All right, we're going to be
looking at the church at Ephesus. These are the seven churches
of Asia Minor under whom Christ instructed John, the Apostle
John, to send these letters to. And these letters were to, I
believe, they were to be circulated among all these seven local churches. These churches had been, they
were founded on the gospel. The apostle Paul, as you know,
was used of God to start the church at Ephesus. It says in
verse 1 of Revelation 2, unto the angel of the church of Ephesus
write. And we're going to be looking
at that as Ephesus, you know, was a very busy port city. on
the Aegean Sea. Ephesus was, like most big cities
or commercial cities back then, it was a big center of idolatry.
It had a big temple of Diana, the goddess Diana. You know those
Greek and Roman gods and goddesses we studied in mythology? They
had a big temple to Diana. Her Greek name was Artemis. It
was huge. And it was a commercial center
for the whole town. A lot of people made their living
connected with that idolatry, making idols, making statues
and things like that. And Paul visited Ephesus, I think
it was on his second missionary journey. You can read about all
this in the book of Acts chapter 18 and chapter 19 and even chapter
20. about Ephesus where Paul went
there. You remember the couple, the husband and wife that he
met named Aquila and Priscilla. He took them to Ephesus. They
taught there. Apollos was in Ephesus. Paul
brought Timothy to Ephesus and Timothy was there. Paul stayed
there. I think he came back and the church was established. He
stayed there for three years and he taught them the gospel.
He taught them the good news of salvation conditioned on Christ. Revealing the righteousness of
God and you can read it Like I said, I won't go over all that
history because you can read about it in the book of Acts
18 19 and 20 but one thing you might Remember is that Paul he
met in Acts chapter 20 he met with the elders at Ephesus and
you remember that's when he told him take heed that you feed the
Church of God and which you have been made overseers." And he
said the church which Jesus Christ had purchased with his own blood.
And he told them, he warned them that in the last days that there
would be wolves that would creep into the church and try to divert
them away from Christ and the truth of the gospel. And that's
a plague. Now what you're going to see
in all seven of these letters is that there's going to be things
that Christ encourages, things that are going to be going on
all through the last age, the new covenant age in the churches
where the gospel is preached, and he's going to encourage something.
He starts off with the church at Ephesus encouraging them about
their zeal, their zeal in the truth. And then there's gonna
be some things that need to be corrected, some dangers that
we as a church, a local body of believers in our area, we
need to avoid. We need to beware of and avoid.
And if we lapse into that kind of behavior, then we need to
be called to repentance. We need to be recovered out of
it in a way of grace. And so you're gonna see that
in these letters as we go through. But listen to what he says, Ephesians
chapter two, this is the necessity of zeal and love. He says, unto
the angel or the messenger of the church of Ephesus write,
these things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right
hand. And those seven stars we learn
back in Revelation 1 verse 20, look at the last verse of Revelation
1, the mystery of the seven stars. In other words, he's gonna uncover
the truth about who the seven stars are. He said, which thou sawest in
my right hand and the seven golden candlesticks or the seven golden
lamp stands. He says, the seven stars are
the angels of the seven churches. Now I believe that's talking
about the messengers. That's the instrument that God
uses to shine forth with the light of Christ, preaching the
gospel. There are some commentators who say that means actual angel,
angelic beings that God has put over charge of the church. And I wouldn't split a church
over that issue, but I believe the word angel means messenger.
And you have to look at the context to find out if he's talking about
an angelic being or just a messenger of the church. And so, in other
words, what Christ is saying here is this is to the messenger
and the messenger is to deliver this to the church. In other
words, it's not given to the messenger and then the messenger
just keeps it to himself, some hidden truth or something. No,
this is to be delivered out. This is to be preached out, taught
out. You tell the churches this message. And he says in Ephesians 2.1,
he says, this is from him who holds the seven stars in his
right hand. Now the right hand, that's the
right hand of grace, that's talking about his power of preservation. And what he's saying, it's a
reminder of the messenger of the church that look, we are
what we are by the grace of God. It's not by our power, it's not
by our wisdom, it's totally by Christ. He holds us, and if he
doesn't hold us, we're gone. If Christ doesn't hold us, if
he doesn't hold me as a preacher or you as a listener, if he doesn't
hold us, there's no hope of us enduring. So he says, I hold
the seven stars in my right hand. And then he says, he who walketh
in the midst or in the center of the seven golden candlesticks,
the seven golden lampstands, that's the churches. We are the
light of the world, the scripture says. And we shine forth with
the light of the glory of God in Jesus Christ. We preach the
gospel. We're not the source of the light.
We don't shine with our own light. It's his light shining through
us. Paul told the church at Philippi, we're shining lights in a dark
world because we tell the truth. We preach Christ and him crucified
and risen. We preach the righteousness of
God in Christ. We don't preach our own righteousness.
We're not here to exalt ourselves. We're not here to even honor
ourselves. We're here to honor Christ. and tell sinners the
truth about the holiness of God and about the sinfulness of man
and our need of salvation totally by God's free and sovereign grace.
And there's no other way. And we don't hold back on that. It's an offensive message to
the natural man, but it's a light that the natural man hates. The scripture says, John 3, 19
and 20, because it exposes his deeds. His attempts to save himself. His attempts to work his way
into God's favor. His attempts to make himself
righteous before God. The light that we shine forth
with exposes his deeds as evil. Because they deny God. They deny
Christ. They exalt the sinner. And so
we tell sinners the truth. We tell them what they don't
want to hear, but what they need to hear. And it's up to the Holy
Spirit to make it effectual to the hearts of his people. So
here's Christ holding us, keeping us by his grace, by his power. You see the reason we persevere
in the faith is because he preserves us in the faith. And here he
is in the midst of the seven candlesticks, the seven churches.
Christ is the foundation of the church. Christ is the head of
the church and Christ is the heart of the church. It's his
life, the heartbeat that pumps the life through the body. He's
the life of the church. He's the center. Remember he
said, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I'll
be in the midst of them. Well, he starts off in verse
two. Now, last week I dealt with this. He said, I know thy works
and thy labor and thy patience. And so we see God's recognition
of the works, the labor, the patience of his people, not as
being meritorious, not as if they're earning anything from
God, but as the fruits of his righteousness, the fruits of
his power. the fruits of his grace. These
are the evidences of God's grace. These aren't the causes of the
salvation of his people. Your works, I know your works.
He recognizes them. He said, and works is self-explanatory. That's the acts of obedience
of a believer that are the fruit of God's power and grace in our
lives. Where the life of Christ is,
there's going to be the fruit of obedience. And I know people
when they hear that say, well, how much fruit? That's not an
issue. It's not an issue here. But there's
no measure. I mean, we don't have a measuring
stick by which we can say, well, now you've got this many. That
kind of thinking is false religion. You know, when you start thinking,
well, how many works? You know, how much? Don't worry
about that. It's the acts of obedience that
Christ in us bears fruit. He talked about that in John
15. I'm the vine, you're the branches. And the branches bear
fruit from the vine. The word labor there means, it's
almost like working yourself to exhaustion. That's what it
literally means. You've been real zealous in this. That's
what he's talking about. And so I know thy works. He said
thy patience. Patience is endurance. Has to
do with perseverance. Patience is not what we think,
you know, sitting in a waiting room somewhere and being content.
You know, we ought to be content, obviously, but the patience here
is endurance. You've endured. You've weathered
through. Now again, we don't do that by
our own power, it's all by the grace of God. And here's what
they've done, look at verse 2, he says, I know thy works, thy
labor, thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which
are evil. Now, I talked about this in the
message last week, we're all sinners. And let's face it. I mean, let's be honest. We all
have to put up with a lot from each other. But when he talks
about not burying them which are evil, he's talking about
you haven't tolerated those who have in some way denied the gospel. Now there's a lot of different
ways a person can deny the gospel. A person can deny the gospel
by claiming to believe it and then living a life of absolute
debauchery with no repentance. That's possible. And then a person
can deny the gospel by claiming to believe it and then compromising. or denying the necessities or
the vital issues of truth of Christ and him crucified and
the righteousness that God requires and gives to his people for justification
before God. Well, look at what he says. Now,
you know that in the original New Testament documents, which
were written in ancient Greek, there was no punctuation. But
I believe the King James translators, as they were guided by the Lord,
I believe that they did a pretty good job on a lot of it. There's
some places where I disagree, like where they put a comma here
and a comma there, and I believe the context can back that up.
But you see that colon after that? It says, thou canst not
bear them which are evil, and it has a colon there, the double
dots. What that tells you is that he's
going to explain what he just said. So he says, you cannot
bear them which are evil, and thou hast tested, that's what
the word tried means, all right? Here's what he means. Thou hast
tried or tested them which say they are apostles and are not
apostles, and has found them liars. Now that tells us what
he's talking about in the evil here. Now as I said, a person
can deny the evil can be manifested in different ways. But what way
was it being manifested in the church at Ephesus? There were
certain people, certain men, who came in claiming to be apostles. And they weren't apostles. And
how do you know? They were liars. Well, first
of all, they were liars claiming to be apostles because there's
only 12 apostles. The last one to die was John.
