Amen. What a great hymn. One of the one of the great hymns written for the church. Just a quick note for those who are attending membership classes this evening. It'll be downstairs. So if you're coming, just note go to the the back door and we'll meet downstairs. Just as a note for that. Today we are in Revelation 2. If you have your Bible, I encourage you to turn there. We're be we're going to begin today to look at the seven churches. The recipient the original recipients of the book of revelation. We will look at them one church at a time and today we will look at the church in Ephesus.
I was reading a commentary from James Hamilton and that's a name that Vincent will know and Brian Krosowski will know. They were with me for some classes we took in June at Miller and Jim Hamilton was our prof and he was writing he was commenting on this particular portion of Revelation Revelation 2 1-7 and the prevailing struggle and sin that Ephesus was found in. And he wrote this quote.
What is it that happens to people between the wedding day, so joyous, so earnest, so sincere, and the day that the divorce papers are signed? What happens to parents between the day that the child is born and the day that they complain about that bothersome, frustrating brat? What happens to us? Between the day when a loved one is diagnosed with some awful condition and the day that that loved one whom we cherish becomes a burden.
In each case, divorced parents, frustrated parents or pardon me, divorced spouses, pardon me, frustrated parents, burdened family members, what often happens is a loss of the love they had at first. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, what was once done from passionate fervor becomes little more than a duty or a chore. Now, I understand that there's unique situations within all of those examples given, but on the whole, it's probably more true than we would care to admit.
Sometimes we can trudge forward doing all the right things without the right motive. The motive that we once had but we no longer have. And that's what we see here in this portion of Revelation written to the church in Ephesus. So, let me read it for you these first seven verses. Here's what it says. To the angel of the church in Ephesus, write the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.
I know your works, your toil, and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who called themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen. Repent and do the works you did at first.
If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Yet this you have. You hate the work of the niclatans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. There's a lot in that letter. And so here we want to dig into before we we do what we want to we want to examine here is the context a little bit so we understand what's going on.
Ephesus was the fourth largest city in the Roman Empire at that time and it housed one of the seven great wonders of the world and that is the temple of Artemis. The temple of Artemis was filled with much faulty worship. It was a Ephesus was a port city. And so because it was a port city, people would travel there to sell their wares and their goods and what have you. And they would come from all over the known world and would bring all of their faulty worship into Ephesus.
And the temple at Aremis or temple of Aremis, pardon me, was a place where idolatry was rampant. And the book of Acts gives us a bit of a flavor of that. In Acts chapter 19, this we heard read the first 10 verses where the church began there in Ephesus. Now I want to pick it up for you in Acts 19 23. Some time has passed. And now listen to what we read here starting in Acts 19 23. About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the way.
For a man named Demetrius, a silver smmith, who made silver shrines of Aremis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together with the workmen and similar trades and said, "Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth." And you see in here that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people saying that gods made with hands are not gods.
And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing and that she may be deposed from her magnificence. She whom all Asia and the world worship. When they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out, "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians." So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaes and Aristarkus, Macedonians, who were Paul's companions in travel.
But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him. And even some of the Asia who were friends of his sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater. Now some cried out one thing and some another for the assembly was in confusion and most of them did not know why they had come together. Some of the crowd prompted Alexander whom the Jews had put forward and Alexander motioning with his hand wanted to make defense a defense to the crowd.
But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all cried with one voice, "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians." This is a sense of what Ephesus was like. The temple of Aremis was a significant place of idolatrous worship. Paul brought the gospel there and it took hold. Praise God. And a church was established there. But it was a difficult culture to stand in.
There was obviously this center of commerce political administration and obviously faulty religion. So any church planted there would need great fortitude to stand strong and to not cave in the midst of all these pressures. So Paul here also wrote the book of Ephesians. He wrote to the Ephesian believers. And I want us to spend just a moment there looking at his warmth toward these Ephesian believers. The the book of Ephesians was written in the early to mid60s AD.
And listen to the warmth of Paul's heart for these precious Ephesian believers. These believers that have had to hold fast in the midst of that awful idolatrous culture. Picking it up for you in Ephesians 1:15. Here's what Paul wrote. For this reason, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, let me repeat that. Because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance with the saints, >> >> And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might and on it goes.
