I want to speak to you this morning
on these verses that Brother Robert just read out of the book
of Revelation chapter 2. The title of the message is Necessity
of Love and Zeal. And this is the first of the
seven letters addressed to the seven churches that were in Asia
Minor, which would be our modern day Turkey. These churches all
were founded upon the gospel. These were local bodies of believers,
and most of them through the apostle Paul, if not all of them.
Paul preached quite a bit through Asia Minor. The church at Galatia
is another church in Asia Minor, plus these others here that are
mentioned. But they were all founded on
the gospel, or they could not have been said to be true churches.
And I dealt with that last week on what is a true church. You
go to an assembly of people, a religious assembly, if the
truth is not preached, if the gospel of God's grace is not
preached, you don't have a true church there. And I know that
sounds harsh, but it's true. Me saying otherwise wouldn't
make it any less true. So these churches were founded
on the gospel, but they were local bodies of believers, people. meeting in these places, and
of course they were not perfect churches, there's no such thing.
The churches, I spoke to you about the universal or the invisible
church, which is made up of all the elect of God, just given
to the elect, given to Christ before the foundation of the
world, justified in Him, redeemed by His blood, called out by the
Spirit. That's a perfect church, because there's no unbelievers
in it. It's the people of God. And when the last one of them
is called into the fold, I believe that's the time the Lord is coming
back. As long as we're here on this earth and the Lord hasn't
come back, we know he has some sheep out there that he's gonna
call into the fold. But once that last one's called,
I believe that's the end and he'll come back. But now these
local bodies of believers, people sitting there like you, listening
to a pastor, Preach the gospel. That's what he calls the star. Now, don't get me wrong. I mean,
I don't consider myself a star or anything like that. But what
he's showing here is the seven stars are the ministers who deliver
the message, the light of the gospel. And our light is not
original with us. It comes from Christ, who has
the preeminence in all things. Look at, unto the angel, That's
another term for the ministers because an angel, he's not talking
about angelic beings like the seraphim. He's talking about messengers.
They preach the gospel. And they preach it to anybody
who'll listen. Somebody asked me one time years ago, said,
well, if you believe in the elect, why don't you just preach only
to the elect? I'm preaching to anybody who'll listen, and God
will call out His people. He'll call out His elect unto
Himself. That's His business, not mine.
But I'll preach to anyone who'll listen to the message. And if
they won't listen, they go on their way. But unto the angel,
the messenger of the church of Ephesus write. Now understand
these seven letters are not progressive segments of time in the Gospel
Millennium or the New Covenant. But they are situations that
exist throughout that period of time in the New Covenant that
could be found in any true church or church that was founded upon
the Gospel. And some of those churches that
were founded on the Gospel moved away from it completely. And that was by the ordination
of God. You think about it, Paul spoke of this in 2 Thessalonians
2 about a great falling away, that that which began in a good
way by the power of God in the truth fell away from the truth. And it's come to the point in
that great falling away that Paul spoke of in 2 Thessalonians
2 is that what is commonly known in the world as Christian is
not Christian at all, but Christian in name only. But here we are
in Ephesus. That was a port on the Aegean
Sea famous for one thing, a temple to the Greek goddess, or the
Roman goddess, Diana. So this was an area that was
full of idolatry. But understand this now, just
about every area you go to, every area you go to in the world is
going to be full of idolatry. But they had a great temple to
the goddess Diana. And the apostle Paul was sent
there by God first on his second missionary journey with a husband
and a wife, brethren in Christ, named Aquila and Priscilla. And
you can read about that in the book of Acts chapter 18. This
is all recorded in God's word. And he returned two years later
and he stayed there longer than any other place. Stayed there
three years. And his last words to the elders
of this church is found in Acts chapter 20, verses 16 through
