Join us this Sunday! In-Person 9:00am & 10:45am, Online 9:00am, 10:45am & 5:00pm

Join us this Sunday! In-Person 9:00am & 10:45am, Online 9:00am, 10:45am & 5:00pm

Join us at the next Sunday worship service:
In-Person
9:00am & 10:45am,
Online 9:00am, 10:45am & 5:00pm

THE PRINCE OF DECEPTION

 “Then Peter said, “Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself. The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished. And after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren’t lying to us but to God.” – Acts 5:3-4.

Satan wants to entrap us. He will try to entrap us with any number of things from greed to gambling and lust. Satan wants to deceive us, and he will use any number of ways to accomplish his goal. Whatever the method it will be subtle, even seemingly reasonable, and he will work hard to make us think that it is our idea.

The early church was a movement of immense power. The very Spirit of God, who had arrived in Acts chapter 2, was now exerting authority, discipline, healing, comfort, and boldness among the believers. God, who had manifested Himself earlier in the form of His Son, was now manifesting Himself by His Spirit, through the church, in shocking ways.“The apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great blessing was upon them all” (Acts 4:33). It attracted people, including Ananias and Sapphira. The early church was a powerful, caring community of believers.

The people in the early church sold their possessions and gave the money to the church. This was not some grandstand play. Generosity was a feature of life in the early Church. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had a need. This kind of sacrificial generosity was evident throughout the book of Acts. Ananias and Sapphira, a married couple, sell a piece of property and publicly give the proceeds to the community. However, they secretly hold back a portion of the money for themselves. It would seem their confidence for the future was in their bank account rather than in the Lord. They could not bring themselves to give away everything to God and trust solely in His faithfulness to meet their needs. They just gave the money and said nothing about what percentage of the total sale price it represented.

Peter asks Ananias, “why have you let Satan fill your heart…” Peter was not questioning Satan’s purpose, because he already knew that Satan was out to destroy the work of God. Peter was questioning Ananias and Sapphira’s motive for allowing Satan into their lives. What did they want that was worth opening their heart’s doors to Satan? Satan does not want a small part of your heart, he wants the whole thing.

Obviously, the heart that Satan fills has no room for God. Satan put in the greatest possible effort to make Ananias and Sapphira tell that lie. God was being squeezed right out of Ananias and Sapphira’s heart. If they thought they were making a minor compromise, that was just part of Satan’s deception. They paid the ultimate price for that deception.

 Discussion Questions:

  1. What should we learn from Ananias and Sapphira?
  2. How do we defeat Satan’s attempts at deception? 

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