A World Turned Upside Down

The Bible uses analogies about many things, and one has to do with society as a whole. It's like a current that is flowing, and that people, when they're born, they're placed in that current of that river. And society and culture just takes them along, and most people, they just adapt to that current. They don't look at where they're headed, what they're doing there, how did they get there? So let's look at one of those descriptions in Ephesians 2, verse 2, where it talks about the current of the world. It's actually using the term stream, the stream of this world. In the Phillips translation, it says that you drifted along on the stream of this world's ideas of living and obeyed its unseen ruler, who is still operating in those who do not respond to the truth of God. So most people, when they're ignorant, they're just going along, as they say, in the stream of life. And we know God has called us. He's placed us in a different stream.

As those outside of the church growing up, I thought our world was very normal. It was all I knew, but it really wasn't that way when I discovered the truth of God.

I found out this isn't even the first world for mankind. It's actually the second world. The first world was lost and destroyed. Where was it? It was in the Garden of Eden, described in Genesis chapter 2.

The animals were all tame. The plants were all beautiful. There weren't any thorns. There weren't any poisonous plants. Everything was very fruitful. Perfect weather.

But in Genesis 3, man rebelled against God, disobeyed him, and chose to live under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and under the influence of Satan.

And that's the world we know now. Notice what it tells us in Genesis 3, 16 through 19, in the New Living Translation. Then he said to the woman, I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth.

I know my wife went through that twice. We got two for the price of one, which is nice. We got two born first, and then we got twins. But she didn't want to go through that labor pains again.

And that's what medical science tells you, that of all the different beings on this earth, it's the woman that suffers the painful labor pains.

Horses in the barn, they just have their little stallion just born right away. You've seen with the puppies and cats.

And so that's part of this second world. It's a fallen world. He says, and you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.

So instead of cooperating very much, many times we see in society the tug of war.

That's why there are so many marriages and in divorce or in unhappiness.

And to the man, he said, since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree, whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains.

By the sweat of your brow, you will have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return. So that's the world we woke up to. This is the world, and we just followed the stream of wherever our culture and religion took us, of our parents and forefathers. So we think this world is normal, but it isn't. It's a distorted world called in Galatians 1, verse 4, in the Bible in basic English, calls it this present evil world. So let's not be deceived.

That's the way it is. And actually, it's an upside world in its way of thinking. When Paul, who thought he was in a normal world, was called and converted by God, his thinking was turned right side up. He could see things he had no idea existed. And he began to teach this new way of life and about the coming kingdom of God.

And what did they accuse him of? Notice in Acts 17, verse 5. Acts 17, verse 5. He was... Let's see if I got that right. You know, I think... Oh, yes. That's verse 5. It says, But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, talking about Paul, took some of the evil men from the marketplace and gathered a mob, set all the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city.

They didn't find Paul. And they were crying out, These who have turned the world upside down have come here, too. Why? Because they lived in an upside down world of values. And Paul was bringing it right side up. So they were the ones that were wrong. We have been deceived into thinking this is the normal world, the only one that has existed.

We get used to a world of violence, lust, hate, evil, poverty, injustice, but covered with a thin veneer of civility. We just got civilization, just a thin veneer. When it cracks, you have war, you have violence, you have all kinds of things that happen. Notice in Isaiah chapter 5. Isaiah chapter 5. Starting in verse 20. It says, So this world can actually turn values completely opposite. What is good, according to the Bible, is bad for them.

And what is they consider bad is actually good for them. That's the upside down world we live in. Also, the teachings of the world are upside down. The Bible in Mark 2 calls Jesus Christ the Lord of the Sabbath. And what do they say today? No, Jesus Christ is the Lord of Sunday. And instead of keeping the Feast of Tabernacles, they say, no, that's bad. Let's keep Halloween or let's keep Christmas. That's good. You see how the values get changed around?

So in a sense, when we were born and brought up, unless you were already in the truth, you already were in the church, but if not, you figuratively went around using lenses that had everything upside down. And you get used to the world with its upside down values, and you think they're fine. People get used to it, just like the frog in the kettle. Just raise the temperature slowly, and it gets used to it.

It eventually gets boiled because it never jumps out of the kettle, because it never knows the dangers involved in conforming to this world. We think we can't be deceived. Our eyes tell us the world looks normal and fine. Yet it is Satan's distorted world. We should never be fooled by this. And this is a reminder for us never to forget this deceptive world and to fall from the grace of God.

In 1 John 5, verse 19, and the easy reading version, it says, We know that we belong to God, but the evil one controls the whole world. It's like the matrix, kind of like an evil matrix that Satan set up where people have to wake up from it.

Do you think your eyes are so reliable that you just trust your senses to tell you what's good or bad? No, they are not. Our mind can be deceived, and we can deceive others as well. So I'd like to show you a video. It's called Windows of the Soul by the Moody Science Institute. It's an old, but it's a classic. So we want to show you here five minutes to show you how our eyes can deceive us and how upside down can look like right side up. So I think we made our point about how you can be deceived even by your eyes. And God told us that when He called us, we would find hostility.

We find a world that would not congratulate you for finding the truth at all. It's totally the opposite. There's hostility. The world insists they are right. Notice in 2 Corinthians 4, it tells us about a veil that covers mankind. Satan has put that veil of deception. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 3, it says, So there is a veil, and that is lifted once God calls us. It's a great privilege. And we should never take it for granted. Notice another scripture, 1 Peter 1.

It says here about the stream of society. He says, verse 17, 1 Peter 1. It says, It's an aimless life. Other translations have it. As a passion translation says, It says, And you were redeemed from an empty and futile way of life handed down from generation to generation. And so we could have been born in other places, and what would we be doing? Well, we'd be following the stream of life that they who surround us are following.

If we were born in China, we would be thinking like the Chinese, or maybe the Eskimos, and thinking that everything is normal in our polar world. When Eskimos in the past, they didn't have access to much of the world, when somebody would bring them a flower, they would actually say, what is that? That's ugly. That's not like our beautiful white area. So again, the prejudices that we build up. Also cannibals. If we were born there in Africa, one of these cannibal tribes, we'd be eating people, and we're thinking that's perfectly fine.

We don't examine things. We don't question them. And we don't examine things in the light of Scripture. So we have been fooled in the past in thinking this is a normal world, when it's not thinking right. This is something we should realize and never forget. Let's go to Hebrews 6. Hebrews 6, verse 4. Here it mentions that in Hebrews 6, verse 4, it says, For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, the light of truth came, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, you can understand it now, and the powers of the age to come.

So we have God's Spirit, that power that we have tasted. And so it's very important to remember this is not the normal world. Let me just give you a couple of examples. For instance, the animal world, 90% are wild animals. Only about 10% are tame.

Just go into maybe the desert or go into a jungle. How many animals are you going to see there that are friendly? No, you better be watchful. Something can pounce on you pretty quickly. 90% of the plants are not good for eating. Very few are edible compared to the wild plants that are there. About 70% of the world's land is not cultivated. Even a place like the United States that has not only the coasts, but also the Great Plains, but it also has huge mountainous areas, the rocky mountains.

When you cross the United States, you see how empty many places are. In Latin America, you have the Brazilian forest that covers over 50% of the land in South America. Impenetrable forests. I once flew from Chile all the way to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. It was just miles and miles of jungle. What are you thinking? Hopefully this plain is not going to fall because you will never find it. You have places like in Africa, again, the big jungle, the Congo jungle, and all of this.

Then you have the Sahara Desert. Basically, in Egypt, it's only along the Nile River that most people live. You go a couple of miles, 10 miles, 15 miles off. It's all desert, all the way down to the Atlantic Ocean. You have the huge areas of Russia that are either frozen, like the area there of Siberia.

You have the Gobi Deserts. You have so many parts. Most of the people actually live around the shores of the continents because there are huge forests, huge jungles, or large deserts.

Cities, about 70% are overpopulated, polluted, wrong planning, all agreed to squeeze every square foot available to make money. The climate, about 70% is not benign. We're very thankful here, but you know, in many parts of the world, climate is either too hot or too cold.

Look at the countries around the world. About 80% have hostile neighbors.

They're armed to the hilt.

Families, around 80%. Marriages and families are not truly happy. About 50% with a divorce rate, that is those that marry, because so many are just living together.

So a lot of those stats distort things.

Poverty from the data of 2022, two-thirds of the world is poor and live with less than $10 a day with little hope of betterment.

