Ask Andrew – Andrew answers specific questions from partners and online viewers. Get insights and truths from Bible teacher Andrew Wommack.
so here’s a question says how does the
incident in acts with Ananias and
Sapphira fit into the grace message well
for those of you that aren’t familiar
this is Acts chapter 5 and the people
were pooling their money together and
having all things common it was a
communal lifestyle Ananias and Sapphira
said that they had sold some property
and they brought the whole thing but
they only brought a portion of it and
they had agreed together to lie to the
body of believers and in a sense take
advantage of them take advantage of all
that they could get from this communal
living but not give and not be totally
honest and when this happened
Peter confronted Ananias about it and
found out what he had done and Ananias
fell down dead and so they picked him up
took him out to bury him and right as
those people who buried Ananias were
coming in Sapphira his wife had come in
and Peter walked up to her and says did
you sell the land for so much and she
said yes and so that showed that she was
complicit in this that they had agreed
to do it and Peter said that the feet of
those who buried your husband will also
carry you out and bury you and she fell
down dead and so some people look at
this as the direct judgment of God upon
them I heard some people say that this
was them just finding out that they were
caught and fear hit them so much that
they died of a heart attack
God didn’t do it and so this poses a
problem first of all I believe that God
did do this because it says that Peter
went and pronounced this judgment on
sapphire in other words she didn’t just
you know get afraid because she was
found out and fell down had a heart
attack Peter pronounced that she was
going to die so I believe that God is
the one that did it now that raises the
question well what about the grace of
God well there’s one of two
possibilities either Ananias and
Sapphira were not true believers which
exempted them from the covenant of God’s
grace they were still under the law and
therefore worse
objected judgment if they were only
Christians in name only but not
practicing Christians or here’s another
option and this is what I believe it is
I believe that a Christian can renounce
their faith this is not something you do
over and over and over like some people
believe that you’re saved and then you
see in and you’re lost and your back
slid and you got to pray again and get
born again again and so you’re saved
lost saved lost saved lost I don’t
believe you can do that but I believe
that one time you can renounce your
faith it’s not losing your salvation
like you lose your keys or something but
it is a renouncing of your faith in
Hebrews chapter 6
I won’t take time to go through but
there’s five qualifications basically
saying that only a mature Christian can
do this an immature Christian cannot
renounce their faith but if a person is
a mature Christian and knew what they
were doing then they could renounce
their faith and once you do that it says
that you’re reprobate you can never come
back there is no repentance from that
and so in that case they would have been
again outside of the covenant they
wouldn’t have been a part of this
covenant and God would not have violated
his promise to never hold their sins
against him because they had renounced
the covenant so it has to be one of
those two things either they were not
true believers and therefore weren’t a
part of the new covenant they were still
under the wrath of God or if they had
been believers they renounced their
faith by tempting God like this and
therefore we’re outside of the covenant
when God judged them there’s a lot more
than I could say about that if you were
to turn to Acts chapter 5 in my life for
today commentary which is either a
hardcover Edition or you can go on our
websites you can get that free of charge
and look it up it’ll list a lot more
than what I was able to save