Revelation chapter 2. The title
of the lesson this morning is Falling From Our First Love.
Now, the next two chapters over the coming Sundays, we're going
to be looking at the Lord's letters to the seven churches. And there's
a sobering warning to the church in all of these letters. Each
of these letters apply to the whole church of God. That's why
there's seven of them. It's not just a random number.
This is to the whole church, the complete church of God. Because
every local church goes through the situations that were warned
of in these letters. These issues come up over and
over and over again in the local churches throughout history.
So these warnings are to us today just as much as they were to
the churches who received these letters. Today we'll look at
the letter to the church at Ephesus. Ephesus was a very prosperous
city. It was a lot like New York City.
It was built upon a harbor that was very deep, and big ships
could come in there, and almost all of the trade goods for all
that continent would come through that port. It was a very prosperous
city. And the city was famous for it
had the temple to the goddess Diana built in that city. It
was a big business for tourism. People come from all over the
place, you know, to go to that temple. Silversmiths made a lot
of money there, making little silver idols, you know, of the
goddess. In the midst of all that idolatry,
the Lord caused a great church to be established there. You
know how the apostle Paul went and preached there, and that
church at Ephesus was formed. Timothy became the pastor at
the church at Ephesus. The Ephesian elders were famous
for the tearful goodbye that Paul gave them in his last words
to them. And at the time of the writing
of this letter, the church at Ephesus was over 40 years old. Timothy, from what we understand,
was no longer the pastor. And this letter was written to
the church beginning in verse one, Revelation chapter two.
under the angel of the church at Ephesus, right? These things
saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand. He walketh
in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. The letters addressed
to the angel, an angel is the pastor of the church at Ephesus
at that time. And it sent from the Lord. This
is a direct message from the Lord. He identifies himself as
the one who holds the seven stars in his hand. And if you look
back at the last chapter or last verse of the last chapter, we
see that those stars are the pastors. He says the mystery
of the seven stars, which thou sawest in my right hand and the
seven golden candlesticks, the seven stars are the angels, the
pastors of the seven churches and the seven candlesticks, which
thou sawest are the seven churches. And Lord says he reminds us here,
he holds those stars in his right hand. That is so comforting to
me to hear that the God's pastors are held in his hand. They're
directed by his hand. They're kept from falling away
by his almighty hand. Now, we know that our faith,
our confidence is in the Lord. We gather together. We gather
together with the need to hear from the Lord, don't we? But
you know, if we're going to hear, if God's going to speak to us
through his word, we're going to hear from a man preaching
the gospel. Well, isn't it comforting to know that the Lord holds him
in his right hand. He directs his message. He directs
his heart. He keeps him from falling. And
the Lord also describes himself as the one who's walking in the
midst of the candlesticks. He's walking in the midst of
the church, in the midst of his people. And that's so comforting
again for me to think about the Lord walking in the midst of
his people. This is an intimate relationship
the Lord has with his people. He's so intimately aware of them
that when they meet together to worship him, he's in the midst
of them. And he describes himself walking
in the midst of them like a man who walks through his garden
with pleasure. He has pleasure in looking around
that garden that he worked on. He enjoys the fragrances and
the beauty of the flowers he's planted and worked on. That's
how the Lord walks in the midst of his people with enjoyment.
enjoying what he's made his people to be. And that's what he tells
him here in verse two. He says, I know thy works and
thy labor and thy patience and how thou canst not bear them
which are evil. And thou has tried them which
say they are apostles and are not and has found them liars.
Now, we know the Lord is getting ready in this letter to have
a rebuke for his people, a warning for his people. But before he
does that, before he gives that warning, he commends him first. And that just reminds me of how
the Lord deals so tenderly and compassionately with His people.
And we ought to remember that as we deal with one another,
to deal with one another tenderly and compassion, with a little
bit of wisdom, you know, commending them first for the things that
they ought to be commended for. The Lord says, I know your works. I know your labor. The Lord knows
your labor of love and your works of faith. He knows those things. In the church there at Ephesus,
like every believer, they didn't do those works of faith, those
acts of love, labors of love. They didn't do those things in
order to get God to save them. No, they're works of love, out
of a thankful and grateful heart, because the Lord has already
saved you. They had faith in Christ. And their faith was not
idle. It was a faith that worked. It's
a good thing, because faith without works is dead, isn't it? Their
faith wasn't dead. They put their faith into action
by serving the Lord in whatever way that the Lord enabled them
to do. The church at Ephesus was full of people who were not
lazy in spiritual matters. They walked, they conducted themselves
in good works, and that's commendable. The Lord commends them for that.
