No Better Lever
Sermon, September 3, 2000
Text: Acts 17:1-9
(With special acknowledgement to research, insights and phrasing of Dr. R.C. Sproul of Ligonier Ministries; large portions of this sermon were gleaned from two messages, "Christ Crucified" and "Upsetting the World", delivered at the June 2000 Ligonier conference in Orlando.
The new Mrs. and Mrs. Barry Harrington (Sheree Dropkin) had given me a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble's for taking part in their wedding, but it's been a little difficult for me these days to get to a bookstore and browse. I was, however, able to go to the Barnes and Noble web site and browse, after the kids were (finally) abed the other night. There I found a book I had been searching for ... or at least I thought I found it. I was looking for an old book entitled The Sand Reckoner. There is a book by that title at B&N, but it wasn't the "original." Theirs was a rather recent book of author Gillian Bradshaw; she was writing a biography of sorts of the author of the original book by that title. The original was published in the year 212 BC. In that book, which was dedicated to the king of Syracuse (the original Syracuse on the southern coast of Sicily), the author sought to calculate how many grains of sand it would take to fill the entire known universe. Now, I don't know if you can imagine a work more bizarre than that, but this was one of the very last things that this man did before he died. He contemplated and calculated the number of grains of sand it would take to fill the universe. Again, the name of the book was The Sand Reckoner. And it was written very shortly before the author died. No, he didn't die from an aneurysm in the brain incurred by his mental strain, he died when his city came under siege during the Punic Wars.
Leading the siege of Syracuse was a Roman general Marcus Claudius Marcellus, whose nickname was "The Sword of Rome." When Marcellus brought his troops and the Roman navy up against the citadel of Syracuse, he was utterly astonished at the resistance put up by the defenders. Although they were far superior in numbers, Marcellus had to work feverishly to keep up his troops morale, to keep them from giving in to discouragement and fear. Why? The Romans encountered there frightful war machines that they had never seen before, weapons of war that were far more sophisticated than anything the Romans had invented or invented up until this point in time. One of those war machines was the catapult. Another (although there's less "hard" historical evidence for this one; it borders on legend) was one that seemed almost like a futuristic ray gun of sorts: it was a system of mirrors and lenses coordinated by ropes and pulleys that magnified and focused the sun's rays on the invaders' sails, thus igniting their boats. One machine, though, was especially astonishing and downright terrifying to the Roman navy: As their ships approached the sheer cliffs outside of Syracuse, the sailors looked up and saw these huge jaws descending from the sky. These jaws came down, gripped a Roman ship, hoisted that ship a hundred feet or so into the air, and then the jaws released the ship and crew dashing them upon the rocks. The Romans couldn't believe what they were seeing. This elaborate machine, comprised of ropes and metal manipulated by never-seen-before technical marvels of compound pulleys and levers, came down and gripped the next ship and raised it into the air and dashed it onto the rocks. The sailors under Marcus Claudius Marcellus were terrified, but they persisted ... and the outnumbered Sicilians ingeniously and valiantly continued their resistance. The siege lasted over three years! Eventually, the Romans were victorious. General Marcellus' command was that the engineer who had developed these new weapons was to be unharmed, when and if he was found. But that mandate was thwarted. One of the rank and file soldiers approached this man as he was sitting with other prisoners in the sand; this Sand Reckoner author was passing the time by doing mathematical equations in the sand, equations he had been working on in his book. When this rank and file Roman soldier came close, the "Sand Reckoner" was so absorbed in calculation that he didn't notice it was a Roman soldier. Without taking his eyes off his calculations in the sand he said, "Be careful! Do not disturb my diagrams!" And the Roman soldier killed him on the spot. And thus Archimedes met his death ... and now you know the rest of the story!
It is appropriate to acknowledge Archimedes, as our nation once again prepares to honors those who labor. He was the consummate jack of all trades. Greek by birth, born in 287 BC in Syracuse to Greek parents, educated in Alexandria, Egypt, Archimedes went on to become a remarkable mathematician, an exacting engineer, a brilliant inventor, an master craftsman, a skillful builder, and something of a philosopher. It was Archimedes who, after having figured out the laws of buoyancy as he was stepping into his bathtub, ran into the streets naked crying out "Eureka! (I have found it!)." Archimedes Principle remains the standard today. His calculations in The Sand Reckoner estimating the grains of sand it would take to fill the universe matched almost exactly the estimates of computer aided 20th century physicists just a few short years ago. Archimedes also defined the principle of the lever, calculated the value of "Pi", (I can't translate the Greek characters in HTML yet!), and is credited with inventing the compound pulley. He was one of the most brilliant men, not only of the ancient world, but of all time.
You may know the words he spoke to the king of Syracuse on one occasion: "Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I will move the whole world." A little over two hundred years after Archimedes made that statement a lever was found that was long enough to move the whole world. The lever was about ten feet high, and the place it was found was Calvary, because the cross of Jesus Christ was the lever that turned ... and is still turning ... the world upside down. Revealed in the cross is the power, not of the ingenuity of men like Archimedes, but the power of God Himself to right a topsy-turvy world. It was the message of that cross, the message given by people who took their place and stood and clung to that cross, that changed the world and continues to change the world. "Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I will move the whole world." Acts 17:6 reads, "These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here." The Revised Standard Version and the King James translates: "These men who have turned the world upside down...". Paul and Silas were men who took that firm stand, who stood their place, and used that lever to turn their world upside down. By the way, when the Bible speaks of turning the world upside down, it is really speaking in terms of turning the world right side up. For we really do live in a topsy-turvy world. We live in a world where all around us the wicked prosper, and the righteous suffer. We live in a world where sin is often exalted, and virtue mocked. We live in a world in which it has been said that "Beggars ride on horseback while princes walk in rags." Ever since Eden, this world has been upended and upset. And the central message of the Bible is about what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will do to turn the world right side up again. God is in the process of redeeming and salvaging this topsy-turvy world, and will see that work through to its completion ... and He is doing it through the instrument and leverage of this most effective of levers, the cross of Jesus Christ. "Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I will move the whole world." As we take our place with Him, as we "plant our feet" and stand for the things of God and place our faith and trust and hope in that lever of God, we, too, can help turn the world about us right-side up.
