Dangerous Virus

Acts 5 – Great fear came on the church and over everyone who heard about how deadly serious and honest one had to be to be able to participate in fellowship with God's family. A very strong natural polarization took place but not artificially like the Jewish religion had done. “None of the rest” dared to associate with them, yet they held them in high esteem. Yet at the same time multitudes were constantly being added to their number. These must have accepted the whole truth (v. 20) about God and taken the risk of honesty and vulnerability in fellowship with the saints. The polarization was real and life-threatening. This is a community of healing so full of the presence and passion of God that to hide anything in your heart from exposure was to invite death by glory. No wonder anyone who did not want to be transparent dared not associate with them. The choice had become clear. If you wanted to maintain the status quo system and keep up your fragile balancing act between deception and honesty, you could not associate with these believers. They had become a deadly threat to the very system that keeps the world functioning. If allowed to spread and infect society the whole power and economic infrastructure of the entire world would begin to crumble and disintegrate. These people did not relate to each other according to all the carefully assembled rules, strictures and laws worked out over centuries. Their economy violated all of societies value tables and charts. They didn't subscribe any longer to the human hierarchy flow charts of pride and shame assigned to different positions and classes of people. They didn't participate any longer to the craving for wealth and status and greed. Instead their hearts and their hands were opening wide and they were living within a new social structure totally foreign to this world. It was as if a strong virus had fallen to the earth from outer space and was rapidly infecting more and more people. The men responsible for maintaining law and order and protect the world's societal system felt compelled to impose an antidote quickly to inoculate the masses with fresh transfusions of fear so they would not be suckered into this “dangerous” infection of the mind. The leaders felt compelled to quarantine this virulent infection until it would run its course and die out. And they had to resort to the strongest means at their disposal – fear, intimidation, shame and violence. These are the primary fundamentals of Satan's kingdom to prop up his carefully assembled system of deceptions and keep in place the lies about God embedded in men's hearts.