Paul is the king of the run-on sentence. But you get the point here. Chapter 3 of Ephesians, listen to his. He prays again for them. And in verse 14, he says this. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
A warm prayer, but it also shows his urgent pressing on them the need to love the Lord Jesus and to love one another. And obviously, this is something that they were doing at this time. Listen to the end of chapter 6 in Ephesians, the very last couple of verses, his closing words to them. He says this, "Peace be to the brothers and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible." Clearly, they were loving one another at this point and loving the Lord. In fact, chapter 5:2, he says, "Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." Ephesians quietly is a book about the love of God. It doesn't necessarily get that fanfare all the time, but there's a lot written about the importance of loving the Lord and loving one another in the book of Ephesians.
And by the end of chapter 6 in Ephesians, it seems that they had been doing that, that there was some love there. This is, like I said, the mid to late60s. By the time we get to the book of Revelation, some 30 years later, some cracks had shown and the love wasn't there as it ought to be. Now, by way of context, we have here the angel. And you're going to see this in every one of these seven letters here.
We have to the angel of the church in Ephesus. Now, I want to just I'm a believer just for me. I no one else has to hold this conviction, but I know when I'm reading someone or I'm listening to a sermon, I like to hear them say, "This is where I land." Even if I don't agree with them, I want to know where they land. And and I want to hear that they've done some homework on that. And if they do, I respect that. Even if I don't agree with that, that's where I So for me, when we go through the book of Revelation, if I if I say it could be this and it could be this, but if I land somewhere, I'm going to tell you where I land. But there could be things in in the book of Revelation where I go, I don't know where I land.
That's a reality, too. But here, I do have a landing spot. So, there are differing schools of thought on who the the angel is from people that I immensely trust. For example, James Hamilton, I mentioned him earlier. I, he was a prophet of mine in June, wonderful man of God. I have great respect for him. He would say, "These are just actual angels, literal angels." And then John MacArthur, a man who I also have great respect for, said that, "No, no, these are human messengers.
They're elders, spiritual leaders in the church." Which is it? So again, you don't have to agree with me, but but I would land on the fact that I think these are for these seven churches that the angel to each of them is some type of leader in the church, a human leader, a messenger. And I'll tell you why I land there. The Greek word is angalos, right? That's the word we get the word angel from. Angalos. Elsewhere in scripture, that word is used to describe human messengers.
Now you might say, "Wait, how could the same word describe angels and human messengers?" Happens all the time. There's one word that can describe different things. Aposto for example. Aposto apostle is sometimes rendered lowercase a apostle in that believers are all sent to serve God. We're sent on mission to serve God. Lowercase A in in terms of our English Bible lowercase A. Apostolic, same exact Greek word can also be uppercase A.
The the office of apostle which is not for all believers. It was for a time and a period those who were directly personally appointed by Jesus Christ. Two different things, same Greek word. And Galos is one of those words too because that same exact word is used multiple times to describe human messengers. Luke 7 for example verse 24. So John the Baptist had sent some of his disciples to go and ask Jesus a question. And in verse 24 it says this.
When John's messengers had gone, let me read, let me say that in Greek. When John's angelos had gone, angel, but these weren't angels. These were human messengers. Flip ahead just a few verses talking. Now, so that was about John the Baptist's disciples. Now Jesus is talking in verse 27 about John the Baptist himself. And he says this, "This is he of whom it is written, "Behold, I send my messenger angelos."
Talking about John the Baptist before your face. He's talking about a literal human, but he's using the word angelist. John the Baptist was an angelos, but he wasn't an angel. He was a human, but he was a messenger. Luke 9 verse 52. This is Jesus sending some of his servants ahead of him to prepare the way before he entered into Jerusalem. It says, "And he sent messengers ahead of him." That is angalos, same word. So we say we see this throughout the New Testament that this word is used sometimes for angels, sometimes for human messengers.
And so then we're left going, okay, which time is it used where in which way? Well, then the context helps us understand which way we should understand this. Here, I'm going to contend for all seven of these churches, the the letter is written to the angel, which implies the letter is not just for the the people that the angel delivering the messenger message to, but also to the angel themselves. And we have nowhere else listed in the New Testament where angels are described as being part of church leadership. But it seems that they are here.
