on even more. And it hasn't even happened yet. It's still to come in the future with the events in the book of Revelation. And so just as God, a few times in the Old Testament, struck people down dead, he wasn't doing it all the time, but there were times in the Old Testament where God would strike someone down dead. Hey, he did it in the New Testament right here, twice, Ammonites and Sapphira, he struck them down dead. Why? Because they lied. And the lie that they told was a serious, major lie. This wasn't a little white lie. I mean this is them claiming that they're giving all, I mean we're talking about a huge sum of money, and they're just trying not to help the poor, not to be a blessing to the church, not because they love Jesus Christ, but only to get the glory from man. They give this money. Now the Bible says that when this happened, great fear fell upon everybody who heard this. Everybody was afraid. And it's interesting because in the same chapter you see two things. Number one, you see people that are afraid to even go to this church when they hear about what happened, because they don't want Peter to point out all the stuff that they're into. But then, it's funny because also you see people a little later in the chapter thronging Peter, trying to get to him, wanting to be there. If you jump down to verse number 13, it says of the rest, it talks about how they were all with one accord at Solomon's porch in verse 12. Verse 13 says of the rest, Durst no man joined himself to them. Durst is the past tense of dare. They didn't even dare join that church is what it's saying. But the people magnified them, and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women, insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. There came also a multitude out of the cities round about under Jerusalem bringing sick folks and men which were vexed with unclean spirits, and they were healed every once. There are people that are trying to get there because they're sick, they're ill, they have problems. And Peter, being an apostle, had the ability to heal them. And so they're trying to just throng and get there and be healed. And the Bible talks about how there were tons of believers and people being added to the Lord and people being saved. But a lot of those people that got saved didn't want to join that church. Why? Because fear was upon them. And you know a lot of people today they'll say this, you know, well if these people don't come to church they didn't really get saved. You know, you'll see people get saved, you'll go out and preach the word and give the gospel. And then the people don't come to church and they say well then they didn't get saved. Now that's silly because first of all, John the Baptist had thousands of people saved according to the Bible. Baptized many thousands and then Jesus Christ came along and made him baptize more disciples than John. And even as apostles, thousands and thousands of people were saved, were baptized. But when you get to the early church in Acts chapter 1 and into Acts chapter 2, how many were there? There were 120. Including men and women, there were 120 people in that church. So where was everybody else? You know, just because people are saved doesn't mean they're going to be faithful to God. Doesn't mean they're going to be faithful to church. Doesn't mean they're going to make it through the hard times. The Bible talks about a lot of believers when persecution or tribulation arises because of the word, by and by they're offended. And so not everybody who gets saved is even going to come to church and I've talked about this before. There are a lot of reasons why people might get saved and not come to church. These people were just afraid to go to the church, it was just a little too intense for them. And it sounds like a pretty long service. I mean if his wife shows up three hours later and church is still in session, I mean that's a long service. And so, it was just a little too intense, too extreme, I mean people are falling over dead and everything like that and it's just too much for them, they're afraid to go there. Peter was just a little too powerful of a preacher. But you know, there are many reasons why people today might not come to church even though they got saved. You know, and I often give people a list of reasons because they say, well you know, if you guys get all these people saved, where are they all? You know, why don't they come to church? Well, one reason is because first of all, a lot of people that we get saved, we get them saved in Spanish. And we don't preach in Spanish, we don't have services in Spanish, we're not going to. You know, this is America, we speak English, this is, you know, we have one language here, you know, we're not going to have another church across the street where people are speaking Spanish and say it's part of our church or something. You know, I mean we can only do things in one language here, that's what we do. We can't necessarily just become all things to all men and offer all these different languages and so forth. You know, they can go to a Spanish-speaking church or better yet, you know, since you are all living in America, learn English. That's the idea. But here's the thing, we still want them to be saved. We want to give the gospel to everybody. You know, I want to know as many languages as I can and be proficient in Spanish so