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!