Ananias died before the apostles's feet because he deceived the Holy Spirit. Three hours later, his wife came and Peter asked her again: "Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?" Sapphira also deceived the Holy Spirit there, so Peter said: "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord?" Unfortunately the couple agreed on the wrong thing; not only were they not filled by the Holy Spirit, but instead they gave room to the devil and didn't know the holiness and righteousness of God, and therefor they were immediately judged by God. Through this story, we can see that we should not offend God. Very often we think that since we are in the New Testament time, God is all about loving kindness, God will answer any of our requests like a Santa Claus would, and it doesn't matter if we commit minor sins here and there. Actually, God's holiness and righteousness have never changed in the New Testament time. In Hebrew 12:9, we might be surprised to find that it doesn't say God is love, but rather He is consuming fire. Therefore, when we come before God, don't ever misbehave casually and thus make room for the devil.
The devil always attacks the weaknesses that we aren't paying attention to. Some said that Adam stumbled because he liked to eat; Judas sold the Lord because he liked money, and the Ananias couples deceived the Holy Spirit because they wanted to have good reputation. What is our weakness? A person may not like food, money or name, but has a bad temper; he might not treat it like a big deal, but it could get out of control as well. We must be cautious and not to leave any room for the devil to work inside us, otherwise we might suffer from the consequence of sin and become poor witnesses of God.
In the Old Testament time, when the Israelites entered the land of Canaan, God promised to fight for them and therefore Israelites bravely entered the beautiful land. In the first battle they conquered Jericho and God told them not to take anything from the town and to destroy everything. A man named Achan liked the things in the town and he secretly kept some. When the Israelites went after the second town of Ai, the army suffered massive defeat and couldn't understand why. They prayed and realized that someone didn't follow God's command and kept something that should have been destroyed. They then found Achan and put him to death. Afterwards, the Israelites became victorious in the subsequent battles. The Bible showed us that the sin of just one person could impact how we witness for God on earth.
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