The issue was: it was his property. If he wanted to sell it, he could sell it. If he wanted to give it, he could give as much or as little as he liked; but he gave, pretending it was ALL that he'd sold.
In other words he, was trying to create an impression, or an illusion, of a generosity that wasn't there. He was trying to lie; and he said: you're lying to the Holy Ghost, and so it had huge consequences for him. So many times in the Bible, there are examples of words of knowledge.
Anyone who flowed prophetically moved in a mixture of: prophecy; and word of knowledge - right through the Bible.
I'll give you an example of this operating with Peter, when Simon the sorcerer got converted, got baptised; and then he saw that when they laid hands on people, that power came. He wanted that power; and Peter looked at him and said: “I see that you are in the gall of bitterness, and the bondage of inequity”.
He said: underneath, driving that request is bitterness, and there's a whole crookedness in your life around the area; of wanting power, so you look good in front of people. So he was able to, with a word of knowledge, go right to the very root issue that was there, and help the man face and see what his motive was for doing things.
So that's actually like a revelation knowledge; and it could be described as a word of knowledge, or it could be described as discerning of spirits - picking the motivation of the man's heart.
It's a very powerful thing. Words of knowledge are great. One of my daughters served as a responsible adult, RA, in a hostel; and she had responsibility for the whole of the second floor. She had to look after all the students, make sure that there's no one in the rooms, and that kind of deal.
She would lie down, and the Holy Ghost would speak to her. If there was a guy had come onto her floor, and had gone into one of the rooms. He would just speak to her and tell her; and she'd go down, knock on the door, ask to come in; and so you've got a young man in the room - and they would be shocked. How could she possibly know? But God told her, so she just took it, and acted on it, and it opened up, and the whole thing came out in the open. It's exciting isn't it?
You think you could hide from God - it's a bit scary isn't it? But this is normal in the Bible - that the supernatural realm would operate. It's a normal kind of thing, so it could operate around a whole lot of areas; around causes of problems in people's lives, circumstances, family situations, and so on and so forth.
God can open up these things by revelation, can reveal; so when you're working with people, it's a great help if God gives you words of knowledge, and prophetic words for them, because you start to see things you couldn't see before, and it helps bring God to the person.
It's a wonderful gift, a great gift and it comes very gently. It comes very gently. It's just like the slightest, least impression; so in a group like this, there are bound to be many, many needs; and so we could reach out and say: well Lord, is there someone here who has a need? Suppose if we just, for example, we look at the area of healing. We're going to look at how could I move in words of knowledge, around the area of healing?
So I'll just show you a simple way of approaching it. There's many different ways of approaching it, then we'll just step out and see what God does.
So the first thing is we look at: how am I going to get a word of knowledge? A word of knowledge will come as just an impression, a thought, a picture, or some kind of thing; and be very gentle, very light.
So if I was to begin to just picture the outline of a person's body, and I would just ask the question: I wonder is that a man or a woman? Now when you ask God things, ask always: is it this or that, this or that? You'll feel drawn to one or the other - oh, I think it's this, see?
So ask the Lord; Lord, is there someone here that you want to minister to; and is it a man or is it a woman? Man or woman? Which way they were drawn, I sense a woman.
Alright then Lord, well where would she be? Would she be on the right side of this room, or on the left side of this room, where would she be? Is it the right side, or the left side?
Now just listen for the gentlest impression; so is it a man or woman? Is it on the right side, or the left side - it's on the right side. Alright then, so therefore, we know it's probably in this area. So I need to know, what is the area?