TURNING THE WORLD UPSIDE
DOWN
Jesus Christ knew his disciples
would be ridiculed, physically abused and even murdered. In his great Sermon on
the Mount, he informed his disciples: "Blessed are they who are persecuted
for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you,
when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against
you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for great is your
reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you"
(Mt. 5: 10-12). Jesus also told his disciples: "Remember the word that I
said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have
persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they
will keep yours also" (John 15:20).
Even on the day of Pentecost - the
birthday of the church - the Lord's disciples were falsely accused. The
apostles by the supernatural guidance of God's Holy Spirit spoke languages they
had never studied. "They were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to
speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:4). The
thousands of Jews who were present from a number of different places were
amazed. They asked one another, "What is the meaning of this?" Others
who witnessed these spectacular events simply said: "These men are full of
new wine." In other words, they are drunk (Acts 2:12-13). What an
absolutely ridiculous accusation! If men cannot make sense of their own language
when they are drunk, how could they speak languages they had never studied when
they were drunk?
Throughout the book of Acts,
baseless charges were brought against faithful gospel preachers and against
other Christians. When Paul and Silas were preaching in Philippi, unscrupulous
men "drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers, and brought them to
the magistrates, saying, These men being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city.
And teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe,
being Romans. And the multitude rose up together against them: and the
magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them" (Acts
16:19-22). The men of Philippi knew they were falsely accusing Paul and Silas,
but they were very angry because Paul had interfered with their moneymaking
schemes.
Some of the Jews at Thessalonica
strongly resented the preaching Paul did in the Jewish synagogue. Paul
"reasoned with them (the Jews) out of the scriptures, opening and
alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead;
and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.... But the Jews who did
not believe, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser
sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted
the house of Jason, and sought to bring them (Paul and Silas) out to the
people. And when they did not find them (Paul and Silas), they drew Jason and
certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These who have turned the
world upside down have come hither also; whom Jason has received: and these all
do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one
Jesus. And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard
these things" (Acts 17:2-8).
When men are angry or jealous or
both, they do not always show restraint in their opposition to other views. The
unbelieving Jews in Thessalonica knew they were exaggerating the situation when
they said that Paul and Silas had "turned the world upside down."
Paul and Silas were working diligently to turn men from sin to salvation in
Christ -from the Mosaic covenant to the new covenant in Christ - but they had
not exactly turned the world upside down. Paul and Silas wanted the
Thessalonians and all others to repent of their sins and be baptized into
Christ for the remission of sins, but they had not been able to convert great
numbers to the cause of Christ.
Did Europe in the first century
need turning upside down? Every student of history knows how grossly immoral
many of the ancient European cities were. Paul describes the city of Rome in
the mid-decades of the first century. "When they knew God, they glorified
him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations,
and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they
became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made
like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping
things. Wherefore God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their
own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: who changed the
truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the
Creator, who is blessed forever. For this cause God gave them up to vile
affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is
against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the
woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which
is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which
was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God
gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things that are not
convenient" (Rom. 1:21-28).
The city of Corinth - another
European city - was one of the most immoral places on earth. In his commentary
on The Letters to the Corinthians (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1975), Dr. William Barclay, the famous Scottish theologian,
describes the moral conditions of the Corinthians. If ever a Corinthian were
"shown upon the stage in a Greek play he was shown as a drunk." The
Temple of Aphrodite, the so-called goddess of love, housed a great number of
prostitutes who sold their bodies to raise money for the temple. The city of
"Corinth became a synonym for wealth and luxury, drunkenness and
debauchery, but also for filth" (pp. 2-3). Paul asked the Corinthian
Christians: "Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the
kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor
thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall
inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you" (1 Cor. 6:9-11).
