Well, before I get into this,
you know you can go through history. You can go through history and
find where every false doctrine ever started. Every single one
of them. You can find where Arminianism
started. You can find where Jehovah Witnesses started. You can find where, what's that? Russell Lights, you can find
out when tongue speaking got to be a big deal. Pentecostalism
started. You can find out where baptism
began to be preached for salvation. You can go through history and
find the person that started it. But if you know the gospel
of the grace of God, if you know salvation is in Christ and Christ
alone, you can't find that in history. You can only find that
in the Bible. You know who started, you know
they say, well Christ started Christianity. Christianity is
not even a religion. This is the thing, Christ did
not start a new religion. Everybody else, Buddha started
a religion. Mohammed started a religion.
Christ started life. Life comes from Christ. Christ
is our life. I didn't get into a religious
organization, I was put in Christ. I'm not interested in nominations,
I'm interested in knowing Christ. And where do you find that at?
The only place you can go is in God's blessed book. Got a little history lesson.
You didn't even go to the, we'd find out when the Reformation
started. There's so many things you go through history and say,
well that started right there. But when we go to the Bible and
the gospel we preach, we go to the scriptures. And that's one
thing that I was so thankful for when I met these men who
preach the gospel. and preach grace, they say bring
your Bibles and you follow along and you check up on me to see
whether I'm saying what the scripture says. Huh? That's a good thing
to do, ain't it? It's a good thing to do. Alright,
I'm going to start tonight on the seven churches and deal with
just Ephesus this evening. Just with Ephesus. It says there
in verse 1, Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write,
These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right
hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. You know our Lord told him to
write Told him I'm Alpha and Omega and what you see right
under the seven churches which be in Asia. Now Asia was at this
particular time eastern what we know now as Turkey in the
eastern part of Turkey. And that's what he does. And
these seven letters as you go through these seven letters there's
a pattern in all of them. There's a pattern in them. First
of all you have a salutation. He always says to the angel of
the church Whether it's in Smyrna or Pergosa, Sardis, wherever
it's at. He always says unto the angel
of the church. Unto the angel of the church.
And then the second thing he does, he identifies himself by
a certain designation. In this particular one, he identifies
himself as the thing, he that holdeth seven stars in his right
hand and who walks in the midst of the golden candlestick. He
always identifies himself by something different in every
one of these churches. Look what he's done in verse 8. Look what
he said about himself. And here's the talutation again. And under the angel of the church
in Smyrna write. Now look how he identifies himself
here. Says the first and the last which was dead and is alive. So every time he says something
in these churches he sets himself with a different designation.
Look down in verse 12. Just give you an illustration
here now. And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write,
These things says he which has, now listen to how he identifies
himself here. That has a sharp sword with two edges. So every
one of these churches when he gets to them, he identifies himself
differently to every church. to every one of them and you
know and when all the things that were said about him in Revelations
1 he identifies himself with some aspect of how he identified
himself in Revelations chapter 1 and so we see that this book
really is about the Lord Jesus Christ and so he identifies himself
to this church and he says I am he that holds the seven golden
candlesticks in my right hand and I walk in the midst of the
candlesticks And then he commends them. He commends them. He always
says, now look what he said here in verse 2. I know thy works,
and thy labor, and thy patience. And thou canst not bear them
which are evil, and hast them which say they are apostles,
and are not, and hast found them liars. And he always has a condemnation
for all the churches except two. There's two churches that he
finds no fault in whatsoever. That's Sardis, And Smyrna, excuse
me, Smyrna and Philadelphia. The rest of them he finds fault
with. And so he commends them. He starts out with a great commendation
here. He says, oh my, you know, listen,
I know your works. I know your toil, I know your
patience. But then he has something against them. And look what he
says now there in verse 4. Nevertheless, I have somewhat
against thee. just somewhat because thou hast
left thy first love so you know he goes and says I find somewhat
against you like I said the only two churches he doesn't is Smyrna
and Philadelphia and then he always gives a warning and he
gives a threat and he says down here in verse Yeah, I said there in verse 5,
remember when you're falling. Now that's a warning. That's
a warning. And I'll come and take out the
candlestick. Remove it, except you repent. It gives a warning
and a threat. And then look, He gives them
an exhortation when He gets down to the end and dealing with these
churches. In verse 7, He says this, He
that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the
churches. And you know we pray that way. We pray Lord not only
bless the word, but bless the ear to hear. Bless the ear to
hear. So the ears he's talking about
is not the physical ears, though we have to hear through them,
but those spiritual ears that he gives us to understand what
he says. Because he says what the Spirit
says, not what the preacher says, what the Spirit says. To him
that overcometh will I get to eat of the tree of life, which
is in the midst of the paradise of God. And I tell you what,
he says, him that overcomes, him that overcomes, And our Lord,
like I said, He finds something to commend every church except
one. You know what church He didn't
find nothing to commend them about? Not one thing that He
commend them about. Laodicea. He never said one good
thing about Laodicea. He said, I'll tell you what you
all folks are like. He said, you're rich and increased
with goods. And you don't have a clue what's
going on in your heart and lives. And so no condemnation to the
Laodicean church. And some think that these seven
churches, that these seven churches that we're dealing with here,
describe seven successive periods of church history. And there
are some Bibles, there are some Bibles that you can buy that
teaches that thing. They say that there are seven
successive periods of church history here.
