Pastor Jeremy M. Thomas
Fredericksburg Bible Church
107 East Austin
Fredericksburg, Texas 78624
830-997-8834      jthomas@fbgbible.org
A0827 – July 6, 2008 – Acts 5:1-11 – The Authorization Of The Apostles - Part 2

Acts 5:1-11 1Ἀνὴρ δέ τις Ἁνανίας ὀνόματι σὺν Σαπφίρῃ τῇ γυναικὶ αὐτοῦ ἐπώλησεν κτῆμα 2καὶ ἐνοσφίσατο ἀπὸ τῆς τιμῆς, συνειδυίης καὶ τῆς γυναικός, καὶ ἐνέγκας μέρος τι παρὰ τοὺς πόδας τῶν ἀποστόλων ἔθηκεν. 3εἶπεν δὲ ὁ Πέτρος· Ἁνανία, διὰ τί ἐπλήρωσεν ὁ σατανᾶς τὴν καρδίαν σου, ψεύσασθαί σε τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον καὶ νοσφίσασθαι ἀπὸ τῆς τιμῆς τοῦ χωρίου; 4οὐχὶ μένον σοὶ ἔμενεν καὶ πραθὲν ἐν τῇ σῇ ἐξουσίᾳ ὑπῆρχεν; τί ὅτι ἔθου ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ σου τὸ πρᾶγμα τοῦτο; οὐκ ἐψεύσω ἀνθρώποις ἀλλὰ τῷ θεῷ. 5ἀκούων δὲ ὁ Ἁνανίας τοὺς λόγους τούτους πεσὼν ἐξέψυξεν, καὶ ἐγένετο φόβος μέγας ἐπὶ πάντας τοὺς ἀκούοντας. 6ἀναστάντες δὲ οἱ νεώτεροι συνέστειλαν αὐτὸν καὶ ἐξενέγκαντες ἔθαψαν. 7Ἐγένετο δὲ ὡς ὡρῶν τριῶν διάστημα καὶ ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ μὴ εἰδυῖα τὸ γεγονὸς εἰσῆλθεν. 8ἀπεκρίθη δὲ πρὸς αὐτὴν Πέτρος· εἰπέ μοι, εἰ τοσούτου τὸ χωρίον ἀπέδοσθε; ἡ δὲ εἶπεν· ναί, τοσούτου. 9ὁ δὲ Πέτρος πρὸς αὐτήν· τί ὅτι συνεφωνήθη ὑμῖν πειράσαι τὸ πνεῦμα κυρίου; ἰδοὺ οἱ πόδες τῶν θαψάντων τὸν ἄνδρα σου ἐπὶ τῇ θύρᾳ καὶ ἐξοίσουσίν σε. 10ἔπεσεν δὲ παραχρῆμα πρὸς τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐξέψυξεν· εἰσελθόντες δὲ οἱ νεανίσκοι εὗρον αὐτὴν νεκρὰν καὶ ἐξενέγκαντες ἔθαψαν πρὸς τὸν ἄνδρα αὐτῆς, 11καὶ ἐγένετο φόβος μέγας ἐφʼ ὅλην τὴν ἐκκλησίαν καὶ ἐπὶ πάντας τοὺς ἀκούοντας ταῦτα. (NA27)
Acts 5:1-11 1But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold (3SAAI) a piece of property, 2and kept back for himself (3SAMI) some of the proceeds with his wife’s knowledge, and brought a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. 3And Peter said (3SAAI), “Ananias, why has Satan filled (3SAAI) your heart to lie (AAInf) to the Holy Spirit and to keep back (AMInf) for yourself some of the proceeds of the property? 4Was it not yours, as long as it remained unsold? (in transferred sense to remain or continue in a certain realm or sphere, cf 1 Macc 15:7) And having been sold was it (3SIAI) not in your power? Why did you contrive (2SAMI) to think of this deed in your mind? You have not lied (2SAAI) to men but to God.” 5And when Ananias was hearing these words he fell down and breathed his last (3SAAI, to lose one’s life energy completely, die). And great fear came upon all those hearing of it. 6And the young men having stood up covered (3PAAI) him and carried him out and buried (3PAAI) him. 7And it came about a three hours interval and his wife, not knowing what happened (PerfAPart), came in (3SAAI) 8and Peter said (3SAAI) to her, “Tell (2SAAImp – urgent aorist) me whether you all sold (2PAAI) the property for so much.” And she said (3SAAI), “It’s true, for so much.” 9And Peter said to her, “Why is it that you all agreed (3SAPI) to test (AAInf) the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of the ones who buried your husband are at the door and they will carry (3PFAI) you out.” 10And immediately she fell down (3SAAI) at his feet (metonymy – part for the whole) and breathed her last (3SAAI, to lose one’s life energy completely, die). And having come in the young men found (3PAAI) her dead and they carried her out and buried (3PAAI) her by her husband. 11And great fear came (3SAAI) upon the whole assembly (ekklesia) and upon all those hearing these things. (Author’s Translation)
Acts 5:1-11 1But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, 2and 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. 3But 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? 4“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.” 5And as he heard these words, Ananias fell down and breathed his last; and great fear came over all who heard of it. 6The young men got up and covered him up, and after carrying him out, they buried him. 7Now there elapsed an interval of about three hours, and his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8And 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.” 9Then 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.” 10And 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. 11And great fear came over the whole church, and over all who heard of these things. (NASB95)