that I can get the gospel and get these people saved that might not otherwise hear the gospel. We want to get the gospel to everybody no matter what language they speak. They may not be able to be a part of our church because we can't have unity because the language we can't even communicate, but we still want to go out and get them saved. So a huge number of the people that we get saved are going to be Spanish speakers. Guess what? They're never going to be a part of our church, but we will see them in heaven because they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Another large number of people that we went to Christ are teenagers. And because they're teenagers, they don't necessarily have the authority to come down here. Maybe they're not the ones making that decision or children, teenagers. They don't have a ride. Maybe their parents are the ones making the decision what church they're going to go to. They don't even have that choice. Other people, they just are too far away. I mean, our goal is to knock the doors, not just in the immediate vicinity here, because we've already done that once, twice, and again. But we want to go further. We want to knock every door in the whole valley, and that's why we have that huge map out there. And look, if you go soloing with us, you know that we're going 15, 20 minutes away or further in many cases because we've knocked everything between here and there. And so we drive 20 minutes this way or 20 minutes that way, and some people just don't have the ability to travel that far. Others are handicapped. Others are shut in. They can't get out of the house much. They can't get to church. Others maybe are maybe a wife whose husband is telling her, you know, you can't go to that church. I mean, there have been a lot of those types. Or you know, God forbid, a husband whose wife won't let them come, but hey, it's out there. Look, I'm not condoning on it, but it's out there. You know? How many times I've been giving the gospel to somebody, and you know, a guy's really interested, and then his wife, you know, he's not interested. Go inside now, Johnny. You know? He's kind of dragged away a little. My favorite time was this old guy. I'm giving the gospel to you. I was almost to the end, and you know, his wife comes out and says, you know, he needs to go inside now. You know? This and that. And I said to him, I said, oh, is this your mom? You know? And women don't take that as a compliment. I said, oh, is this your mom? He said, oh, no, it's my wife. I said, oh, good, then you can keep talking. And I just, you know, but she did take him by the ear eventually and dragged him away. No, she didn't take him by the ear, but she did, she did make him go inside now. He had to go inside. Thank God that my wife doesn't have the power or the ability to take me and make me go inside. You know? And I'm glad that I'm stronger than my wife is. But anyway, the point is, I'm just kidding, okay? Relax. But the point is that, what is the point? The point is that there are a lot of reasons why people don't come to church after they get saved. I listed a few. Other people, they get saved, but then they maybe read the flyer that we hand out about our church and are offended by something on that flyer because it gives a lot of information about our church and it really lays things out and really hits the nail on the head. Or maybe they go on the internet and start looking at our church website and reading up on our church. Or, you know, the worst thing is if they Google the name of our church. You know, then they start reading all this stuff and saying, oh, man, you know, this is too radical. I can't believe it. You know, and a lot of it's just because they're brainwashed. And if somebody would teach them and explain it to them, they would agree with us. But they're just so brainwashed. I mean, I remember one time I was out soul winning and I won this girl to the Lord and then basically my soul winning partner was giving somebody else in the home the Gospel. So I was done talking to her and I was kind of waiting for my partner to finish up with this guy that he was talking to. And, you know, I was standing there and I was chit-chatting with this girl that had just got saved. And she was kind of going through the paper that I had given her and it was the old style invitation that we had a few years ago. And she looked at it and said, because it had a whole doctrinal statement on the inside, just in like fine print. So she was reading through it and she said, you guys are against homosexuality? You guys think that's a sin? And that was shocking to her. Now, this girl had just got saved. So she's not been taught anything except what she learned on Sesame Street and down at the schoolhouse and everything like that. So she's just like, what? Are you serious? And I said, well, I said, do you want to show you in the Bible about that real quick? And she said, okay, sure. So I didn't even explain it to her because she just got saved. She's got the Holy Spirit living inside her now. So I just showed her, I showed her some verses from Leviticus and then I took her to Romans 1 and had her read out loud to me that whole big long section of Romans 1. And I asked her, I said, what do you think that means? And she told me exactly what it meant. She said, well, yeah, the Bible is saying that they're supposed to be killed. They're in their