Now I think
we can tackle this matter of Ephesus. We've been marching
round Ephesus so far, now we try to get inside. I'll just
read a part of the message, the second chapter, the book
of the Revelation: "These things saith he that
holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, he that
walketh in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: I
know thy works, and thy toil and patience, and that thou
canst not bear evil men, and didst try them which call
themselves apostles, and they are not, and didst find
them false; and thou hast patience and didst bear for my
name's sake, and hast not grown weary. But I have this
against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and
repent and do the first works; or else I will come to
thee, and will move thy lampstand out of its place,
except thou repent."
So what we
have to do, seek the Lord's help to do, is to get right
to the heart of that message and find out what that thing
was and is, upon which everything turned. For, as we have
seen, the continuance of this vessel as serving the
Lord's purpose did not rest upon a number of quite good
and commendable things but it hung upon one thing and
that is called the first love - "thy first
love". And we are going to ask the question and seek
in some degree to answer it: what is first love?
May I say
here before I go on with that, that it is not my thought
or expectation to make anything like an exhaustive study
of these messages. Indeed I do not know whether I shall
deal with all of them. But whatever we do, we shall seek
to get right to the heart of the message and find out
exactly what it is that is THAT expression of
Christ which is so vital and so full of consequence as to
make this whole matter of continued ministry into a
crisis. For there's no doubt about it, that we're in the
presence of crisis when we are here with these messages.
There's a real upshot of a very ultimate and utter
character bound up with these messages. We want to find
out what it is that carries so much with it and means so
much to the Church and to the Lord.
I have
said, THAT expression of Christ; here I ought to
spend time in again approaching this but I'll do no more,
for I've had a hint that I'm putting too much in, or
trying to. But it is perfectly clear to the simplest
reader that it is that portrait of the Lord Jesus in
chapter one that is spread over these seven messages. You
probably have noticed that something out of that
description of the Lord Jesus is used in the introduction
to every message. There is only one slight change and
that is to Philadelphia where instead of "who hath
the keys of death and of Hades" the change is
"who hath the keys of David". With that
exception or change, every message contains something
taken out of the description of the Lord Jesus "He
that..." and then you have something from the full
portrait and presentation of Christ, clearly implying
that it is THAT which is of Christ which is
governing in every case, all round, and everywhere, every
time. It's something vital of Christ that's at issue.
That is the important thing to note.
Now come to
Ephesus. Of course Ephesus was the mother church of Asia.
We know that to be so because it is said by Paul's three
years there in Ephesus, "ALL Asia heard the
word, both Jew and Greek" and it was the mother
church. And in the introduction, the message to Ephesus,
the Lord describes Himself as "he that holdeth
the seven stars... and walketh in the midst of the seven
golden lampstands..." Ephesus is inclusive of
all. Ephesus is comprehensive. And so what is said to
Ephesus is not just said to Ephesus alone, it's to Asia.
It is quite
comprehensive this message. And as we are able to put our
finger upon this vital matter right at the heart of
things, I'm sure without my pointing it out, we shall see
that it is a matter that is in no sense exclusively local
or of a particular period. It is something that is ever
the peril of the people of God.
So we
return and say, what is this thing called 'thy first
love'? For the answer of course, we have to or should, go
back to the great letter of Paul which now bears the name
"the letter to the Ephesians". We know it was
the letter to more churches than Ephesus but that was one
of the churches, perhaps the first one which had a name
put on it in its circulation. We can, for our purpose,
speak of it as the letter to the Ephesians. And if you
call to mind the content of that letter, you will
remember that it has a very great deal in it about love.
Chapter 2, verse 4: "For his great love
wherewith he loved us" chapter 5:2: "Walk
in love as Christ also loved us" chapter 5:25: "As
Christ loved the church and gave himself for it" chapter
3:17: "Rooted and grounded in love"
chapter 3:19: "The breadth and the length and
the height and the depth, the knowledge-surpassing love
of Christ". It's not a long letter so far as
compass of words is concerned, but what IMMENSE
statements those are! What a tremendous love is
represented there!
Yes,
Ephesus was the church which had been given a ministry
and revelation of love; the knowledge-surpassing love.
And Ephesus had responded to it! Ephesus had responded to
it, there's no doubt about it. Read chapters nineteen and
twenty of the book of the Acts and see the response that
they made to that love and to the man who had brought the
knowledge of that love to them. As he bade them farewell,
they knelt down together, he prayed and they wept much at
his departure. It's all a scene of divine love
reciprocated.
Ephesus in
a very real sense embodied love, from God and returning
to God; from Christ to Christ. Yes, that's all very true.
