Well, I'm not deliberately intending
to start another series on Revelation, but we might look at some of
the letters, because that's what I want to do this week, is to
look at the letter to the Church at Ephesus, following on from
the view we had last week of the risen Lord Jesus Christ in
John chapter 1, the glorious portrayal of the one who is the
man, Christ Jesus, as the Ancient of Days. Remember how we compared
with Daniel and we saw that the Son of Man was brought to the
Ancient of Days. Well now he's accomplished his
purpose of redemption and here he is portrayed, he is seen in
this vision of John as the Ancient of Days with the same white hair
as snow. Symbolical. Don't take any of
those things literally, they're symbolical. They're using human
language to describe that which is spiritual, that human language
cannot really describe. This is the eternal God who became
man for the purpose of redemption of His people. And we saw Christ
with His people because the seven candlesticks are representative
of the Church, the people of God in all ages, and He stands
in the midst of those candlesticks. The candlesticks are the things
that bear light. The light that the church bears
is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ, who said, You remember, in John's Gospel, I
am the light of the world. The world is in darkness, but
he said, I am the light of the world. Why? Because he came preaching
the kingdom of God, the truth of God, the righteousness of
God. Now, we've been seeing how blessed
we are as the believing people of God. In these days, such strange
days, aren't they? I don't think any of us have
ever experienced anything quite like the last few months. But
we mustn't ever forget, however frustrated we get with the restrictions
that governments apply to us and make us abide by, we must
never forget that really, that what is going on is the battle,
the strife between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. It's not a military battle. Jesus
said, my kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants
would take up swords and fight, but it isn't. The weapons of
our warfare, as Paul tells the Corinthians, I think, they're
not physical. They're not physical weapons,
but they're conceptual weapons. They're weapons of ideas, of
spiritual ideas, of truth. And between the kingdom of Satan,
which is this world, And the Kingdom of God, which Christ
came preaching in His ministry, there is an eternal, irreconcilable
difference. The Kingdom of this world will
never be made good. It will never be made the place
that God wants it to be, as so many religious folk think. And
there's a reason for that. The fundamental, irreconcilable
difference between the Kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God
is the righteousness of God, and the justice of God. God is
holy, and dwells in unapproachable light. God is pure. God is altogether
higher. My thoughts, he says, are higher
than your thoughts. My ways are higher than your
ways. Altogether different. God who dwells in unapproachable
light is altogether different from us who by nature are sinners. Those who sin in every way, in
every day, in thought, word, and deed. But in the Lord Jesus
Christ, in him and in him alone, the righteousness of God is satisfied. For he has honored the law and
righteousness of God, and he has answered the demands of the
law of God, that the soul that sins it shall die, and he has
done that for his people, for the multitude that no man can
number, that the Father gave to the Son before the beginning
of time. He has satisfied the justice of God, whereas in the
kingdom of Satan, the message is that we can have a nice utopian,
very happy coexistence of all the nations of the world, and
we need nothing to do with the righteousness of God. It doesn't
matter. There's no need for it. We're
not bothered about it. Well, we have to remember that
as those who believe the living God, and we know we live in frail
flesh, as Stephen prayed, you know, it's so often the case,
Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. Lord, help mine unbelief. Give me faith to believe you,
to know that the things of eternity are so solid. But as believers
and as churches in this world, we need to recognize that we're
in enemy territory. We really are. Christ prayed
that the church be left in the world, didn't he? John 17 verse
15, before he went to the cross, he said, I pray not that you
should take them, his people, his church, out of the world,
but while they're in the world, keep them from evil. Keep them,
preserve them. Why does he ask his father to
leave the church here in the world? Why is the church, why
are there witnesses to the truth of God still in this world? The
answer is to bear record of God's righteousness, to hold up the
banner of God's salvation, which is established in particular
redeeming blood, which is established in the blood of Christ, shed
for the people who were given to Him before the beginning of
time, based on nothing to do with those people, but entirely
to do with the pure, sovereign grace of God. The Church is here
in this world to bear record. If you turn over a few pages
to Revelation 11 and verse 3, We read there about the church
in the world in this time, and it covers the time in which we
live. And God says, I will give power unto my two witnesses,
and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three score days,
clothed in sackcloth. This is his church, and that
number is a symbolical number. for the time from when Christ
went back to glory. These are the two olive trees.
