A Lie is a Lie, Is a Lie

by Kenneth Reginald Jenkins
(Savannah,GA)

Acts 5:1-11
King James Version
5 But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
2 And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.
3 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
4 Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
5 And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.
6 And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.
7 And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.
8 And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much.
9 Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.
10 Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.
11 And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.







` Everyone under the sound of my voice has one way or another has lied or is or was a liar. It doesn’t matter if the size or color of the lie, we ALL lied and a lie is still a lie. Which reminds me of what my mama uses to say,” if you lie, you’ll steal. And if you steal, you’re kill”.
Mark Twain said so said eloquently, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
While the number of lies told by an individual during a day varies greatly, there have been scientific studies performed to get an accurate number. These studies indicate that the average individual lies more than 100 times a day.
A study that was published in the Journal of Basic and Applied Psychology about the act of lying. The experiment involved two strangers conversing with each other for 10 minutes, while their conversations were recorded. Although each subject believed they had been telling the truth, after reviewing the footage, the scientists found that 60 percent of all subjects lied within 10 minutes, and the average amount of lies during this time span was 2.92 per subject.
According to the Washington Post, it took President Trump 872 days to top 10,000 false and misleading in The Fact Checkers database, an average of 12 claims a day.



Ananias and his wife Sapphira were members of the early Christian church in Jerusalem as recorded by Luke.
Looking back as recorded in Acts 4:32 that closes by starting that the first followers of Jesus did not consider their possessions to be their own rather held in commons in order to use they had on behalf of those in want.
Here’s somethings I observed while researching for this sermon:
A) Ananias and his wife knew they were telling a lie. Ananias with his wife sold a piece of property and they knew that they kept back for himself some of the proceed brought only a part of it and then laid it before the apostle. The question in mind is, don’t they know you cannot fool or lie to the Holy Ghost or yet to fool or lie to God? Maybe they had the TLKMH aka “The Lord Knows My Heart” syndrome. So, what does the Bible says? “A lying tongue hates its victim, and flattering mouth works ruin.” Proverbs 26:28.
B) The Holy Spirit knew when they were lying. Ananias should of stop while he was ahead because the Holy Spirit knew what they both was up to in the beginning. Abraham Lincoln once said and was so right, “You can fool some of the people all the time, all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”. Let’s put that in a Biblical prospective, “you can fool some of the people some of the time but, you cannot fool the Holy Spirit NONE of the time”. The Bible tells us to “keep your tongue from evil and lips from speaking deceit” Psalm 34:13 ESV.

C)A lesson on obedience, lies and death. The Holy Spirit was at work through Apostle Peter when he questioned them about the money but the both lied about it. The consequences unfortunately was not good for both Ananias and his wife and the outcome for them was death. A physical death for the crime in what we would call today treason; yes, treason against the man of God but most importantly treason against the Holy Spirit with a sentence to death right where they stood. The Bible says they gave up the ghost.”…We ought to obey God rather than men” according to Acts 5:29.
Conclusion. Before we conclude with our message, there’s a story I would like to share with you I found and believe that this will go along with this message and the story itself has a moral behind it.
tHE LYING PRINCe a moral tale

There was once upon a time, a King whose
son was a dishonest telltale.
This dishonest Prince would threaten to
punish the servants if they ever
let the King know about his behavior and acts.

One fateful day, the King and his son, the Prince
left the castle together. They
got to a village, at which
they parted and went on separate ways. As usual, the Prince
went back to his normal
behavior of getting on
everyone's nerves, but the King
returned unannounced and
caught the Prince red-handed,
up to his tricks.
The dishonest Prince took advantage of
the fact that in that village there
was a youth who looked just


exactly like him. He told his father that
it had been the youth who had
done all these bad things.
However, the King, seeing what
a lying snitch this person was,
concluded that the boy in the
village must be his real son, the
Prince.
So the King took the boy back
with him to the palace, and left
the real Prince in the village.
While there, the Prince finally
came to regret his previous life
filled with lies and accusations.
The other young man heard of
this, and decided to forgive the
Prince. He confessed to the King
that he wasn't his real son after
all. The King left the castle and
brought his son home, and the
two young men ended up as
inseparable friends.
And so, what is the moral of this story? If you think you’re a professional liar, your lies will backfire one day. So, stop telling lies from now on.
One more thing, let’s hear what Jesus tells us, “But that comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart comes evil thoughts, murderers, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands not defile anyone” Matthew 15:18-20. Amen.