The Peril Of Playing With God Series

As servants of the Savior and creatures of the Sovereign, the worse mistake we can make is To Play With God Our Maker and Judge. For we are reminded from the initial Genesis to the final Revelation of God’s Word that HE DOES NOT PLAY! Yet, not taking that revelation seriously, we have conjured up this “Grandfather Image” of God as being a playful and loving old man who has neither the disposition nor strength to raise His voice in anger or punish disobedient children.

And from that conjured up “grandfather image” we have erroneously deduced since we were created in the image and likeness of God that in many ways God is like us even to the point of believing God Is Playful and sometimes Insincere. But we must be mindful of the fact that ALL EFFECTS DO NOT RESEMBLE THEIR CAUSES. Broken glass does not resemble the hammer that breaks it. Mosquitoes cause malaria but does not resemble malaria. Hot water causes eggs to harden, but water itself is not necessarily hard. All effects do not resemble their causes, and all men are not like God in their being. There is a distinct difference between God and us. So much so that in Psalms 50:21 God said: “You thought that I was altogether such an one as yourself; but I will reprove you, and set things in order before your eyes.” God is NOT like us in His essential being; He is holy and in Him is no darkness at all, He dwells in light which no man can approach. For even the erring and money-hungry prophet Balaam concluded in Numbers 23:19 that, “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man that he should repent.”

GOD DOES NOT PALY! For James in James 1:13 wrote: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts He any man.”

GOES DOES NOT PLAY! For in Galatians 6:7 Paul wrote: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked (played with, made fun of): for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” And to warn us that he is not a Playing God, in Ezekiel 18:4 the Lord God said: “the soul (the person) that sinneth, it shall die.” And I’m persuaded that Physical Death is shu-nuf proof that God Does Not Play!

Yet, we are still prone to Play With God, trying to out wit Him by offering Partial Surrender and expecting to find Total Blessings. And in defence of my argument, I offer our Text as a case in point. For in Verses 1-10 of Acts 5 we are confronted by a husband and wife who learned the hard way that God Does Not Play!

For in the first two introductory verse of chapter 5, we are challenged to come to grips with the fact that a Husband and Wife Had Joined Themselves in Church Membership to a Local Church, but were Not Added by the Lord because they were Not Saved!

And that is significant, because in my study of the context surrounding the text and the text itself, it was revealed to me by the Spirit of Truth that Ananias and Sapphira Never Had A Saving and Life-Changing Experience with the God of all grace. No where is it stated nor even hinted at that these two were members of the household of faith and partakers of our common salvation. All that we are told is that they were of the number of those who came publicly to the house of worship in order to lay part of the money from the sell of a piece of land at the apostles’ feet. But that act does not prove the fact of salvation; it only underscores that Act of Compliance.

Think of a young boy whose mother tells him to take out the trash. He could do the job in about 60 seconds. However, when he hears “take out the trash” a look of sadness and sluggishness comes over him. Somehow he manages to stretch the task into a 15 minute job. And when the mother looks outside, she finds he has left a trail of garbage from the house to the dumpster. He is acting out of Compliance-merely going thru the motions.

When compliance motivates me, I will go to church and sit in the pew when I am supposed to. I will pay my “dues” when I am supposed to. I will act the way I am supposed to. I do these things because I am supposed to. I do not act from a deep and abiding faith relationship with Jesus my Lord, but out of compliance.

You see, when you act out of compliance, you do not think thru the issues involved in your spiritual life. In fact, in acting out of compliance, you lie to yourself about your inner motives and drives. For Ananias did not think things thru; for if he had, he would have realized that he was not trying to fool men but God! He would have realized that Satan takes Compliance and turns it into Disobedience, Deceit and Apostasy.