Before we enter into our time of worship through the preaching of God's word, I invite you to join me in a prayer of confession. Let's pray together. Gracious Father, we thank you again that we can gather in this context. We thank you that we can gather under the truth of your word. And we asked this morning that you would take your word and you would minister to us that you would do a supernatural work in our hearts. that you would do an edifying work in our hearts, a convicting work in our hearts, that we might be ever more suited to glorify you. We confess our need. We confess our struggles with sin. We confess our frailties and our inability to love you or honor you or serve you to any degree in and of our own strength. We must have the strength the grace of the indwelling spirit. So we come to confess these things and to lay ourselves bare before you that you might take us and use us as you see fit and fill us up as your vessels and send us forth as a reflection of your great and glorious light. To bear your name as your people and to go forth and minister in the name of Christ and to carry your gospel. to the lost world around us, and to see your name exalted among the nations. We ask this in the strong name of Christ. Amen. If you will, join me in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 5, and we'll be looking at verses 1 through 11. And the title of this morning's message is God Takes Our Sin Seriously. Now, I'm going to read verses 1 through 11 for us. I may have to make an adjustment here just for lighting, but I'm gonna try to work my way through this as best as I can. So join me there, Acts chapter five, beginning in verse one. And here God's word says to us, but a man named Ananias and his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property and kept back some of the price for himself with his wife's full knowledge. And bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God. And as he heard these words, Ananias fell down and breathed his last, and great fear came over all who heard of it. The young men got up and covered him up, and after carrying him out, they buried him. Now there elapsed an interval of about three hours, and his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter responded to her, tell me whether you sold the land for such and such a price. And she said, yes, that was the price. Then Peter said to her, why is it that you have agreed together to put the spirit of the Lord to the test, behold, The feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out as well. And immediately she fell at his feet and breathed her last. And the young men came in and found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear came over the whole church and over all who heard these things." Now, this is quite a contrast from what we had experienced when we looked just on last week at Acts chapter four, the end of Acts chapter four, where the church was in great unity and there was this wonderful spirit of selfless giving and care and love and charity that was permeating throughout the church and they were all in one accord. And now we have a stark contrast here But Ananias and Sapphira, they're not alone in this episode. We've seen something like this before, something similar. If you think about the whole context of scripture, particularly the Old Testament, if you think about back in the Old Testament, you can probably think of a few characters that have experienced something similar here. How about Nadab and Abihu, who offered strange fire on God's altar and God struck them dead. And then we have Uzzah. What about Uzzah, who just merely touched the ark as they were transporting it back to Jerusalem, and God struck him dead? So this is not a unique circumstance. Actually, we find some other folks that have experienced the same kind of thing. And the environment around which they experienced this suddenly being stricken dead by God is also similar. As far as we know, they were all part of God's family. These were believers. And at the moment that God struck them dead, they were either worshiping or serving the Lord, or in some external form of worshiping or serving the Lord. And also, in each occasion that this sudden striking down of these folks, at each occasion, It was a time of transition for the church. It was a time of transition for God's people. It was a time of new beginning. And it's as if during these intervals of change, of new beginnings, that God was insistent upon making clear his desire for the purity of his people, the pure worship of his people. And so we have a little Background to work with here, this is not something that just comes up out of the blue. There's some similarities here. But nonetheless, Ananias and Sapphira, their behavior, their action stands in great contrast to what has just prior, what has been happening prior in the church there in the New Testament age, after Pentecost now, and this, if you will, new beginning, this transition time for God's people. During this time, the resurrected Christ has now spent 40 days with his disciples, teaching them and instructing them concerning the Old Testament, concerning all that was pictured, type and shadow in the Old Testament, now fulfilled in his earthly ministry, now fulfilled in his Messiahship, now validated in his resurrection. And atonement has been accomplished. Atonement has now been made in space and time. And now Christ has this moment in space and time of instructing his disciples. And so the Old Testament now comes alive. And we see that in their preaching and their witnessing as they point back and reference the Old Testament. Now it's a transition from black and white to vivid color. And not only that, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit has now come to and dwell the believers in the fullest sense to the nth degree with all fullness. All believers everywhere fully indwelled by the