Turning your Bibles to Acts chapter 4. Acts chapter 4. We'll be reading verse 32 through chapter 5, verse 11. Acts chapter 4 verse 32 through chapter 5 and verse 11. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul. Neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own. but they had all things common, and with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet. and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, which is being interpreted the son of Consolation, a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet. But a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira his wife, sold the possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. And Peter said, Ananias. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan 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. And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost. And great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, 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. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost. And the young men came in and found her dead, and carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things." This is God's word. Well, we find ourselves in the Book of Acts this afternoon, in part of Chapter 4 and part of Chapter 5, and you'll see that these, though they're divided by a chapter, are connected. And up until this point, the Book of Acts, an introduction to the Book of Acts, I'm sorry, Christ, in the Gospels, was risen from the dead and appeared to men. And in chapter 1 of the book of Acts, he's still upon the earth in those 40 days, and he gives them instructions to wait for the promise from the Father. And so in chapter 2, we see them do that, and they're waiting in the upper room, and the Spirit is poured out. And Peter gets up and he preaches his Pentecost Day sermon, and you see 3,000 added to the church in Jerusalem that day. And then in chapter 3 and 4, Peter and John go up to the temple, and they see a man by the beautiful gate, and they heal the man. And they go off preaching, and 5,000 more are saved. And in chapter 4, right before we get to where we are, Peter and John were being questioned and they're giving a witness of Christ and His resurrection, and they end up getting released. And from verse 23 of chapter 4, to verse 31, you have the church in a prayer meeting. You actually have a prayer of the church, verse 31, and when they had prayed, the place was shaken, and that's the end of their prayer. Which brings us to our passage this afternoon, wherein we see the church in all of her growth, in all of the the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the church, and the grace being poured out upon the church. We see the church with a few distinct marks. Now these aren't the traditional marks of the church you'd think of in Christian theology. It's just a play on the title, the marks of the church. And the first mark we'll consider is in verses 31, sorry, 32 to 37, the church is marked with great grace. great grace. And we see this explicitly stated in verse 33, the latter half. And great grace was upon them all, not just the apostles, but upon all of the church. And what's the evidence for the great grace in the church at this time? Well, it's their unity, their unity. They've got over 8,000 converts to Christ in Jerusalem. 8,000. From all sorts of different backgrounds, and ethnicities, and languages, and social status. Read verse 32. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul, Neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common." They had all things common. We'll explain what the scriptures mean by that. But they had great unity. They had unity in their doctrine of worship. They had unity in their doctrine of what is the gospel. There was no question about that. They were in union in their fellowship, in their practice, in the commandments of God. Their souls were knit together. And this same unity is seen if you turn back to Acts chapter 2, right after Peter preaches on Pentecost, Acts 2.41-46. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common. and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need. And they continued daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart." This church was united, though they had thousands of members. But of course, the unity of the church doesn't last forever. We read in 1 Corinthians, I follow Paul, I follow Apollos. We read in Philippians 4, Syntyche, Iodius, I beseech you, be united. Nonetheless, we see the work of God's Spirit that God works unity in this church and he works unity in our churches today. And so, I'll ask you a question Are you, or could you say, that you are of one heart and of one soul with the brethren here at this church? Now, what I'm not asking you is, do you hold to all of the same theological positions? Do you all believe in a cappella psalm singing? Do you all not celebrate Christmas? Do you all do all of the same stuff, want wine and communion? I'm not asking you about doctrine. though doctrine is very important. I'm asking you about your love for these people and your unity, knit together in soul and heart. Do you pray for these people? Do you go out of your way to encourage them? to see how they're doing, to help them. Yes, we have unity of doctrine. Praise God for that. That is vitally important. But are we united in this way? Or do you go home and lay in bed at night and say, yeah, honey, I'm