He made them that way, but yet he commends them for it. And
he says, I know your patience. You've persevered in the faith.
This thing's been going on a long time. You've persevered in the
faith. Your faith continued through many dangers, toils and snares.
You didn't let trials stop you. Even in difficult times, you
continued with your good works, your labors of love. And that's
God given faith. He commends them for what he's
made them. God-given faith will endure to the end. Now, we know
that, don't we? If God's given us faith, it will
endure to the end. But these Ephesian believers
did not presume on that. They were still zealous of good
works. And the Lord says, I know you can't bear them that are
evil. They loved the truth of the gospel. They hadn't lost that. They loved
the truth of the gospel. They would not tolerate false
doctrine. They wouldn't compromise with
the idolatry that was going on around them. They wouldn't compromise
with the religious world going on around them just to get along
with them because they can't bear that which is evil. Their
love for Christ made them say with David, I hate every false
way. I hate false doctrine. I see
false doctrine and false prophets on television and things. Oh,
I hate it. I hate hearing a lie about our
Savior. I hate hearing how they lie to
men and women and they follow them. They follow men to hell.
I hate that. That's the way the church at Ephesus was. The Lord
says, I know you've tried them that said they're apostles and
they're not. And you found them to be liars. Look back a few
pages at 1 John chapter 4. It wouldn't surprise me the church
at Ephesus read this general epistle that the apostle John
wrote about trying the spirits, trying the preachers. John says,
beloved, believe not every spirit, and you know that's preachers,
but try the spirits, whether they're of God, because many
false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the
spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every
spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of Antichrist,
whereof you've heard that it should come. And even now, already
is it in the world. That was true at Ephesus. And
those words of John weren't just words on paper to them. They
put them into practice. They heard a preacher and they
tried him. You know how they tried him?
by the word of God. They said, does his message matches
what God says in his word? They use the word of God to know
the difference between truth and error. That's commendable. Look here at verse three, the
Lord says, and has borne and has patience for my name's sake,
and you have borne and has patience, and for my name's sake you've
labored and you haven't fainted. They bore the reproach of Christ
with patience. They endured persecution. You imagine in this town where
this idolatry is so rampant, where the economy depends on
this idolatry, and you know they were persecuted. They endured
it for Christ's sake. They did not let trials make
them quit. Look here at verse six. He said,
but this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans,
which I also hate. Now, the Nicolaitans were a wicked
people. They were very religious now,
but they were wicked. I'll tell you what made them
so wicked. They quote their religious or their wickedness in religion.
They were antinomians. I'll tell you what an antinomian
is. An antinomian says, since we're saved by grace, we can
live lawless lives. Since we're saved by grace, God
saved us from our sin, it doesn't matter how much we sin. It doesn't
matter how much, how we live, what we do. It doesn't matter.
because we're saved by grace. And they used, this is how wicked
they were, they used God's grace as an excuse for every kind of
sin, sexual sins, every kind of immorality and dishonesty.
They used God's grace as an excuse for that. And the church at Ephesus
hated that doctrine, and they should have. Now it's true, a
believer is free from the law. A believer is free from the law
because Christ kept the law for us and he died to the law. And
when he died, every believer died to the law in Christ. We're dead to the law. You know
what that means? We don't have anything to do
with the law. The believer has nothing to do with God's law. We don't look at God's law. It's
our rule of life. We're not saved by grace, then
look to the law for our rule of life. No. We don't even look
to the law as a code to live by. Tell you what a believer
lives by. The believer lives by a motive
of love for Christ. And I'll tell you, love is a
whole lot more far-reaching than the law of Moses. The royal law
of love for Christ is a heart motive. It begins with the heart
motive of love for Christ. That's the believer's code. That's
the believer's rule of life. It's love for Christ. So even
when we fail so miserably in our attempts to serve our Savior,
do you know our God still looks upon his people with faithfulness?