That Ephesus was one point of church history, Smyrna, you go
a few hundred years and there is a successive period of church
history. You know, he told Sardis, he
said, there is Sardis, you know, they are dead. He told them,
you are dead there in chapter 3 and verse 1. I know that thou
sayest that you live, but you are dead, that you're dead. But
these epistles, these seven epistles, these seven churches, and these
letters were to be sent among each church, sent around and
let everybody read them. Remember I showed you that here
a few weeks ago, how that they take these letters and say, you
take that over there and you read it over there and I want
you to be sure and send it to that church and this church.
So he says, you send them letters to the churches where they can
be read by everybody and have somebody read them. But these
These epistles describe and describe conditions, these letters that
go to these seven churches, describe conditions that occur not in
one particular age of church history, but it occurs over and
over and over again. Now there's times when we will
identify with all these churches except maybe the Laodicean church. There are times that we all identify
with every one of these churches and every church goes through
faith. And there are churches that cease to exist because they
just dwindle away and go till there's nobody left to attend.
And they just dwindle away. Dwindle away. And like you take
this letter to Ephesus. Every one of these churches,
I'm telling you that these are things that happen over and over
and over again. It's not periods of church history. So let's look
at this letter to Ephesus. Now Ephesus was a wealthy, prosperous
city. And it was famous for its shrine
to Diana. It's shrine to Diana, Ephesus.
And Paul, you know, keep revelations. Look over here in Acts 19. Look
in Acts 19. You know, Ephesus was a very
wealthy city and Paul, Paul was in Ephesus for three years. Spent
three years in Ephesus. And it was famous for a shrine
to Diana. And you know they had a real,
real uproar over account of what Paul was preaching. And Paul
is at Ephesus and he's getting ready to leave. And he came there
and when he first got there, this is what they said. I said Revelation 19, I mean 20.
Okay, I'll get back over here where I'm supposed to be. And
for a certain man, named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver
shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsman,
whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation,
said, Sirs, you know that by this craft we have our wealth,
making shrines, making shrines. It's like making crucifixes to
hang on your wall. Same thing. Moreover, you see
and hear that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia,
this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying
that there be no gods which are made with hands. We're making
gods with hands? He's really going to mess us
up. But oh, listen to this, he says that he preaches that there's
no gods which are made with hands. So that not only this, our craft
is in danger to be set at naught, but also that the temple of the
great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence
should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshipeth. And when they heard these sayings,
they were full of wrath and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of
the Ephesians. And then they had to go and arrest
a bunch of people. But anyway, this was well known
for their wealth and this great temple of Diana. Paul spent three
years in Ephesus, and God greatly, greatly blessed his work there.
In fact, John was at Ephesus when they exiled him to Patmos. So this place was very, very
dear to him. And then our Lord, He calls Himself,
He that holds the seven stars in His right hand, and walks
in the midst of these seven golden candleticks, walks in the middle
of all of His churches. And these stars, he done told
us what these stars mean. They're the preachers, they're
the ministers, those that's called of God. And the churches, Christ's
true ambassadors. And Ephesus here, they had false
apostles. That's what he said there in
verse 2. Thou hast them which say thou art apostles, and are
not. So they had false apostles there.
And so here we go. And our Lord lets them know. that the one that exalted in
glory, the one that sits at the right hand of God, knows what
happens in all the churches, and he holds them in his hand,
he holds the preachers in his hands, and he holds the churches
in his hands, and he walks among his churches. How many times
have we said, Lord, you said that if there were two or three
gathered together in your name, you'd be in the midst. And here
he's telling us that I am walking among you. I'm walking among
you. And I'm certainly thankful that
he does that. I'm certainly thankful. And then
he begins to praise Ephesus. Oh, he begins to praise him.
And you know, our Lord, our Lord, I mean, He praises people. I mean, He
had commended people. You know, He did. He told that
one man, you know, just send your word only. He said, I've
not seen so great faith, no, not in all of Israel. And then
one time he was angry at them for the hardness of heart and
their unbelief. So he could praise people and
then he could condemn people. But here he praises Ephesus.
He was a true light. He was a true lampstand. The
light of Christ was there in this particular work. And our
Master begins to commend them here. He begins to praise them.
He said, I know your works. I know them. I know the works
that you do. I know them. And I know your labor. I see
your labor. And your patience. And how you
cannot bear them which are evil. Christ praised them for their
intolerance. Praised them. Oh, you can't bear
them which are evil. You just can't do it. You can't
bear anything that's false. You can't bear sin coming in. You can't bear evil. And then
look what he says, and thou hast tried them which say they are
apostles, and found liars. He praised them for their intolerance.
You got great works and you hate evil, you don't want evil, you
hate, you know Spurgeon's got a message on you, if you love
the true, you have to hate the false. You can't love, you can't,
you can't love the truth and then turn around and love falsehood.
It can't be done. And if you love truth, then you
cannot go with the false. And that's what he's saying here.
He said, do you try those who call themselves apostles? They
say they're apostles. And they rejected them. They
said, oh no, you're not apostles. How did they reject them? Because
they found them to be liars. How did they find them out to
be liars? Well, they found them out that they weren't apostles.
Apostles had great abilities, great gifts, and great being
able to do great things. And he found out that they were
liars. First of all, they lied about being apostles. And they
rejected them. Then they found them to be liars.
What was they lying about? What they said, what came out
of their mouth. Their message was a lie. Everything they said
was a lie. And they lied about what they
said and the message that they said. Oh my, they couldn't stand
that message. They didn't like it. You know,
John said this, try the spirits, whether they be of God or not.
And over here in Acts 20, let me show you something. I think
it's Acts 20 I want to look at. Yeah. Paul's getting ready to
leave Ephesus, and look what he warns them about. He told them, I've not shunned
and declare unto you all the counsel of God. Now he's leaving
Ephesus and he got all the elders together and he says this, take
heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over which
the Holy Ghost has made you overseers to feed the church of God, which
he has purchased with his own blood. Oh, take care of them,
oversee them. and then he goes on and gives
them a great great warning for I know this there's not a doubt
about it that after my departing after I leave shall grievous
wolves enter in among you and men shall arise and shall grievous
wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock And also of
your own self shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to
draw away disciples to themselves. I was telling Shirley here a
while back, I've been in a couple of black churches, and when they get up to introduce
everybody, they say, well, first to the apostles, We welcome the
apostles. We welcome the prophets. We welcome the ministers. We
welcome the ushers. We welcome the preachers. I mean
they go through a whole list. We welcome our mission. They
go through a whole list of things about that long. We're glad to have the apostles
and the prophets. I've seen that happen a couple
of times. How would you like to be called
an apostle? They say they're apostles, but
they're lying. Paul told him, he says, you know,
they're deceitful workers, false apostles. And that's nothing
strange for Satan himself is transformed into a late angel
of light for him to make himself false apostles and deceitful
workers. And they, you know, they look
after their works of righteousness. And I'll tell you what, there's
lots of people out there, you know, that claim to be lots of
things. Lots of things. And he said,
you're liars. You're a liar. You're a liar.
I tell you, there's lots of lies being told on God. Lots of lies
being told on Christ. Lots of lies. Lots of lies. And
then look what he said in verse 3. And he says, you born You've
carried. You've had this burden on your
back. You were born and has patience. Has patience. And why did you
have patience? For my namesake. Because of me. Because of my name. My namesake. And you've labored and you've
not fainted. You've not gone weary in well
doing. You've not fainted. You've labored
and labored and labored and you've done it for my sake. And you've
done it for Christ's glory. And for the reason that you know
me and love me and care for me. And you labor in my name and
for my name's sake. You haven't fainted. You haven't
got to the place where you say, I just cannot take it anymore.
