110
THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS fer from the rarity of such judgments that God’s mind has changed as to the exceeding sinfulness and hatefulness of the sin He has thus rebuked. He has reared a permanent memorial of His holy hatred of this sin .thenceforward forbearing with other like offenders un til the day of judgment.-;—-Pierson. Memory Verse.— “ Lying lips are abomi nation to the Lord; but they that deal truly are his delight.” Prov. 12:22. Approach.— Do you remember our story last week about some wicked men who did not want Peter and John to preach Jesus to the people? Were P e t e r and John BEGINNERS , afraid of the wicked AND PRIMARY rulers of the city? Mabel L. Merrill. No, indeed they were not afraid for they loved Jesus and they knew He was God’s Son, and they knew what they were telling the people was the truth, and so they prayed and asked God to make them brave and help them to tell all the people they met about Jesus. Now today we are to hear a story about two people who listened to Satan and of course they disobeyed the Lord Je sus, as we always do if we listen to Satan. Prayer. Lesson Story.—As we have been learning in our different stories about Jesus and how He gave power to the disciples to preach to the people and heal the lame man, and also of the large number of people who listened to all that Peter and John tojd them and be lieved on Jesus and were saved, so there were a large number of people now in the first church. There was a man in this early church who sold some land and he brought all the money he got for the land to the disciples to help in God’s work in the church, or give to Peter stands up for truth and hon esty. Acts. 5:1-11.
should come upon the offender. Other wise we could hardly account for the calm manner of the apostle when such a startling judgment was inflicted in an instant.— Camb. Bible. This terrible judgment doubtless fell as a check to that kind of offense which brought^ in all the trouble of the early church. Had the sin not been so visited in these early days of the church, the whole work of the apostles might have been upset. Now that the church has at tained a firm foothold, instant punish ment is not necessary.— Sel. The true church must be free from such hypo critical professors or its work could not advance. The lesson was to be stamped into the hearts of all who were fit to be of the church.-—Lumby. v. 6. Carried him out and buried him. The first burial in the early church was that of a hypocrite.— Sel. v. 10. Sapphira fell down straight way. If everyone who is lying to God today should drop dead instantly, our churches would be decimated. Judg ment is none the less sure because it is not so swift.—Torrey. These severe judgments were designed to maintain the honor of the Holy Ghost as lately poured out in order to the setting up of the Gospel kingdom.—Henry. v. 11. Great fear came upon all. This effect on the Christian community was the chief design of so startling a judgment, which had its counterpart, as the sin itself had, in Achan (Josh. 7) while the time— at the commence ment of a new career—was similar. The Holy Spirit is pre-eminently the Spirit of love and grace but He is also the Spirit of truth and demands “ truth in the inward parts” . ‘Once for all’ He found it needful to impress His actual and awful presence by a judicial infliction of penalty the like of which never occurs again in the record of His acts. This was needful for saints but especially for sinners. We must not in
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker