after Acts no longer refer to the imminent return of the Lord because the necessary

conditions were gone. The nation of Israel was laid aside in unbelief; that is how they

have been for nearly 2,000 years, and that aspect of the Lord's Coming and of God's

kingdom upon earth, of which they were to be the channel and the centre, has been

postponed because they were blind, deaf and hardened in heart and so completely

Let us go on, to the fourth chapter of the Acts and read together verse 32: "And the

multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of

them ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things

common"--all things shared. This is true communism. Communism is sharing; but

what we know as communism today is Satan's travesty of the real thing; it is sharing,

with the Lord Jesus Christ left out. The sharing of Acts 4: 32 is with the Lord Jesus

Christ in the centre, and it makes all the difference in the world. The Lord Jesus was the

Redeemer, the Saviour, the Centre of this group of His people and as far as earthly

possessions went, they shared, they had all things in common. This is called "the

Apostles' doctrine" which we will look at more closely later on.

As we read chapter 5:, we find there were two believers, Ananias and Sapphira, who

did not conform to this. They had a possession which they sold, and then kept back part

of the price, and they told a lie about it. One may think that this was not a very bad sin,

but it was a serious thing, because this lie cost them their lives.  Peter said to them

(verse 3) "Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part

of the price?" And at the end of verse 4 Peter speaks of lying to God: "You have not lied

unto men but unto God." Again, one may find this difficult to understand. Christians,

alas, may tell lies, but God does not judge them in this way for sin amongst His children

for telling lies? It would indeed be a terrible thing, and someone has said that the

undertakers would not be able to cope with the problem. That might be true. But here, in

the Acts of the Apostles, God is still dealing directly and judging for sin. The age of

grace, as we know it, had not yet started. When God brings in this earthly kingdom sin

will not be allowed to spread like a festering sore. God will deal with it directly every

day "Morning by morning will I uproot all the lawless ones of the land, that I may cut off

out of the city of Yahweh, all the workers of iniquity" (Psa. 101: 8, Rotherham).

Let us be thankful that today we live in an age of abounding grace and longsuffering

of God. Grace reigns (Rom. 5: 21) and if we are found "in Christ", then we cannot come

into condemnation (Rom. 8: 1). We trust this is the happy experience of all who read

these lines.