Olive trees are symbolical of the Holy Spirit's coming and
His work and His giving the truth of God to His people. These are
the two olive trees and the two candlesticks there. It is again
the church is standing before the God of the earth. These are
the witnesses, the people of God, and the ministers, the pastors
that God sets aside to proclaim the truth. And it says, if any
man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, meaning the
fire of the Word of God. and devoureth their enemies.
And if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.
He'll be slain by the word of God, for the word of God is sharper
than any two-edged sword. And these witnesses have power
to shut heaven. In other words, by their prayers
and their work for God, he will accomplish his purposes in this
world. Power to shut heaven. This is
what Elijah did in his day. He prayed that it would not rain
because of the faithlessness of the people who claimed to
be the people of God. Shut heaven that it rain not
in the days of their prophecy, and power over waters to turn
them to blood. Again, that's talking about Moses,
but it's symbolical of the power that the people of God have with
God through prayer. And it says, And when they shall
have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out
of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome
them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie
in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom
and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. and the people
gather and rejoice over the fact that the witness has been silenced. This is very much the days in
which we're living today, where the church as a functioning church
seems pretty much silenced. The truth of God, the gospel
of His grace, but it isn't. It isn't. It only appears that
way to the unbelieving world around. In truth, we know that
the gospel, it wasn't the internet produced in the providence of
God, just exactly for these days. The gospel is reaching places
where it has never reached before, with a speed and with a power
that it's never had before, exactly for these days. I just find it
absolutely remarkable. You see, We constantly need to
be reminded it is not God's purpose to make the world a better place,
but to judge it and to overthrow it with the triumph of His kingdom. When we were studying Revelation
and when you get into chapter 5 and chapter 6 and you see the
horses of the apocalypse riding forth and what they are, And
we understood those as God frustrating the purposes of this world to
establish a utopia without satisfaction of the justice of God. God will
always frustrate that, and so He does, just as He did in Old
Testament days, when the manifestation of the kingdom of Satan, which
was the Assyrian Empire in those days, the Emperor Sennacherib,
came to crush that which alone was the symbol on earth of the
people of God, of the kingdom of God, which was Jerusalem in
Judea. And he came up and Hezekiah was
the king there. And Sennacherib, the emperor,
threatened to crush and destroy Judah. And he prayed to God.
Hezekiah prayed to God. And God said, don't worry about
it. Through his prophet Isaiah, he said, don't worry about it.
they'll believe a rumour and they'll go away. And so they
did. And this isn't fairy stories. You can go down to the British
Museum. Is it open? I think it's open now, isn't
it? Maybe not, I don't know. But anyway, in normal times you
can go to the British Museum and you can see all the artefacts
of Sennacherib. He was a real man. But God frustrated
the purposes of that kingdom, to frustrate the kingdom of God. No, it cannot. God's kingdom
will always triumph. And even in these days, when
to the world his true church seems to be lying dead in the
streets as those two witnesses of Revelation 11, they're not
really. The Word of God is going where
it's never gone before, with force and power like it's never
had before. So we saw last week that there
is nothing to fear, nothing whatsoever, for Christ is in the midst of
his church. The sovereign ruler, the omnipotent
sovereign of the universe, he says he's in our midst. He says
He's walking amongst us. He's giving us His light. But
what does He say to us? Look in verse 7 of chapter 2.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to
the churches. To him that overcometh will I
give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the
paradise of God. He's addressing his church, he's
addressing his people in this world. And as I said, I don't
know whether this will develop into a series on these letters
or not at this stage, but certainly for this week I want to see what
this letter to the Ephesians says to us. He's addressing those
who have enlisted for God's kingdom. Those who have enlisted for God's
kingdom, you say, oh, they've made their own choice, they've
made their decision. Well, yes they did, but it was only because
He, God, as Psalm 110 verse 3 tells us, made them, His people, willing
to believe Him and enlist for Him in the day of His power.