38. And I want you to look at this
in Acts 20. I'm not going to read that whole passage. You
can read the whole thing. But he met with the elders at
the church of Ephesus, and in Acts chapter 20, he gave them
a warning. He told them, he said, he said,
I'm clean of the blood of all men here. He said, I preached
the gospel to you. That's what he meant. I didn't tell you a
lie. I didn't come in here preaching salvation conditioned on sinners. I came here preaching salvation
conditioned on Christ. I didn't come here preaching
you righteousness by the works of men and women. I came to you
preaching the righteousness of God in Christ. That's what Paul
preached to them. But he told them, he says, in
verse 28, this is Acts 20, he said, take heed, therefore, unto
yourselves. and to all the flock over which
the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church
of God which he hath purchased with his own blood." The true
church is purchased with the blood of Christ. It's the church
of Christ. And he says, for I know this, that after my departing
shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. False preachers are gonna try
to creep in. And that's the way it is. Also
of your own selves shall men rise speaking perverse things
to draw away disciples after themselves. Therefore watch and
remember that by the space of three years I cease not to warn
everyone night and day with tears. This is serious business, isn't
it? We'll go back to Ephesians 2. And of course, you know later
on, Paul wrote the epistle to the Ephesian church. Ephesians,
what a great and glorious book that is. If you read through
it, it's so full of God's truth in Christ. And so, it's also
believed that the apostle John, after he was freed from Exom
and Patmos, and I don't know if you knew this, a lot of people
believe that John did not die on Patmos, where he wrote this
letter from. but that he was later freed, and he went to Ephesus.
I'm not sure that's true, but a lot of people think that's
true. But this letter is addressed to the pastor to be read to the
church, and he says, these things saith he that hold the seven
stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven
golden candlesticks. To the ministers, the pastors,
and the churches, that's the golden candlestick, And look
what he says. He identifies himself in a particular
way. And he says he's the heart of
the church. He walks in the midst. Christ
is the foundation of the church. The church is built on Christ.
It's not built on any man. It's not built on the apostles.
It's built on Christ. The glory of His person. The
power of His finished work. A righteous church because of
Christ. And He's the head of the church.
He's the one who heads it all. He has the preeminent. He's the
chief cornerstone. He is the one by which all things
are measured. And then He's the heart of the
church. And that's particularly appropriate for this letter here.
He says in verse 2, He says, and here's what He's going to
do. Here's the first point. A gracious commendation from
the Lord. And it's like saying, you know,
we've often heard at the judgment where Christ will look at his
people and say, well done thou good and faithful servant. And
of course what he's talking about there is the grace of God. He's
not talking about well done in the sense that we earned our
way into heaven or we earned our way into his favor. To do
well, you know where the phrase well done or doeth well. The
meaning of that is established back in the book of Genesis,
chapter 2. It's brought out in chapter 3
and chapter 4. And if you want to know when
the Lord says, well done, or you doeth well, go back and read
Genesis chapter 4, and it tells you about two men, brothers,
Cain and Abel. And you know the story. How Cain
brought an offering unto the Lord. But it was not the right
offering. It was an offering that represented
his works, his toil, and his labor. And there was something
missing in Cain's offering. And what was missing was the
blood of the Lamb, which pictured and typified Christ, the Lamb
of God, who bears away the sins of the world. His salvation,
the forgiveness of sins, the righteousness he established
is by his death, not our works. But Cain brought his works. And
the Lord confronted Cain. Cain was angry because God did
not accept his offering. And the Lord came to Cain, and
I believe this was a pre-incarnate visitation of Christ. And he
said, Cain, why are you angry? You know if you do well, you'll
be accepted. But what is it to do well? Well, Abel, his brother, had
an offering that got accepted, and what was it? The blood of
a lamb. And that's what it is to do well.