Not only that, it's written to the angel and and as we see here, for example, in Ephesus, the whole all of the recipients, which would include the the angel, are called to repent. Nowhere else in the Bible do we have a call for angels to repent. And so, I would contend with you, these are messengers. You don't have to agree with me on that. The point being we I want to share that though because I want us to dig into our Bibles. Dig in. Don't look at commentaries. Dig into your Bible, read the Bible, study it, and know what it says, and come to a place of conviction. It's a good thing.
So, I say all that, whatever the case, they're going to get this letter. And it, this letter is for the church in Ephesus, but as we see in verse 7, it's for all of the churches. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches, plural, the seven churches, certainly. But then I would contend with you all churches throughout time and in history until the return of the Lord. We are to hear this. We are to know this. We are to study this. These this is coming from the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands.
This is the all- knowing one. And the one who conquers, we read in verse 7, we will be granted to eat of the tree of life. That is the one who makes their calling and election sure. Those who stand firm in the faith until the end, they will conquer. What does Romans 8 tell us? That those who are in Christ are more than conquerors. We will conquer not because we've conquered, but because the lamb has conquered. And we will eat from the tree of life. And you might say, "Well, what does that mean?" Turn with me to Revelation 22 and our men's Bible study that we have every Saturday morning.
Ron Lagoski is a dog on a bone. We don't read ahead. We're reading ahead, Ron. We'll get to Revelation 22 next year. That's right. You heard it. Next year. But listen to first the first three verses. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river, the tree of the the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.
The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. That's what we get to experience for those who endure to the end. Praise God for that. What an honor. But it's only for those who were in Christ. Brothers and sisters, I guess if you're here and you're not a brother or a sister, you're not in Christ, may I implore you, today is the day of salvation, you too can be assured of what we read about in Revelation 22, but you must be found in him.
So, this is a bit of the background. And now we want to get into what we can learn as a church from this message to the Ephesian believers. And there's a lot we could learn, but I want to center on two things. First thing is this. Laboring for sound doctrine matters. It does. Notice the words here. I know. Now the ESV renders it renders the words I know in both verse two and verse three. So the ESV it word words it I know your works, your toil, etc.
And then verse three starts I know you are patient enduring patiently. Other translations don't have the I know in verse three. The ESV puts it there because in the Greek the verse the the I know in verse two applies to verse two and three. So everything in there, the Lord knows. He sees it all. There is nothing that escapes the sight of our God. In Proverbs 15:3, listen to what it says here.
The eyes of the Lord are in every place keeping watch on the evil and the good. Do not think that you're hiding anything from God. You might be able to hide stuff from your mom and dad. You shouldn't hide things from your spouse, but some people do. People hide things from their employer. You're hiding nothing to God. He sees and he knows. And he says here to the Ephesian believers, I know your works, your toil, and your patient endurance.
Now, if you were with us for our Thessalonians series, those words might sound familiar. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, it says this in verses 2 and 3. We give thanks to God always for you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and father your work of faith and your labor of love and steadfastness of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. Work, toil, labor. This is important. So they needed to have this labor to the word toil here means to work in the midst of hardship and difficulty.
We all know the difference between toiling and enjoyable work or or toiling or an easy work. Easy work typically isn't a toil, right? Our our brother Paul Balance right now is traveling with motorcycles and he sent me some pictures and video from Moab, Utah yesterday where he was riding his bike. Spectacular. But in the course of it, he blew a a fork seal on on his bike, but he's having the time of his life.
That's not toil. That's joyous work to replace that fork seal. Toil is when we're working in the midst of hardship and difficulty and and it's a labor that's not easy and yet we know we must finish. We must press on. That's what's being discussed here when it talks about toil. So what is the cause of this according to the text? What is the cause of the toil? What's making it so difficult? Why do they need to endure as it says here in verse two?
Those who are evil and those who claim to be apostles but are not. That's what the text says. This is the cause of their toil and their patient endurance. The you c he says you cannot bear with those who are evil. This is a a commendable thing. It's commendable that that they will not tolerate evil or even those who are evil according to the text here. Again, Jim Hamilton puts it this way.
Even if the world thinks we are intolerant, we dare not win the world's approval by harboring those with whom Jesus identifies as evil. It's true. This is exactly the problem in the church in Corenth. And the Corinthian church did that. They were harboring evil. They were not calling out evil. They let it linger in their midst. 1 Corinthians 5:es 1 and 2 says this. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you of a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans.