Holy Spirit. And we see now the preaching of the apostles in this still where, remember, we're in the apostolic age where the Spirit of God is now fully indwelling the believers, but is also working miracles through the apostles to validate their apostleship as apostles of Christ. And there's a couple of occasions where the miracle work will extend out to their close associates. But this is to establish this, again, to validate the apostles as apostles of Christ who will then go forth and be the primary source of carrying the message of the risen Christ. And of course, we know they will, too, in turn, be those who will be used as instruments to pin the New Testament and seal the canon. So it's an extraordinary time of unusual, exceptional work of the Holy Spirit. Again, miracle work is carrying on from Christ's ministry and now given to his apostles to validate their carrying forth the gospel of the resurrected Christ. And that is indeed what they are doing. And thousands there are being added to the church in Jerusalem. It is a wonderful time. It's a marvelous, marvelous, overwhelming, joyous occasion, and wham, sin enters the church. And it enters here in this very distinct way. It enters by this man and wife since the fire. Now that's not to say that all those who have been brought into the faith, they still struggle with sin. Sin is still apparent. That's not the case, but this is the first time that there has been a public discipline of sin, that sin has been publicly brought forth in this extreme manner. And so what we have here is this contrast taking place. As a contrast of this dynamic, selfless display of love and charity with a very selfish, self-righteous display of sin. And it comes in two forms. It comes in hypocrisy, in the sense that Ananias, with his wife's full understanding, desires to be something that he's not. And in order to do so, he lies. So that's the sin, and we'll work through that as we get into the text. That's the sin, the sin of hypocrisy and the sin of lying. that is now the means through which the hypocrisy is carried forth. And so this action is contrasted specifically with the action of Barnabas. You remember Barnabas was given to us as an example there at the end of chapter four. He kind of led the way of this selfless giving. And he was even called the son of encouragement there. That was the nickname given to him. It was Joseph was his given name. And he was called Barnabas, the son of encouragement there by the apostles. And of course, that standed out to the church. And certainly part of that, or quite probably most of acquiring that nickname was this behavior, this selfless behavior that he gave so much. He was selling his property off and giving the proceeds to the apostles. And he was doing so out of thanksgiving to God and concern, care and concern for the brotherhood. And there was some notability there. And of course that was not his intention, but it was there. It was obvious he was a son of encouragement. And so in contrast to his desire of his heart, Ananias and Sapphira say, you know what? We wanna have that kind of recognition. We wanna have that kind of attention that's been given to Barnabas. We wanna have that kind of notoriety. that's been given to Barnabas, but their greed was also in play. They wanted to do so by being noticed for giving, but yet they wanted to hold some of the giving back, some of the money back. So there's this implication here that they publicly declared that they would give a certain amount, that being the total amount of what the property had been, of the cost of the property. And in doing so, again, Sophia was asked, and she said, yes, that's the price. So they wanted to give the total amount to seem as if they gave the total amount, but they held some back out of greed, and they lied about it. And so there's the hypocrisy of wanting the recognition, wanting to be noted, wanting to be elevated, if you will, or to be noteworthy folks there within the church family for their gracious giving. But yet the greed was there, and so they lied about it. They gave half of what they really got, or a portion of what they really got. So that's the backdrop there. That's the context of what's happening. And this hypocrisy is exposed And it gives us a reason for that. So there's a theological reason that we want to hold up front here before we begin to look into the details of the text. And so this is a public disciplining of this sin. First one publicly that we see and is made note of here in the New Testament church. And it occurs at a unique time and it occurs in a distinct context. And it does so to vividly demonstrate for us God's view of hypocrisy. Now he executed the two hypocrites. So that lets us know God hates it. He hates hypocrisy. Matthew 6, 1 says this, beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Otherwise you have no reward with your father who was in heaven. Romans 2, 3. But do you suppose this old man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape God's judgment. And Luke 12 verse two simply puts it this way. But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known. So we'll see that the Holy Spirit knows full well the intention of their heart. And that was what the apostle draws into question there. Did you really believe that you could lie to the Holy Spirit that you could deceive the Holy Spirit. So God intends for his church to be doctrinally sound when it comes to hypocrisy. Of course, when it comes to all sin, but hypocrisy is up front here. That's what's brought to the forefront because hypocrisy is often masked, it's hidden. It's a very subtle sin in that regard. It's often buried deep and can sow all kinds of disunity in the church and remove the power of our witness and remain lodged and embedded in the church and go unnoticed. It's a sin that really has to be unmasked, unveiled. And that's why it is so deceiving and so