I can't deal with it. I'm too weary. I'm too tired.
I just can't go on. You haven't fainted. You haven't
fainted. Hebrews 12 says this. I can show
it to you, but it says, Consider him who endures such a contradiction
of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your
minds. When you start considering Christ
and what He went through and what He did and who He did it
for, Why he did it and you start considering him and here it says
who endured the contradiction of sinners against himself When
I Lord was on that cross sinners that crucified him and gathered
around him. He turned around and saved multitudes
of them He come to save sinners and then sinners turned around
and crucified him and And if I would have been there, you
say, I would have been one of the loudest, crying out, Crucify
Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him! You
think you would have been any different? No! But you consider
how sinners, He come to save sinners. He come to die for sinners. He come to shed His blood for
sinners. And then sinners turned around and crucified Him, and
mocked Him, and ridiculed Him, and despised Him, and rejected
Him, and spit on Him. And He said, you consider Him.
About the time you think you're about ready to quit, about the
time you think you're getting too, you don't want to bear it
anymore, don't want to bear your cross anymore, don't want to
get weary in your ways of going on. He said, you look at Him
and consider what He went through. Lest you be weary and faint in
your minds. You start considering. That's
what our Lord said. You've done this for My namesake. You were
born and had patience because of Me. Not only because for my
namesake, but because I gave you the grace and the power to
do it. And then look what he said, and
you've had patience. You've had patience. Patience, patience. Now when
the Bible talks about patience, it's not talking about like you're
waiting at the doctor's office and being patient. That's not
what he's talking about. He's talking about living. Living
in this world. And whenever you have suffering,
suffering going on in your mind, in your heart, in your body,
in your life, in your children, when you're suffering, sickness
or affliction or burdens, when you're suffering, we need patience. We need patience to go through
that. Our Lord said in your patience
possess you your souls. And we need waiting patience.
The Lord said, wait. I say, wait on the Lord. We need
waiting patience. We need waiting patience. You
know, whenever the... Here we are, this building and
all these empty pews here. And we're here tonight. We gotta
have waiting patience. For God to bring people in. Waiting
patience. Waiting patience on people. Waiting
patience on God. Waiting patience on our... Waiting
for ourselves. And then we need living patience.
You got to go out in the world and you got to work and you got
to go on the job and you got to hear things that you don't
like to hear. You got to put up with things
you don't like to put up with. And it takes patience sometimes just
to live. Just to put up with what life
throws at you. And I tell you what your own
heart throws at you. And we need to do it for why?
For Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. Then look
what he says here. He says there in verse 4. Nevertheless, I've said all these
wonderful things about them. Nevertheless, I've got something
against you. He didn't say, I've got a lot
of things against you. He said, I have somewhat against thee.
I've got something against you. What is it, Lord? What have we
done? What have we done? I've got something against you.
What is it, Lord? Because thou hast left thy first
love. There are several things we need
to be very careful about. That's becoming mechanical. You know, just have no emotion,
just go through the motions. It's taking for granted, presuming,
presuming. I told Shirley before I come,
I said, boy, you just never get over with this thing of knowing
that you've got to get up and deal with God's Word. You just
don't get over it. Do you know what it's like to
get up here without God? Do you have any idea what it's
like to get up here without the Lord? Some of you get up here and read
the Scriptures and how do you feel? Tough, ain't it? But I
tell you what, and that's what he's talking about. Let's don't
presume. Yeah, God's gonna be, He promised
to be with us. Well, sometimes He leaves us
to ourselves. And let's see, let's see how,
let's see how, let's just see how much faith you got. Let's
see how much patience you got. Let's see how, how mechanical
you are. Let's see, let's just see how
strong you really are on your own. Oh my. I've got accusation against you.
You've left your first love. And this one thing that I believe
that we should never do, never do, and I've always, people I've
heard preachers and say talking about, it's your duty to do this,
it's your duty to do that. I don't regard anything that
I do as a believer as a duty. It's not my duty to be up here
preaching. It's not my duty to study the
Bible. It's not my duty to get out and
out lines. It's not my duty to do that.
It's my blessing. It's my privilege. And everything
we do, it's not a duty. It's not a burden. It's not a
heaviness. It's a privilege and a blessing. And it's a privilege
to be here. It's a privilege to read this
Bible. It's a privilege to get up here with the Lord's people. I despise that idea of duty. I just despise it. You know what
duties are? You go somewhere and they say,
pay your duty, that's your taxes. We don't do nothing out of duty.
