Lying - Acts 5:4

if we lie to benefit other people, these are considered white lies. Here's a good illustration. A student had a hard time his first week at college and told his parents he was doing well, so they wouldn't worry. Scientists call these well-intended falsehoods pro-social lies. These differ from anti-social lies, which are told for personal gain. According to research, pro-social lies can actually build trust and a sense of benevolence between people.

So on this logic, what if I gave you a necklace and claimed it was real gold to boost your confidence or to make you feel like I really love you? Does that make it a white lie? Or is there something more fundamentally wrong with misrepresenting the truth itself? Well, consider Ananias and Sapphira. What exactly did they do wrong? They certainly didn't steal from anyone. In fact, they made a positive charitable contribution to the church to help the poor. And it's not like they were under any obligation to make this contribution. Peter makes that very clear in verse four. He says,

while the land remained unsold, did it not remain your own?

You didn't have to sell the land.

And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?

You could have given all the money, some of the money, or none of the money. So Ananias and Sapphira actually went above and beyond what they were obligated to give. But the one and only thing that the text says they did wrong is lie about it. They said the land sold for X when it really sold for Y. And the lie itself was their sin. And then further, why did they lie? You know, I think sometimes we read this passage and think, well, God must have struck them down because he can see the heart and he saw how especially evil their motivations were. Well, let's think about that. I mean, did they lie because of greed? Well, sure, but not the greed of a thief, because remember, they actually gave money away. You know, if all they wanted was money, they could have just kept it for themselves. Did they lie to show off and impress people by their generosity? Well, perhaps in part. They certainly would have appeared very generous and would have caused many poor members to feel ingratiated to them. But we need to keep chapter 4 verse 34 in mind, which says,

there was not a needy person among them for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what had been sold and laid it at the apostles feet.

So in other words, Ananias and Sapphira weren't making some uniquely generous contribution here. If anything, they would have stood out more for not making this sort of contribution than by making it. So that leads me to a third possibility for why they lied. Perhaps a kind of unspoken peer pressure. What will others think if we don't give? Will we be perceived as stingy? So they came up with a solution, we'll just tell people that the land sold for less than it really had. That way we protect our reputation, we give a contribution to help the poor, but we still get to keep something for ourselves. Just a little white lie, a victimless crime, no one needs to know. And you know the scary thing, that's really not so different from the lies we tend to tell. I mean, someone asks us an uncomfortable question. So we lie about what we said or what we did, telling ourselves wasn't their business to know anyway, or invited to something and we say, Oh, yeah, I would love to go. I'll see you there. But inwardly, we're thinking, I don't want to go to that. I'm going to do something else instead. Or someone hurts us, makes us angry. And then we talk to others about it. And we we twist the facts to to garner sympathy. or tax season rolls around. And we put down untrue numbers thinking the government doesn't use my money well anyway. We can be very sympathetic towards ourselves when we lie. We tell ourselves they're white lies, they're justifiable lies. But we need to see that the point of this passage is not that God struck down Ananias and Sapphira because of how greedy they were or how prideful they were. The text shows us it's because they lied. Verse three,

why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?

Verse four,

why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man, but to God.

Verses eight and nine,

tell me whether you sold the land for so much. Yes, for so much. Why have you agreed together to test the spirit of the Lord?

And the point is that God of truth cares about truth for its own sake. It's not just the consequences of the lie or the other sins that lying often lets us get away with. It's that God says, I am the truth. My word is truth. I'm called faithful and true. He's the Creator and Lord who has established reality itself. And when we lie, we deny that reality. We stand in opposition to who God is. And we align ourselves with the devil, who's a liar by nature and the father of lies. Surely that's why Peter tells Ananias,

Satan has filled your heart.

That's why he tells Sapphira,

You've put God to the test.

By lying, you're committing rebellion, you're shaking your fist at heaven, challenging God to do something about it. So brothers and sisters, are we men and women of truth? Do we speak with honesty and integrity? And sometimes that means being discreet, or maybe not answering at all. Sometimes it means praying for wisdom to be able to answer in a way that's not insulting, but still true. Sometimes it means having the humility to say, I don't know, or even to confess something embarrassing that we've done. But at the end of the day, we must not knowingly say things that are contrary to fact. Because God is a God of truth, and lying itself is sin. Now point number two, we see here that our lies are always against God. Now look again at verse four. Peter says, you have not lied to man, but to God. In other words, Ananias not only failed to realize the seriousness of lying itself, he failed to realize who he was really lying to. He failed to consider that his words weren't just being heard by Peter, who could be easily deceived. but they were heard by the God who knows all things. This should remind us, first of all, that every lie we tell, every sin we commit, is perpetrated ultimately against God and before his face. As David confesses in Psalm 51,

against you, you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight.