Note, that this statement in Acts 17 is not spoken by a Christian; it is a really a charge brought against Paul and Silas by those hostile to the church. The word used here literally means "to upset, to unsettle, to disturb, or to stir up." Any one of these definitions would certainly serve to describe what took place when Paul and Silas brought the Gospel to Europe on their 2nd missionary journey. Wherever they went, people were upset, people were unsettled, people were disturbed, and people were stirred up. Martin Luther once made the observation, "Where the Gospel of Christ is preached accurately and boldly, there will always be conflict." Wherever the lever of God upsets or turns over things, whenever it effects change, "turnover," or the upset of "things as they were," there will be conflict ... the early church had more than its fair share of internal conflict as well as conflict from without. That was certainly true in Paul and Silas' time, and it remains true in our time. There's always something upsetting, disturbing, unsettling when the leverage of the Gospel works into our sin-affected, topsy-turvy lives. The phrase "to turn the world upside down" had not only this literal meaning, though. According to some scholars, it was an idiomatic expression as well. It was an expression used to label an act of sedition, an act of treason, as in "upsetting" the Roman world, as in bucking the established order, as in resisting the Pax Romana. In fact, Jesus Himself was executed for these very same charges. When He was brought before Pontius Pilate, the charge was that He was trying to usurp the crown of Caesar, He was a pretender against Rome, because He claimed to be a king. And over the cross upon which He was crucified Pilate had written, "Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews."
Then, after the cross, after the resurrection, and just before He ascended into heaven, Jesus said to his followers, "You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth." This was the final instruction, the final marching order, for the church, as Jesus ascended to the right hand of God. Jesus was saying in so many words, "You've seen my power. All authority in heaven and on earth has indeed been given unto me, and now I'm going up there to assume my seat of authority. But my kingdom is not yet visible upon the earth ... and your job is to make it visible. Your job is to bear witness to my kingship." The Greek word for "Witness" here (as well as the word used in our call to worship), is the word "marturia" ... what English word do we get from that? The word Martyr. Friends, the early martyrs of the faith were not witnesses because they were martyrs, they were martyrs because they were witnesses. They were martyrs because they fulfilled the mandate of their Lord to make His invisible kingship visible, they took their stand and proclaimed the cross as the power of God, the stood their place under the authority of the true king of Heaven and earth.
It was no wonder, then, with all this talk about kingdoms and authority that people saw the rise of Christianity as a political movement. Because in a real sense, it was (and is) political. They were talking about who is in charge. The ultimate political candidate is Jesus Himself, and that is a threat to anyone, including all earthly rulers, who don't want to be accountable to the King of kings. We saw it in the martyrdom of the early Christians as they were brought into confrontation with imperial Rome. At the time the church was being established, in addition to the popular deities of the Roman pantheon, there was the cult of emperor worship, where the emperors claimed to be deity. A Roman citizen had to demonstrate the willingness to a loyalty oath to the emperor himself. Roman citizens were required to simply declare these two words, "Kaiser Kurios." Caesar is Lord. When the Christians were brought before the magistrates and were required to give this oath of loyalty, the authorities would say to them, "Say now, Kaiser Kurios." The standard response of the faithful witness of Jesus Christ in that circumstance was to respond "Jesus ho Kurios" Jesus is [the] Lord. "Look, we'll pray for Caesar, we'll pay tax to Caesar, we'll render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, but lordship has not been given to him. Lordship has been given to Jesus Christ." Thus the very first confession of faith, the first creed of the Church, was the simple assertion, "Jesus is Lord." By saying that, many died. But the world was indeed being moved.
The story is told of the martyrdom of Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna. The accounts vary, but the basic story is that when Polycarp was in his late 80's, he was arrested and brought to the arena and commanded to recant of his faith in Christ. The authorities really don't want to kill this venerable 86-year-old man; they tried to get him off the hook. They tried to get him to confess the loyalty oath, quietly and quickly: "All you have to do is say 'Kaiser Kurios.' Swear the loyalty oath, and you can go." Polycarp replied, "Eighty and six years I have served Him. For eighty and six years, He has been faithful to me; how can I now betray him?" Then they offered, "Well, look, just repudiate the false religion." Christians were accused of atheism because they didn't believe in the gods of the Romans. So now the interrogator says, "All you need to say to save your life is 'Away with the atheists."' Polycarp reportedly smiled and said, "Well, I can do that." He stood and pointed to the emperor, to the Roman authorities, and said, "Away with the atheists!" And it cost him his life.
These Christians saw the truth of the cross, they saw the importance of the cross, they saw the meaning of the cross, and they believed that truth. They really believed it. And they would rather die than compromise it. There was no compromise in these witnesses, this same cloud of witnesses that "encompass us about." I think they knew that if they dropped the lever, if they shifted from their standing point, the world about them would not be moved. They saw the cross as the power of God, the lever of God, that would turn the world upside down ... or rather, that would turn the world right side up again. "Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I will move the whole world." May we have the courage, the faith and the grace to stand with these faithful witnesses, and continue using this lever of God, and thus do our part in helping turn this world right side up.