The Beacon: Ananias

this is, in most cases, the best method of throwing light on any subject; it is the ordinary way, both in the Bible and providence. Both in the sacred record and in common history examples of two opposite characters are frequently submitted, in succession or simultaneously — examples of the good that should be imitated, and of the evil that should be shunned. It is as necessary to moor a buoy over a rock or a sand-bank, as to show a light in a line with the safe entrance to the harbour. Barnabas the Levite, by his deeds of self-sacrificing love — Barnabas is a light at the pier-head, streaming outward through the night, marking for the mariner the way of life: Ananias, dying with a lie on his lips, buoys a rock where many have perished, and warns the wayfarer from the place of doom. Though the two men are not alike good, both examples are for us alike useful. The death of them that die may work for our good as much as the life of them that live. We may reap profit alike from the truth of the true, and from the lie of the false.

When the Lord would teach his disciples how to pray, he did not count it enough to exhibit the publican, standing afar off, and smiting on his breast, and crying, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” He placed near that humble and true suppliant a solemn hypocrite thanking God that he was not as other men. When the Master taught his disciples the blessedness of pressing in while the door is open, he taught them also how dreadful it is to be, even by a little, too late. Of the ten virgins, five were wise, and five were foolish. The wise win souls — their own; and the foolish lose them. This dual method is adopted everywhere in Scripture to enforce moral lessons. In morals as well as in physics, you exert greater power if you apply at the same time an attraction on the one side, and a pressure on the other. Israel of old, and Israel now, are more effectively

H iii impelled toward righteousness, if the curse and the blessing are proclaimed, simultaneous or alternate, from two opposite hills.

“But a certain man.” The little word “but” is the hinge on which great issues turn. For example, “The wicked is cast away in his iniquity; “bid the righteous hath hope in his death.” The door that swings on this sharp pivot opens and shuts the way of life. Sometimes, as here, it turns from light to darkness; and sometimes from darkness to light. In this case you are conducted from Barnabas to Ananias; you step from the bright sunshine of a loving Christian life to the graveyard damp of a hollow hypocrisy — a spirit of darkness caught in the fact of putting on the garment of an angel of light.

The plan was concocted by “Ananias, with Sapphira his wife.” There is concert in evil. It is not the sudden impulse of an unguarded moment. It argues an extreme hardness of heart when two persons, united by the tenderest bond, plan a lie together, and engage to support each other in carrying it out.

The persecution which the primitive Church endured was an efficient means of purifying it. To a great extent the fire did in fact purge the dross away. Tor the most part the first disciples might be counted on for truth and sincerity. But even that terrible ordeal could not make the society immaculate; it did not wash out every stain; it did not turn earth into heaven.

Some chaff is found among the wheat even after the fiercest fanning. You may not be able to explain how the fact has happened, but you observe the fact. It would be difficult to explain the motives which induced this pair of hypocrites to join the company of the Christians, at a time when the profession of that faith endangered liberty and life.

The Beacon: Ananias.

Kor is the easy-going explanation open to us, that as good things were going among the Christians, they might hope to get a share; for, as Ananias was a landed proprietor, he could not possibly expect to be a receiver. A giver, if he joined this society, he must obviously be.

There is a deeper, sadder cause. It is too true that the religious emotions may be much stirred, while the moral sense is not correspondingly quickened and purified. There may be much devotion, of a certain kind, where honesty, or truth, or purity is feebly rooted and liable to die out. The gospel of Christ when understood and accepted tends to purify the heart and life. This can be demonstrated both from its nature and its results. Hope produces holiness: “Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure” (1 John iii. 3). But these two which God hath joined are often put asunder by men.

It is often said, and in certain quarters said with much passion, that a man who does not make a profession of religion is more trustworthy than a man who does. Some persons seem to take a delight in affirming that pious people are greatly given to cheating and lying. It is obvious that this opinion is grounded on the common fallacy of magnifying a

i few glaring examples into a general law. If those who count that all piety is hypocrisy, a mask worn to gain an end, would take time to calculate, they would soon discover that their theory cannot possibly be true. It destroys itself. The assumption is that rogues put on the garb of piety in order to obtain credit, and having thus obtained credit, cheat

! the credulous. Why do dishonest men adopt this method? Obviously because it suits their purpose. Because they

i seem to be religious men, people trust them. But if it were

c the common rule that religious men were dishonest men, they would cease to obtain credit; it would not pay a villain n6 to assume a religious profession; and when it ceased to pay, he would cease to assume it. The averment that bad men make a profession of piety in order to cheat, goes to prove that pious men, as a rule, are honest.

But while to this extent the defence of Christians against that calumny is clear and sure, I don’t think it is right or safe to deny the imputation altogether. There is some truth in it. Indeed, it is the truth which any calumny contains that makes it formidable. Mere calumny, altogether false, has no force, and can do no harm. It soon dies. But falsehood which has some truth interfused lasts longer, and spreads further.

I do not refer to those conscious scoundrels who, having no sense of religion, deliberately make a profession for the purpose of gain Besides this class I own that you meet here and there a man who is not consciously to himself a hypocrite — a man who has been moved in a period of religious fervour, and who, notwithstanding, has not acquired a proper sense of the binding character of the ten commandments. In short there is such a thing as a piety, after a sort sincere, dissociated from truth, and justice, and purity.

The Antinomian is not a mere dried specimen, found fossil in the tomes of polemical theology; he is a living species of our own era. He is sound in his creed, and evangelical in his opinions, and perhaps zealous in propagating the faith; and yet he has a defective sense of the distinction between right and wrong, fair and foul, in the intercourse of life.

Nor should a true believer faint even before such a loathsome spectacle. Such is the condition of the soil, and such the activity of the “adversary,” that tares do here and there spring up and choke the good seed. But let true disciples be of good cheer. The seed is the Word; and a Divine sower has come forth into the world to sow it. It will prevail over the tares and thistles even here in the field; and at the end of the world a separation, complete and eternal, will be made between the wheat gathered into the garner and everything that defileth. When the door is shut, all within will be found true and pure.