They're enlisted for God's kingdom. Are you enlisted for God's kingdom? This letter is addressing, this
is the risen Christ writing to the church at Ephesus and he
is addressing those who profess to have been enlisted into the
army of the King, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Those
who profess to have received the adoption of sons. They're
children of the living God. They're in the family of the
living God. They're qualified by Christ as citizens of Zion. What's the qualification to be
a citizen of Zion? Perfect righteousness. Do those
people in themselves have perfect righteousness? No, of course
not. We're sinners. If we say we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But
in Christ, he who knew no sin, He was made the sin of his people,
and bore the sin of his people. I don't understand how, but this
is what the Word of God tells us. He bore the sins of his people
in his own body on the cursed tree of Calvary, Calvary's cross.
And there he died, and he shed his precious blood. The blood,
the life, is in the blood. That's why He shed His blood.
That's why the blood is precious, because it's the blood of the
infinite Son of God. It's the blood of the One who
is God, manifest in the flesh. And it paid the price. It satisfied
the law's demand, the soul that sins it shall die. And that blood
satisfied the law's demands, and thereby qualified His people. to be citizens, because he who
knew no sin was made sin that his people might be made the
righteousness of God in him. To go to heaven you need to be
as righteous as God is. You can only be that in the Lord
Jesus Christ, for only He has accomplished all that is necessary.
Now, you profess to have answered a call like Joshua's. Remember
when they were coming into the promised land and Joshua said
in Joshua 24 verse 15, to the people who had been so wayward,
he said to them, choose you this day whom you will serve. Whether
the gods of your fathers, the gods which your fathers served,
which were on the other side of the flood, that was the father
and the ancestors of Abraham, they were idolaters. or the gods
of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell. But as for me, says
Joshua, as for me and for my house, we will serve the Lord,
with the Lord's help, the Lord helping us. You see, you cannot
keep a foot in both camps. We live in the world, of course.
We have to earn a living in the world. There are aspects of the
world that are beautiful. It's God's creation, and we love
it, and we enjoy it. But We're not of the world in
the sense that we're not of the philosophy of the world. We're
not of the culture and the enjoyments of the world. We're in the world,
but not of that world. And you cannot keep a foot in
both camps. As Jesus said to his disciples,
you cannot serve God and mammon. You cannot serve God, the kingdom
of God, the principles of righteousness of God, and the principles of
this world. Believers are instructed, as
we live in this world, to give no offense other than that which
the world will take, because it is offended by gospel grace.
What do I mean by that? The world takes offence, religion
takes offence, at the fact that it is not of him that wills,
nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. It is God who
says that his greatest display of grace is his compassion on
whom he, in sovereign grace, will have compassion. Believers
are instructed to give no offense, but that offense that people
will always take to the gospel message of grace. We're instructed
to, as far as is within us, as far as it's down to us, to live
peaceably with all men, and so we seek to do. but be in no doubt. All who have not the light of
God's Spirit will hate your message." What is our message? Our message
is summed up in that phrase, tulip, tulip, total depravity.
This is what the Word of God teaches. This is the truth of
God. Examine religion by this. Do
they teach that man is totally depraved in terms of no goodness
to seek God? By from where we come from, by
nature, totally depraved in sin. And the message of God is one
of unconditional election. That's the U. And L is limited
atonement, or particular redemption. And I is irresistible grace. And P is perseverance of the
saints. That is the message. And that
gospel, the world and the world's religion hates that message.
If you are truly Christ's servant, this world is not your home.
You know, we used to sing when we were in our Arminian groupings
years ago, this world is not my home, I'm just a passing through,
da-da-da-da-da-da. And do you know what we really
meant? This world is our home. We absolutely love it. We love
every bit about it. We're having such a great time.