John was the last one. So they weren't apostles. I know if you go down the road
here on Slappy, you'll find somebody who calls himself an apostle.
There are no apostles today. The apostle was a special office
that was given to certain men by God to establish and initiate
the New Testament church and the revelation of the scripture.
The word apostle means something like messenger too. But these
men claim to be apostles, but you found them liars. Now what
did they lie about? Well, first of all, they lied
about being apostles, but I'm just about sure that they probably
preached a false gospel too. They probably brought in works. In another one of the churches,
he talks about those who claim to be Jews and who are not. So
it could have been the Judaizers. You remember in the book of Galatians?
That's what happened there. There were false preachers who
claimed to be Jews and who claimed to have a special connection
with God through Abraham, and they preached a false gospel.
And they were liars. So any person who claims to have
authority from God, but who preaches salvation by the works and the
will of men, That's a false apostle. That's a liar. So what he's doing
here, he's commending the Ephesian church for being adamant and
zealous and laborious and enduring in standing against these false
apostles in their doctrine. Those who abide not in the doctrine
of Christ hath not God. So he's commending them for their
zeal. Well, that's a necessity. The church is the pillar and
ground of truth. We've got to be truthful here.
We've got to study the scriptures. We've got to talk to each other
about the scripture. You have to test me. Every time
I enter this pulpit or any of these men who stand and preach
to you, you have to put us to the test. You have to be laborious
in doing it. I mean, like he said, you've
worked yourself to exhaustion here. Worked your fingers to
the bone, that's what labor means. You have to endure. You can't
let up. You can't stop in this issue of making sure that this
is a church that stands for the truth. Now again, we know that
it's all by the grace and the power of God Almighty. But he's
put it up in our hearts, in our minds, our affections, and our
will to stand firm. Like Paul said in Galatians chapter
five and verse one, stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free and don't be entangled again with the yoke
of bondage. Don't tolerate those who come in and preach doctrines
that are contrary to the gospel. And so this is the issue, that's
the evil that they were going through. So he commends him.
Look at verse three, he says, and hast born, you born up, you
bear, and hast patience, that's endurance again, and for my namesake,
anytime you see his namesake, remember this, that's his glory.
In other words, this is all for the glory of God. You haven't
done this so that you can toot your own horn. You haven't done
this so you can brag about your endurance and your labor. You
did it for his namesake. The name, the Bible says, whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. His name
is what identifies and distinguishes him as the one and only true
savior, the only way of righteousness before holy God. And so you did
it for my namesake and hast labored, there's that word again, and
hast not fainted. That means you didn't quit. You
didn't stop. Sometimes we get weary, don't
we? Sometimes we do a little self-inventory and I do it too. I'll say, have I gone crazy? And then what happens? The Holy
Spirit always brings me back to the scriptures. I said, well,
I can't deny, I may have gone crazy, but the scriptures are
still true. But that's what happened. You haven't quit. And that's a great testimony
to the power and goodness and grace of God, that we haven't
quit. You haven't fainted. All right,
now that's what he commends them for, their zeal, their fervency. for the truth, they stood firm.
And they would not tolerate, they would not tolerate those
who came in preaching another gospel. But now look at verse
four, now he gives them a rebuke. He says, nevertheless I have
somewhat against thee. Now you see the word somewhat
is in italics. That means it was supplied by
the King James translators, it wasn't in the original manuscript. I have against thee. He says,
because thou hast left thy first love. Well now, let me say something
about that. When Christ looks at his people,
and I'm talking about his true people, and he says, I have somewhat
against you, we need to understand a couple of things. First of
all, we need to understand that as we stand in Christ, Christ
is our substitute. Christ is our surety. Christ
is and always will be the Lord our righteousness before Holy
God. That never changes. That never
diminishes. There's no contamination there. We stand in his righteousness
imputed. And that can never be taken away.
You know why it can never be taken away? Well, there's several
reasons. But one of the reasons is God
is faithful. He will not go back on a promise
that he's made. If he did, he would cease to
be God. No, actually, you'd say it this
way. If he did, he never was God. Let God be true and every
man a liar. That's what that means. God always
keeps his promises. I don't always keep my promises.
