Acts 5:3

Acts 5:3

I. The facts which are here related should lead us to rejoice with trembling. We are members of a Church which is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in that Church the Lord lives and operates with all the fulness of His power. Coming to that Church, we come in contact with a living force, with the breath of an Almighty Spirit, with a Divine inbreathing, which sweeps over the sensitive waters of the soul, either to freshen it to new life, or to involve it in the darkness and tumult of a destructive storm. But while this fact should teach us to be humble, let it rejoice us to know that this spirit, this Divine principle, is the secret of the Church's unassailable strength. It is by reason of this that the mightiest powers of the world have assailed the Church vainly from age to age. It were easy to throw down the walls of this magnificent temple; it were easy to raze to the earth all the noble and stately buildings which the self-denying faith of our forefathers raised to the glory of God; but it were impossible, not only to dry up, but even to reach the sacred Fountain of the Church's life. Nothing can destroy the Church of Christ; nothing can touch her life; and when to such a purified and sanctified Church the armies of aliens are pressing in on every side, in the confident expectation that they have only to strike the death-blow, what shall they find? an empty shrine in the despoiled and enshrouded tabernacle? Nay, but the intolerable glory of God, which shall burst forth like a destroying flame from the desecrated holy of holies.

II. Though this may be an encouraging thought to the Christian, it is naturally suggested to us that it would probably cause the worldly, the careless and unconverted to feel that it were best to get as far as possible out of reach of such a formidable power, as far as possible to ignore its existence. But can we? Can the most careless and hardened among us be altogether as the heathen? There is a worse punishment than the temporal death-stroke of Ananias; there is an eternal death, in which the stroke shall be apportioned, not according to a man's knowledge, but according to a man's privileges, not according to what he has known and believed, but according to what he might have known and believed, if he had used to the utmost of his power those privileges which were afforded to him. If then you would not be found out to your everlasting shame, come to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Bishop Moorhouse, Penny Pulpit,No. 133.

References: Acts 5:1. Homilist,2nd series, vol. iv., p. 205.Acts 5:2. Outline Sermons to Children,p. 216. Acts 5:3. Parker, City Temple,1871, p. 429. Acts 5:12. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. v., p. 32.Acts 5:12. Homilist,3rd series, vol. iv., p. 127. Acts 5:12. J. Oswald Dykes. Preacher's Lantern,vol. iv., p. 577.