For us, what that means is this. We do well when we come before
a holy God pleading the blood and the righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And the works of believers are
not the ground or cause of their salvation, it's the fruit, the
result of their salvation. So when he says this, he said,
I know thy works in verse two. I know thy labor. Know thy patience
that word patience means endurance. I know your endurance What he's
saying here these are evidences of his power and grace working
through his people Paul spoke of that in Galatians chapter
2 and he said the life that I now live as a believer I Live by
the faith or the faithfulness of Christ. I In other words,
it's by the power and grace of God. Whatever I do that can be
called a good work, it's God working in me as the fruit and
effect of what Christ did for me, and it's accepted of God
only by the blood of Christ. Do you understand that? Now these
are concepts and truths that are established early on in the
scriptures. That's the law of interpretation
called the law of first mention and it never changes even when
you get up to Revelation. So Christ says, I take notice
of your works, your labor, your patience. Not because they are
conditions we must meet in order to be saved. Because if that
were the case, he would treat us like he did the false professors
in Matthew chapter 7 when he would say this, to whom he said
this, depart from me, you that work iniquity, I never knew you. We'd be like the Pharisee who
said, I thank God I'm not like other men. I've not done this,
I've done this. He was rejected. So understand
that. These are the fruits of His power
and grace and His love. And what does He say? Now listen
to what He says here in verse 2. He says, And how thou canst
not bear them which are evil, and thou hast tried or tested
them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them
liars. They're evil in the sense they
walk contrary to the truth. Contrary to the gospel. It was
very common back then for false preachers to try to get into
the churches, the true churches, claiming to be apostles. Many
of them even wrote letters and they would sign Paul's name to
it or Peter's name to it. In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul deals
with that. How many people do we know that
claim to be preachers of Christ who do not preach Christ at all? Think about that. Multitudes. They put all who, and what he's
saying is, I know, I commend you for this, all who claim to
be apostles, you put them to the test of scripture. I want
to know if this man's telling me the truth. How are you going
to test that? With the way he speaks? How many
jokes he can tell? If they speak not according to
this word, there's no light in them. Do they preach the gospel
of Christ? And all who do not preach the
gospel of Christ, wherein the righteousness of God is revealed.
That's why I tell people all the time, you better find out
what that phrase means. He's talking about the merits
of Christ's obedience unto death on the cross, to establish righteousness
by which God justified his people. They preach contrary to that,
there's no light in them. They're to be rejected as liars,
he says. There's so many scriptures about
that. But he said, I know thy works, thy labor, thy endurance,
because you put them to the test and you found them to be false.
You wouldn't tolerate it. Many years ago, this church right
here went through the very same thing, didn't you? The man came
in preaching contrary to the gospel wherein the righteousness
of God is revealed, and you had to remove him. You did right. And Christ says, I know your
works, your labor, your patience. And I'm not saying that to cause
you to gloat or even to feel good about yourself. You just
did what the Lord told you to do. Isn't that right? And you found them to be liars.
And he says in verse three, he says, and hast born, you have
born, or withstood, and hast patience, endured, and for my
name's sake, hast labored, and hast not fainted. How do we bear
up or carry the burden of this gospel? How do we endure in this
gospel and not quit? There's so many things that are
so discouraging as we look out in the world. Sometimes we have
an opportunity to witness to people and you get excited even
that you have an opportunity to do so, but then it just falls
flat and they don't listen. And we know, well, whose business
it is to save people. It's not ours, it's God's. We
can't save them. Well, why haven't we just fainted?
That means given up and quit. And then think about persecutions.
We're gonna talk about that more when we come to the next church,
the church at Smyrna, the church under persecution. And persecution comes in different
forms, different degrees. On the whole, we've had it a
lot easier than our brothers and sisters back then who were
under the awful persecutions of the Roman Empire, And one
thing, if you're gonna understand the book of Revelation, you gotta
see that as a backdrop. The Roman Empire, the evil Roman
Empire, which Caesar issues decrees and says you either call Caesar
God or I'm gonna put you in jail or kill you. Thank God we haven't
had to live in that kind of an atmosphere, but they did, our
brothers did. But still we suffer persecution
for the gospel's sake. Why haven't we fainted? Why haven't
we quit? We've lost friendships. We've
lost fellowships. We are held in derision. How
many times have somebody said to you, you all think you're
the only ones right and everybody else is wrong, that kind of thing?