deeply embedded and sometimes continues on and just creates a great deal of unrest and poor health in the local church. And so here it's brought to the forefront immediately as we see the joy and the unity and the unique power of the Spirit being displayed in the New Testament church. And then hypocrisy enters in and it's dealt with in this extreme, swift fashion. So we want to be doctrinally sound considering all sin, and certainly we don't want to leave out the sin of hypocrisy. That's why This little section has been given for us here. So it should be exposed. It should be exposed for the good of the hypocrite and for the health of the church. That's what should be our heart's desire concerning the sin of hypocrisy. Our heart's desire for the church should be that we have authentic conversion and genuine sanctification. That's our heart's desire. That's what we long for. That's our prayer. That's our endeavor. as those who are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and gathered together corporately in a local church. So as the old saying goes, sinners should feel very welcome in our church, but they should not feel comfortable. We want to be a church family that deals with sin, deals with the reality of it and our need to pursue our hidden, our being hidden in Christ and our dependence upon Christ through prayer and the study of his word to be those who fight hard against prayer by the indwelling spirit who fills us and enables us to walk in righteousness. That should be our heart's desire. So to love Christ compels us to love one another. That's a fact. But in loving one another, we don't allow hypocrisy to just fester in the church just so we can superficially get along. That's something that sadly transpires in church families. We just kind of go along to get along. And that's not who we are. We love one another far more than that. No, we seek to expose hypocrisy because hypocrisy hinders our unity, it defiles our purity, it steals our joy, and it dilutes our testimony. Hypocrisy in the church buries the gospel deep under this hideous sin that can be so pervasive. It removes the power of our testimony. And that brings us to the first two verses here. And I want you to see there the pair of vacation in verses one and two. Look there and it says, but a man named Ananias and his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property and kept back some of the price for himself with his wife's full knowledge and bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the apostle's feet. So here's the action. Here's the contrast. Here's the hypocrisy now being conjured in his heart, conjured in his heart with his wife's approval, with his wife's knowledge. And now it's being put into play. Now it's being put into action. And again, this is given to us in direct contrast to what we see in Barnabas, his action and his motive. And so they were saying they were given all the proceeds. And if you look back with me in chapter four, verse 34, look there, and it says, for there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land and houses would sell them and bring the proceeds for the sale. So this was habitual at this time in the church. This was this beautiful, unique experience that was transpiring there. And it was in great unity around the resurrected Christ. This was an overflow of that great unity around the resurrected Christ. And so there was this beautiful affair within the church there. And now we see sin slip in. Now, of course, there's external persecution, and Satan is always at work externally. That's never going to go away. But that just strengthened the church. They took their stand. They trusted the Lord, and that just strengthened. They continued to preach the gospel. It just strengthened them. But now, where it really hits home, where it really gets ugly and where it really begins to weaken the church and hinder our testimony and harm our witnesses when sin begins to come from within. And that's what we see here. So all this wonderful selfless giving was taking place and bam, Ananias and Sapphira want to be a part of it. They want the recognition, but they're going to hold some money back. So they're looking for the recognition. They're looking for the praise. They're looking for the acclaim. They're looking to be viewed as those who are sacrificially giving, but there's a difference. They had a different motivation. So they held back some. They lied about it. They actually said that they gave the full price, that this was the full price. What they was given was the full price that they had gotten for selling the property. But actually, they had kept some back. So their sin was not that they didn't give the full price. That was up to them. And again, we'll get to some of that in a moment. They were free to give whatever they wanted. They were free not to give. Again, there's an expectation of our tithe, but they were free. They didn't have to give any of the proceeds. They were absolutely free here. They could have given a portion, held some back, and it would have never been questioned. That's not the issue. That's not a problem. The issue is they lied about it. That's the sin. The sin was lying. They wanted spiritual status. They wanted prestige. They wanted praise amongst the brethren. And so they lied. They're not willing to give up the money. They were greedy. And then that pushed them to lying. They wanted the praise. They wanted to be seen and be acknowledged. And so they came up with this plan. We'll keep some back. We'll satisfy our greed. We'll give a portion, and we'll lie about it, which makes them hypocrites. So the lie was a result that resulted from the overflow of their greed of their heart, their desire to impress people. their desire to be something that they were not. And there we see the hypocrisy rise up. So they were trying to create a false image for themselves. And here's the