TURNING THE WORLD RIGHT-SIDE UP

 

“When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city officials, shouting, ‘These men who have turned the world upside down have come here too, and Jason has received them as guests!  They are all acting contrary to Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king — Jesus!’” (Acts 17:6-7 HCSB)

 

If you are standing on your head, then everything looks upside down.  When the missionaries came to Thessalonica and were accused of attempting to turn the world upside down, they were actually seeking to flip it right-side up!  It was the opponents of the Gospel who were standing on their heads, so that from their perspective the Christian message was insidious and subversive.  They were accused of being revolutionaries.

 

They were—just not in the way the sinful world thought.  It was not a treasonous message that called for deposing Caesar and establishing a political kingdom, but it was rather a call for a spiritual overthrow of Satan’s kingdom and the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.  Christ had declared that His kingdom was not of this world.  It didn’t demand taking up the sword against Rome’s legions.  The Jews of Christ’s day would have gladly fallen in line behind such a Messiah.  They would have died for Him.  Instead, He died at their demand, for they spurned His kind of Messianic Kingdom (see John 18:36).

 

The world was turned upside down in Eden.  A pristine garden would be filled with weeds.  The fruit of the Tree of Life would be placed off-limits and death would reign instead.  Harmony would surrender to dissonance; transparency to cover-up.  Sin brought a cosmic upheaval where everything was flipped over.  Man had surrendered his stewardship to govern the globe and the usurper, the Devil, became the god of this world.

 

Yet, the Lord God would not leave it that way.  His plan of salvation was eternally fixed, even before there was time—before there was an angelic marvel named Lucifer whose fall would degenerate him into Satan, and that Old Serpent would slither into Eden and beguile Adam and Eve.  The world that would be stood on its head was destined to be put right-side up before that world was even spoken into existence by the Sovereign who had already decreed the Son to be the perfect sacrifice for sin as the Lamb of God (see Rev.13:8).

 

The revolution had begun.  The Gospel was the announcement that paradise would be restored, the world would be reclaimed for God, peace and harmony would return, Satan would be overthrown and death would be swallowed up by life!  Eventually, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father! (Phil.2:10-11).

 

The Dragon—the Devil—would not surrender his throne easily.  We find the Christians being accused of sedition.  They are branded as trouble-makers.  Wherever they go, souls are saved and churches are planted—accompanied by riots and suffering.  It seemed Paul and his band of missionary men found accommodations waiting in the jails of every city they entered!

 

None of this stopped the inexorable march of the message of Christ.  Beatings and bloodshed—the movement grew, even as the missionaries often became martyrs.

 

This is God’s world.  He made it.  He bought it with the price of blood.  Now, He is in the process of putting everything right-side up which sin has stood on its head.

 

But, it is like jabbing a stick into a hornet’s nest.  It is as if the church has stomped on a hill of fire ants.  The Serpent is coiled, ready to strike with venomous fangs those who dare tread his turf.

 

Sleeping sinners don’t like to have the bright light of truth shining full in their faces.  Those so slumbering, rocked to sleep in Satan’s arms, don’t want to hear a witness sound an alarm that jolts them awake.

 

But, some respond in faith.  The elect hear the call.  The Spirit draws them and salvation comes.  So, Luke describes the pattern—the preachers come, the Lord works, Satan resists, and the missionaries move on to take the revolutionary message to another city.  They leave behind a church that has been planted.  That church will be the base of operations for the counter-insurgency against the forces of darkness.

 

Things surely looked bleak at times.  Riots met them in Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-9), Berea (17:10-15) and Corinth (18:1-28).  Ridicule was the weapon of choice rained down on Paul in Athens (17:16-34).  But, God encourages His witnesses to press on.  Demonic resistance is a token of Gospel effectiveness.

 

“Then the Lord said to Paul in a night vision, ‘Don’t be afraid, but keep on speaking and don’t be silent.  For I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to hurt you, because I have many people in this city.’ 

 

And he stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.” (Acts 18:9-11)

 

Not only did the Lord call out many people—His elect—through the preaching of the Word of God, but those disciples flourished and some of them excelled.  Among those, “many people” God had in the city of Corinth, we read of Aquila and his wife Priscilla and the remarkably eloquent Apollos who would come along after Paul had departed.

 

The Gospel puts things right-side up.  It is radical.  The message is unsettling.  It disturbs the status quo.  My life turned when I met Christ.  I have never been the same.  My thinking, my values, my passions and actions are 180 degrees different than they were.  Once bound for hell, I am bound for the Promised Land.  Who will come and go with me?