Why haven't we quit? Well, it was all for His namesake. That's what it says here in verse
3. For my namesake, Christ said. We know who He is. And we know that if anybody preaches
anything contrary to who He is, it's wrong. Not only is it wrong,
it's deadly. That which is highly esteemed
among men is an abomination to God. When God saves you and brings
you to repentance, what do you say? That which is highly esteemed
among men is an abomination to God. And what's highly esteemed
among men? Religion. The works of men and
women. And we applaud the works of men
and women. The charity, the morality, the responsibility. We applaud
that, but not for salvation. You understand it? If that's
your way of salvation, it's an abomination to God. Somebody gives a million dollars
to charity. I think that's great, and I encourage
them to do that, but not in order to bring out, to work forth a
righteousness before God. If that's what they have in mind,
it's iniquity. And when we tell them that, if
we have the opportunity, It doesn't fit well with their model. Why haven't we quit? And then
we think about this. None of our efforts to do well,
and sometimes it's a struggle. That's the Christian life. We're
in a struggle, aren't we? And none of our efforts to do
right save us. None of them earn for me a greater
mansion in heaven than what you'll get. I believe the thief on the cross
is as well off in glory as Paul the Apostle is right now. And
that's what grace is all about. Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. So why make all the
effort? Endure, and why not quit? It's for his namesake. Because
of what he's done for us, because of what he's given to us, which
we don't deserve and have not earned, we want to glorify him. That's the labor of willing,
loving, bond servants of Christ, motivated by grace, love, and
gratitude. Religious zeal. means nothing
in and of itself if it's not grounded in truth. But zeal in
the grace of God glorifies him and exalts Christ. So that's
the commendation, and it's a gracious commendation. And in that, I
swear, I want to emulate the Ephesian church in that commendation. But then he goes, he says, secondly,
a gracious rebuke from the Lord. Now I told you this church is
not a perfect church. There's no such thing on earth.
The people of God are perfect in Christ. We have a perfect
righteousness before God in Christ. But we're not perfect in ourselves.
We've got problems. We're sinners saved by grace.
And then in each and every church, there's a mixture of believers
and unbelievers. Christ spoke of that in the kingdom
parables beginning in Matthew 13. with the parable of the different
stones. Remember he had the different
hearers, the stony ground hearer, the wayside hearer, then there
was the good hearer, the thorny ground hearer, believers and
unbelievers. So when Christ says nevertheless,
look at it in verse four, nevertheless I have somewhat against thee
because thou hast left thy first love. When he says he's against
us, Technically speaking, the Lord is never against His people
as far as His relationship to His people. Romans 8 31 says,
if God be for us, who can be against us? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? He didn't charge us with our
sins in a legal way. It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? And then if God would be against
us in the sense of his wrath. You know, a lot of people say,
well, God's wrath abode on us until we believe. I don't believe
God's wrath has ever been on God's elect. But how do you define
God's wrath? Well, I define it at the cross.
That's God's wrath. Have you ever been under that?
And the answer's no. Christ went under that for us.
Somebody said, well now the law condemns us for our works. That's
true, but we're not under the law. The scripture says we're
under grace. He's loved us with an everlasting
love. We're vessels of mercy before,
before the world began, prepared unto glory. Christ was made our surety before
the world began. So when he says, I have somewhat
against thee, As true believers, we know the Lord does not impute
our sins to us. We have a righteousness that
answers the demands of God's law and justice. He's never against
us in a legal, judicial way. But as to our state here on earth,
as sinners saved by grace and struggling through the warfare
of the flesh and the spirit, the Lord will reprove and chastise
us. We will do things against his
word. Somebody says, well, he's just
angry. Well, God, technically speaking, God doesn't change.
He still loves us. But he does chastise us. And
the problem in the church at Ephesus, he says, you've left
your first love. Now, there are basically two
views of what that means. And it could be one or the other.
It could be both. It could be this. They left their zeal and
their fervent love that marked their initial calling into the
body of Christ. And they'd just grown cold and
indifferent, tired in their passion, their enthusiasm for the gospel,
for evangelism, for personal growth, zeal in worship and service. They lapse into that fleshly
attitude that says, it don't matter what I do. Remember when you were first
converted? Now some of us have been there, how, 50 years, 40
years? Or more? What zeal. Boy, you were ready to take on
the world, weren't you? I know I was. You just wanted
to go out and just, everybody, you know? All we did was just
make everybody mad, you know? Now, true. Zeal has to
be tempered with wisdom. And a lot of us didn't have that
at first. You remember when Christ told the disciples, when you
go out, he said, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. And sometimes
my tongue got ahead of my brain when I was trying to talk to
people about the gospel. Trying to shock, you know, when
you're young, you like to shock people. You like to really get
their attention. Probably did more talking when
I should have done more listening. But there is a good zeal. A zeal
for the truth. A zeal to see sinners saved.