Because he looks upon the Mosel. He looks upon the new heart that
he's given his people. And that's commendable. You know,
don't ever fall into this trap of the Nicolaitans. No, the believer's
walk matters. The believer's conduct matters,
but not to add to our salvation. It's not to be our sanctification. It's a walk following Christ
in love. And this is commendable. But
now that brings us to our Lord's warning. They loved the Lord. These Ephesian believers, they
loved the Lord. They followed him out of love. But human beings being what we
are, our love can grow colder and dimmer and less warm. Verse
four. Nevertheless, the Lord says,
I have something against thee, because thou hast left thy first
love. Now this is the charge against
the church at Ephesus. This is the warning to every
local church, as the warning does today. The charge is you've
left your first love. And don't you think we can't
do it too? We can't. What is this talking about? Losing
our first love? What is losing our first love
spiritually? Well, Lord here is not talking
about a believer who quits loving the Lord, because we know that's
not possible. No believer will ever quit loving
the Lord. Because he won't quit loving
us. He won't let us. But our love can diminish, can't
it? It can grow cold. It can lose some of its passion
and warmth and fervor. And I'll tell you how that happens.
It happens because of neglect. And it takes time. That's what
happened to the church at Ephesus. It took 40 years, but it happened. And I'll illustrate losing our
first love spiritually by natural first love. Think of a woman. She'd been married a long time.
Maybe she's been married 40 years. Now, she still does everything
she's always done. She still washes her husband's
clothes. You know, he pulls open the drawer,
opens the closet. Their clean clothes always there.
She cooks dinner for him. He's not starving. He comes home
from work. She greets him at the door. But it's just not with the same
enthusiasm as it was when they were newlyweds. Well, it was
a lot different when they were newlyweds. And he's the same
way. Over the course of time, you
know what happens? They tend to take each other
for granted. They just don't treat each other
like they did when they were dating. There's just certain
things a young man won't do when he's dating a pretty girl. He's
just going to be very careful. She's the same way. When we lose our first love,
that diminishes a little bit. And the same thing can happen
to us spiritually. I say this to our shame. You who believe, do you remember
a time when you could not wait for Sunday or Wednesday to get
there so you could get to the worship service? You couldn't
wait to get there to hear, what does the Lord have for us today?
You couldn't wait to get there because you were sure, I'm going
to get a blessing from the Lord today. Remember that? You remember
when you go through your week and you just thought about the
Lord. You saw him everywhere. You saw his hand in everything.
You thought about the upcoming service, worship service through
the week. You thought about your pastor. You prayed so fervently
for him. Remember a time when you just
didn't want to go through your day without stopping and opening
up God's Word? Just to read it, just to have
pleasure in reading God's Word. Remember that? Then do you remember a time when
you still liked those things? But it wasn't as perfect as it
once was. Remember that? If you believe
God you do. Every believer goes through it.
And every local church can go through that. But what happened? That's losing our first love.
We lost the warmth and the fervor of that love as it declined.
We didn't lose it, but it declined over time. And maybe it happened
just because of familiarity. We're so used to having the gospel
preached to us, it became commonplace. Well, what can happen to cause
us to lose our first love? Number one, willful neglect. Willful neglect. You remember
the bride in Song of Solomon 5? She was in bed. She washed
her feet. She took off her slippers. She
got her pajamas on. She took off her robe. She got
in bed, got the covers up. She's all snuggled down, nice
and warm. And the Lord came, knocked on the door. She said,
I'm just Too tired to get out of bed. If I get out of bed,
I'm going to have to wash my feet again. I'm going to have to put my robe on, you
know. Willful neglect. She'd lost the fervor of her
love. She'd lost her need of the Savior. And when she finally did reluctantly
go to the door, the Lord was gone. Willful neglect. Second, look at Matthew chapter
13. We can lose our first love through the care of this world.
through the desire for the things of this world, because we just
get so busy with the things of this world. Matthew 13, verse
22. This is the parable the Lord
gave of the sower, he says in verse 22, he also that received
seed among the thorns. Remember those thorns, where'd
those thorns come from? They come from the curse of sin,
growing from the ground. It's the things of the world.