Alright, last week in Acts 4 we looked at the general activity of the early church in Jerusalem in light of the unique situation these believers faced. It was a situation where you had a tremendous number of believers being added to the church daily and in the midst of that you had a number of widows. These widows had apparently moved to Jerusalem with their husbands just before they passed away because Jerusalem was the holy city and everyone wanted to be buried there. Still today you can see hundreds of thousands of tombs on the Mt of Olives. Of course, very few people Jews opt to be buried there today because a) the burial plot costs about $50,000 and b) they fear the eastern half of Jerusalem will come under Jordanian control again and then the Arabs will make a urinal out of it as they did from 1948-1967. So you had this tremendous problem because once a widow believed Jesus was the Christ they were cut off from family funds and that meant there was a desperate need. Second you had the fact that the kingdom was being offered to Israel a second time and the apostles expected the imminent repentance of the national leaders with the result that Jesus would return and set up the kingdom and redistribute the property according to the outline in Ezek 47-48. So holding on to your private property was not that important. So in light of this activity two examples are given, one good example, that’s Barnabas, he was a wealthy Levite from Cyprus and apparently he owned some farm land on Cyprus and he sold it for a very healthy sum of money, something equivalent today to half a million dollars. And when this report came into the treasury boy everyone got excited, “Oh boy, look at this, $400,000,” “Oh really, who gave it?” “Barnabas.” And so the word started getting around and it reached a married couple named Ananias and Sapphira and rather than them thanking God this wealthy couple just had to get in on the accolades. So we see the operation of the sin nature here in these two believers. Apparently they had the weakness of approbation lust and believers sometimes get in on this idea that they want their name in flashing lights and that’s the real motive for doing good works. So when they heard of what Barnabas did and they saw all the kudos he was receiving they just had to do the same thing, and probably on a bit larger scale just to one up him. Now, I an assure you Barnabas was not interested in getting all the accolade. In Acts 14 we see Paul and Barnabas in Lystra and they heal a man and the whole crowd starts chanting “Barnabas is Zeus”, see Zeus was the supreme god of paganism in the ancient world, so they identified Barnabas as the chief god, and “Paul is Hermes” the messenger god, and so this whole idolatrous thing goes on but Paul and Barnabas rather than receive all the praise are disgusted with this, they were not interested in drawing attention to themselves, they were interested in drawing attention to Jesus Christ, so they quickly try to shut that event down. So Barnabas simply did this charity out of the new nature but today we see two believers who did their charity out of the sin nature. And there’s a world of difference, not in the external deed but in the heart motive. So the judgment here is based on the motive which is the issue in Christianity. It’s not what people see you do that gets rewarded by God it’s the heart and since only God knows the heart He judges it perfectly. 
  