That's what we really meant. But the truth of the matter is,
if you're a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, of the kingdom of
God, this world is not your natural home. Heaven is your home. That's
where you're destined for. for that intimate, unmarred-by-sin
fellowship with God and His redeemed people. That's your certain destiny. It's called a hope, but it doesn't
mean a, I hope it will happen, but it might not. It's a certain
hope. Just as every soldier in the
military takes note when the Queen speaks to the military,
much more we who believe should strain to hear the voice of the
Captain of our salvation, because that's what Christ is called
in the Scriptures, the Captain of your salvation. Is there an
aspect of the Ephesian church among us And any of those who
associate with us, our fellow believers, those who join with
us on the internet, I'm sure that there is. Well, who is the
message from? It's from the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the ending. He, unto the Church, of Ephesus. These things saith he that holds
the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst
of the seven golden candlesticks. We saw in those verses in chapter
one, he's the Alpha and the Omega. He's the Ancient of Days. He's
the Infinite God, who is manifest as the Son of Man. infinite God,
triumphant Redeemer, having accomplished salvation. When he cried, it
is finished, when he rose from the dead, he was lifted up for
our offences and raised from the dead for our justification,
it tells us in Romans 4, verse 25. He is alive, it tells us. In verse 18, he says, I am he
that liveth and was dead. He lives, He was dead, He came
to this world to die, He came for the suffering of death, to
pay redemption's price, which is the death of the sinner, and
He paid it in the place of sinners. And because He's done that, He's
accomplished redemption, and He's alive forevermore, and He's
the holder of the keys. Do you know, the keys of heaven
and hell are the most important thing that could be for you as
you approach the end of your life. And who knows when that
will be, whether you're young or you're middle-aged or you're
old. Who knows when that will be? Nobody knows when that will
be. shouldn't you seek to know the one who holds the keys of
heaven and hell? It's not the Pope in Rome. Where
on earth they got that idea from I do not know, but they didn't
get it from this book. The Lord Jesus Christ, the risen glorified
Lord, is the holder of the keys of heaven and hell. And He is
the Beloved of His Church. His people love Him. He is the
Bridegroom of His Bride, His people, the Church. Husbands,
love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for
it, that He should redeem it, that He should make it spotless,
without blemish. a perfect bride. He's loved us
with an everlasting love, we read in Jeremiah. He's loved
his people from before the beginning of time, in sovereign grace. He who created all things, he
who even now actively upholds all things by the word of the
power of the Lord Jesus Christ, he who saved his church from
the curse of the broken law that says the soul that sins it shall
die. He who orders history for his purposes of grace and the
triumph of his kingdom. He who shall not fail to take
every one of the multitude for whom he paid redemption's price
to the eternal bliss and glory of heaven. Listen up, because
it's this church, his people, he's speaking to. He's speaking
to whom? to Ephesus, the church at Ephesus,
but that's typical of churches, it's symbolical of churches,
the seven is symbolical of the churches, to the angel of the
church of Ephesus, the angel means the messenger, the messenger
of the church at Ephesus, the pastor of the church at Ephesus,
the one who preaches the word of God, to him, to the messenger,
the pastor of the church at Ephesus, write these things, give them
this message, from the eternal God, who walks amongst his churches. This was a real historical church
in Turkey. I said last week, some of you
have visited Ephesus. You've been there, out in the
open, out in the heat of the day, and amongst the ruins in
modern day Turkey. There it is, you can go there.