He that received the seed among the thorns is he that heareth
the word. And the care of this world and the deceitfulness of
riches choke the world and he becomes unfruitful. Now all of us have jobs and have
responsibilities. You do a good job at your job.
You take care of the responsibilities of this world that God's given
you. And sometimes Something will happen because of those
responsibilities, because of that job. We got to miss the
worship service, and that's perfectly understandable. Occasionally,
occasionally, when those things start to become habit, you know
what's happened? We've lost our first love. That's what happened to Demas.
Paul said, Demas had left me, he'd forsook me. Why? having
loved this present world. It can happen. So just beware
before you start down that road. It's a gradual slope, but it's
a slippery one. It's the care of this world can
choke out the word and cause us to lose our first love. And
the third one is plain old presumptions. Just presuming on God's grace,
like God's been gracious to me all this time. So now I deserve
it. You know, our first love says
this. God did not have to be gracious
to me, but he was. I'm so thankful my heart is just
melted, broken, thinking of God's grace to me. Brethren, is God
gracious to us so long we suddenly deserve it now? Losing our first
love, presuming on his grace. Look at the 2nd Chronicles chapter
26. This is the lesson of King Uzziah. 2nd Chronicles 26. If
you want to this afternoon, you could read this opening verses
of this chapter and you will read verse after verse after
verse of how richly the Lord blessed this man Uzziah. Just
blessed his reign in every way until he gets to verse 16. But
when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction. Somehow he started thinking all
these blessings and this strength became his and it was lifted
up to his destruction. For he transgressed against the
Lord his God and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense
upon the altar of incense." And you know that sin. That job is
only for the priest. This is a picture of the intercession
of Christ for his people. This is the picture of Christ
our mediator. Uzziah got so strong, he thought
he didn't need a mediator anymore. We lose our first love. When
we start to think, We can do some things on our own. I've
grown strong and I can do this just fine on my own. Thank you
very much. I'm just not totally dependent on Christ anymore.
We've lost our first love. We lose our first love when we
presume on God's grace and God's grace quits being amazing to
us anymore. When that happens, we've lost
our first love. I tell you, self-dependence Love
of self, self-righteousness, self-anything will destroy love
for Christ and love for others faster than anything I know of,
self. And I'll show you how serious
this is, verse five. Remember, therefore, from whence
thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works, or else I'll
come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of
his place, except thou repent. If we presume on God's grace,
we assume God's going to keep blessing me no matter what. He's
going to keep blessing me personally no matter what. He's going to
keep blessing the congregation no matter what. We just presume
on God's grace. We lose our first love. The Lord
says, I'll come and take the candlestick away. He'll come
and remove the pastor. He'll come and remove the gospel
and move it to someplace else that needs it more. Now, this is a warning to you
and me. We've not been in this building, I don't know, seven,
eight years, something like that. We've been meeting together as
a congregation, I don't know, it was 13, 12 years, I don't
know, a while. But this congregation has been
blessed of God for more than 60 years. Do we presume on that? Do we? Just because the Lord's blessed
us all these, 60 years is a blip in time. That doesn't mean God's
always going to do it. I remember Brother Henry saying,
someday, somebody's going to drive down this road, they're
going to look at this building, there's going to be a hotel there,
and they're going to say, you know, I believe somebody's preached
the gospel there. What happened? We lost our first love. We lost
our first love. And maybe there won't be a hotel
there. Maybe there'll still be a building there, but the candlestick's
not there. What happened? Lost our first
love. We just presumed on God's grace,
we just didn't need Christ in the gospel as much as we used
to. And he took the candlestick away.
That's what happened to the church at Ephesus. Now, from what I
read about church history, whether this is true or not, I don't
know, but John Gill says that that church must have repented.
They stayed, there was a record, you know, of that church being
there more than 100 years later, but no more, no more. As far
as we know, no more. I believe if you search that
city very diligently, you wouldn't find the gospel preached there
as fulfillment of this verse. That's a sobering warning, isn't
it? And I'll tell you what's even more sobering. It happened
so gradually, people didn't even know it happened. The pastor
didn't know it happened. Members didn't know it happened.
