It was the first intimation the unhappy woman had received of Ananias’s death:  and to the shame of her own consciousness of guilt, must have been added the feeling that she had a certain responsibility in what had befallen him.  A word of remonstrance on her part might, at the beginning, have prevented the crime:  it was too late now. “And she fell down immediately at his feet, and gave up the ghost:  and the young men came in and found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her by her husband” (ver. 10).  And as the sacred historian again impressively adds, showing how deep was the effect produced:  “And great fear came upon the whole church, and upon all that heard these things” (ver. 11).

Such is the story.  Who does not feel its sadness?  All before had been so peaceful and happy.  The early believers had presented such a beautiful spectacle of brotherly unity and love.  And now, all too soon, the enemy had been at work, sowing tares among the wheat.  In the very particular in which the Church most deserved praise—­the enthusiasm of its members’ charity—­sin had appeared.  And thus early had the young Church of Christ learned that truth, which it has been the work of nineteen centuries to emphasise, that her true danger comes not so much from without as from within, and that then only is she disgraced, when she disgraces herself.

For what may we learn from this tragic incident?

I.

We learn the sanctity, the holiness, which Christ looks for in His Church.

The Church of Christ is holy:  it consists of those who have separated themselves from the world and its defilements, and who have set themselves apart—­body, soul, and spirit—­for Christ’s service.  That, I say, is the Church’s ideal.  But we know, alas! only too well, how far short the Church on earth falls of that—­how much worldliness, and vanity, and ambition—­yes, and even grosser sins—­mingle with our holy things.

But we must keep God’s ideal ever before us, that ideal which assures us that God, by His Spirit, actually dwells in His Church, dwells in the heart of each individual believer.  Only when we remember that, can we see how great was Ananias’s sin. “He lied to the Holy Ghost:  he lied not unto men, but unto God.”  As by God’s Spirit his heart had been enlightened and opened to the knowledge of the truth:  so now against that Spirit he had deliberately sinned.

Such a sin could not pass unpunished.  Had that been allowed, the false impression would have got abroad that God was easy and tolerant of sin.  Rather it was necessary “that men should be taught once for all, by sudden death treading swiftly on the heels of detected sin, that the gospel, which discovers God’s boundless mercy, has not wiped out the sterner attributes of the Judge."[1]

II.