Well, 1900 years ago, because this was written about AD 95,
it was an idolatrous city. very idolatrous. There was the
goddess Diana, they called her Great Diana, the goddess of the
Ephesians, and there was a lot of worldly trade that went on
around religious superstition, and there was commerce, and prosperity,
and corruption, and deceit, and everything that goes with a society. But even in that place, God had
those whom he had ordained to eternal life. As it says in Acts
13.48, when the Gentiles heard this, what? Paul preaching. When
they heard the message of the gospel that he preached, they
were glad, and they glorified the word of the Lord. And as
many as were ordained to eternal life believed. You know, we get
our doctrine from the Scriptures. The Scriptures teach us that
God ordains his people, that he chose in Christ before the
foundation of the world, to eternal life. And how are they to receive
it? By the foolishness of preaching. It pleased God to save those
who believe. By the foolishness of preaching.
By what the world considers foolishness. The foolishness of preaching.
By the stumbling block. that the religious folks didn't
like, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, a Redeemer coming to
save. It was founded, this church of
Ephesus, was founded on the Apostles' doctrine. The Apostle Paul stayed
there for three years, preaching. Timothy and others were sent
there to minister. This church was thoroughly grounded
in the truth that God had given in His Word by the Apostles,
and it was greatly blessed with the fruits of salvation. They
had come out of the darkness of idolatry in Ephesus to the
marvellous light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ. just like the Thessalonians who
were not that far away over in Greece. They had, as Paul writes
to them, they had turned to God from idols to serve the living
and true God. He says, what manner of entry
we had unto you. We came and we preached and the
word, a barrier didn't go up, but it just went straight deep
down into your souls. And when you heard it, you turned
to God from your idols to serve the living and true God. It was
to them that this letter was written, but equally to us today,
a church in alien territory. Those who join with us on the
internet, those who listen to the messages all around, the
Free Grace Radio preachers, it's to us. These letters are to us. In our idolatrous society that's
all around, the society in which sin is rampant, in which unbelief
is abounding, there's a message of commendation, and there's
a message of rebuke. The message of commendation,
first of all. The true citizens of Zion, of
the true kingdom of God, of the church of the living God, live
as the true citizens of Zion. They live according to gospel
precepts, gospel principles, principles of right and wrong
that are delineated in the epistles, gospel precepts. How are they
constrained to behave in that way? Answer, it's the love of
Christ that constraineth us, 2 Corinthians 5 verse 15. The love of Christ constrains
us to live as citizens of Zion in this fallen world. Just note,
in passing, that here, as in all the epistle gospel precepts,
there is nothing to support the claim of many that the Church
today needs, number one, charismatic gifts, by which I mean speaking
in tongues and all of this other nonsense and miracles of healing
and all the rest of it, they say, oh, without that, and you'll
go, you can go less than a mile from here and you'll find two
or three churches, I don't know if they're meeting at the moment,
but they are totally into charismatic gifts as being the key to their
great success and the numbers that they get. There's nothing
in any of these letters to support that. Or secondly, to the other
extreme, that the Mosaic Law is the rule of life for believers. There is nothing in them that
say if you want to really please God, then you need to do all
sorts of you know, Sabbath day keeping, all sorts of rules and
regulations, all sorts of legalistic things about what you can eat
and what you can drink and what you can wear and where you can
go and where you can't go and all the rest of it. There's nothing
of that. only faith which worketh by love. They are commended,
these Ephesians, and all the Church of God in this day. If
we are patient, we're commended by the Lord for being patient.
In a time where you think, oh, how I'd long for things to speed
up and something to happen, commended for patience, for keeping going,
for remaining true, for being intolerant of evil. No, we won't
have it. We all sin and fall short of
the glory of God. All of us do. But the tenor,
the general tenor of the life of the believing church in the
face of this world is that of goodness and kindness and honesty
and truthfulness. We know that there's one in heaven
who sees what we do. We don't live in deceit, trying
to trick other people. No. And we don't compromise with
those who practice open sin. The Nicolaitans are there in
verse 6. Christ says, I hate their doctrine because it's a
doctrine that you can live as you want and do what you want.