For a man has his father's wife, and you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. And they weren't doing that. They were allowing this sin in their midst. They weren't removing it. They were welcoming it in, it seems. And here though in our text in Revelation 2, the Ephesian believers are commended because they will not bear with this evil.
They will not tolerate evil. And so they're toiling and they're having to stand firm and even against selfappointed apostles. Notice what it says here. You cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be false. That self-appointed apostle is a terrible thing. And we see it all over the place today, too. They are deceivers.
And John has talked about deceivers many times, not just in the book of Revelation, but in all of his letters and epistles. Second John, for example, he says this, "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not know, pardon me, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, such a one as a deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves that you may not lose what we have worked pardon me, watch yourselves that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.
Everyone goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, that one does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the father and the son. So watch out for deceivers and and self-appointed apostles are all always deceivers. Always. John MacArthur said this, "False teachers pose a constant danger to the church." It's true. In the book of Acts, Paul met up again with the elders of the church in Ephesus in Acts chapter 20.
And among the things he says to the elders at Ephesus, he says this to them starting in verse 28. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.
So this is a warning to the elders at Ephesus. Watch out, there is going to be false teachers coming from outside and from within. Watch out. Guard carefully. Protect the flock. And it appears that the church in Ephesus had been taking that seriously. They were commended for this. This is a good thing. And in verse six of our text, he says this. And he commends them for this. You have this.
You hate the work of the niclatans. Now, you might right now be asking, who are the niclatans? It's a great question. I'm not going to spend too much time on this because when we get to the church at Pergamum, the niclatans are explained in more detail. But we do know that this group clearly taught faulty doctrine and lived and taught that you can live in a lentious sexually deviant way and it's all good under the banner and guise of Christianity.
Where do they come from? Where did they begin? This this group of niclatans because in the church in Ephesus in the mid60s, Paul makes no reference to the niclatans. They've comes clearly after that. Who are they? That that John can mention them here and they obviously the the recipients know who this group is. So between the 60s and the '9s something has happened. This nickelen group has has begun to flourish and hold sway. Where did they begin? We we don't know maybe exactly but the early church fathers did speak about them and those who did speak about them said at least most of the early church fathers who did speak about them said that they started by with a man by a man named Nicholas.
Iranius for example says this. Ianus was discipled by Polycarp directly. Polycarp was discipled by John the apostle directly. So, when it comes to some historical facts like this, that's a pretty weighty argument. Who's Nicholas? Acts chapter 6 verse 5. If you remember the context, some of the henistic Jews, the widows were being overlooked in the distribution of food.
And so that the elders needed to appoint some men or the apostles, pardon me, needed to appoint some men who could look after some of that those practical needs. And here's the list of those whom they appointed to this task. What they said pleased the whole gathering. And they chose Steven a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit and Philillip and Porus and Niconor and Tim Tamon and Perminus and Nicholas a procelite of Antioch.
So Iranius says that Nicholas at sometime after this apostasized abandoned the faith and took up this group and taught them to live in this way. Now, is that could it be some other Nicholas? It could be. But this is what the early church fathers seem to speak to. Whatever the case, this is a wicked evil group and they're teaching some abominable things. Among other things, they were teaching idolatry worship. We should worship idols. And we'll see that when we get to Pergamum.
So, we have false apostles who teach wicked things, who allow for sexual devian, and who are okay offering up idol worship. We have groups like that today under the guise of evangelicalism. And what do we read in scripture here? They're being called out by name as to warn the flock. Brothers and sisters, I warn you about Bethl. Bethl is led by a man who is a self-appointed apostle.
He is not an apostle, but he's a self-appointed man. Teaches wicked, abominable practices. They refuse to speak out against the LGBTQ agenda. They welcome it in their midst. And they have taught all kinds of idolatrous practices. They teach grave soaking. You might say, "What is that?" And I'm glad you don't know what that is. Grave soaking is a practice that they employ where they will lay on the graves of deceased Christians in an effort to absorb their anointing.
It's necromancy spoken directly against in in the Old Testament. Their leaders have promoted this over the years. They will have gold dust in the rafters and they will release it at certain points to make the spirit make it seem like this is a holy moment in the service and it's just straight manipulation. And now the worship isn't of God but rather of the experience. This is similar to the niclatans under the banner of Christianity teaching aberrant things that slap God in the face.