thing. We're all capable of this. We're all capable of posing piety. That's illegitimate. It's something we must be on guard for. So feigning godliness dishonors God. It's not okay. even in the most subtle, small little ways. It's not okay. It hinders the church and it's bad for us. So, you know, we can look at them and sort of point the finger and think, my goodness, everything was going so well. How could they do this? But we're all capable to some degree of the sin of hypocrisy. It's a very subtle thing that can work its way into our heart's desires many different contexts and situations, but in no less, it dishonors God and it's not okay. It's something that we must be actively guarding against. Yielding ourselves over to God corporately and personally and striving together as a people of God to weed out, to resist it and to expose it. starting with ourselves and loving one another enough to have those hard conversations in the right context, in the right setting, in the appropriate manner to weed the sin of hypocrisy out from among us. So strive for holiness, pray for purity in the church. This is our application here when we think about this transpiring. And ladies, a note for you. Let me just tack this on. I'm not sure the text doesn't give us in detail, Safira's efforts here. I don't know if she was leading the way or how much input she had. I'm not sure. But if she was merely an accomplice, that's still sin. If she was just merely knew of her husband's actions and did not confront him, then she still bears the weight of the sin. She's still guilty. So ladies, if your leaders are in the wrong, don't follow them. Don't follow leaders into sin, ladies. Don't be an accomplice. Accomplice is the same as being guilty of the sin, and we see that in Sapphire's life. She may have taken the lead here to some degree. She may have been right up there with him, but she may have just kind of gone along, you know, but you can't do that and just say, well, you know, it was my husband. You know how he is. It doesn't work that way. So just make note of that. And that brings us to the perception here. And that comes from the apostle Peter. Look there with me in verses three and four. So it says now, but Peter says to Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? and to keep back some of the price of the land. While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God." So here we see the perception by the apostle. And again, the Holy Spirit enables Peter to understand what's transpiring here, what's taking place. It gives him the discernment of the situation, if you will. So everything was going wonderful. And by the way, this would have been a real temptation for the leadership here to say, you know, it's a small thing. It's a small matter. We could just kind of tidy this up behind the scenes, get some promises, you know, a little slap on the wrist. Don't do it again. Put this away, hide it, because let's face it, you know, folks are coming in. Everybody's excited. This thing has momentum. On the outside, this is looking good. You know, to bring this out and make a nasty little scene of it here, that might turn some people off. And I mean, we're putting, you know, we're putting folks in the fellowship here, man. They're coming in by the droves. We don't wanna slow this momentum down. A scandal at this time could be really bad. Now there's the temptation, right? But what does the apostle do? Filled with the Holy Spirit, he discerns the situation and immediately deals with the sin. Because again, and for us, part of the church in North America, we must get this doctrinal a reality settled into our souls. Our purity is far more important than putting hineys in the seat. We've got to get that nailed down. God brings purity to the church. He demands purity to the church. And God's church is predicated upon the purity of his people. And when we compromise that for some desire for growth that comes from our human perspective, then we're in bad shape. We've missed the mark. So it's purity here. And Peter goes right to the issue. He's concerned for the purity of the church. So he says, why has Satan filled your heart? Now, Ananias had allowed himself to be influenced here by Satan. Now, it's not saying that he was in any way possessed or anything of the like. Again, from all that we were given here, it seems that these two are believers, but he has been influenced by Satan. No doubt his sinful desires for recognition have been fueled here and he's opened himself up and there's been influence here, demonic influence that's helped lead him down this path. So he didn't guard himself against the danger of glory seeking. and he left himself open to the enemy and the consequences were devastating. So as we experience periods of tremendous blessing in the church, we can also experience times of spiritual battle. Spiritual warfare is real. This is really going on. This is really transpiring. Ananias was a victim of spiritual warfare where he succumbed to the enemy. So these things are true. And then the church was going through a wonderful time here. But, uh, and when we're going through the wonderful times, the spiritual battles come up, there's, there's times of, of storm. There's times of sadness, uh, along with the happiness. So it's not something that we want to just live for the external happiness, you know, just the superficial happiness. Let's just keep everything, uh, feeling good. And we don't want to be driven by our emotions. We're driven by, God's command over us and his desire for us to be a pure people in his worship. So we must hold that too. Here's another application for you. Look, when it's going well, the spiritual battles are going to come and we must deal with them and not expect that the church life is supposed to be this driving superficial happiness. Will we have moments of happiness? Yes. They were certainly happy. when they