Sickness, most people in the world have some type of sickness that will eventually kill them.

Aids, sexually transmitted diseases, diabetes, hardening of the arteries, cancer, many other things.

In a study published in 2015, in the Lancet, which is a medical magazine, analyzed the data from 188 countries and found that only about 4% of the population has no health problems.

96% have health problems.

So the world we look forward to is the original and normal world. We should never forget that.

Notice in Acts chapter 3, Acts chapter 3 verse 19, Peter in his first sermon, Pentecost, said the following.

Acts chapter 3 verse 19, he says, Now we know, 3.19, repent therefore and be converted.

Conversion means a change in attitude and mind.

From a perspective that was following the world's stream, now you're beginning to follow God's stream of life.

And repent means, I'm sorry, I was deceived. I'm sorry, I was breaking God's laws.

And be converted, a change.

Turn your life upside instead of downside.

That your sins may be blotted out, so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom the heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things.

You can almost say the normalization of all things, which God has spoken by mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

Let's look in Isaiah chapter 11 to see how the world is going to be when Christ comes back.

The curse will be lifted from mankind.

Isaiah chapter 11 verses 4 through 9.

Talking about when Christ comes, it says verse 4, But with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.

He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.

Righteousness shall be the belt of his loins, and faithfulness the belt of his waist, so have the perfect ruler.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze, their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw, or in that sense, grass like the ox.

So again, that violence that we see in the animals today, in mankind, all of that is going to disappear.

Continuing on, it says in verse 9, That's where God is going to be ruling from.

So you see, one day people will know these truths, these wonderful and basic truths that we have learned once God opened our eyes to what the Bible really says about things.

Getting converted has to do with accepting seven basic things in your life.

I know that's when I was just 17, and my eyes were open, and I was able to see the truths of God.

And there are seven basic things that we can apply in our lives.

First of all, know who God is. God is not a closed trinity, this Greek philosophical construction that they set up.

No, God is a growing family. Right now we have God the Father and Jesus Christ as the Son, but they're going to have many more children.

Just like it tells us in Hebrews chapter 2. This is basically our vision statement. This is our goal. This is what we look for in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 10. It says, Christ is not ashamed because it's the family. That's the first big truth. Who is God? The second big truth is, how do we worship God? And that is accepting God's Word as the truth.

It comes from God. It doesn't come from man. It doesn't come from some religious leaders. God's Word is inspired by God. It says every word that God has inspired is part of His Word. Notice in John chapter 17 verse 17, the description we should memorize.

John 17, 17. Because it tells us God's Word is the truth. We're not going to find it in some mystical religion somewhere else. It is found in God's Word.

Jesus Christ said in John 17 verse 17, sanctify them by your truth. He's asking God to place them, separate them by your truth. We are separated from the world. We're not following lies. Religious lies. Your Word is truth.

And another translation, the contemporary English version says, your Word is the truth. So let this truth make them completely yours. So we can be fully God's people.

So who is God? We've answered that. The growing family. How do we worship Him? By putting into practice God's Word. That's where the truth is.

Thirdly, when do we worship God? That's another truth. It's not Sunday. Sunday you can read in any dictionary. It says the first day of the week. God never sanctified the first day of the week.

But the world says, oh no, follow us. This distorted mirror of the world where Sunday, the first day of the week, is venerated. And the Sabbath day, which is the fourth commandment, is eliminated.

And a lot of hostility takes place when people say, well, the Sabbath is the Lord's day, not Sunday.

So that's the third great truth in the Bible. The fourth, God's feast days. Because we don't only have weekly Sabbaths, we have annual Sabbaths.

There are seven of them that God separated those days in the year to come and worship Him.

We just finished with the Feast of Tabernacles, following, obeying faithfully what God says in His Word. Because it's not just hearing it. You have to apply it.

Notice, keep one finger here. Let's go to James chapter 1.

James chapter 1.

And verse 22, it says, But be doers of the Word. In other words, put it into practice. You can believe the Sabbath is holy, but do you come to services? Do you worship Him on that day? Or is it just some idea, some abstract idea? It says, And so the feast days are also part, the fourth great truth in the Bible. The fifth one answers, what is man? According to the Bible, what is man?

Well, what we find out is that man is mortal, but with a right to a resurrection in the future. In other words, we don't have an immortal soul that goes immediately to heaven or hell. That's not what the Bible teaches. You die and you rest. You sleep in Christ until Christ comes. And then it depends on what resurrection God has chosen for you. So man is mortal. He doesn't have an immortal soul, but he has a right to one of the resurrections mentioned in the Bible.

Then the sixth great truth are the food laws. God left food laws for our health. He knows what foods are good for us. He created each one. So the food laws in the Bible. And so we don't eat animals that God put as His clean-up crew. Pigs. Pigs can eat just about any trash. If you put them in a big dump, they're going to be happy just eating trash. You know, it flies around them and the stench. If anybody ever saw a pig farm. Not very fragrant, is it? Pretty bad. But God made the pig to be able to eat garbage and to keep the environment clean. Just like the shellfish. The oysters that are like little filter pumps that God has. One oyster can filter 50 gallons of water per day. And what do you do? You eat the filter. Well, of course you're going to have a polluted ocean like we do now. And the red tides and everything. It throws the ecology out of balance. Out of whack.

And then the seventh great truth is tithing. Because that is a biblical law. That God says, you, out of your work, 90% is yours, 10% is God. He says, as a creator of everything, 10% is something I retain of what you work. And He wants us to be faithful. We do not want to rob God. It tells us in Malachi chapter 3.

Malachi chapter 3. In verse 8, it says, Will a man rob God? And this term, rob, is used throughout the Scriptures for stealing. Will a man steal from God? Yet you have robbed me, but you say, in what have we robbed you? How can we rob God? God answers in tithes and offerings. And He says, if you retain that 10%, you are cursed with a curse. For you have robbed me. Second time, God says this, even this whole nation. And He says, Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And try me now in this. God says, test me. You tithe and see how God blesses you.

He says, test you. And He has a work to do. He has to sustain the ministry, everybody that is working. So we have a place of worship and everything else. And getting the gospel out to the world. All of that is free, because we never charge one penny for everything that we produce about God's truth. It tells us the Bible. In the Bible, it tells us not to sell the truth, that God has given us the truth freely. We should give the truth freely. So that's why we don't... This isn't a business as such.

And He says, try me. If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such a blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. I will rebuke the devourers. So God is going to enter into our lives. He's going to be a partner. He's going to protect us and bless us. But we have to keep our part.

So again, these are the big seven in the Bible. Now, the rest are details that can be deduced from this main framework that contains the Ten Commandments. And so we are opening the world's eyes because people think they just live in a normal world when it's a fallen world. Satan is the great influencer behind that. And he uses our human nature toward lust, toward greed, toward all of these negative things.

He knows how to inject that into our minds. Notice in Galatians chapter 5 it tells us what the fruits are, what are the results of being just a normal person out there in the world and being called by God. It says in verse 16 of Galatians 5, It says, I say then, walk in the Spirit according to God's Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. There's going to be that war. Is God's Spirit going to prevail or is it our human nature? It's going to prevail. And these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish. You'd like to be different. But many times that human nature will pull us toward lust and greed and all of these bad attitudes. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Talk about the penalty. If you're following God in His way of life, you are not going to be condemned like the world is. Now, the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, reveries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. They are not going to be part of God's kingdom. But the fruit of the Spirit, having your world from being upside down to being right side up, the fruits are love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And so, what did God tell Paul to do once God opened his eyes? Notice in Acts chapter 26, we're finishing up here, Acts chapter 26, in verse 15, it says, But rise and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen, and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. I will deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me. Receive that marvelous inheritance that's worth more than all the money in the world, and God is offering that to us.

So, in conclusion, let's go to the last scripture, Isaiah chapter 25, Isaiah chapter 25, verse 6 through 9. This is when Christ comes back. It says in verse 6, The surface of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations, the veil of deceit, he will destroy and lift it.

He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.

The rebuke of his people, he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

And it will be said in that day, behold, this is our God. See now, people's eyes are open.

We have waited for him, and he will save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for him. We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

So that's the good news. God's going to destroy the veil that's over these nations that caused the wars and caused all the violence and all the hate and animosity that we see around us.

The veil that distorts reality and makes people think the world is normal.

Then they will finally see the world right side up and reject what they thought was a normal way of thinking.

So let's remember this joy as we glimpse at a better world that is coming, a world that will turn this society right side up.