way. That they're supposed to be stoned to death and everything. But in Leviticus, and then when I showed her the part in Romans 1, she said, well, it's basically saying that it's too late. These people have already rejected God. They already kind of had their chance and now they're just perverted and they've gone too far. And she kind of explained it to me. So it only took her. And then this is what she said. Well, I always thought they were weird. A minute ago she was incredulous. A minute ago she was like, oh, I can't believe you're against them. But then five or ten minutes later after looking at the Bible, she's like, oh, yeah, I always thought that was her. And by the way, that proves that she really got saved because I show that to a lot of people who aren't saved in the Bible and they, you know, they can't even figure it out. They can't even understand. This girl had been saved five minutes and figured out what the Bible said. Because the Bible is easy to be understood when you have the Spirit because it's spiritually discerned, okay? And so I showed her that and she saw that right away. But see, I was there to explain it to her and to open the Scriptures and not even really explain it to her, mainly just to show her the Bible. See, a lot of people, they might just kind of glance at it and see something like that or whether it's about the King James only or about, you know, the Shonamites or about whatever our stand is on whatever subject. They might just look at it and say, oh, this is too crazy, this is too extreme, whatever. I'm going to keep. And not only that, many people, and you know, I just want to spend a little bit of time on this because people bring this up. Other people, I've noticed, you'll give them the Gospel and they'll get saved and usually there's some Christian in their life, whether it's an aunt or an uncle or a cousin or a brother or a mother or father, and what will happen is even though that person had never got them saved, never given them the Gospel clearly, all of a sudden now that person wants to just be all over discipling them all of a sudden. Oh, you got saved? Now you can come to church with me at the first Presbyterian church of the deep freeze or whatever. You know, oh yeah, you can go to my dead church now. And look, let's face it, people are more likely to go to church where they know somebody. Not just some random church they've never been to. It's a big step for people to get in the car, drive all the way down to a church that they've never been to, they don't know anybody. And look, I've been to a lot of churches in my life and I grew up in church my whole life. I've been saved since I was a little kid. But I'll be honest with you, whenever I've walked into a new church that I've never been to before, and I've been saved for years, if I ever walked into a new church where I've never been before, I was nervous and fell out of place. You know, you walk into church for the first time, you've never been there, you're a little nervous, and especially some churches aren't that friendly. So you walk in and people just kind of look at you, but they don't come and talk to you. And don't be like that at our church, please. But they'll just kind of look at you, but nobody's really greeting you or saying hi to you. And so, you know, you walk in and you don't really know where to sit, and you sit down and you're just kind of sitting there, and it's nerve-wracking even for somebody who's already been saved for a long time. Let alone somebody who just got saved. But people want you to believe, you know, unless they're willing to come down there and just march in and be like, I got saved yesterday! You know, they didn't really get saved. But a lot of people are just nervous. They're just shy people. I mean, there was this girl that came to our church one time, and her dad was a pastor, and she grew up in church, her dad being a pastor. And she said that she came to our church on Sunday morning, and she said, well, I came last week, but I chickened out at the last minute. I got into the parking lot and saw the big crowd and just turned around and drove off. You know, and this isn't exactly the biggest church in America. And yet the crowd was too much. You know, because she was just embarrassed. She was just a shy person. So she came back a week later with some friends to bolster her, you know, to come to church and just to visit. That was a pastor's daughter. And so what I'm saying is it's foolish and ridiculous to think that because somebody isn't going to just drive that 20 minutes and be down here that they didn't really get saved. There are so many reasons why people don't want to attend our church or other Baptists or other churches that are inviting them to church and trying to get them. And here's what I always say to people who try to question us on this and say, you know, if every single one of those people, and then they'll say this, well, if you had that many saved, that's how many you need to have in church. All of them need to be there. They didn't really get saved. Well, here's what I always say to anybody who questions me on that. Here's a good answer in case anybody badgers you about that. Here's what I always say. I just say, well, are you saved? And they say, yes. I say, do you want to come to our church? No. Well, then there you go. Now you know that it is possible for people to be saved