were experiencing such unity. But that happiness fades when they are sobered by the reality of sin within the church. And we must likewise be prepared for the balance here, the balance of both in the spiritual life. Both are for our spiritual strength and our spiritual good. So happiness and somberness is a balance of the Christian life. Perpetual happiness or perpetual happy emotions, are not our expectation. It's not our goal. Our goal is to worship and honor God and his command over us is holiness. Our pursuit is purity and the power and strength of the indwelling spirit. And our endeavors to pursue intimacy with God in prayer and know his word and study his word and being under the enlightenment of the spirit. And that builds our unity and that builds our purity. And these times of storms and happiness There's an ebb and flow there. Both are true within the church. And we need to have a balance there and a balanced expectation. And again, the reading and the singing of Psalms help us tremendously here where the Psalms give us that great balance. There's great happiness expressed, and that's wonderful and good. And there's sadness expressed. And a sadness with the right perspective and the right desire for the church is appropriate. And again, that's good for us. Our culture would tell us something entirely different, that we must have emotional happiness or life is completely out of control and wrong. But there is an element of sadness that is appropriate for the church. And when we have spiritual battles, when there's sin, And when there's a struggle with sin and the sadness of that and the working through that and the discipline that comes when sin is practiced and our commitment to one another to deal with these things and the soberness of them is good for us. It's right and appropriate. And again, both are going to transpire in the church life and both are good. If we are set and settled on the joy of the Lord residing in our soul, and times of happiness and times of sadness. If we are settled there and intent on the purity of the church, then both the ebb and flow of the good times and the bad times, if you will, are all really for our spiritual good and we're to embrace them. We're to embrace the balance of the happiness and sadness of the Christian life. And here the scripture, you know, in the scripture, Peter says to Ananias, why have you lied to the Holy Spirit? And again, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the triune Godhead. He's lying to God. And scripture will remind us of that reality in a few verses later, but God is being lied to here. If you lie to the Holy Spirit, you're lying to God. And that's why we are the temple of God. We're God's temple because the Holy Spirit indwells us. We're indwelled by the Holy Spirit and God takes this seriously. He takes our sins seriously. And to lie to the Holy Spirit is to lie to God. So it's the matter of the hypocrisy that's being dealt with here. Peter's bringing him to that. But also just to note here, again, a reminder, we want to note that the sin is the hypocrisy that had arisen in their hearts and the lying. Again, they were free to do whatever they wanted with the property that they sold. And that's what Peter says to them there. If you look there in verse four, he says, while it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after you sold it, in other words, when you got the money for it, was the money not also yours? It was still yours, right? You could do what you wanted with it. So that's true. Again, it's not a forced communal living here. This is not a precursor to a Marxist thought. This is not a picture of communism by any degree. Again, scripture clearly implies the right to private property. We mentioned it earlier. It's worth mentioning again. The eighth commandment, you shall not steal, is a full implication that people have a right to property. If they don't have a right to their property, then there's no such thing as stealing it. It wouldn't be stealing if someone didn't have a right to it. And so we certainly do have a right to private property. That's being exercised here. Peter mentions that. It's not the most important part of this text by any means, but I just want to make note of it. That's what Peter's saying. Look, you can do what you want with it. It's okay to hold back the money. That's up to you. But the hypocrisy and the lying, that's something that we must root out. That's something that we must unmask and deal with. And so that's what's transpiring here. So he didn't sell it and give all of it. He pretended. He pretended to give it all and he kept some of it back. And so now this sin of hypocrisy and lying will be dealt with. And again, lying is very serious too. That's the ninth commandment. You know, God takes lying seriously. Sometimes the two go hand in hand. We just see hypocrisy as something that can be, again, so subtle in how we express it and how it permeates the church. In our lying, we can find ways to justify lying so easily. We even have terminology for it. Well, you know, it's just a little white lie or it's a small lie or things like that. But God takes lying very seriously. Again, the ninth commandment says to us that we are not to bear false witness. We are not to lie. So ultimately, he lied to God. And ultimately, when we lie, however it transpires among us or to in our given context, we are ultimately lying to God. And it damages the unity and the witness of the church. That's what happens when we lie. That's what happens when we allow hypocrisy to remain unchecked in the church. And that brings us to the punishment there, verses five through 10. So look there with me beginning in verse five. And he heard these words, excuse me, And as he heard these words, Ananias fell down and breathed his last, and a great fear came over all who heard it. And the young men got up and covered him up, and after carrying