(3) What a responsibility is involved in being brought near to God as members of His Son's Church below! There were hypocrites in abundance at Jerusalem at that time, but they had not been blessed as Ananias had been, and therefore were not punished as he. There is a reality in our connection with Christ which must tell upon us, if not for good, then inevitably for evil. Christ is either the savour of life unto life or else the savour of death unto death unto all brought into contact with Him. In a far more awful sense than for the Jews the words of the prophet Ezekiel are true, "That which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone;"[106] or as the poet of the _Christian Year_ has well put it in his hymn for the eighteenth Sunday after Trinity:-- "Fain would our lawless hearts escape, And with the heathen be, To worship every monstrous shape In fancied darkness free. Vain thought, that shall not be at all, Refuse we or obey; Our ears have heard th' Almighty's call, We cannot be as they. We cannot hope the heathen's doom To whom God's Son is given, Whose eyes have seen beyond the tomb, Who have the key of Heaven." [106] Ezek. xx. 32. (4) Lastly, let us learn from this history how to cast out the fear of one another by the greater and more awful fear of God. The fear of man is a good thing in a degree. We should have respect to the opinion of our fellows, and strive to win it in a legitimate way. But Ananias and his consort desired the good opinion of the Christian community regardless of the approval or the watchful eye of the Supreme Judge, who interposed to teach His people by an awful example that in the new dispensation of Love, as well as in the old dispensation of Law, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and that they and they alone have a good understanding who order their lives according to that fear, whether in their secret thoughts or in their public actions. CHAPTER XII. _GAMALIEL AND HIS PRUDENT ADVICE._ "And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will be overthrown: but if it is of God, ye will not be able to overthrow them; lest haply ye be found even to be fighting against God. And to him they agreed: and when they had called the Apostles unto them, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go."--ACTS v. 38-40.