^“And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things,”

Acts 5:11

Another point of contention with many is that God would take out sinners without granting them repentance. There are many preachers today who, regardless of how a sinner lived or died, they will preach them into heaven. How many times we hear those words repeated, ‘They are in a better place now.’ Such could not be said of Ananias and Sapphira. Again, some would argue that because they were attending a Gospel Church, and heard the Gospel preached, and were highly considered members of the congregation, that we dare not judge them as being reprobates. And yet, does not the goodness of God lead to repentance? Had they been truly the LORD’S, would He not have drawn their hearts to Him, as He did with Peter, even in his greatest moment of denial and fall? Peter and Judas both betrayed our LORD, and yet in the end, one was brought again to Christ in repentance [Matt. 26:75] while the other, left to himself, went out and hanged himself [Matt. 27:5].

Left to themselves, sinners will hide in the fig-leaves of their religion and false righteousness, appearing to be outwardly ‘committed’ to, and ‘serving the LORD.’ Ananias and Sapphira are typical of such who have an appearance of piety, and unless exposed by the LORD, would live and die without anyone discerning that they are mere great pretenders or professors. Many will not be exposed until the day of judgement, [Matthew 7:22]. As Paul wrote to Timothy those inspired words, “Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after,” [1 Timothy 5:24].

The true bottom line is that Ananias and Sapphira, left to themselves had no fear of God, [Romans 3:18]. Such would be our case, but for the grace of God teaching us to deny our own hypocritical works as deadly and ungodly. The LORD slew them before the congregation for two reasons:

1. To expose them as being unregenerate condemned religionists who thought themselves the wiser for acting as if they were wholly dedicated to the honor and glory of Christ, and yet were actually self-serving. They pretended to do all to the glory of God, and yet held back a portion for themselves, as so many today in ‘christendom’ who say that salvation is of the LORD and by Christ alone, and yet inwardly hold on to a portion of the glory for themselves, praising their supposed free-will decision. On the one hand they give lip service to Christ and His death as the ‘ground’ of their salvation and justification, and yet inwardly believe that their believing, by exercising a supposed faith, is what sealed the deal. That is just as false and deadly thinking as that of Ananias and Sapphira, agreeing together to ‘tempt the Spirit of God,’ [Acts 5:9].