But you've got to add another word alongside of that to
be able to arrive at the meaning of this 'their first
love' and it's the other word which has the largest place
in the letter to the Ephesians and it's the word 'grace'.
Grace! I'll not take the time to give you all the nine
references or mentions of grace in that letter, but
grace, grace is everywhere. Grace is running though it
all, it's all grace! WHY was there such a
response to the love of God? Because they recognized and
were fully alive to the fact of how GREAT GRACE
there MUST be for SUCH people to be
loved in such a way!
This first
love is no sentimental thing. We talk about first love...
a good deal of sentiment bound up with that phrase as
often used. No, this is not something sentimental. This
is a quality of love. The Lord help me to show you that
quality of this love.
The Lord
loved Israel of old. Oh, how the prophets declared that
love, how the Lord made known His love for that people,
there's no doubt about it; the Lord loved Israel. But
Israel all too soon lost the sense of the infinite
condescension of God to love them. The infinite
condescension of God in CHOOSING them from
amongst all peoples of the earth. And all too soon Israel
allowed themselves to feel that THEY were
something, and worthy of that love, and they became proud
and they took the love for granted. THE sin of
Israel was just that. In the end, well, it was just that,
THAT; THEY were the people, THEY
were the people! Yes! THEY merited this, THEY
were worthy of this, THEY were something to take
account of, they WERE the people. [?] All of
them. That's how it came to be, that's how it came to be
with Israel, and for THAT very reason, the
covenant was broken and the Gentiles were brought in
their place.
And do you
notice about the Gentiles... when the apostle turned to
the Gentiles, when the message went to the Gentiles, you
always, you invariably have this most wonderful thing
that you can think of - that WE should be
allowed into this! Never was anything heard of like this;
that Gentiles, the heathen, the people whom Israel called
'the dogs', brought right in, right into the family and
given all the privilege of sons. Most marvellous thing!
It was the TREMENDOUS APPRECIATION of divine
love!
Did you
hear our brother's prayer tonight, he might have known
what I was going to say, first love, first love, first
love. Well, in this case you see, it was like this, it
was like this. Here is a wife. Here is a bride. The
Church is the bride of Christ, not saying, "He's
lucky to have ME for a wife, I'm quite worthy of
Him, He ought to be very thankful to have such a wife as
I am". But no, "It is the most amazing thing
that He EVER looked at me at all! That EVER
He should have given me a FIRST thought let
alone a second thought. I can NEVER explain it, NEVER
understand that! I'll never be able for all eternity to
know why He thought of ME, let alone loved me
and gave Himself for me". You see, that's the spirit
of the Church, and that was the spirit of the Gentiles
when the Jews just took everything for granted. It all
became so common place with them... all that God had
given to them and shown to them, well, there was nothing
now very wonderful about that. It lost its lustre, its
glory, its wonder, its amazement; so commonplace now...
They could do as they liked with it, take it or leave it.
But not so
the Gentiles, see them in the house of Cornelius, my word
what openness of heart! See them in Philippi, what
openness of heart, how they just drink it in there. See
them in Thessalonica, as Paul said "you received the
word not as the word of man but as the word of God".
Received it! Whenever you move outside of Israel you've
got an intense appreciation, a TREMENDOUS wonder
and, coming back to Ephesus, come back to Ephesus - what
have you got here in Ephesus? You have this: "not
a few of them that practiced curious arts brought their
books together and burned them in the sight of all and
they counted the price of them and found it fifty
thousand pieces of silver". That's
appreciation, that's appreciation, there's nothing
commonplace there. That's first love, dear friends,
that's first love.
The peril
is, even in your labour and in your patience and in your
conscientiousness and your sincerity and all these works
and lose that - the glory and wonder and amazement of
being saved at all has been lost. And all this marvellous
revelation that God has given as to the Church's
election, calling, vocation, destiny - what is called the
eternal purpose - you can hear it without a thrill. You
can have it all and it does not stir you to the
profoundest gratitude and worship; it's all so
commonplace... so familiar with it... It's lost its
wonder. THAT'S the heart of the message, that's
the heart of the message! I say that's the peril of the
Church at all times. God has given so much, we begin to
make it or allow it to be commonplace - "oh, we've
heard that before, we know all about that, you can't tell
us anything that we don't know in that matter, we've got
it all, we've got it all" and we are not on our
faces before God in the presence of it saying "AMAZING
wonder, AMAZING wonder that ever I should
have a place in that"!