Don't you want to see sinners saved? Even when we know the scripture
says, few there be that find it. I'd love to be instrumental in
some of those few finding it. And you were just ready, and
I think that's probably what he's talking about here. You've
lost your fervency. Even maybe for worship. To attend the public worship
services. Even in the matter of prayer. I know I have to really talk to myself about prayer. I need to pray. I need to make
it a habit. Not mundanely. Not just as a
religious routine, but out of the zeal and fervency to talk
to my Heavenly Father. Think about that. You've got
a right, and if you're in Christ, if you're washed in His blood
and clothed in His righteousness, you've got access to the throne
of God. Why not take advantage of it
and pray more? And this leaving your first love,
that's certainly possible for true believers. And we're told
by the Lord not to fall into such a state of apathy. But secondly,
it could mean this, and it could be just altogether here. They
became negligent in love for fellow believers who suffered
for righteousness sake. I think about what Christ said
at the judgment, speaking of the judgment in Matthew 25. He
said when his children, When they were persecuted over the
gospel, they lost their jobs. Some of them were put in jail.
You remember what he said? He said, you visited me when
I was in jail. And he said, in that you've done
this to the least of these, my brethren, you've done it unto
me. And maybe that's it. Maybe they
lost their their urgency and zeal for that love that binds
us together in the fellowship of grace and truth. You have
disagreements and we all have disagreements now, don't we? But to let that disagreement
upset our harmony and our fellowship, that's equivalent to leaving
your first love, I believe. Sometimes in our zeal to stand
for the truth and being involved in our own suffering, persecution,
we can neglect the needs of others, our brothers. But I believe that's something
of what he's talking about here. You've left your first love.
And so verse five, here comes a gracious remedy for the problem.
I listen to him, he says, remember therefore from whence thou art
fallen and repent and do the first works. Remember where you
came from. Remember where God brought you
from. Isaiah said, remember the pit from which you were dug. What's God done for me? And here's
another thing. Whatever God has done for me,
by way of blessing or benefit or goodness. Which part of that
did I earn? Which part of that did I deserve?
None of it. Not one iota of it. So he says, recall the love and
grace of God towards us in Christ Jesus. And whenever we neglect
our brethren, this is the love from which we fall. He's not
saying we fall out of God's love or grace. That cannot happen. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God in Christ. But we can grow cold and we can
grow indifferent in expressing love for our brethren as we stand
together in the gospel ministry. We can do that. So he says, repent
and do the first works. If we've fallen into that state
of mind, then we as believers must realize this and change
our minds. Getting back to the works we
did at the first. And he says this, now listen
to it. He says, or else I will come unto thee quickly and remove
thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. Now Christ's
true church will never die. It will never perish. He said,
upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell
will not prevail against it. God's going to bring all of His
elect to faith in Christ and repentance of dead works. And
we know He's sovereign. He'll save His people. He's ordained
the means. And we know God's elect will
be saved. But we also know they will hear and believe the gospel.
But He's simply saying if this kind of attitude persists, there'll
be no church in Ephesus. It'll be gone. And you know what? There's no church in Ephesus
today. That's what happened. Verse six,
he says, but this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of
the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Now I'm gonna come back
and deal with this because the Nicolaitans are mentioned later
on too. And I'll tell you what I believe
that is. Actually, to tell you the truth,
if you read all the commentaries on it, Nobody really knows for
sure what they are. But we know this, they were preaching
against the gospel. And he concludes with saying,
he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. I'll come back and
deal with that next time. So we'll conclude our service
by singing hymn number 188. Familiar
to us, 188. I love thy kingdom, Lord.