And you don't tolerate that. Well done, you Ephesians. Well
done, any church that does that. They've guarded the truth of
God. They've not let falsehood come in. They've tested claims
of apostleship. You've tested them. You've proven
those, you've tried those that say they are apostles, because
there were, in that first century, there were those who claimed
to be apostles, whereas there were only the apostles of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the ones that He called. They were only those,
not the many others who claimed to be. He said, you've tried
them. You've tried them and proven them that they're liars. They're
not telling the truth of God. This is what... John, the writer
of the Revelation, says in his first epistle, test the spirits,
test the preachers, whether they're preaching the truth. Anyone who
preaches that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is come as
the fulfillment of everything the Old Testament said the Messiah
would be, is of God. They tested it. Are they preaching
the truth of the sovereign grace of God in Christ? And if they
are, Yes, we'll hear what they say, but if not, you've proven
them to be liars and false. Well done. In other words, they
have faithfully upheld the principles of God's kingdom in the alien
territory of this world of sin and idolatry. Oh, that we would
never waver from that position ourselves, or any who join with
us. But then, This is what I want to focus on in the few minutes
that remain. There's a word of rebuke in verse four. Nevertheless,
I have somewhat against thee because thou has left thy first
love. Thou has left thy first love. Although a true child of God
can never be lost, you see, if you drift away, you never embraced
Christ fully in the first place. But although a believer, a true
child of God, can never be lost, a church can, a grouping of those
who claim, who profess to be true, can cease to function as
a candlestick, lifting up the light which is Christ and His
Word in this world. And Jesus says, unless you repent,
I will remove your candlestick, it will cease to be a candlestick.
Even an individual believer can drift away for a while, How and
why? Answer? He gives us it. You have
left your first love. You see, the kingdom of God is
based on love. It's based on the love of God
for His elect from before the beginning of time. Pure sovereign
grace. It's based on the love of His
people for Him. It is a two-way relationship. They will be my people and I
will be their God. Duty and mechanical service in
Ephesus had fooled them into thinking that all was well. You
know, like a human marriage, it can become dutiful. It can
become just a matter of going through the duties and the mechanics
of it, but the spark of that first love can fade into deadness. It's what 1 Corinthians 13 says.
I might do all sorts of wonderful things in spiritual terms. I might speak with tongues of
men and angels, but if I have not love, I'm just a noisy cymbal. I might give all my gifts. I might give my body to be burned.
I might do all of those things for the service of God, but if
I have not love, I am nothing. I'm just an empty thing, I'm
nothing, there's nothing to me. I'm nothing in the kingdom of
God. In Jeremiah chapter 2 that we read earlier, in verse 2,
we read this, Thus saith the Lord, I remember thee, the kindness
of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest
after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. That's
how it was, wasn't it, at the start, when we first heard the
gospel of grace. There's a hymn that says, lamenting
how we drift, it says, where is the blessedness I knew when
first I knew the Lord? Where is the soul-refreshing
view of Jesus and his word? He says, remember, therefore,
from whence thou art fallen. Remember, think back what it
was like. Think when God's Spirit moved
in your soul, awaking a desire after God. When God's Spirit
worked in your soul, giving you a growing consciousness of your
sin and unfitness for God, though you wanted fellowship with God.
How God ordered affairs and your events, and providentially brought
you to hear a preacher declaring the truth of God, the truth of
redemption accomplished by Christ, and gave you faith to believe
it, hearing a call to believe. Heeding that call, and believing
the Gospel, and embracing Christ, and trusting Him. And in that
moment, finding peace with God. Finding, just like Pilgrim did,
in Pilgrim's Progress, the burden that was on his back, and he
came to the foot of the cross, and there he saw what was accomplished
by Christ on his behalf. And the Holy Spirit gave him
faith to believe, and the burden fell off his back, that burden
of sin, for Christ had taken it away. It was taken away in
His redeeming grace. and rejoicing in Christ Jesus,
and loving the things of God, and knowing what a blessing it
is to know that in Christ we have wisdom from God, for in
Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. the
wisdom from God, and the righteousness that we need to be right with
God, we have it in Him. And the sanctification that we
must have to be fitted for heaven, we have it in Him. And the redemption
that must be paid, the price that must be paid to redeem us
from the curse of the law has been paid, and how precious believing
that Christ became to your soul, and how you loved Him. This is
your first love. How everything was seen through
the lens of God's saving love in Christ. He says remember that,
remember that, because something has happened. It's gone cold.
