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The sermon portrays Christianity as a kingdom that overturns ordinary human measures of wisdom, status, happiness, power, and success. Spurgeon strongly distinguishes the gospel of grace from works-based religion: people are justified by trusting Christ, not by moral achievement or religious effort. Genuine faith, however, necessarily brings inward renewal, producing meekness, mercy, purity, enemy-love, and freedom from worldly idols. The call is universal and urgent, since no social class or respectable moral life can replace being born again.
Theological center: Salvation is by God’s sovereign grace through faith in Christ, not by human will or works, and this grace renews the heart.
Applications: Trust in Christ for salvation · Receive a renewed heart · Love and bless enemies · Examine your conversion
Primary texts: Acts 17:6 · Matthew 5:3-8 · Matthew 18:3
“These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.” Acts 17:6 THIS is just an old version of an oft-repeated story. When disturbances arise in a state, and rebellions and mutinies cause blood to be shed, it is still the custom to cry, “The Christians have done this.” In the days of Jesus we know that it was laid to the charge of our blessed and divine Master, that He was a stirrer of sedition, whereas He Himself had refused to be a king, when His followers would have taken Him by force to make Him one, for He said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” yet was He crucified under the two false charges of sedition and blasphemy. The same thing occurred with the apostles. Wherever they went to preach the Gospel, the Jews who opposed them sought to stir up the refuse of the city to put an end to their ministry, and then, when a great tumult was made by the Jews themselves, who had taken unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city in an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring him out to the people, then the Jews laid the tumult and the uproar at the door of the apostles, saying, “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.” This plan was followed all through the Roman empire, until Christianity became the state religion. There was never a calamity befell Rome, never a war arose, never a famine or a plague, but the vulgar multitude cried, “The Christians to the lions! The Christians have done this.” Nero himself imputed the burning of Rome, of which he himself doubtless was the incendiary, to the Christians. The believers in Jesus were slandered as if they were the common sewer, into which all the filth of sin was to be poured. Whereas, they were like Solomon’s great brazen sea, which was full of the purest water, wherein even priests themselves might wash their robes. And you will remark, that to this day the world still lays its ills at the door of the Christians. Was it not the foolish cry a few months ago, and are there not some weak-minded individuals who still believe it, that the great massacre and mutiny in India was caused by the missionaries. Forsooth, the men who turned the world upside down had gone there also, and because men broke through all the restraints of nature and of law, and committed deeds for which fiends might blush, this must be laid at the door of Christ’s holy Gospel, and the men of peace must bear on their shoulders the blame of war! Ah! we need not refute this, the calumny is too idle to need a refutation. Can it be true…