"Consider
from whence thou art fallen". The mighty price
of their earthly things became as nothing, NOTHING,
when they saw the Lord Jesus! They brought all those
things of value to men and in this world by which they
had laid such great store, yes a great price, as things
of this world go. And they burnt them in the sight of all
"That's rubbish! We've seen JESUS!"
and not until you've seen Jesus does everything else
become tawdry and worthless and no greater value than to
go up in smoke.
To see
Him... Oh, the revelation of Jesus Christ ought not to be
a teaching, a truth, an interpretation, a book; it ought
to be a WORSHIP. "And when I saw Him, I
fell at his feet as one dead". Have you ever
seen Jesus to bring you down like that? Have you ever
seen what He has given to you to the point of making you
say 'it's the most wonderful thing man could ever think
of that I, I, should be given that, that I should have a
place in that'? Do you see how we need to be recovered?
Don't let us blame Ephesus, this is OUR constant
enemy, it's my constant enemy. My continuous handling of
these things through the years... always, always dealing
with these matters and ministering them... my abiding
enemy is familiarity and association with it all as with
truth, as with truth; to lose the wonder. And it IS
wonderful! And dear friends, that's your peril, when you
continuously and repeatedly hear it, it would be as a
song that has lost its enchantment, this tale that is
true, a familiar story; yes, a wonderful story, but never
bowing us before God in worship. That is our peril. That
is first love.
And now you
can see that you may have a lot of things and not that. A
lot of good things. Oh, it isn't that you're all bad, or
we're all bad, and there's nothing good to be said about
us at all... there is a lot of devotion and there's a lot
of labour, a lot. Yes, but, but what He is looking for is
that TRUE heart appreciation of HIMSELF,
what He has done, and what He has given. We move into
this book and you find that you move into a realm of
worship: "unto Him that loveth us, loosed us
from our sins with his own blood, made us, made US, a
kingdom and priests unto His God". WHAT
can you say? Only: to HIM be the glory, to Him
be the glory! You move into chapters four and five and
that's where you are - a Church in heaven - a worshipping
Church in the true and full appreciation of the Lord.
Now, that's
not overloading you in matter, but it is putting upon us
a very great responsibility. I believe, dear friends,
that this is just the word the Lord would say to us all
at this time. And I'm quite content to leave it there
tonight. Having conference after conference, conference
after conference... if you saw my office you would see a
stack halfway up my own stature of reports of conferences
over the years. You have to ask: with all that has been
given, the volumes... the volumes that have been given
through the years; how much worship has it produced? How
much of all that are we alive to, as to what the Lord has
given? But please don't think that I'm making this
personal, I'm only illustrating what I mean. What we, who
are SO privileged, not here only, we the Church
in our time, who have all this... so privileged to have
the revelation of Jesus Christ. All the cost to those
first servants of the Lord to give us this, all the cost
to the Lord Himself that we should have it... Oh yes,
what a price lies behind it all! How much do we value it?
How much do we worship in the presence of it? How much
does it REALLY mean to us? How much is teaching
and truth and the Bible? How much does it REALLY
touch our hearts? That's the question and that is the
meaning of first love, first love. Oh, the appreciation
that ever the Lord should have looked our way... to say
nothing of just lavished upon us all that He's got to
give! Well, there's the message.
See, we can
understand now why it was the Lord could not be satisfied
with a number of quite good things if that one thing -
the essence of all the cost - was left behind. No wonder
He says do the first works, go back again... first works;
there they are. Oh yes, there's no doubt about it that
they made a marvellous and costly, as this world would
think, response to the Lord. I love to read that story in
Acts 19 and 20 of Paul in Ephesus; tremendous riot where
they would fain tear that apostle limb from limb. And
some of these Ephesians said - ah, not only said but
acted for his preservation - "Don't you go out
there, you stay in here. We come between you and
them"; and would not allow him to go out to them in
their wild rage. They wanted this man kept because for
them he was God's channel of so much. It's all such a
wonderful picture of how they APPRECIATED what
had come to them. Now the Lord says, "You've fallen
from that, you've fallen from that, you've left that. You
haven't given up Christian work, you haven't given up all
Christian virtues, there's lots of good things about you
but that's the thing that matters."
I need not
add more words to this; you see, it's all the
appreciation of the grace of God. The GRACE of
God! Where should we be but for the grace of God? Oh,
grace had no meaning for Israel; they didn't feel the
need of it, they were self-sufficient... and they lost it
all. The people who really put supreme value upon grace
were the people who've got it all. Who've got it all! The
Lord make us people like that, and stir our hearts and
challenge us and recover in us THIS first love.