And I hope it's not because I'm a deceitful person. I hope it's
just because I don't foresee the obstacles and I'm not able
to provide all the means to keep my promise. I'm a earthen vessel,
as the scripture says. But God always keeps his promises.
So the second reason, the second reason that we can never, we
can never be charged with sin, anything less than righteous
before God in Christ now, is because all those promises that
God made are in Christ, yea, and in him, amen. They're all
founded upon the fact that Christ was made sin for us and took
our sins as they were charged to him and died for those sins
and satisfied justice and that righteousness that came out of
the merits of his obedience unto death is imputed to all of God's
children. So God in that sense, in that
sense as we stand judicially, legally before God in Christ,
he never has anything against us. In fact, he says this, he
says, their sins and their iniquities, I will what? Remember them no
more. That means he'll never bring
them up, he'll never hold them against us. Blessed is the man
to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. But here's the thing,
as to our state here on earth, As to our standing before God
in Christ, righteous, nothing against us. As to our state as
we exist here on this earth, we're sinners saved by grace.
We got a lot of problems. Some more than others, but we
all have one problem in common, sin. And it'll never get any
better, not in this life now, I mean, just the time you think
it's getting better, just hold on. I know when I first began
up at 13th Street back in 2003, after the first year, we went
through a lot of trials and a lot of disappointments. And I had
several people come to me, and they'd ask me this question.
They'd say, when is this trial going to end? And you know what
my stock answer was? As soon as the next one begins. And I don't even know, maybe
you got a few trials that overlap. So who knows? But we're sinners. And on this earth, we will suffer,
not the penalty of sin, because Christ suffered that in our place.
Christ took the full penalty of all my sins in full. Paid
my debt in full. So I'm not suffering, whatever
I suffer through this life, And sometimes it's because of my
terrible, foolish, bad choices, and sometimes it's not. But whatever
it is, God has a reason for it. It's a consequence of sin. And
what it's called for believers is chastisement. God chastens
his children. And out of that chastisement,
we are to learn lessons. He has something for us to learn. Sometimes we don't see it until
the trial's over. Sometimes not even then. Sometimes
it's years later. But it's there. And the thing
about it is, we don't like it. I mean, they're not pleasant. I don't hold them pleasant. When
I go through severe trials, I don't hold them to be pleasant, you
know. But they're there. And I know
this, the Bible says if God doesn't chase in you, you're not a true
child of God. There are sufferings that are
common to all people without exception, but as they apply
to a believer in Christ on this earth, they're the consequences
of God's chastening. Now that's what he's talking
about here. He says, I have somewhat against thee. I've got a matter. that you need to be corrected
on. You need to be brought to repentance
on. And here's what he says, you've left your first love. Now there are two interpretations
of that. You know, it's something because
he doesn't really give us a detailed explanation of what it means
to say they left their first love. But there's two common
interpretations that are possible, and I'll tell you which one I
hold to. One of them I used to hold to, and I don't anymore.
But the two interpretations, the first interpretation, the
one that's most common that you probably heard is that what he's
talking about is their fervency, their enthusiasm, their passion
for the gospel that they had when they were first converted.
They had grown lax, lazy maybe, nonchalant about it. And a lot
of commentators, they liken it to a marriage between a man and
a woman when you first meet and how passionate you are. And then
as you grow older, that kind of goes down, whether it should
or shouldn't. I'm not getting into all that
now. But anyway, but that's what they kind of liken this to. And listen, that's possible.
It's possible for a person. We first come to a knowledge
of the scriptures. We first come to a knowledge
of Christ in the new birth when we're first born again. And sometimes,
and I've seen people that have such a passion, you know, they
can't get enough of it. And then as they go through some
struggles, go through some fights here on earth, go through some
persecution, that passion kind of wanes and kind of diminishes. And some commentator, and I used
to think that that's what this is talking about. Some commentators
say, well, that's what he's talking about. Look at verse five. He
says, remember therefore from whence thou art fallen. Remember
when you were first born again and how passionate and how enthusiastic
and how zealous you were to worship God, to read the scriptures,
to listen to messages, to come to worship services, all of that?
You remember that? Well, you've fallen from that.