and not want to come to our church. I mean, it's pretty simple, isn't it? But you see, people are just doing that because they want to attack solely. That's all it is. They're too lazy to get out there and do it. They don't believe in it because they don't believe the Bible's teaching on it and the power of God and preaching the gospel to every creature. And even we read in this chapter, verse 42, daily in the temple and in every house. Did you hear that? In every house, they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. They went from house to house. Acts 20 talks about it. It's biblical to go out in the highways and edges to preach the gospel to every creature. And they don't want to do it. They don't believe in it. And a lot of it comes from this. They go out and try it, and they fail at it. So here's what they think. Well, if I failed, then nobody must be successful. Well, just because you failed at it doesn't mean everybody fails at it. Other people are filled with the Spirit. Other people went more than for, you know, 37 minutes. And they actually got to where they got somebody saved. Other people put in two hours or three hours or four hours. And guess what? Sometimes in the first few hours, you don't get anybody saved. You got to go out there, and you got to keep working. And it's not easy. It's difficult. But he that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheep with him. The Bible says, in due season we shall reap if we faint not. It's not an instantaneous success when you go out and sold it. And you're not always going to see the results in this life either. You're going to see them sometimes in the life to come. And so we see that a lot of people didn't want to go to this church because it was just a little bit too, you know, scary to be there, okay? And I hope they don't think that about our church, but it is possible. So go if you would to Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter number 6. Matthew chapter number 6. And I want to get off that subject a little bit. Of course, while you're turning it, I'll read for you another scripture. John 3 says, this is the condemnation that light has come into the world. And men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. The Bible talks about when people are sinning and doing bad things, they don't want to be around the light because it exposes their sin. That's why a lot of people were afraid of that church in Acts chapter 5. Because they had a guilty conscience. They had their sins and their lies that they were telling, like Ananias and Sapphira did. They didn't want to end up like them. So they said, I'm going to stay away from that place. People who had a clear conscience said, yeah, let's get down there. Sounds like a great church. Matthew chapter 6 says this in verse 1. Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. So the Bible says, when you give unto the poor, that's what alms are. He says, don't do it before men to be seen of them, do it for God. And he says in verse 2, Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do, in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, but thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. Go back to chapter 5 and verse 16. See, the Bible's telling us that when you give money to the poor, when you're being generous and helping somebody, don't do it just for the glory. Don't do it for the accolades. Don't sound a trumpet before you like the hypocrites do, that they may have glory of men. He says, look, if that's what you do it for, you have your reward. Your reward is the glory that you gain on this earth. And it's not worth much, folks. I mean, it's a fleeting glory. He says, do it secretly. Let not your left hand know what your right hand doeth, and God will reward you, because you're doing it for him alone and no one is looking. Now, I want you to balance that with chapter 5 verse 16. It says, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is never. So you don't want to hide the fact that you're doing good works and pretend like you're not doing good works. You know, I go soloing when nobody's around, and I just don't want anybody to even know that I go soloing, so I get all the rewards. No, God wants us to do our good works openly so that everybody can glorify God about it and so forth. What he tells us we should be doing privately is what we see in Matthew chapter 6, which is our alms. Which is giving unto the poor, okay? Also, he mentions prayer. You know, prayer is something that we do alone. I mean, I don't know whether you pray. You don't know whether I pray. I mean, that's something that's done privately. Now, we do pray publicly as well. The Bible's clear on that. But, you know, most of our praying goes on privately. Most of our fasting is private. We don't go around telling everybody, I'm fasting. You know, that's what he's telling us. And so, it's not that we hide our good works, but certain things, it's just better just to not go around boasting about it. And always make sure that when you're doing right, it's not to receive glory from men. Do it for the right reason. Ananias and Sapphira, totally the wrong reason to the point where they would lie and deceive just to get the glory. I mean, they were trying to get glory for stuff they didn't even do. God's telling us, do stuff and try not to get the glory. That way, you'll get a greater reward in heaven.