Tongues of Fire: The Early Church Part 3
When a prominent couple did not allow their hearts to be purified by the fire that was burning in the early church, it led to their death. This fearful act of judgment filled the Church with holy fear and brought many outsiders to repentance and salvation. Don't miss Part 3 of our short series, “Tongues of Fire: The Early Church.”
Host: Steve, we're going to continue our discussions on a series that you taught our staff through at Pure Life entitled “The Early Church”. And we're looking today at Acts 5. Tell us a little bit about the backdrop of this chapter.
Steve: At the end of Chapter 4, Luke gives a somewhat lengthy summary statement of the condition of the Church at that time. I'll just put it to you this way, the Church was on fire. They were going after God with all their hearts. That was the overall atmosphere of the early Church at that time. And then after painting that picture, Luke eases into this next story by bringing up Barnabas. Barnabas had done something that was noteworthy, which was to sell a piece of land and bring the proceeds in and give that money to the disciples to be used for the Church. So, that all establishes the backdrop for the story we find in Chapter 5.
Host: Okay. Go ahead and share with us what that story is.
Steve: Well, this couple had become part of the Church and they saw what Barnabas had done. And no doubt people were really expressing their gratitude and their love for Barnabas. He was a very good man and this couple saw something in his generosity that really attracted them, and they wanted to appear to be that same way. So, they also had a piece of land that they sold, but they kept part of the money for themselves and presented it as if it was the entire proceeds of the sale, because they wanted the same kind of honor that they saw Barnabas receive. In essence they were blatantly lying to the Holy Spirit And in response, God struck them down dead on the spot.
Host: Why do you think that the Lord dealt with them so severely to the point of taking their lives?
Steve: Well, first of all, the Lord was intent on starting the Church off in a as pure a form as possible, and He wanted to preserve it from corruption. He wanted to at least keep that purity as long as He possibly could. But there's something deeper than even that, and that is that it is just one of the laws of the Kingdom of God that the more intimate you become with the Lord, the greater the consequences for sin. In other words, you can come into a tremendous knowledge of God through intimacy with Him, but if you abuse that position of knowing Him deeply and blatantly disobey Him, you can bring upon yourself severe judgment. So, that's really what a lot of this is.
For instance, let me give you an example. Judas was numbered amongst the 12 disciples. He was with Jesus day in and day out for three years. And so, his crime was not so much that he turned Jesus into the authorities. His crime was against the intimate relationship that he had with Jesus Christ. He had so much light, and he rejected it. And that's really what this couple, Ananias and Sapphira did.
Host: At the time, Steve, the church was a very close-knit community. This must have had a real impact on that community.
Steve: Well, Luke says that great fear fell not only on the Christian community, but actually upon the whole city. The whole Jewish community was also pretty close-knit in that city and they kind of knew of the events happening in the early Church. So, when these two people were struck dead, it really affected people. It kind of forced Jewish people to make a decision about what they believed about this new Christian sect of Judaism, as they would have believed it to be.
As far as the believers in the church, I think the fear of the Lord became so strong that it really caused believers to think seriously about the ramifications of their actions. And then this seemed to spawn a whole fresh new wave of revival as well, because after this happens more good things begin to happen. Even more people start getting saved. You would almost expect it to have had the opposite effect, but actually more people started coming to the Lord because of this incident.
Host: It makes you think that maybe we need something like that in the Church today.
Steve: It makes me think something like that's going to come our way.
Host: Yeah. Let’s talk also now about how the Jewish religious leaders responded to this incident.
Steve: Well, of course they were absolutely entrenched in their own doctrinal Orthodox thinking and teaching, and they would not open their minds up to anything outside of that. So, all this sort of thing did was just drive them into anger and they hauled the disciples into the Sanhedrin. But God bless Peter, he takes the opportunity again to get up in front of the Sanhedrin and preach his heart out. And most of the Sanhedrin wanted to kill all the disciples of Jesus, but really, I believe the Lord used Gamaliel to bring some wisdom into the council. Also it wasn't God's time for them to be martyred yet. So, they backed off of the idea of killing them and instead they gave them an intense beating.
Host: As I alluded to earlier, when we look at the condition of the Church today, I think we can't help but notice that there is a real lack of a genuine fear of God. We need to have that fear revived in us as believers in the current day that we live in.
Steve: Yeah, you really see a lack of reverence for the Lord. The attitude is almost as if you can obey Him if you feel like it, but if you don't feel like it, it's no big deal and God understands. It’s that kind of laissez-faire attitude that leaves the church with very little power. There's very little life in the church today. So, we see the lack that we have because of those attitudes that have become so enmeshed in our thinking.
Host: Yeah. And you mentioned earlier that because of this happening there was a growth of the Church. There was an increase of power in the Early Church, and we know that in the last days there's going to be a tremendous power that comes over true believers. So, something is going to have to happen as you mentioned to bring that about. And you can be in fear of that, but we can also look forward to it that in these dark days we might be a church full of power and full of light for a very lost world.
Steve: And that's partly why a lot of people believe that a persecution is coming and that it is going to act as a purifying agent in the church. Then out of that will spawn a new powerful wave of revival like we've never seen before.