Another principle that’s at work here is that when God is starting a new operation unity must be maintained. The last thing a new operation needs is a wild shark, someone who does not submit to authority because before you know it they’ve submitted their plan to a third of the group and before you know it you have a rebellion on your hands. Isn’t that the tactic Satan used after creation, he had the wonderful idea that the creature could cross over the Creator-creature barricade and become like the Creator. And before you know it 1/3 of the angelic realm had fallen. So God always responds the same way to this kind of rebellion, He cuts them out from the start. This is true for the angelic realm and it’s true for the human realm. To see the human realm turn to Joshua 7. Joshua 7 is the background for Acts 5. We can tell from the Greek translation of Joshua 7 called the Septuagint (LXX) that Luke was thinking of an incident in Joshua 7 Luke recognized the same principle we’re recognizing. That at the initiation of a movement unity must be maintained and that unity is maintained by authority. And if you have men like Achan or Ananias and Sapphira in there then problems arise very quickly and these have to be handled. And what God accomplishes when He handles these situations is a) those in authority are verified and b) the group unites under those men. In Joshua a new program was starting, the early military operations in the Conquest of the Land under Joshua. The operation began when they crossed the Jordan river and had a tremendous victory at Jericho now they’ve pressed further inland, and what they’re doing is they’re cutting into the heart of the land to divide the inhabitants and then work from there to the south and to the north in their campaign. So the second city they come to is Ai but when they go up something strange happens, they get run off by the men of Ai and lose 36 men. So something is wrong and v 1 tells us what was wrong. “But the sons of Israel acted unfaithfully in regard to the things under the ban, for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, from the tribe of Judah, took some of the things under the ban, therefore the anger of the Lord burned against the sons of Israel.” Now what were the things under the ban? The word ban is harem, you know this as a word applied to ancient kings who would have a lot of women at their disposal, they were the harem because they were strictly forbidden, there was a ban on those women. Here the harem was not women but the war booty. That was strictly forbidden and apparently what happened is this Achan had a sin nature too and his weakness was gold and silver so he kept some of it for himself and in v 20-21 he gets cut off from the people, they have what one of my seminary professors calls a ‘rock concert,’ it was a little more deadly than a modern ‘rock concert.’ What this accomplishes right off the bat and there’s a principle here for parents in child rearing. Don’t let your kids get away with all sorts of things and say “Oh, little Johnny don’t do that now…poor little Johnny doesn’t know better yet.” Baloney, little Johnny knows exactly what he’s doing, he’s seeing how far he can push your buttons and if you don’t shut that down from the start I can guarantee you some big problems later. The principle is that the hardest discipline needs to come at the very start because that’s when the issue of authority is established. And incidentally, parental authority is an introduction to God’s authority and prepares a child for the gospel. So the heavy discipline comes in the first five years. That’s how the Conquest began and that’s how the Church began. So let’s turn to Acts chapter 5 and see how God disciplines to cull out the bad sheep. 
 
Verse 1, But, word of contrast, the contrast is with Barnabas, But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, 2and 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. So what we have here is a little collusion going on, a simple plot to get accolade, we want all the glory, we want to be known, we want to see our names engraved in the treasury ledger and so forth. So what appears on the surface as a good deed before men is not a good deed at all but is done with the motive to get everybody’s praise. So now they’ve outdone Barnabas because they sold some property, apparently beach front property that got a high price, something on par with what Barnabas gave and they come in, “Oh, we sold some property and we want to give all the proceeds to the needy so here’s $500,000.” But behind all this was a little husband-wife scam going on where Ananias said, “Sapphira honey, we don’t need that property, let’s sell it, and keep some money back for ourselves, no one will know, and then everybody will chant our names and our big fat sin natures will get satisfied.” So they bring only a portion. 