God had to send them a letter to tell them it happened. All
right. What can be done about this?
Is there anything I can do to get back my first love? Is there
anything I can do to rekindle that, warm that love back up?
I believe John's given us the Holy Spirit through John's given
us the key to it in a few words here. The first one in verse
five is remember. Remember, therefore, from whence
thou art fallen. Remember the pit from which you're
digged. Remember who you are and what
you are by nature. If you remember that, you'll
need the Lord. You'll seek him. Remember where
you were when God found you. and just try to take a guess
where you'd be if you took his hand off of you. That'll keep
you leading. That'll make you seek the Lord
just like the bride. Remember the bride in Psalm 5,
she opened the door and the Lord wasn't there? Oh, then her heart
was smitten, wasn't it? Oh, and she fervently looked
for him. She found him, didn't she? We will too if we search
for him that way. Second, what can I do to rekindle,
to get back that first love? Well, the next word is repent.
He says there in verse five, repent, except thou repent. You
know, repentance is not a one-time thing. Repentance for the believer
is lifelong. Repentance is not just being
sorry. I suppose that's part of it,
but repentance is a turning. We turn to the Lord from our
idols and from our sin. And the way we rekindle our first
love is turn back to the Lord and do what He says here. Do
the first works. What first works are you talking about? Remember
when you first came to Christ? You sought Him earnestly with
all your heart, didn't you? Seek Him that way. Do the first
works. Seek Him with all your heart again. Come to the Lord. The first works, we come to the
Lord. Come to the Lord just like you
did the first time. How did you come to Christ the
first time? as a needy beggar who needed Christ to be my everything. Come to him that way. Cry to
him, Lord, I need your mercy. I need your grace. I need your
love. I need you to cleanse me from my sin. I need you to give
me the gift of repentance and faith. Lord, I need to repent.
Will you give me the gift of repentance? That's seeking the
Lord. You seek the Lord with all your
heart like you did the first time. You'll find him. You'll
find him. He won't abandon or refuse to hear His people, even
though that's what we've deserved. He won't do it. Repent. The third
word is hear. Verse 7. He that hath an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. You
want to rekindle that first love, that sweetheart love for Christ?
I tell you what to do. Be here when Christ is preached.
Be here when He's in the midst of His people and pray that the
Lord give you an ear, an ear of faith to hear. Seek the Lord,
seek Christ and his gospel and his word, you'll find him, you'll
find him. The Lord speaks mercy to every
sinner who comes genuinely seeking to hear a word from him. And
the fourth word, verse seven, is eat. To him that overcometh
will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst
of the paradise of God. That tree of life is given to
us as a picture of Christ, the bread of life. If you want to
rekindle that sweetheart love, that first love for Christ, I'll
tell you what to do. You feed on Him. You be in the
worship service, not out of duty, not just because of what you're
supposed to do, but you be there to worship Christ. You be there
to seek Him and feed on Him. You know, I have a big appetite. I love to eat. I mean, I can
just eat for entertainment. Even when I'm full, I can eat
more. Just for pure entertainment's sake, I can eat. And rarely,
but sometimes, rarely, I get sick and I just don't feel like
eating. And Jan will tell me, you better
eat something. Your body needs fuel here. You better eat something.
I'll give in and eat something, but it just doesn't taste very
good. I'm just going through the motions.
I'm eating because I'm supposed to. Maybe it'll make me feel
better or something. And then the body starts to get a little
health and strength back and starts to crave some food. And
Janet says, you want something to eat? And I said, oh yeah.
She said, well, I'll fix something. And I sit there in my recliner
and I smell what she's cooking. It smells so good. And she says,
dinner's ready. And boy, I come quickly to the
table. We sit down and we pray. We give
thanks to God. And then I fill my plate. and
I save for every bite. And you know I feel better? That
food is giving my body what it needs. That's what I'm talking
about here spiritually. You feed on Christ. He's what
you need. You feed on Him. That'll rekindle
that sweetheart love. I pray that the Lord give us
a heart that loves Him and seeks Him and will lovingly serve and
worship Him that way that we always Be careful not to lose
our personal honor.