Not now. What went wrong? Let me suggest
briefly three things that can go wrong and three things that
we ought to beware of. First of all, neglect of Christ
and of fellowship with him. You know in Song of Solomon chapter
5 when the beloved comes to the door of the bride picturing the
church and says, you know, she hears him at the door and she
says, I've got ready for bed, I can't get up now, I've washed
my feet, I can't go outside now, I'll defile my feet. And before
she's come round and started to get, he's withdrawn himself,
he's gone, he's gone, and she's in anguish, seeking him, because
she neglected that fellowship that was there with Christ. A
neglect of personal communion with God. You know, I know lives
can be so busy, but we need to feed in the Word of God. We need
to feed there. You see the verse I put in the
bulletin. Christ is feeding in his garden.
It's picturing the truths, the lovely fruits that are here in
the word of God. We need to feed there in his
word. We need to pray to him, commune
with him, have fellowship with God, and have fellowship with
his people. If we neglect those things, we
can go cold, and the first love can fade. Secondly, the love
of the world. The love of the world, it's so
easy to be drawn into loving the things of this world. You
know, it says in the parable of the sower, that some seed,
some fell amongst on the wayside, some amongst stony ground, others
fell in soil that looked pretty good, but it was full of thorns
and thistles. And the wheat sprang up and looked
healthy, But the thorns and the thistles and the weeds sprang
up with it and gradually choked it. And that's like the cares
of this world. The things of this world can
choke the life of God out of one who professes that life.
And then thirdly, lacks presumption. just presuming, lazily presuming. In Amos chapter 6 verse 1, God
says to his people, woe to them that are at ease in Zion. Oh
that we might never be at ease. Yes, at ease with the salvation
that Christ has accomplished, but never lazily neglectful of
fellowship with God. We mustn't ever think that we
are immune to falling away. Let him that thinketh he standeth
take heed lest he fall because we don't stand in our own strength
but in the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look what he tells
us to do in verse 5. Remember therefore from whence
thou art fallen and repent, think again, come back, think again,
do the first works or else I will come to you quickly and will
remove the candlestick of the church, the light bearing of
that church out of its place. repent, sorry, remember and repent. Let us do those things. Have
we heard? Do we have the ear of faith?
He that hath an ear, let him hear. What sort of an ear? The
ear of faith, to hear what he says. He that has an ear, let
him hear what the Spirit of God says to the churches. There's
a promise, you know. There's a promise. Look at this
promise. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree
of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God. This
is the prospect for the people of God. This is the prospect
for those who believe the gospel of grace, who have been redeemed
by the Christ of God. This is the prospect, the paradise
of God, the tree of life in the paradise of God. What great loss
it would be to have that candlestick removed. The Lord Jesus Christ
is coming back. The time is short, most certainly. You look at the state of the
world and how worse it seems to get all of the time, and every
effort to try and make things better and have a bright new
future, all seems to get frustrated, and it's God that frustrates
it. because his kingdom will triumph. He is coming back, but
we need to be ready. Remember, I don't want to overload
with too many things, I probably already have, but the parable
about the virgins and their lamps for the marriage. You know, there
were ten who were ready with oil in their lamps, and there
were ten who were neglectful. And they weren't ready. And when
the bridegroom came at night, and they needed oil in their
lamps, and ten of them didn't have the oil in their lamps,
and they went and asked for it, and it was too late. We need
the oil of Holy Spirit presence. of Holy Spirit, truth, in our
midst, looking for Him, ready for when He returns. We need
to seek it now. Seek it now. Now is the time. Today is the day of salvation.
Seek the Lord while He may be found because then, as those
virgins in that parable discovered, then it will be too late. Watch
and wait and be ready. Amen.