Be Like Barnabas Not Like Annanias

Appearances can be deceiving.

Illus: A man met a beautiful young lady at the mall and immediately he asked her for a date. She said, “I’ll tell you what, you come to my apartment and I will fix you a nice meal and we will watch television and eat some pop corn together.”

He said that sounded like a good idea, so he showed up at her home at the appointed time.

She greeted him with a big hug and a big kiss at the door. They had a lovely meal together and everything was going great, when he noticed a picture on a table of a man standing by the sofa they were sitting on:

• He said, “Is that your brother?” She said, “No!”

• He said, “Don’t tell me that is your boy friend.” She said “No!”

• He said, “Don’t tell me it is your husband!” Again, she said, “No!”

She said, “Actually that is a picture of me before I had my sex change operation!”

He threw up and went home!

In these days:

• What looks like a woman might be a man

• What looks like a man might be a woman

• What looks like a man or woman might be an “IT!

Appearences can be deceiving!!!

Illus: An old couple driving an old car drove up to Harvard University in 1884. They wanted to establish a memorial for their son who past away recently.

With that in mind they met with Charles Eliot, President of Harvard University. Eliot received the old couple in his office and asked what he could do for them.

They expressed their desire to fund a memorial for their son.

Eliot looking at them in their ordinary clothes impatiently said, "Perhaps you have in mind a scholarship."

They said "We were thinking of something more substantial than that... perhaps a building," the woman replied.

In a patronizing tone, Eliot brushed aside the idea as being too expensive and the couple departed.

The next year, Eliot learned that this plain pair had gone elsewhere and established a 26 million dollar memorial named “Leland Stanford Junior University”, better known today as Stanford University! (Today in the Word, June 11, 1992)

We have people today who think that if they:

• Wear a certain brand of clothes,

• Drive a certain kind of a car,

• Talk a certain way,

They can fool everyone. And they can because appearence is often deceiving.

Illus: There is a man in Columbia, S.C. that has a successful business. He dresses nice, his business has nice office furniture, he is a very good communicator.

Everything he has in his business is to impress you, but if you went to his house he drives a old use car and live in what I call a shot gun house. That is, if you shot through the front door the bullet would go through this little house out the back door and never hit a thing.

But if you go to his office you will find out appearce is deceiving! He has nice office furniture, carpet and drapery.

Appearences can be deceiving

Illus: But the truth is, you can put a pig in a tuxedo but he is still a pig!

We live in an age when making a good appearance has become everything for some folks.

Ananias and Sapphira would have fit right into this age of ours. In the New Testament church, they tried to appear to love the Lord, BUT THEY DIDN’T!