Verse 3, 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? And there’s a difficulty here that commentators often avoid and that is, “How did Peter know? How did he come by this information?” Maybe he knew the property owned by Ananias and Sapphira and was up on market prices and what they handed him wasn’t fair market value. But in fact that’s not it at all. Peter was a fisherman not a real estate broker. What’s happening here is his authority as an apostle is being confirmed because the Lord Himself revealed it to him. Nobody could know this by natural means so that what we have here is God’s verification of Peter’s apostleship. By the end of this passage and the next it is quite clear that these 12 are the apostles, these 12 have authority, and that includes Matthias for those of you who think he wasn’t really the 12th apostle. 

Now notice Peter’s accusation in v 3 and particularly the word filled in v 3, Satan filled the heart of Ananias. That’s the same word used by Paul when he tells believers, “be filled by the Holy Spirit.” What does this mean? Does it mean a believer can be possessed by Satan? So we enter into a point related to the Doctrine of Demons or what we just call Demonology. And obviously there are believers who try to prove that believers can be demon possessed. A lot of this was propagated by Dr Merrill F Unger’s book Biblical Demonology. And while there’s much to be said for Dr Unger’s theology the basis for his argument that a believer can be demon possessed are based on his experience and that of foreign missionaries and not on biblical texts. In fact he actually published this work earlier in his career and taught that demons could not possess believers. Then from 1952 on he changed his position, primarily because his son went crazy and other experiences he read about missionaries in Africa. So this leads to all kinds of unscriptural practices like “binding demons” and “exorcisms.”  So can a believer be demon possessed? First, what do we mean by demon possession. Dr Unger states, “Demon possession is a condition in which one or more evil spirits or demons inhabit the body of a human being and can take complete control of their victim at will.” If that is the case then it must logically follow that the victim cannot be held responsible for the action otherwise he would not be a victim. In our case Ananias and Sapphira are both held personally responsible for the decision despite being filled by Satan. Therefore according to Unger’s definition they could not be demon possessed. But as to our question at hand. Can a believer be demon possessed? Certain passages are used to say they can. The first is King Saul in 2 Sam . The second is Peter in Matt 16:22. Inthis passage we have Peter perfectly identifying Jesus as the Son of the living God in v 16 and just moments later he fails rather miserably. In v 22 he tries to prevent Jesus Christ from going to the cross and He said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan. For you are not setting your mind on” Bible doctrine. Peter had permitted himself to be mentally influenced by the doctrine of demons. That’s clear from Jesus’ assessment that it related to Peter’s “mind.” The problem was not that Satan was inside Peter but that Peter was not setting His mind on Bible doctrine. Because all false doctrine is Satanic in origin Jesus can say to Peter “Get behind Me Satan.” So both of these cases fall short of demon possession and must be categorized as demonic influence. 