so sick and tired of so-and-so at church, and you just complain about these people. Do you gossip about these people? Are there factions within this church? Do you look down upon people in your pride? Maybe it's a, I'm at a certain spiritual level and I'm looking down upon other people for the sake of making yourself feel more spiritual. Or do you love these people? Those things that I just spoke of have no place in the church. We must be united. We must love one another truly, based upon the truth, of course. This is what the grace produced in this church here in Acts chapter 4. But also it produced, so that's the unity. It also produced, and this kind of overlaps a bit, love for the brethren. Love for the brethren. Now this love was manifested in the early church by caring for one another in temporal things. Look at verse 32. The second part of verse 32. in verse 34 and 35, neither was there any among them that lacked, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. Now I must qualify this because many have taken this passage and that passage from Acts 2 about selling possessions and have twisted it. and absolutely destroyed this passage of scripture and made Jesus Christ and his apostles some form of communists. But Jesus Christ and his apostles were not and are not communists and this is not teaching communism and I will give you four reasons why this is not communism. Reason number one, private property. Private property. Private property is assumed in the Eighth and the Tenth Commandment. You cannot steal something from someone if they don't own anything, or if the government owns everything, or if one person owns everything. It's impossible. You can't covet your neighbor's anything if he doesn't own anything. Number two, not everyone sold their property in Acts. Turn to Acts 12.12. This is much later in Jerusalem. And when he had considered the thing, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where they were gathered together praying. Not everybody sold their property. It wasn't a command of the Lord for them to all sell their property and give it. she still had her house and many others had their house. But then thirdly, consider Ananias and Sapphira. Their sin was not keeping back part of the price of what they sold. It was explicitly the lying to the Holy Spirit. Read Acts 5 and verse 4. Whilst 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." It's not the sin of not selling something that they were being forced to sell, but rather lying about how much they received, or lying about giving everything when they didn't give everything. But then fourthly, what they did with the money. They laid it at the apostles' feet and the money was not divided equally. It was given in a discreet manner in distribution to people who were in need. All of these things do not accord with communism and none of this is forced. This is a false doctrine to say that Christ teaches this. And so, moving on from that, this love for the brethren that they had manifested in their spirit of selling what they owned and laying it at the apostles' feet. And many gave up their own possessions because they saw the need. And so you may be asking, well then how does this relate to us? How does this relate to me right now in 2024 in Dallas? I own a home. What am I supposed to do? Is there really an expectation today for me to sell property or for anyone to sell property and give money to the church? You certainly could do that. You certainly could do that. It's not that it would be wrong for you to do that, but I don't think that's the application for us today. Why? Because the practice of selling property and bringing it to the Apostles' feet is only found in the Church of Jerusalem. And why might that be? because the church of Jerusalem was under daily persecutions. If you just keep reading the book of Acts, you're gonna see people, they're about to be scattered. You're also going to see that there was an expectation that Jerusalem and the temple were going to be sacked. So if you knew that soon some region around Dallas was going to be absolutely destroyed and you owned a bunch of things, it might be helpful for you to liquidate your assets and use them for the kingdom, because this place isn't going to be around very much longer. But that's not the case with us today. But it was the case for them. Note also that it did not detract from the mission of the apostles. What they're doing here is not the primary focus of the church. It's an incidental thing. When people respond to the preaching of the word, there's a need that arises, and they meet that need. And you see that they lay it at the apostles' feet. But as soon as it becomes too much for the apostles, go one chapter over, what do they do? Well, we need to call some deacons to handle this. And so they institute deacons to handle this, to take care of it in Acts chapter 6. Because the apostles said, we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word, which is primary. So they're moved by love for the brethren to sell things, sell homes, sell property, bring them to the feet of the apostles for the good of the people of the church. And so I'll press this home to you. If a brother or sister was truly in need, what would you not be willing to give up for them? As adults, this might be easy to think about, but as a child, imagine if someone's converted and brought into the church, and your family decides, well, we're gonna house