Jr. —Ananias and Sapphira

Introduction • What did we learn the first week with me? The coming down at • What did you learn about last week? Peter and John healing the lame man • Who is the central person in the book of Acts from these two weeks? Holy Spirit • Now, in today’s story we are going to learn about two people who didn’t listen to the Holy Spirit. • Where our story starts, though, is with the church at —where the members were living in the Holy Spirit and in accord with each other. • [SELLING POSSESSIONS ILLUSTRATION] o HAVE A VOLUNTEER COME UP AS A “PAWNBROKER” AND GIVE HIM A STACK OF MONOPOLY MONEY o GIVE ALL THE KIDS DIFFERENT OBJECTS TO SELL TO THE PAWNBROKER. THESE KIDS REPRESENT THE CHURCH MEMBERS AT JERUSALEM. o HAVE EACH OF THEM COME UP AND BARGAIN WITH THE PAWNBROKER TO SELL THEIR OBJECT o PASS AROUND AN OFFERING PLATE AND HAVE ALL THE KIDS PUT ALL THE MONOPOLY MONEY IN THE PLATE. o TELL THE KIDS THAT THE FIRST CHURCH GAVE ALL THE MONEY FROM THEIR POSESSIONS TO THE APOSTLES TO USE FOR THE CHURCH. • But there was one couple that was not following the Holy Spirit—Ananias and Sapphira

Planning to Lie • When Ananias and Sapphira saw all the people that were selling their things, they wanted to as well—so that everyone would think how very good they were. • But Ananias and Sapphira didn’t want to actually give up everything—maybe they had plans for the money, maybe they wanted to keep some just in case they needed help later. o They weren’t willing to surrender all and give it to God. • So Ananias and Sapphira sold all of their stuff and counted up all of the money—but they kept some of it for themselves. • [PRETENDING TO BE ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA, GO UP YOURSELF TO THE PAWNBROKER AND SELL A PILE OF STUFF. HIDE AWAY SOME OF THE MONEY IN THE ROOM (LIKE ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA DID). SHOW THE KIDS THAT YOU ARE GIVING THE REST TO THE APOSTLES]

Ananias • Then Ananias took half of the money to Peter, the apostle. o He came up to the apostles and showed him the money, and told Peter that this was EVERYTHING that he had gotten from selling his land. o He probably wanted everyone to be really impressed with him—in fact, from how the talks about, it sounds like there were lots of people there when he showed Peter. o Maybe Ananias stood up in a church service and said that he and Sapphira had sold all of their stuff, and now they wanted to give ALL of the money to the church. • And probably everyone ooohed and aaaahed and said how great Ananias and Sapphira were for doing this. And maybe they thanked Ananias and praised God that he had let God use him like this. • Then Peter stood up. And he didn’t congratulate Ananias. o Remember how the Holy Spirit worked in Peter at Pentecost. Well, now, the Holy Spirit told Peter that Ananias had lied, that Ananias hadn’t sold all the money. o So when Peter stood up, he went to Ananias and said, “Ananias, why hath filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.” o Explain quote • And when Ananias heard this, he fell down to the ground and died. o Then the Bible says that some of the young men—maybe they were in a service and the young men from the service—took Ananias’ body and went to bury it. • And the Bible says that “great fear” came upon everyone who heard about this—and you can imagine. I’d be pretty afraid if I saw that happen. • But Sapphira wasn’t there—she didn’t know what had happened during that service. So we’ll find out what happened to her after the break.

Sapphira • Now, when we left, Ananias was dead, but Sapphira didn’t know that. • Wherever Sapphira was when Ananias told the apostles about the money, she came to the apostles three hours later. Maybe it was for the evening service. • But when she came in, you can bet whoever was there got entirely silent. • Peter was again the one to stand up and talk to Sapphira. • Peter showed Sapphira the money, and he asked her if she had truly sold the money for that much. • And what do you think she said? She said that she had sold the land for just that much. o She lied too! Even though Peter gave her a chance to be honest and tell what she and Ananias had done • But when Sapphira said this, I’m sure you could have heard a pin drop in the room, and Peter said this: “How is it that ye have 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.” o And when Sapphira heard this, she fell down and died, just like Ananias o And the young men came in from burying Ananias, and they saw Sapphira. So they took her out too and buried her.

Great Fear • Now, after having seen all that and heard about all that, what do you think that the church at Jerusalem thought? • The Bible repeats what it said earlier: it says that they all had “great fear.” o Now, what do you suppose that they were afraid of? o Afraid of God? Sort of. The Bible does say that we need a fear of the Lord. o But they weren’t afraid of him like you might be afraid of a monster. They were afraid of sinning against him. • Of course, they were afraid to sin against him now—look at what happened to Ananias and Sapphira when they sinned against God. • Can you imagine how scared if a similar thing happened in our church? • People were right to be afraid to sin against God—they should be really, really scared. o It’s scary to be disobeying God, because God will judge those who do not obey Him o Though not always like He judged Ananias and Sapphira

Application • You remember how at the beginning, we were talking about all those people who were filled with the Holy Spirit o Because they were allowing the Holy Spirit to fill them, they were obeying God and doing great things for Him. • But Ananias and Sapphira were not filled with the Holy Spirit, and because of that, they disobeyed God and lied. • God hates lying. It is listed in Proverbs as one of the seven things he hates the most. o God can’t stand lying, and when people lie, he hates it. o And besides, lying is not good for us. It turns us into people who do not honor the truth and cannot be trusted. It is not good for us to lie. • I’m sure all you have lied. I’m also pretty sure that some of you probably lie a lot. And God hates that. • But we should be afraid to lie. We should be afraid to disobey God at all. We should be afraid to not listen to the Holy Ghost. o Are you afraid to disobey God? o Maybe you’re afraid that you could get caught by your parents. You know what fear like that is like. o But when you sin against God, you’re always caught—you should be really scared to do that. • But when we listen to the Holy Spirit and obey God’s Word, we don’t have to be afraid of God. God always loved us, but He can fellowship with us when we aren’t disobeying Him. • Why would you want to be constantly doing something God hates, being afraid of God’s punishment when you can live in perfect peace with God? • You should always fear going against God. And you should always listen to the Holy Spirit, so that you don’t have to be afraid of God’s judgment. • Because there is no fear when we are in God’s will—only when we are out of it.