him out, they buried him." Now we'll stop right there. So here's God's response. Again, a unique context, a unique setting, but we are to clearly, soberly gather up the doctrinal understanding and meaning here as we go forth as God's people. God hates our sin, and he certainly hates hypocrisy, and he certainly hates lying. That's a sin that can be so detrimental to the health of the church. So God kills them. His punishment is that he kills them right on the spot. It's a swift punishment. Now, you might think, well, if they're believers, then they're going to glory. Well, yes, that's true. And we are thankful for that. And again, as much as I know, we're dealing with believers here. But there is that judgment seat of Christ. This is not the way you want to go in. And sometimes we take that judgment seat a little lightly also. This is a serious matter. And it's a judgment. And it's the last act they will perform here on this earth as God's people, as part of the brotherhood. The first moment they see their Lord, in glory. They will see him at the judgment seat, and they will come in under the sin of hypocrisy and lying. So it's a serious matter. It's a real judgment, and it kills him on the spot. And then we look in the text, and it tells us, in verse 7, about three hours passed by, and then Sapphira shows up. Now, I don't know why the time lapse, I don't know if she was just waiting to kind of have her moment after her husband had been loitered by everyone and praised that she could come in and just gather up a little more, a little momentum and extra praise for herself and really create a moment there for herself. I don't know. But nonetheless, Paul greets her, excuse me, Peter greets her. And so he asked her, Is this the price? Is this the price that was asked? Is this the right price? Is this what you promised or what you pledged? And she says, yes. And so then, again, immediately, Peter calls her on the line of hypocrisy, and she falls dead before him. The young men come in, find her dead, and they take her out. And by the way, when they take them both out, it's not just out of the church, it's out of the city, where they're buried outside the city. And of course, burial was immediate then, so they're both taking out, and she's buried with her husband. And so we see here that you can't fool the Spirit, the Spirit of God. God gave Peter this discernment, and the judgment here by God was swift, and it was there for all to see, and all who saw that were shocked. They were stunned. They were sobered by it. But the Lord is really blessing the church here. Yes, it was swift and harsh judgment, but it's a blessing to the church because the Lord blesses a pure church. That's why we have church discipline, because God desires for us to be pure before him in our worship. I was speaking sometime back with a person, a follower of Christ, that is part of a core group that is left at a church there in Wilkes County. that has gone through some transition. They had a very large church some time back and lots of things unraveled and many folks left. There were splits, there were a number of splits and there's this core group that's kind of left in this church and they're trying to get back on their feet and come around and it's sad. And so the person was just sharing some of these things with me and of course the conversation, I was told that, well, there were just a number of divorces and affairs that had taken place in this church family. And so I said, well, what did the leadership do? Did anyone confront them? What was done? What transpired? And the answer was, well, you know, we just all told them, you know, we'll be praying for them. And I asked, was anyone confronted? Did anyone take action? What did you do? The response was, well, you know, we didn't want to pry. Now let me tell y'all, that is Wilkes County church lingo for we don't have a spiritual backbone. That's exactly what's being said. Oh, you know, brother, we didn't want to pry. And so divorce after divorce happened in this church and nothing was done about it that would be honoring to God and useful to the folks that were going through this. Nothing. And so the church slowly unravels, and it's the purity of the church that matters. That's what God honors, and that's what's being honored here. So we must confront sin in the church and practice church discipline when it's necessary. That's why it's given to us. First Peter 4.17, for it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God. And if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome of those who do not obey the gospel of God? So it begins in the church. Judgment begins with us because we have been called out by our Savior to purity. So the Lord's serious about the purity of his church. Genuine Christians desire a pure church. That's what we desire. And genuine Christians will be added to a pure church. The failure so often is the failure of just going along to get along, just trying not to stir up trouble. And so we coddle sin. We encourage sin. We allow sin to fester in the church family because, well, you know, brother, we just don't want to pry. Who am I to judge? When in fact, we're selfish and cowardly and have no love for our brother and have no fear of the holiness of our God who has called us to holiness, who has called us into this pursuit, who is serious about our sin and demanding of our purity and worthy of our praise. And so here these things are allowed to fester and they must not be so. But God has a whole other a view in mind, a whole other picture, if you will, for church growth. I mean, that's always brought up there. You know, we don't want to run people off. We don't want to get in their business. You know, we might scare them away. Well, that's not what we see here. God goes directly to severe, swift punishment and dealing with sin and purging the church so that she will be pure. God's