them, and now you have to share your room. Are you willing to do that? What are you not willing to give up to help a brother in need? Now, I want you to ask yourself also this question. If God called you to sell everything that you have, would you be willing to do that? Would you be willing to do that? Now, He's not calling you to sell everything that you have, but you must be willing to give up everything for Christ at any moment. At any moment. Even consider this. situation, we pray for revival, we pray for conversion, we pray that God would add to his number here, we pray that our children would be converted. You know, this church had 8,000 converts in the city of Jerusalem. Imagine if the Lord added to your number just 1,000. What would you do? What would you do, all of you mature believers, and you have all these people who are born again, and they need help, what would you do? That would be a great blessing to see that happen. There's also the idea that when you're thinking about your possessions and what you're not willing to give up or what you're willing to give up, you must remember that everything you have, none of it will last on the final day. You can't take anything with you to heaven. Let me qualify that. By God's grace, we can take our children to heaven if the Lord would convert them. But all the material things, all of the things we have, all of our houses, all of our investments, all of these things, none of them we can take with us. So why hold on to them when there is a need, when God has blessed you? Everything you have is a gift from Him and you can bless others. it's far better to give than to receive. And so we see that here in the early church. They have great unity, they have great love for the brethren, but then also consider Barnabas, which we spoke about a little this morning, Barnabas, verse 36 and verse 37. And Joseph, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, which is being interpreted the son of consolation, a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet. And so we're introduced to a great figure in scripture, Barnabas. This is the first place that he comes up in the book of Acts. And it's an intentional thing here. Luke is putting him right here, contrasting him and what he does with Ananias and Sapphira and what they do. So you have Barnabas, good, Ananias and Sapphira, bad. It's very pointed here. That's why these chapters are connected. And so we see that the great grace of God in this church not only produces unity and love for the brethren, but it produces godly men who, this is the one specific instance they give us of a named person. This man does this and he goes on to be on missionary trips with the Apostle Paul. He goes on to do great things by the grace of God. And we can make much of you have his name and he's a Levite and he's from Cyprus and all the important thing for us is this is the same Barnabas. This is the same man. It is important that he's a Levite. That's helpful for other places because he's a Jew and he's ministering with Paul and so on. But this is that same Barnabas. Well then let us secondly consider The second mark in our passage, which is great hypocrisy. Moving on to chapter five, verses one through seven. Great hypocrisy in Christ. The epistles warn of this, but I'm keeping this in proper timeline, where Christ warns of false prophets who will be wolves in sheep's clothing, false brethren. He rebukes the Pharisees. We saw that all in Matthew chapter 23. for being hypocritical, for outwardly doing what is right but inwardly in their hearts. Their hearts are far from God. Think of the parable of the ten virgins. Five are ready, five are not. Five are heart-born-again believers, waiting, five aren't. And so now consider the great hypocrisy in the life of Ananias and Sapphira, two members of the church in Jerusalem, who fellowshiped with believers, who worshipped with fellow believers, who were there alongside them, who ate with them, who were baptized next to them. They were members of this church. And yet great hypocrisy is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit calling them out and striking them both dead. Note also that this is the first appearance of Satan in the book of Acts. This is the very first appearance of Satan since Christ's resurrection and ascension. And so you see some opposition from without, the church, and when that doesn't work, Satan comes inside the church, using hypocrites to try and dismantle it from within. So what was their sin? What was their sin? It was lying to the Holy Spirit. This is plainly taught. It wasn't that they didn't give enough, it was that they lied. Verses 1-4 of chapter 5. His wife also being privy to it. and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land? And I'll skip to the end of verse four. Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. Their sin was lying to God, the Holy Spirit. They had determined to sell their land. They were not compelled to do this, as I've made the case for that. But they decided to do it. They chose to do it. And when they did it, they didn't give all of the money. And their sin was aggravated because it wasn't just one person doing this. They were in league together. So there's a principle in scripture where two are better than one. And yet, these two could have at any point said to the other one, yeah, we probably shouldn't do this. Yeah, it's only this much money. Yeah, they could have stopped it. They chose not to. And maybe even for bad reasons, think about these reasons. Well, you know, I know it's wrong, but I'm just trying to be a good submissive wife, so I'll follow my husband to do this. No, not if he's leading you to sin. Or maybe it's the husband who's, you know, not a good idea, but I just, I really want to be a good husband. And so I'll just do what my wife says and, you know, it'll be all right. You know, it's only, it's only a small lie. No, one of them, should have stopped the other one. And how many sins could have been stopped if someone spoke to us, or if we spoke to someone else? Think about in your marriages, or you children with your siblings, some foolish things we've done when people were right there. Lying always begins in our hearts. Look at verses three and four. Satan hath filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost. In verse four, why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Now friends, we have Good theology. We just sung Psalm 139. God knows the words. Before you speak them, He knows your thoughts. He knows the inward man. And all of your lies will be found out. There's even just a simple, logical reasoning here as to why this sin shouldn't be so prevalent in our lives. All of your lies are going to be found out. So why lie? People are gonna, the Lord is gonna reveal it anyway. There's no point in lying. It's all gonna be known about. But then think of Achan, we read about in Joshua 7. He's found out. And he's brought out in front of everybody. And he's told to confess his sins. And when he is prompted to confess his sins, he does confess his sins. And yet Ananias doesn't. Sapphira doesn't. When you are called out in your lies, and God knows every one of them, would you die for your lies? Would you die for your lies? Because every lie deserves death. But then how did Peter know that he was lying? Well, it was by a revelation of the Holy Spirit. It was a revelation of the Holy Spirit that he knew exactly what he had done, and called him out for it, and said that he lied not unto men, but unto God. which incidentally proves the deity of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is God, right here. If you want a proof text for this, go right here. It says he lied to the Holy Spirit, and he didn't lie to men, but he lied to God. And so he's struck dead. And then Sapphira comes into the picture three hours later, and she's given an opportunity, and not knowing what's happened to her husband, She's given a free opportunity to confess and she makes the fatal mistake and chooses to lie over telling the truth. If all of your lies were brought forth in the midst of even just this congregation, let alone other family that we have? Could you hold your head high? Would you not even know of how many? Do you tell so many that you would be unsure of what's on the list? Or maybe not explicitly telling a lie, but something you're ashamed of that you know that's hidden, Maybe it's your internet history. Maybe it's what you watch on YouTube. Maybe it's not explicitly pornography, but it's something that's pretty near that. Maybe it's your pretended religion. Maybe it's your prayer life. Maybe you come to church and everybody thinks you're a really godly person and You act apart, and you talk about, oh, I pray for you, oh, I pray for you, oh, I pray for you, and then you show up to church and somehow everybody's prayer time is on their forehead. Would you be ashamed of how little you pray for these people who you tell you pray for all the time? Everything will be found out. But on the other hand, If you have nothing to hide, then there's nothing to be worried about. Nothing will be made manifest on that day that you should be ashamed of. You shouldn't shrink back. Even the worst sins, we're called to confess them to God. God knows them anyway. Really, what's at the root of this is fear of what will people do? What will people think? What will happen if the truth comes out? Friends, the truth being out is always better, and I am not advocating for you to go and tell all of your secret heart sins that are private. I'm talking about things that are explicitly lies, or even things you know you're hiding from the Lord, and yet you know, well, I know the Lord knows, but I'm just going to pretend like that doesn't exist. Bring it to the Lord. You need to bring these things to the Lord. So what motivated them to do this great sin, to commit this great lie? It was religious hypocrisy. It was religious hypocrisy. It was a pretended move of the Holy Spirit, when it was actually the spirit of the devil moving within them. It was a pretended move of the Holy Spirit. Why hath Satan filled thine heart? You can almost see them We have Barnabas in the end of chapter four, and you have Ananias and Sapphira, and maybe they heard of Barnabas, and maybe they know, oh yeah, Barnabas, yeah, he sold his thing on Cyprus, and he gave it to the apostles. If you look at him, he's about to go on a missionary journey now. And so you have them strutting in thinking, you know, okay, we sold our thing, and Sapphira, not knowing what happened to her husband, walking in thinking, okay, you know, My husband's probably standing next to Peter and Barnabas. He probably got asked to go on this great mission trip and she walks in and Peter says, how much did you sell the property for? And she says, for so much. And she's dead. It's a religious hypocrisy. They're