The basic reason a NT believer can never be indwelled by Satan or a demon is because he’s already indwelled by the Holy Spirit and these two beings cannot occupy the same space. This was the early argument of Dr Unger and it holds up to Scriptural scrutiny. Now you could try to argue that Ananias wasn’t a believer but the context is about a believer named Barnabas who had the right motive in giving and two believers who had the wrong motive in giving so that solution won’t work. So let’s turn over to 1 Cor 3:16 to show that a genuine believer cannot be indwelled by a demon or Satan. We want to prove that because every once in a while you get a movement of so-called apostles carrying out deliverances, in fact we have one going on right now in Florida with a man who may well be demon possessed himself, Todd Bentley, and all this and it’s just a bunch of hoopla, it’s a part of the error of normalizing the Book of Acts for all time and we’ve said over and over that’s wrong because Acts is transitional and transitional periods aren’t normal. All you have to do is listen to that man for about 5 minutes and you’ll hear some anti-scriptural doctrine come out of his mouth. I listened to him for over an hour and there were countless teachings that were contrary to biblical teachings. Now, the strongest argument against believers being demon possessed is in 1 Cor 3:16, and keep in mind that the believers at Corinth were some of the most carnal Christians you can imagine, they were involved in fornication, adultery, cross dressing, the whole nine yards and yet Paul says over and over and over that, despite your sin you are indwelled by the Spirit of God. So you can’t lose the Spirit of God just because you sin, you can grieve Him, you can quench His operation in your life, you can lose rewards but you can’t lose His indwelling ministry. Now in 3:16 what does Paul say to these carnal believers? “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 17If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.” Now the key word here is “temple” and in the Greek you have two words for “temple,” you have one word that refers to the whole Temple Compound and that’s the word hierus, it’s a general word for the whole complex, then you have a second word translated “temple” which is used only for the holy of holies, that inner sanctum where the ark of the covenant rested and where the glory of God dwelled and that’s the word naos. The naos was the most holy place and it was only entered once a year by the high priest on the day of atonement (Yom Kippur) and when he entered they would tie a rope around his leg just in case he messed up on the ceremonial procedure and was struck dead, in which case they could drag him out. So nothing unholy gets in that space. Now which word do you suspect Paul, very strategically applied here to the believer? Did he use the general word for temple, hierus, or the specific word of the holy of holies? He used the specific word naos, the word for the inner sanctum, the most holy place “you are the naos of God,” Paul says, the most holy place, “and the Spirit of God dwells in you, in that most holy place.” Now you may object “Oh, but that’s just a part of me, that’s not all of me and therefore part of my body can be indwelled by Satan and another part by the Holy Spirit.” Well if that’s your objection then what do you do with chapter 6 verse 19, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” If He’s only indwelling part of your body then you’re only partly God’s. Obviously a ridiculous assertion. Your whole body is a naos, your whole body belongs to Him, not just a part of you but all of you is the most holy place indwelled by the Spirit of God. And you will never have Satan and the Holy Spirit indwelling the same space. Satan can tempt a believer, Satan can influence or even oppress a believer, which is a more intense influence, but all this happens from outside his body but Satan can never possess a believer by entering into the believer as he did Judas Iscariot. And that’s one of the interesting events because we know in the upper room when Judas ate the sop it says and “Satan entered into him” and that preposition “into” is the Greek eis and that means “to go into a vessel” ad yet that preposition is never used of a believer. So you want to keep those distinct categories in your thinking on the Doctrine of Demons, there is Satanic temptation, Satanic influence/oppression and Satanic possession, TIP, all three of those occur in our world, he tempts, he influences and he possesses, very easy to remember by the acronym TIP,

So the believer can undergo the first two, never the third. We can be tempted to sin, we can be influenced to sin from outside our body but we can never be possessed by Satan or a demon. So whatever happened to Ananias was not Satanic possession. We know that because a) if he had been demon possessed then he would have been under the “complete control” of Satan according to Dr Unger and he couldn’t have been held responsible? Yet in v 4 we find out he was responsible. Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? It wasn’t Satan’s fault it was Ananias’ fault, it was Ananias’ idea. So what we must conclude is that Satan influenced Ananias with false doctrine just like he influenced Peter with false doctrine and the believer has the choice to accept or reject that doctrine. In both cases they accepted it, it got down into their heart and began to work its way out. Ananias did not have to buy into false doctrine, he had a choice to reject it just as all believers do. But he chose to accept it. So in summing up Ananias was operating by his own volition under demonic influence just as Peter was in Matt 16:22 when he tried to prevent Jesus Christ from going to the cross and Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan. For you are not setting your mind on” Bible doctrine. He had mentally influenced by the doctrine of demons. 

Now, in v 4 Peter stomps on the communist interpretation, “While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? In other words you didn’t have to sell the land at all, it was yours not the states. And after it was sold, was it not under your control? That is, when you got the money you didn’t have to give a dime to the church, it was yours to do whatever you wanted with it. So Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” Now, compare Peter’s two statements, the first in v 3 where he said, Ananias, you lied to the Holy Spirit and the second in v 4 where he says you lied to God. Who do you think Peter thought the Holy Spirit was? Was Peter a Trinitarian? You better believe it. Peter believed that to lie to the Holy Spirit was equivalent to lie to God. It may have taken the church until AD381 at the Council of Constantinople to articulate the deity of the Holy Spirit but it was well-known and believed by the earliest Christians, including the apostle Peter. 

