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Fourth in a series of sermons on" The Acts
of the A pasties. ”
I
N OUR last study we with the
disciples in the beginning of a great
revival. You will remember that it
started in a prayer meeting. The result
of that revival was that the number of
believers in Jerusalem was carried up to
five thousand. These new believers fell
in line with the other believers in the
matter of combining their possessions
and having all things in common. Here we are intro
duced to Ananias and Sapphira. I imagine they were
among the new converts. They saw some of the
others bringing the proceeds of their property and
putting it into the common fund, and they wanted
to be counted as having given up all for the cause,
and so they, with the rest, sold their possessions,
and then pretended to bring the w T hole proceeds and
deposit them in the common fund. But as we all
know, they kept back a part of the proceeds and
allowed the others to think that it was the entire
amount. But Peter w r as made aware of the decep
tion by the Holy Spirit, and so, as a faithful servant
of God, he arraigned Ananias, charging him with hy
pocrisy. You will remember what took place then.
Ananias dropped dead and was carried out and buried.
Ananias’ wife, who was a party with him to the
deception, was not present, but later she came in,
not knowing what had happened. Peter gave her
a chance to clear herself in this deception, but, as
she and Ananias had planned, she told the same
story, and you will remember that she dropped
dead also. It is a lucky thing for some that such
hypocrisy, such pretense of devotion and consecra
tion, is not always so summarily punished. I think
this was done in the beginning of the Church’s
history in order to impress thoroughly God’s great
displeasure and absolute intolerance of hypocrisy.
After this, great signs and wonders w’ere done
by the Holy Spirit through the church. It was nec
essary in the beginning of the church to have these
outward manifestations of inward power in order
to make the careless world stop and think. So im
pressed did the community become w’ith this power
that they put their sick along the roadside that
Peter’s shadow might fall on them. The popularity
that this naturally brought to these leaders, Peter
and John, stirred up the leaders of Judaism. The
High Priest began to get jealous, and set to work
to get rid of them. His first step was to have Peter
and John arrested and put in prison. This same
power that they were fighting made it impossible
for them to keep them imprisoned, for God sent an
angel to open the prison doors and set the prison
ers at liberty. The next day directions were issued
for Peter and John to be brought from the prison
to trial, but Peter and John were not in the prison;
they were in the temple preaching to the people.
There was naturally great excitement among the
people as the result of their deliverance. There
was so much excitement that the Sanhedrin sent
soldiers with orders to bring Peter and John be
fore them; and such was the sentiment of the popu
lace at that time that the soldiers had to deal gently
and tactfully with these men.
You remember in a former lesson concerning a
previous arrest of these two men we found that
the charge presented against Peter and John was
that of healing a man in the name of Jesus. That
was the trouble with these Pharisees and priests —
the fact that this work was being done in the name
of One whom they despised above all others —the
hated Nazarene; and they had charged these men
that they were not to speak in that name again.
So the charge is here presented that they continue
to preach and teach in this name, disobeying the
strict orders given them at the former trial. It
would have gone very hard with these disciples that
time, had it not been for Gamaliel, a man greatly
learned in the law; one of the greatest lawyers of
that time. He arose and set up a defense of Peter
THF HOLY SPIRITS WORK
7 abernacle Sermon by Reb. Len G. 'J roughton, T). <D.
Stenographically reported for The Golden Age.—Copy right applied for.
and John. He was doubtless opposed to this new
sect but he did have a keen sense of justice and
he knew the law and he saw what a trap they were
about to get into, and so he presented the argu
ment, contending that it was best to let these men
alone, for if their work was of God it could not be
destroyed, and if it was of man it would come to
naught. The members of the Sanhedrin were com
pelled to see the force of his argument and so they
let them go. But before they freed them, they
scourged them, and charged them again that they
must not speak in this nanie.
We read that the disciples went away rejoicing;
which may seem a strange thing in the face of such
persecution, and yet to the Christian it is not strange
but the natural thing. They had seen their Lord
suffer untold agonies for them, and now they were
glad to be able to suffer for Him.
The next thing we hear of them is that they con
tinued to preach and to teach and to work miracles
in His name though they had been charged by those
in authority not to do so.
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS.
I want us now to get the practical suggestions that
come out of this section. The first one is this:
The Hoty Spirit our detective. When Jesus left this
earth He prayed the Father that He would send anoth
er Comforter, who would abide forever. Now this word
Comforter, is a word not properly translated. It is
stronger than our word “comforter.” The right word
is “Paraclete,” a stand-byer, one who never can be
separated from us. That was what Jesus prayed
for; that we might have such a one to come and
abide with us. In accordance with this prayer the
Holy Spirit came, and this incident of Ananias and
Sapphira reveals to us one of the offices of the Holy
Spirit—that of detection. There is no escaping His
detection. Be as shrewd as we may; cover up our
tracks as thick as w r e can, we must know that the
Holy Spirit goes down beneath our covering and de
tects our innermost secrets.