pretenders. They were actors. They were not true believers. They were doing it for pride. Even a religious pride that says, I want people to think I'm holy. I want people to think I'm godly. I want people to look at me. Look, I went on this mission trip. I did this. Are you acting? Are you pretending? Are you really a Christian here this morning? Or is this just something that your family does? Is this just something that wets your intellectual whistle and you think that theology is fun, but does it not really go down into your heart? No one here in this room can say with absolute certainty that you are a Christian except for you. No one truly knows who you are, except for the Lord and you. Your elders can come to your house and do home visits and inquire about, oh, what are you reading in the Bible and where are you doing family worship and all these things. They don't truly know. They're going off of your profession of faith. Your parents can ask you about your Bible reading, they can ask you about your catechism and all these things, but they don't really know. Even wives and husbands who spend more time together than anyone else, they really don't know each other's hearts. Only God knows the hearts and the reins in you. So then what did God do to deal with these hypocrites? Well, we've already said that he struck them dead, verse 5 and 10. Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost, in verse 10. Then she fell down straightway at his feet and yielded up the ghost, and they buried them both. And they were buried next to each other. Well, if you're looking for a place in the Bible, there are many, but just another one where the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the New Testament. Look no further. Right here we have God, the glorious God, striking down Ananias and Sapphira. God will deal with hypocrites in the church and he will deal with false brethren. He will continue to build his church and care for his church for he loves his church. Sometimes these things are manifested to us in our time and in our day and we see it's sad and it moves our hearts that I can't believe so-and-so has apostatized, they didn't really believe. Sometimes it happens while we are alive, but ultimately all of the hypocrites will be made known on the final day, on the final day. But nonetheless, God will deal with every one of them. Some of the absolute Worst judgment is reserved for religious hypocrites who go to church every Sunday, who know their catechism, who memorize scripture, who could tell you what the gospel is, and yet they didn't believe it. More tolerable will it be for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for you, hypocrite, If you are a hypocrite and your life is an absolute lie, there is forgiveness for you. God is gracious and merciful, and we all here would rejoice with great joy if a hypocrite confessed his sins and came to Christ even today. Look at the Apostle Paul, who was a persecutor of the church, who is a self-proclaimed chief of sinners, and God was merciful to him. God is merciful to those who come to Christ. God forgives hypocrites. His loving kindness and His mercy forgives all kinds of sinners, from the greatest even unto the least. But if you do not come to Him, if you do not come to Him, If you do not take the offer of salvation, that the salvation of God in Jesus Christ, that if you look to Him and believe, you will be forgiven. If you reject Him, then the blackness of darkness and the everlasting fire, the holy wrath of God will be poured out upon you. In this sermon today, God will hold it up and say, you knew this was coming, you hypocrite, and Christ was offered to you, and you rejected me. Why will you die when Christ forgives hypocrites? But then maybe you're a Christian in here and you struggle with hypocrisy. I want to separate these two. There are unbelieving hypocrites and there is the sin of hypocrisy as Christians. This would be the sin of the things we spoke about and yet not to the degree where someone is absolutely not a believer. I want to please men. I want people to think high of me. I walk, and yes, do I live for God? Yeah, but sometimes I do really want people to like me, and I want people to think highly of me, and I want people to think that I'm great, and so I say and I do certain things. That is a real sin. that Christians fight, and that we need to put to death. We need to live for the Lord alone, and not for men. We are not man-pleasers. We need to crucify that. It's really a pride issue, that I want people to think about me a certain way. No, you want God to think about you a certain way. His opinion is the opinion that matters. It's the only opinion that matters. So we see that the church is marked with great grace and great hypocrisy. But then lastly, the church is marked with great fear. Great fear. Verse 5 and 11. They're both struck dead and we see this in both verses 5 and 11. And great fear came on all them that heard these things. And great fear came upon all the church and upon as many as heard these things. So first, great fear upon all the church. Great fear upon all the church. This is also the response in Acts chapter 2 in verse 43 after his sermon. And fear came upon every soul. The fear of God is good. We should be God-fearers. That is a godly thing. And this is the fear of reverence and of awe for God, and for His glory, and His forgiveness, and His Messiah that He sent, who was crucified, and all of these things. His holiness, His power, and His love, and His redemption, and His plans, and His goodness. And so, as Christians, we ought to be struck with the fear of God when we see these things, that God is great and mighty in His works, that He does not deal lightly with sin, that He takes it very seriously and so should we, that He deals with hypocrites and judges them, that He sends forth temporal judgments even this day. Ask the man in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 that he was sent off with the destruction of the flesh. Ask Hebrews chapter 12, the chastenings of the Lord, God keeps His church pure. He protects it from Satan. And oftentimes, He makes examples of those who act foolishly, but don't make the mistake of thinking that He needs to speak more than once. Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire to God, and they were consumed with fire. Do we need to be consumed with fire to know that God is serious about worship? No. Uzzah touches the ark, and he's struck dead. A man gathers sticks on the Sabbath day, and he's stoned. The Israelites complain in the wilderness, and fiery circuits are sent among them. And we could go on and on. God needs only to speak once, and we should fear and reverence our God. But then, consider that this fear which fell upon the church here, and after the preaching of Peter, this fear of two people being struck dead by God, you'd think maybe in your mind, oh yeah, the church, no one's gonna join the church in Jerusalem, their God kills them. Why would they join that church? And yet, if you just kept reading Acts chapter 5, the next few verses, their numbers still increase. That they go out and they continue to preach that this God is holy and forgives sins. But, if you come in our ranks as a hypocrite, no, no. So we ought to have the fear of God. We should not fear Him who can destroy body, but Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. And remember that this fear is not opposed to church growth. It actually reinforces church growth. You see this in Acts, that God works mighty things in the church. But then also we see that this great fear fell upon not only the church, but all who heard these things. All who heard these things. Many in the Old Testament heard about the God of Israel, and all of his mighty deeds, and all of his works, and all of his great redemption, rescuing his people from Egypt, and so on. And many people heard about Christ, and his kingdom, and his miracles, and his gospel, and his love. And many in the book of Acts heard these things outside of the church. And you here this morning, this afternoon, in the pew, hear of these things. Week in and week out. And you are within the church. You're sitting here. Maybe you're not a member. Maybe you're a child who's a member and you've been baptized, and you hear these things, and yet you still don't believe them. Maybe you don't object to them. Maybe you think, yeah, I know these things are true, but they're not really that important to me. Yeah, I don't object to anything in the Bible that's written down, but I don't really take it that seriously. Yeah, I respect my parents, so I don't fuss when we go to church. Listen to me very carefully. You don't fear God. if that's the case, and you need to fear this glorious God, this God who offers salvation to you from your sins, and promises judgment to you for your sins, because He is holy. What will you do with this sermon? What will you do with all of these things that have been told you today, of your sins, and of your lies, and of the salvation of God? What will you do with them? Will you actually fear God? One day you will fear God. One day you will fear God. If you don't come to Him in this life, you will have the fear of God in your hearts when He comes. And you know who those who rejoice at His coming are? Those who are looking forward to His coming. But oh, those who do not rejoice, they try and hide themselves. They wish that the rocks would crush them. They wish that they could avoid this judgment. and you can't. So why would you be so foolish as to reject the great and glorious God who offers you eternal life to look upon Christ and follow Him and see this great and glorious God who deals with sin. Otherwise, this sermon is just a witness against you. that you did not heed the offer of salvation and the warning of the judgment to come. Well, the church has many other marks, as I said, but we've seen three here this afternoon. Great grace, great hypocrisy, and great fear. May the Lord bless this word to our souls. Please stand for prayer. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared. O, that You would strike the fear of God into our hearts, that we might bow before You, who are holy, holy, holy, and the whole earth is full of Your glory. You who forgive iniquity and transgression and sin in Jesus Christ. Oh God in heaven, would you give to each one of us a holy fear of you. Would you fill us with a spirit of supplication and of grace that we might be united and love one another truly from the heart. Be willing to pray for and build up this church through encouragement and help in any way that we can. And oh Lord, would you grant repentance to those who are hypocrites among us. and shine and send forth thy light and thy truth into their hearts that they might come to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask for all of these things in his name, amen.