But there’s something else here. Ask yourself, when did Ananias lie to God the Holy Spirit? For all the lies you can read all these texts, you can read all the verses and I challenge you to find one place where else it’s reported Ananias lying to anybody. There’s only one place in the story that Ananias is lying and that’s right here to Peter, but it doesn’t say Ananias, Satan filled your heart to lie to me; it says Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. Conclusion: this incident shows you why God was so furious, so hard-nosed in His discipline of this couple. He wanted to set an example for all time that His Spirit now works in the apostles. It was their authority on which the apostolic Church must rest and therefore you respect My apostles and don’t you try any funny business with My generals. That’s what the Lord is saying. When they lied to Peter is was just as if they were lying to the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit was working through Peter as His apostle. So that’s the argument behind all this. 

Verse 5, And as he heard these words, Ananias fell down and breathed his last; and great fear came over all who heard of it. I imagine we would all get a little scared if we saw someone just fall over mid-sentence. Some commentators say Peter was too hard on them, why such strict judgment, didn’t Peter understand grace? But if you read the text carefully Peter didn’t do a thing except talk. We know that because v 5 begins with a present participle as he heard and it means that Peter was just talking along, just asking a question and in mid-sentence Ananias just plopped over. It was not Peter who struck him down; it was the Lord Jesus Christ who judged and struck him down. The reason it was done during Peter’s interrogation was to authenticate Peter as His apostle. 

Then The young men got up and covered him up, that is they wrapped him in burial cloths, and after carrying him out, they buried him. So they did this within a couple of hours. This was the common practice in Israel to have funeral just as soon as possible because the climate causes rapid decomposition of the body. This is still the practice. So if you have a family member die at 9 pm the funeral would be held at 2 or 3 am, none of this wait and call all the relatives and make a big to do over it, they just bury them so this was not unordinary to do this. It happened so fast that his wife came in three hours later and already missed the funeral. 

Verse 7, the only thing we want to add is that she did have a clue what had happened, 8And 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.” So this is the good wife who’s submitting to her husband, going along with his plan to the T right, or not right. That’s why in Ephesians 5 where the wife is told to submit to her husband in everything you have to kind of relax that standard when it comes to disobeying God. He takes a priority so learn ladies, yes you submit to your husband but when your husband says, “Now honey, you go forget about God’s program here and go along with mine,” you have the responsibility to not go along with your husband because he’s out of it. And she had a chance here, she did not have to lie, she was not “completely controlled” by Satan or anything like that, she’d just submitted herself to Satanic doctrine right along with her husband and with the same results. Male or female it doesn’t matter, there was no lesser penalty for the females. 9Then 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.” 10And 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. 

Verse 11, And great fear came over the whole church, and over all who heard of these things. Alright so these are the results and they’re results that are important at this early stage in the development of the church and here’s the first use of the word church in the Book of Acts, it shocks me that it’s not in Acts 2 but what it shows is that Luke was a true historian and he’s gradually letting us see that “Yes the Church has started but at the same time you had the kingdom being re-offered to Israel.” So that’s what’s going on. And notice the phraseology here. What’s it intending to stress when he says for example the whole church? Do you see the unity of the thing? Ananias and Sapphira were a source of Satanic division but God countermoved to maintain unity. You can imagine how this must have spread among the people. Rather than Ananias and Sapphira getting their name in lights what happened? They got buried in the ground. And obviously they concluded, “Hey this is serious business here, these apostle characters are God’s generals and we’d better not defy them or we’ll end up in the ground too.” And it’s the same as Joshua 7 because after Achan pulled his stunt people stood up and said, “Yes sir to Joshua and his generals.”