And look at all that our Lord said, look at all that they did
right. And then He comes in and says, I've got someone against
you. Look what he did. He said, because you left your
first love. Then look what he said. Now remember,
I want you to remember something here. Remember this. Remember
where you fall. Remember when you fell. Oh my. Fail. When he talks about losing
your first love, what he's talking about here is a loss of affection.
See, he knows where we are, He knows what we are and He knows
our hearts and the condition of our hearts better than we
know ourselves. And He says, now you fell in
a way. You've lost your affection for me that you've had. He said,
I want you to repent of this. And that word repent, that word
repent means return. A change of mind. Change of mind. Return, go back to where you
fell. Go back to where you lost your
love. Now what kind of things will cause us to lose our love
for Christ or lose our affection for Christ? What would do that? Well, the world will do it. Getting interested in getting
things will do it. Materialism will do it. being concerned with what you
can attain in life, being taken up with something
else besides Christ. But our Lord says, repent, go
back, go back. There's not a woman in this building
tonight that's been married or is married that they don't sometimes
think, my husband don't show me enough affection. Don't show
me enough love. Well, that's what our Lord's
saying. That's what our Lord's saying. Your heart's got a little
cold toward me. I don't like that. I don't like
that when your heart gets cold toward me. I don't like it when
you let something come and interfere with your affection for me. I
don't like that. That's what He's telling us. And He says,
repent Return or else, look what he
says, or else I will come unto thee quickly. I'll come fast
and remove thy candlestick. I'll take the light. I'll take
the light out of here. I'll leave you sitting in darkness.
Then he comes and turns around and he praises him again. You
know an emphasis no longer even exists as a church. But nevertheless
he resumes his praise for him. He said, but this thou hast,
that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also
hate. Now what is the Nicolaitans? What are they? Well, our Lord
says you hate them and I hate them. Whoever they were, whatever
they were, Christ hated them. And from what I understand about
them, they were a group of people that were very, very immoral
and idolaters. They would go to these heathen
banquets, where they would have banquets and feasts for heathen
gods, like, say, Diana. They'd have a great feast to
these heathen gods. And these people would look at
them and say, we hate, we hate the way you are, we hate what
you do, we hate what you stand for. and they try to justify
their sinful ways and our Lord praises them for hating them
and what they done was they turned the grace of God into lasciviousness
and he says you hate them and I hate them and then he says
there he that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith
unto the churches oh I love this right here to him that overcometh
him that overcometh You see, that's one thing in the Bible,
you have all these promises on one side and these warnings on
the other. You're on one side, you've got nothing but promises,
and over here you've got these warnings, and they keep us rancid,
you know, we've got to trust Christ. Because we don't want
to go that way, and we don't want to go presumptuous, so we've
got all these promises and all these warnings. And he says this,
to him that overcometh, I'll give to eat of the tree of life,
which is in the midst of the paradise of God. You know why
God drove Adam out of the garden of Eden? He said, lest he take of the
tree of life and live forever. So he drove him out so he couldn't
eat that tree of life. Adam, you don't get to eat the
tree of life. But our Lord said, I'm going
to let you have a bite of it. You're going to get to eat off
of it. You're going to get to eat off of it. You're going to
get teed off of it. Is there any danger that one
who Christ died for will not overcome? Huh? Will not overcome? Oh Lord Jesus, our Lord Jesus, our
blessed Master, our great God and our Savior, our blessed Hope,
the very Lover of our souls, We come to praise you and thank
you that you let us have another evening, another service, another
time to be with your saints, to be with your people, to open
your precious word. And Lord, in spite of myself, that Lord make the word profitable,
make it effectual, Make it edifying. Make it a blessing. As only you
can do. For Christ's sake. Amen. Amen. Let's sing 303 in the hymn book. 303. And then after that you'll
be at liberty to go. 303. Let's stand together. 303. Pilot me. and treacherous show, chart and
compass come from Thee. Jesus, Savior, by let me. As of now, steals her child. Thou canst touch the ocean wild. Moistress waves obey thy will. Oh, I love this one and the fearful breakers, twixt
me in the peaceful rest. And while leading, O Lord Jesus,
may I hear thee say to me,