What a blessed thought it is that we have such
a detective; we can not go on in sin without the
Holy Spirit showing us our error and offering to set
us right. There is absolutely no reason why any
Christian would not be able to judge what is sin in
his life. People more and more come to me, asking,
“Is this wrong?” “Would you advise me to do this?”
I always refuse to answer such a question. Re
cently a woman asked me if I thought it was any
harm for her to go to a certain play. I am perfectly
willing to throw the light of my judgment upon any
body’s mind, but I must insist that that is not final.
The Holy Spirit is authority in such matters.
How many people do you know who are willing
to jump up and say, “Put me down for $100,” to
get the glory of pledging it, and then never pay it?
I know men by the hundreds who will pay any debt
under the sun that they contract, in business, they
are honest to the core in their dealings with the
world, but when it comes to the debt that they vol
untarily make to the Lord, they do not consider it
their business to pay. Somebody says, “Supposing
I can not pay; supposing I had a misfortune and
can not pay.” The answer to that is self-evident.
God is the very embodiment of tenderness and mercy.
God knows it ali. But 1 put it to you the other way:
suppose you can pay it? Woe be unto the man who
lies to the Spirit of God.
But there are other ways in which we can tempt
the Spirit of God besides with our gifts. Here comes
a man in a consecration meeting who deliberately
says, “I yield up everything to God, my business,
my time, everything.” That thing is done volun
tarily, and people say, “He has entered into a life
of full consecration.” How about it? It isn’t three
days before he has everything in his own hands
again. It is a serious thing for a man to enter into
a voluntary contract with the Holy Ghost. I warn
you to be very careful about it, for it is a serious
thing for a man to trifle with the Spirit of God.
Let us now consider the next practical suggestion:
Healing the sick is a part of the ministry of the
The Golden Age for September 29, 1910.
Church. It is a very striking fact in the history of
the New Testament church that all along with the
preaching of the Gospel and with the revivals of
religion and the salvation of souls, we find the heal
ing of the sick. The Church has interested itself in
evangelism, in education, in everything but healing.
And the Church is just as much commanded to heal
the sick as it is to educate the ignorant. We have
our colleges for educating people. We have depart
ments of missions and evangelism in general, but
until very recently the Church has taken very little
interest in healing the sick. Thank God, it has be
gun to wake up on this line.
My next point is that wonder and amazement fol
low New Testament preaching. The one trouble of
the Church today everywhere is that it is too easily
explained. Almost anybody can explain the Church.
There is little occurring that borders on the mys
terious, just the regular run of the work, prayer
meeting, Sunday preaching, Sunday School, Ladies’
Aid Society, Ladies’ Missionary Society, B. Y. P. U.;
and that is all, except now and then an evangelistic
series of meetings when a few are gathered in. That
is the average church; there is nothing wonderful
about it; there are no startling conversions; no con
versions of the character that we find in the New
Testament, where men came, possessed of demons,
demons of drink, of' malice, of jealousy, and were
cleansed.
Take the next point. There is always power in
the shadow of a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ,
God Himself is in the shadow of His disciple if he
be a true disciple. It is a great thought that a good
man in a community is casting the shadow of his
influence over the community and he may rest as
sured that in that shadow of holy influence, there
is the presence of God. And every man has his
shadow. And in every man’s shadow there is some
kind of influence either for God or for the devil.
Oh, my friends, I believe we are just awakening
to realize something of the power of influence. How
it moulds us and shapes us and stimulates us when
we are least thinking of it!
Let us take another point. Jealousy is the curse
of the Church. It was true in apostolic days. The
cause of the arrest of Peter and John was the jeal
ousy of the High Priest and his associates; officers
in the Church or the synagogue as it was then; they
were supposed to be serving God and ministering to
the people, but here they are arresting God’s real
servants because of jealousy.
A man in the Church is jealous of some other
man’s position, and he begins to insinuate hurtful
things. Here are two women, one a bit more prom
inent than another; and the prominent one is prom
inent because she made herself so by faithfulness.
In nine cases out of ten the people that share the
prominence of the Church are not sharing it because
they are anxious to have publicity, but they are prom
inent for the good deeds that others see in them,
and yet some woman who is jealous because of at
tentions paid to that one, says, “I am not going to
Church; nobody is appreciated but that woman.”
And so the work of jealousy is seen in the Church
of Christ. It was so among the disciples of Jesus.
They were envious and jealous and it is so today.
And it is one of the most hurtful things that we have
to contend with in all our work for Christ.
In closing I will say that, obedience to God dispels
the fear of the world. There is nothing truer than
this. The man who is consciously obeying the will
of God has not a single whit of the fear of the world.
It is the man conscious that he is not obeying the
will of God that is afraid of his fellows. These disci
ples, Peter and John, absolutely knew that they were
in God’s will, and so they had the assurance that
whatever came would be for the best, both for them
and for the Kingdom. Are you in His will? Have
you that assurance? If Christians of our day lived on
this level there would not be so much whining about
the present and such fears about the future. Oh,
that the Church of God might live on this level;
then fear and doubt would flee away and the world
be brought to see a strong, virile Christianity.