We should always speak as if God were right there before us. because he's the omnipresent, omniscient God of the universe. But there's something more here, because countless people tell countless lies every day, and God doesn't usually strike them dead. Why does God act so swiftly here? Well, this is reminiscent of another story in the Old Testament, because just after the nation of Israel was constituted, Aaron and his sons were consecrated as priests. And as such, they were invited to draw near to God. But two of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, didn't respect God's holiness. And they offered profane fire before the Lord. And God immediately sent forth fire, which consumed them, and they died. And then Moses said,

this is what the Lord has said. By those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy. And before the people, I must be glorified.

So in other words, it wasn't just what Nadab and Abihu did, it was that they did so while drawing near to God. And as we come to Ananias and Sapphira, bear in mind that the church has just been born. The gift of the Holy Spirit has just been given. God is now inviting his people to come far nearer to him than any Old Testament priest ever could. But instead of respecting God's holiness and appreciating the grace they'd been given to draw near to the holy God, Ananias and Sapphira come to present an offering to the church that was based on a lie. It was profane fire just like Nadab and Abihu's. And God is making clear here that his standards for his church are no lower than they were for Israel. He's still the holy God who demands holiness from his people. And so when it comes to the worship of God and the church of God, if we lie, there's an even greater sense in which we can say that our sin and our lies aren't just against man, but God. And we could even say that this is a context in which God takes sin especially personally. So we need to consider what this means for us as we speak and gather for worship services, as we speak at members meetings and church events. We need to consider even what this means for our everyday lives since we're Christians. We're those whose bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. God has invited us in, but we must be cognizant that we stand on holy ground. So lying itself is sin and our lies are always against God. Now thirdly and finally we see here that our lies will be exposed and punished. Obviously we see that very outwardly and immediately with Ananias and Sapphira. Their lie is exposed and they're struck dead on the spot. And it's startling to us because the immediacy is so unusual. But I hope you can see by now that we should not conclude from this Well, we must be better than Ananias and Sapphira because God hasn't struck us down yet. No doubt there have been many worse liars in the history of the church than them who weren't immediately struck down. And no doubt God would have been good and right many times to strike us down for any number of things we have said and done. But no, God's purpose here is to assure us of two things. Number one, That there's a day coming when all the lies of all men will be exposed and punished just like theirs. This incident is a sign of the fact that there will be a day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, and we will all stand naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. That as John sees in Revelation 21.8, a day will come when all liars will be cast into the lake of fire. And that no one will finally get away with lying in the end. God is just, and we're guilty. But in light of that, the second thing we can be assured of from this passage is that the only reason God hasn't struck us down like them is his sheer mercy and patience and grace. I mean, we are so like them in so many ways and yet we have been treated so unlike them by being given day after day of life. And this is to show us that God is a God who gives time for sinners to repent. That a story like this is in the Bible to warn us because God loves us. And to remind us that if instead of hiding behind our lies, we confess them and actually speak the truth to God about ourselves, He's a God who's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And that's only possible because Jesus came and there was no deceit in his mouth. That Jesus came and the one who never lied laid down his life for us so that we can be forgiven. You know, if you're here today and you're not a believer, I mean, this means that you can confess your sin to God and receive forgiveness in the name of Christ even tonight. And for those of us who do believe, I mean, this should remind us of just how great God's forgiveness is, of just how desperately we needed that forgiveness and how God in his sheer love and mercy has forgiven us and welcomed us and embraced us. And that should fill us with joy, with gratitude, and with fear. Notice the response of the church in verses 5 and 11.

Great fear came upon the whole church.

Not the fear that makes us want to run from God and hide from God. But the fear that makes us want to draw near to God in reverence and awe. The fear that spurs us on toward that holiness without which no one will see the Lord. The fear that should compel us to strive to be men and women of truth because we serve and represent the God of truth. So by God's grace, may we learn to speak knowing that everything we say is in the presence of God, is before the face of the God who knows everything. and also the God who has loved and forgiven us through Christ. Amen, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this message from your word. We thank you that you remind us of your holiness and at the same time your grace. And we pray that you would empower us, that you would strengthen us to put off lying and to speak the truth with our neighbor. And we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.