Chapter II

We learn the reality of the power of Satan.

On this point, Peter's question is very suggestive--"_Why has Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost_?"

There is a constant tendency in those days, which are so impatient of all that is supersensible and wonderful, to try and get rid of the personality of the devil, and to tone down the question of man's salvation to a struggle between two opposing principles within the heart, instead of regarding it, as the Bible teaches us to regard it, as an actual contest for the soul of man between real persons--the Spirit of God from above, the Spirit of evil from beneath. The heart of man is as it were a little city or fortress on the borderland between two nations at war with each other, and which is liable to be captured by whichever at that point proves itself the strongest. But at the same time with this great difference, that every man has the power of deciding into whose hands he is to fall. His will is free: and he is personally accountable for whom he may choose as master.

For, notice how, in the case before us, St Peter, while tracing the fall of Ananias to the agency of Satan, yet prefixes his question with a _why_: "_Why hath Satan jilted thine heart_?" There had been a time when resistance was still possible. Ananias might have rejected the suggestion of the tempter: he was not bound to yield: but he had yielded. And very suggestive of why he had fallen so low, is that other word "_filled_." It brings before us the quiet, gradual manner in which evil takes possession of the heart of man. We have seen already that it was so in the case of Ananias. _Ambition_ to stand well in the sight of others was his first step: to ambition was afterwards added _avarice_: and then ambition and avarice combined led to _deceit and hypocrisy_. Or, as bringing out the same truth of the gradual progression of sin, notice how Ananias apparently first _thought_ over the sin in his own heart: then _spoke_ of it to his wife, and agreed with her that it could be done: and then how together they _carried it out_. Thought, speech, action: how often are these the successive links by which a man is led on from one degree of sin to another? The lesson is surely to resist at the very outset: so much depends upon the first step. We must not give place to even the first thought of evil: nor listen to the tempter's whisper, whisper he ever so softly. How many, as they look back upon a downward career, can trace its beginning to some idle or vain thought, or to some hasty or careless word!