This is clearly seen and shown in Acts 5, where Ananias  and Saphira brought in the sale of the land proceeds to do the church, led by Peter. When they presented the money to Peter, who was full of the Holy Spirit, the money was not the full proceed of the sale of the land. Peter then asked if this is the whole amount of the sale of the land? Ananias promptly said yes, so he lied.

And then Peter responded. You didn’t lie to me, but you lied to the Holy Spirit with that Ananias drop dead. The fear of God struck the entire 5000 people congregation. No much later Saphira came in, who is a Ananias’ wife, Peter asked the same question to her and she responded promptly yes again. And then Peter said “ Saphira why did you lie to the Holy Spirit? The man who carried your husband I will be coming into carry you out now.” And she dropped dead as well.

That is horrifying that death sentence should be given to a mere lie, which is so common in our society today and in the society at that time as well. So why did God judged them dead? This is a myth, and the commentary by Carson NIV and says that God demanded purity, supremely important in church at the birth of the first church as example to everyone to maintain at the highest standard. Peter said something astounding because he said told him that he lied to the Holy Spirit and why did you let Satan fill his heart and deceive the Holy Spirit? No does that mean that every time one lies or someone lies, the person is filled all influence by the Satan?

Definitely yes to a certain extent but not all the times. But in this case it is specifically called out as influenceable Satan. So why did Satan want to deceive a good man who made great sacrifice to bring his money to the church? Let’s just say that in the ecclesiastical world today, this will not happen. No church leader has the authority and audacity to proclaim death sentence upon a church member let alone a member who brought in thousands of dollars to the churches in offerings albeit he kept some for himself without telling the church. but that is a critical moment and in God’s sight, who deemed it fit to pronounce the death sentence.

There is, there are only two other cases in the Old Testament that receive death sentence on the spot, one is Aaron’s two sons, who offered up strange fire, wrong offerings to the Lord, and they were struck dead. And the other one is Achan in the time of Joshua, he disobeyed the Lord’s commands, and hid some treasure of the plunder from the enemy, for himself, some jewels or something. And because of that, the Israelites were defeated by the enemy.

I guess it is the consequence of that lie more than the lie itself that caused the death sentence to Achan. Because they can win against the law to commit explicitly, knowing that the warning that anybody going against the Lord’s command will cause the defeat of Israel, and be severely judged. So you can explain that.

But today if you look at the churches today we can’t even call our sin as sin publicly for fear of offending the tide of the culture and the society at large in a nation where liberalism has taken to another level. The early church in the Pentecost time clearly manifest an Apostolic thority there is unparalleled but nevertheless we can learn a lot about the boldness and courage required to implement the fear of God in our land in our churches from Peter. Under the unction of the Holy Spirit there’s a lot more the church leaders in our day and age can do and preach on and proclaim. However without such unction and anointing you’ll be futile to try to do that because it will fall flat because it is man’s effort not God’s unction. Peter did not operate from human motivation all authority or prompting, no matter how much Apostolic he is, there’s no way that he can do what he did without the unction from the Holy Spirit.

My conclusion is that church leaders should seek the unction of the Holy Spirit and speak a prophetic voice on the puppets to the churches without fear of man but rather with the fear of God. I think a lot of changes will come with the prospect of revival or spiritual awakening if we do that. Yes how much we need the Lord!