Death by Manipulation

There is a famous story about renowned pastor and author, Bishop Warren A. Chandler, who was preaching to his congregation one Sunday about the sin of Ananias and Sapphaira. In his sermon, he asked the following rhetorical question: “If God still struck people dead for their sins, where would I be?” The question caught some of the people as funny and they burst out in a laughter that spread through the congregation. The Bishop responded, quick and loud: “I tell you where I’d be; I’d be right here preaching to an empty church.”

When we read the story of God’s judgment on Ananias and Sapphaira in Acts 5, it can often seem a bit extreme to us. We may feel that way because we can easily remember times when we have sinned, and we secretly wonder, if God still did such things, “where would I be?”

I think that’s a good thing to ask when we read this story. In the first 4 chapters of the book, God is doing amazing things in and through His Church. Everyone seems to be getting in on the God-action. However, this is a reminder that God is still holy. If people are tempted to play fast and loose with the Holy Spirit, they had better think again.

But this was more than a couple of people stretching the truth in the presence of a righteous God. This husband and wife team took it even farther. They were plotting to manipulate God’s people; they were using their perceived sacrificial spirituality as a tool to gain power and influence among the believing community.

Manipulation rears its ugly head any time we publicly declare something that isn’t privately true so that we can gain from it. Any time we preen over what we have done so that others can think more of us, we are falling into the trap of Ananias and Sapphaira. And though pastors may think God’s mortal judgment today would cause us to be “preaching to an empty house”, I believe we leaders are the most susceptible to these kinds of sins.

Public prayer and preaching are the places where subtle manipulation can become most skillfully employed. There is an almost imperceptible line between embellishing a story, telling someone you are praying for them (when you have not been doing so) and boldly declaring a personal sacrifice that doesn’t exist. And, regardless of the rationale, there is never a righteous boundary between stretching the truth for the sake of your people and lying for the benefit of yourself. It’s all manipulation.

Though I haven’t witnessed God striking anyone dead in my ministry, I have seen people who stop experiencing God’s favor. As soon as we start manipulating the church, we have decided to take ministry out of God’s hands and into our own. Trying to “handle” what belongs to God is a quick way to death (as Uzzah found out in 1 Chronicles 13). It may not be physical death, but any restriction of God’s life or favor or power is too big a price to pay for my arrogance, presumption, or attempted manipulation.