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From Eliyahu

Consider this:

Are you comfortable with the fact that the Almighty kills people? A lot of folks really aren't.

A good example of this is the story of Ananias and Sapphira, a couple (among the believing community by the way) whose story can be found in the book of Acts, in chapters 4 and 5. The first few chapters of Acts are glorious! As you read through them there is amazing grace, grace, grace, and more grace - and all of a sudden this believing couple conspire to lie to God and, pivoting on a dime, He suddenly and unceremoniously strikes each of them down dead before everybody!

Not surprisingly, a lot of people have trouble reconciling that "New Testament" account with Christian theology, which tends toward presenting a short-tempered angry God in the "Old Testament", and a more cuddly and easy-going kind of "New Testament" God [..the more harmless God Who is preferred by just about everyone]. Of course, the Ananias and Sapphira story blows that dichotomy to smithereens! It turns out, the God of the Bible is consistent throughout, so can be angry and kill people in both "Testaments."

Flying in the face of the Scriptural evidence, many refuse to believe that. It is not uncommon for some people to be so spooked by the obvious fact that God kills people (believers no less) in the NT, that they refuse to accept the passage as written. This is where they make stuff up.

for example, some Christian teachers claim Ananias and Sapphira died of natural causes and it was just a coincidence they happened to die right then - each of them! This comes across as what it is - an attempt to negate the force of the passage, as if it does not exist in the Bible. Religionists do this a lot, by the way. It is not uncommon among them to attempt to explain away parts of the Bible that make them feel uncomfortable. 

Along a similar vein, some have blamed Peter for the deaths, saying he was just not up to speed with the whole grace thing yet, and it was Peter's mistake. Yet, in the story, Peter did nothing to harm either Ananias or Sapphira. He merely told them what and why, pronouncing what the Spirit had revealed to him. Blaming Peter falls flat, since the power behind the deaths is obviously not from Peter, but from above.

The truth is, there is nothing in the Ananias and Sapphira story that departs in the least from the most basic facts of Scripture. It is elementary, that the Creator has ultimate control over life and death. Yes, it is within His prerogative to kill people. The Scriptures declare:

[YHWH says] “See now that I, even I, am he, There is no god besides me. I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand."  Deuteronomy 32:39

“YHWH kills, and makes alive. He brings down to the grave, and brings up. YHWH makes poor, and makes rich. He brings low, he also lifts up." 1 Samuel 2:6-7

Getting more personal now, YHWH has already determined the day of your death, in the event you do not live until the return of the Lord. He can change that if He chooses, but nobody else can.

"Since [a man's] days are determined, The number of his months is with You; You have appointed his limits, so that he cannot pass. Look away from him that he may rest, Till like a hired man he finishes his day." Job 14:5-6

Our life is not our own - it belongs to our Creator. All of us are here at the Creator's good pleasure. He is fully within His rights and responsibilities to set the length of one's life, to shorten that if He deems it appropriate, or to lengthen it if He chooses. Further, He owes no explanation for any of His decisions, even if He sometimes chooses to offer such. There is comfort in this truth of the absolute sovereignty of Elohim. Only He knows what is best, all the time.

Do you believe this? "..Elohim is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." 1 John 1:5

Knowing Him, that there is no darkness of evil within Him, that all He does is absolutely righteous, and that He loves His own forever, we can feel a great comfort and peace in His absolute sovereignty over all - even over the timing of our own death. All His ways are perfect, from the founding of the world.

Please join me for the live meeting to be aired tonight, at tsiyon.net, at 8 pm cst, as we learn the truth about the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira.