John Bevere - Hidden from Parents, Not from God
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It is one thing to think you can hide something from your parents; it’s another thing to think we can hide something from God. Okay, you just read chapter 10. Man, this is getting in-depth; it’s getting good, and it’s changing our lives. Just know this: staying in the Word of God, the scriptures that you’re reading, is going to absolutely change you, even if you’re not aware of it now. In this chapter, we talk about God watching. Let’s go a little deeper into this. All right, I want to make a very important statement: our holy fear grows proportionally to our comprehension of God’s greatness. The antithesis is also true; we will dumb down God’s greatness even to the point of human limitations. The less we fear Him, that’s why you see scriptures in the Old Testament, scriptures in the Book of Ezekiel, like «Son of man, have you seen what the leaders of Israel are saying? The Lord doesn’t see us.»
Now, we all know that when we were kids, we could hide things from our parents, right? Come on, we can hide things from our friends. It is one thing to think you can hide something from your parents; it’s another thing to think we can hide something from God. The Book of Hebrews says there is not one created being that is not fully exposed to the eyes of Him of whom we must give an account. Hey, we’ve got to face it here: the fear of the Lord keeps us in touch with the fact that God sees everything we do, and therefore we have an audience, and I like to call it an audience of one. Live like you’re before an audience of one, knowing that God will see you.
Now, Ananias and Sapphira didn’t do this in Acts chapter 5; they were out. The man from Cyprus, Barnabas, comes in and brings the massive offering; all of a sudden, all the people’s attention goes on to Barnabas. It used to be on Ananias and Sapphira; they were probably the biggest givers in the church. They didn’t like the fact that the attention went away from them and onto the other man, so they said, «Hey, we’re going to go sell the biggest plot of land we’ve got, and we’re going to give only part of it because it’s way too much to give all of it, but we want to appear as if we’re giving everything.» So what did they do? They lied. And when they did, they did it in the presence of that great manifested glory that we talked about in the last chapter. When they did this, they fell over dead.
Now, this is what’s interesting: the scripture says when they fell over dead, so great fear came upon all the church—not all the city, all the church—and upon all those who heard these things. You know, I believe that the glory and the greatness of God that manifested in the early church was great, but I believe what we’re about to see in these coming years, His glory will be even greater. In fact, God spoke to my heart and said the glory of God in these last days will be seven times greater than the Book of Acts—seven times! And I’ve found scriptures; I mean, the Bible says the glory of the latter church will be greater than the former. The Bible says the end of a thing is better than the beginning.
The Bible says, «I gave you the former rain, the outpouring of the Spirit in the Book of Acts; I gave it to you moderately,» which means what the latter rain is going to be will make the Book of Acts look like it was moderate. We are heading for a time of great, great glory. That’s why we need the fear of the Lord, because it purifies our motives; it purifies our intentions so we don’t do something stupid like what Ananias and Sapphira did—lying in the presence of God, deceiving in the presence of God. Hey, this chapter should bring a little holy trembling into your life. That’s good; that’s healthy, because you know what? It will produce the wisdom to never do something stupid like Ananias and Sapphira did. I hope you’re getting a lot out of this message, and let me tell you, it’s really going to kick in from here on out. It’s going to get even stronger and bring a greater resolve in your life to walk close to Him.