Although the Thessalonians' charge
that Paul and Silas had "turned the world upside down" was an
exaggeration, there should have been no doubt the world needed turning upside
down. When men and women engage in the activities Paul described in Romans 1
and in 1 Corinthians 6, honorable men and women ought to know how desperately
the world needs to change. The change that was needed in Rome, in Thessalonica,
in Athens and in the Corinth was change that could come only by the preaching
of the gospel. The author of Hebrews tells us of the power in the word of God
to change men's lives for good. "For the word of God is quick and
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of
the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb. 4:12).
Does the United States of America
need turning upside down? Time will permit me to mention only a few of the
radical changes our nation should make. Do you know the enormous amount of
pornographic materials that are being distributed and consumed in this country?
Pamela Paul's excellent book, Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming
Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families (New York: Henry
Holt, 2005), points out that 58% of Americans confess to looking at pornography
one time each week and 19% say they look at it at least one time each day (p.
13). Pamela Paul reports: "At least half of the men in Christian churches
struggle with pornography at some level." It has become the leading factor
in divorce. She quotes the results of a survey conducted by Christianity
Today and Leadership magazines: "About 40% of clergy
(religious leaders) acknowledge visiting sexually explicit Web sites" (p.
20).
Tragically, virtually every sitcom
on television and many other programs contain what scholars call "soft
porn." Many of the actresses on television would be arrested for indecent
exposure if they were walking on the streets of our cities. Do those young
women have no shame? Do they have any idea how their obscene behavior
stimulates the illicit sexual desires of the men who watch such programs? It is
obvious they do not care or they would not dress and act like prostitutes. I
spoke a few minutes ago about the prostitutes in the temple of Aphrodite in
Corinth. I guarantee that those temple prostitutes did not dress more
outlandishly that many of the actresses on television. Do the young women on
television ever wonder about their future relationships to their husbands?
Recently Hugh Hefner celebrated the
50th anniversary of Playboy magazine. The media
people treated him as if his contributions to society were on a par with the
work of Dr. Jonas Salk, the developer of the vaccine for polio, or Alexander
Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin. I kept wondering if they were going to
try to make him a Hollywood saint. The truth is: It would be impossible to know
the number of families Hugh Hefner has adversely affected, how many young women
have been raped because of young men's addiction to Hugh Hefner's pornographic
trash, how many babies have been born out-of-wedlock because of young men's
devotion to Playboy and how many people have died from
sexually transmitted diseases because they believed the propaganda of
pornographic magazines like Playboy.
People like Hugh Hefner, Bob
Guccione and Larry Flynt want the American people to be freed from sexual
hang-ups. They want them to believe pornography will set them free. Do you
remember these words from the Apostle Peter's second epistle: "When they
speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the
flesh, through much wantonness, those who were clean escaped from them who live
in error? While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of
corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into
bondage" (2 Pet. 2:18-19). It is unlikely that persons dying from sexually
transmitted diseases will honor Hugh Hefner as the great liberator. He is the
very essence of evil. He is a female Jezebel.
The Tennessean (Tuesday, December
12,2006) published an article entitled "Pop Culture's influence on teens'
sexual attitudes deepens" by Tim Ghianni, a staff writer for the paper.
The article includes words and ideas I cannot use on this program. But Ghianni
provides some statistics that ought to be very sobering. "There were 466
cases of chlamydia reported to the Centers for Disease Control in 2000 and 457
in 2005, according to state HIV/STD epidemiologist Thomas Shavor." This
was for Davidson County. "Statewide that number has increased from 3,173
in 2000 to 4,197 in 2005." Tennessee ranked ninth in the U. S. (United
States) for cases of chlamydia. It ranked thirteenth for cases of gonorrhea (p.
I-D). Some of these sexually transmitted diseases are not fatal, but some of
them, such as, genital herpes, are not curable. Tragically, a child born to a
mother with genital herpes may die from the disease.