Doesn't mean you've left it now. That word fallen doesn't mean
you've left it because you haven't left the gospel. But he says, repent. You need
to change your mind about that. You need to seek that first passionate
zeal. And do the first works. Do the
first works means act like you did when you were so hungry for
the gospel, hungry for everything. And he says, or else I will come
unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place,
except thou repent. Now he's not threatening them
with condemnation here, but what he's showing here is that he'll
remove the church out of that area. There won't be any gospel
preached there. Now, if you go to Ephesus today,
it's just a ruin. Probably it wasn't too long after
that that the church was removed the light of the gospel did was
removed out of that city and That's a consequence of this
laziness when I hear let me give you the second interpretation
When he says never that verse for nevertheless I have somewhat
against thee because thou has left thy first look what I believe
he's talking about is he's talking about love of the brethren and
that would cause them to be concerned with and involved with helping
brothers and sisters in Christ who are suffering for the gospel. I think that's what it is. And
the reason I say that is this. If what he's talking about is
that they've left their passion and their zeal for the gospel,
how does that fit with verses two and three? Look at it again,
I know your works, I know your labor. What's that word labor
mean? It means you've worked to exhaustion. Now that sounds
like zeal to me, how about you? That sounds like passion to me.
You've been fervent to stand against those who are evil and
who preach a false gospel. That kind of attitude and that
kind of setting sort of indicates to me that they hadn't lost their
passion for the truth and their passion for worship and their
passion for service. But what happens a lot of times
when we're going through persecution as a church, and one thing I
told you, remember last week, that one thing you've got to
understand about the book of Revelation is that he's writing
to churches who were going through severe persecution. They were
being, especially from the Roman Empire. And that's very key to
understanding Revelation. So these churches were being
persecuted and this one was standing for the truth, standing passionately,
zealously, enthusiastically for the gospel of Christ. And what
happens a lot of times? We have a tendency to neglect
brothers and sisters in Christ in need. Remember Christ said
in John 13, 35, he said, by this shall all men know that you are
my disciples if you have love one to another. That's that love
that causes us to be loyal to each other in the truth. And
when a brother or sister in Christ is suffering, especially over
persecution, suffering for righteousness sake, then what are we required
to do? We're required to help them in
whatever way they need help. If they need food, clothing,
shelter, protection, whatever. Remember what Christ said in
Matthew 25, I was in prison, you visited me. I was hungry,
you fed me, that kind of thing. Because they go under persecution.
And I have a tendency to believe that that's what he's talking
about. Because he describes this church as a zealous church on
fire for the gospel. And then he says you've left
your first love. Don't neglect your brethren. That's what he's
saying, I believe. But either interpretation, you see, whichever
interpretation of that you decide to latch onto, neither one of
them do damage to the gospel. You know, I've often said that
a lot of times if you do come to a passage of scripture that
there are different interpretations, it's okay as long as the interpretation
doesn't deny the gospel of God's grace in Christ and the righteousness
of God in him. So either way you go. But look
at verse five again. Remember therefore from whence
thou art fallen and repent and do the first works. I believe
that's an exhortation very similar to the exhortation that John
gives in first John three and first John four when he's talking
about, you remember how he talks about love to the brethren and
then he talks about Cain and Abel, how Cain persecuted Abel.
And then he said marvel not if the world hate you. We know we've
passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. And he
said if a brother comes to you and has need of food and clothing
and you don't feed him, you don't clothe him, he said it's just
sham religion. He said love in word and deed
both, you know. So I would equate that with that. I've got those passages in your
lesson there, and you can read it. But he does say, or else
I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick
out of his place, except thou repent. So he's telling them,
he said, unless you repent, and of course, repentance is a gift
of God, you know that. He said, I'm gonna remove. Now
look at verse six, he says, but this thou hast, that thou hatest
the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate, Who are the
Nicolaitans? Nobody really knows for sure. Some people say that these were
followers of a man named Nicholas who came out after the apostles
died off and started a cult. But there's nothing in scripture
that will bear that up. There's nothing in scripture
that That'll bear that up. You can read about this in your
lesson. But let me say this. I think, one of the problems
is, is that the King James translators capitalized this word. And there's
nothing in the scripture that says this should be capitalized.
What does Nicolaitans mean? It's a compound word. And the word, the first Greek
word is Nikos, and you know what it means? It means to conquer.
And the second Greek word would be laity or it's what we get
our English word laity from. It means the people. Conquer the people. And what
I believe it is, it's the notion after in the last days that this
notion that has so pervaded the apostate church of clergy and
laity. conquering the people. And what's
arisen up in the false church or in the apostate church is
this unholy division between the clergy and the laity to where
the clergy does the thanking for the people, conquers the
people, and goes beyond the scriptures.