concern is purity here. So he's serious about the church being holy, and what must we do? Well, submit to him in prayer, study his word. And James 4, 7 says this to us, submit therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee. Certainly we're susceptible to influence, but he'll flee. He'll flee away if we submit to God and resist him in the strength of our indwelling spirit. that leads us to the reality of the purification there in verse 11. I want you to see that. Verse 11 says, and great fear came over the whole church and over all who heard of these things. So the church was in fear, reverential fear, awesome fear of God, and those in the surrounding community. Now, certainly all of them were not Christians, so all those who knew about it, Christians and non-Christians, We're in fear, great fear. So what is the great fear? The great fear is fear of God. God hates the sin of his people. Our sins corrupt the church and God punishes sin. So he hates hypocrisy and lying. And our purity is a vital element, the power witness of a church. Our purity is vital to our power and our witness, absolutely vital. So we're not sinless, but we don't want to coddle sin and we don't want to coddle the sin hypocrisy specifically as we're thinking about it in this text. So we pray that God will reveal our hypocrisy, starting in our own hearts. We pray that he would do this for his glory, for our good, and for our testimony into the world. We strive to unmask the sin of hypocrisy among us, to root it out. And it says that, again, who heard about these things were fearful. So non-believers were frightened as well. And now I'll say this, it's good for the unsaved to have fear of God. That's one of the things that troubled me much in my heart as I'm trying to pray for our culture, for our nation specifically, is that the fear of God is fleeting away and are ever increasingly, ever secularly. increasing culture. And that healthy fear of God is being lessened in our culture around us. And that's, again, it should be a great prayer concern for us because the fear of God amongst the unbelievers is good. It's a good thing. It's good for the unsaved to fear God. Nonbelievers should cringe at this text. We could bring this text to bear. and our witness endeavor, and they should cringe, and they should allow this text to reveal God's hatred of their sin and cause them to flee to God, to flee the wrath that is to come. That would be our heart's desire for the unbeliever around us, and part of our prayer life, and part of our evangelistic effort. They should fear God. It's good for them. The unsaved should dread the judgment of God, and the saved should tremble. We should tremble at this fact. We should tremble with sober reverence at this fact, that his undeserved favor rest upon us. Now that should bring great fear, great reverence to us as his people. So judgment brings soberness. That's why it's good. It's not fun to think about. It's not a happy thing, but it's good. It brings soberness to the church. It keeps us from such sin. It makes us sensitive to all sin. It does both. It brings to bear in our heart a reality, a check on the sin of hypocrisy and lying, specifically in this text. And judgment brings a sensitivity in our hearts to all sin. So those who love their sin should not feel comfortable in the midst of our fellowship. Are all sinners welcome? Of course, but they should not feel comfortable in the midst of our fellowship. Purity is God's plan for the church and our church must be attractive to those who hate their sin. That's what we want to be, a church that's attractive to those who hate their sin. Are all sinners welcome? Absolutely. But we don't want sinners to feel comfortable in their sin and just continue to to be in our fellowship and for them to feel relaxed and comfortable as they're loving their sin. That's not our heart's desire. That's not the application we want. We want to think like Paul thought as he spoke to the Corinthians there in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 29. He's speaking of himself there and of course the other true apostles. He's speaking against false apostles that have come in and had their way with some of the Corinthians. So it says, who is weak without my being weak? And he's talking about there amongst the brethren, amongst the brotherhood there, the Corinthians. Who's weak without my being weak? Now see, there's his heart's desire, his heart for their spiritual well-being. And who is led into sin without my intense concern? Now that should be the heartbeat of our church family, take sin seriously because our God takes sin seriously. And when there is a sin among us, it should be our intense concern for one another, for restoration and well-being of our soul and for our witness, for our unity, and for our living out to the glory of God. Well, that is the last application I have there for this text. Again, I thank you for the many texts that have been coming in this morning for my well-being, well-being of my family. I'm so grateful and appreciative. And again, love you all dearly. It's difficult, the distance, but I pray that you are well and will continue to trust the Lord in these times and continue to pray for one another and serve together as best we can and go forth and be light for the gospel. I pray that these few verses are edifying and challenging to your heart. As we close today, allow me to pray and give the benediction for the word of grace family. Let's pray together. Gracious Father, pray that your blessing, the sweetness of your face, the kindness of your revealed word, the truth of your son will rest sweetly upon your people this morning, that we will go forth and trust and obedience to you and that you will give us strength to love and honor you. We thank you and we praise you. May your blessings rest upon your people. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.