If our world is turned upside down
- and most moral people would almost certainly agree that it is - how do we
turn it right side up? I have already given you some insight into how that can
be done (Heb. 4:12). Paul told the Roman Christians: "I am debtor both to
the Greeks, and also to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So,
as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who at Rome also.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation
to every one who believes; to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein
(that is, in the gospel of Christ) is the righteousness of God revealed from
faith to faith: at it is written, The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:
14-17).
There is one word in this reading I
need examine briefly - the word "power." The Greek from which the
word is translated is dunamis - from which we
derive words like "dynamite," "dynamic" and
"dynamo." The verb form of the word is rendered "able" in
the following verse. Paul told the Ephesian elders: "And now, brethren, I
commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up,
and to give you an inheritance among all them who are sanctified" (Acts
20:32). Was the Apostle Paul exaggerating the power of the gospel? Does the
gospel really have the power to change men for good?
A few minutes ago I mentioned the
wickedness that characterized the ancient of Corinth in the first century. The
city was literally full of idolatry and all the sins that accompany idolatry:
fornication, adultery and other sexual sins. At Corinth, there were three major
idol temples: Aphrodite (the so-called goddess of love), Asklepios (the god of
healing) and Apollo (the god of manly beauty). There is no doubt many of the
Corinthians paid homage to these gods. But when Paul and Silas preached the
gospel at Corinth, there was a radical change in the lives of many of the
Corinthians. After listing the gross sins of Corinth, Paul affirmed: "And
such were some of you," that is, some of the Christians at Corinth had
been guilty of all of the sins Paul listed (1 Cor. 6:9-10). He then said:
"But you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the
name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11).
The book of Acts tells us exactly
what happened to change the lives of some of the Corinthians. "And he
(Paul) reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the
Greeks. And when Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in
the spirit, and testified to Jews that Jesus was Christ" (Acts 18:4-5). We
do not know exactly what Paul told the Corinthians about Christ, but we know
what happened as a result of his preaching. "And Crispus, the chief ruler
of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the
Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized" (Acts 18:8). The
Corinthians became new creatures in Christ and were added to the Lord's church
(1 Cor. 12:13).
You cannot read the book of Acts -
the great book of conversions - without knowing the power of the gospel in
changing the lives of both Jews and Gentiles. But there is another element in
changing society we must not overlook - the godly lives of Christians. Great
numbers of men and women have been changed for good by observing how faithful
Christians live and how they die. In his great Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told
his disciples: "You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost
his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing,
but to be cast out, and trodden under the foot of men. You are the light of the
world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do men light a
candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it give light unto
all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see
your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Mt. 5:13-16).
Paul was always concerned about the
impact his life would have on others. He told the Corinthians why he did not
insist on receiving support from that church. “If others be partakers of this
power over you, are not we rather? Nevertheless we have not used this power;
but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ" (1 Cor.
9:12). Paul encouraged the Colossians and the Thessalonians to be concerned
about the influence of their behavior on those who are without, that is, those
who were not members of the Lord's church. He commanded the Colossians:
"Walk in wisdom toward those who are without, redeeming the time"
(Col. 4:5). He urged the Thessalonians: "Give diligence to live quietly,
and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded
you; that you may walk honestly toward them who are without, and that you may
lack nothing" (1 Thess. 4:11-12).
As powerful as the gospel is when
it is preached faithfully, a good example of Christian living may have pointed
more people to Christ than the mere preaching of the gospel. I am not for one
minute denying the power of God's word, but a Christian example is difficult to
refute. When the two - the power of the word and a Christian example - are
combined, it makes a powerful argument for New Testament Christianity.
Incidentally, our purpose in
serving the Lord is to bring men to Christ by the power of the word and by
Christian example - not to try to force men and women to become Christians. The
only sword Christians can use is "the sword of the Spirit, which is the
word of God" (Eph. 6:17). We must also pray that "the word of the
Lord may have free course, and be glorified" (2 Thess. 3: 1).
Winford Claiborne
The International Gospel Hour
Fayetteville, TN 37334