And here it says that they are commended for hating the works of the nicolatians. Nicolatans, pardon me. Now look at the end of verse six. Which I also hate. It's something we struggle with, isn't it? Jesus doesn't hate. According to scripture, there are some things he hates. Let it let it be known the Lord Jesus hates sin. He is never cozy with sin. He is never going to cozy up to evil.
Our God is a holy God and sin has no place in his presence. In Proverbs 8:13 we read this, "The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil." Proverbs chapter 15 verse 9, the way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but he loves him who pursu who pursues righteousness.
So we want to pursue righteousness. We do not want to cozy up with that which is evil because the Lord hates that. The Lord hates evil. And these folks here in Ephesus are commended for standing firm on sound doctrine, for standing firm against the wicked practices of the culture around them, for not letting those things seep into their church. That's very commendable. We live in an era today where all kinds of wicked worldly practices have seeped into churches.
It ought never to be that way. We are to be a lighthouse, right? We're to be a lampstand holding forth the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not not being drawn out of the world. We need to be in the world that we can be an influence with to the world, but not being like the world. Not bringing in worldliness, but rather saying to the world, here's Jesus Christ. You need him. Repent and believe. That's what we need. And Ephesus was doing that. And they're commended for that.
They did not throw in the towel. This is honorable. We must know and hold fast to sound doctrine. It matters. It matters in the midst of a wicked culture and it matters in the midst of a wicked evangelical subculture sometimes even. We must hold fast. They did that and we need to do that too. And if only that was all that was in this letter. These are very commendable things, but smack in the middle, we have something that we must pay attention to.
If verses four and five weren't here, we would say, "Man, that church in Ephesus, they had it. That's the church. We need to be like that." But four and five are there. They did all the external work well. They labored well. They did a lot of things well. But the ground of their work, the motive for their work was missing. Love must be the ground of our labor. It must be the ground of their labor.
Let me read to you again verses four and five. But I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore where from where you have fallen. Repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. So there is a stinging indictment here. You're doing all of these things well.
You're doing all these things with excellence. I commend you for all of that, but the very heart of it is missing. You don't love. What kind of love are we talking about here? I would I would contend this is the love for God first and foremost and a love for brothers and sisters in Christ that extends out of that. That was missing. And that's significant. You might say, "Well, they were doing everything right. Who cares what the motive is?" That's a very worldly way to think. Motive matters to God.
In 1st Samuel chapter 16, when they were parading Jesse's sons in front of Samuel to find out who the anointed king would be and the first son comes and he's strong and buff and good-looking, looks like Miles Whitaker. Just just a just a good-looking, tough dude. Samuel's like, "That's got to be him." Remember what David said or what what the Lord said, pardon me, David is coming. What the Lord said, man looks at outward appearances. God looks at the heart.
God's looking at the heart of Ephesus here. And the heart of Ephesus is sour. They have forgotten the love they had at first. Go with me, if you will, to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. This is of course referred to as the love chapter. We spend some time in the summer months looking at different elements of of the last few verses of chapter 13. But look at the first few verses of chapter 13.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. The call here to the Ephesian church should resonate deeply for conservative Bible teaching churches.
This letter we would classify ourselves I hope I pray this is my desire as a Bible teaching gospel- centered conservative church unapologetically. And I I pray that's always our who we are. And that's what Ephesus was too. Look at it. You're you're toiling. You're patiently enduring. You are will not bear with evil. You are you won't put up with false teachers. You're teaching sound doctrine.
You won't put up with the work of the niclatans. All the things that a good Bible teaching church should do. But you don't have love. This is the danger for conservative Bible teaching churches to this day. Gateway Bible Church, we need to take heed to this warning because we can do all the right things and believe all the right things and do all the right things and worship the fact that we're right as opposed to loving the God who saved us and who gave us this wonderful doctrine upon which we stand.
Doing the right thing with the wrong motive is never right in God's sight. We must love this. The How does it happen that love is no longer the motive? It can happen when we take things for granted. It can happen when we don't cultivate a heart of love daily for the Lord Jesus and daily for our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we allow competing loves to take precedence over our love for God. All of these things can happen.
Go with me if you will to Ezekiel for a moment. Not a book maybe that you go to very often, but you should. Ezekiel 16. I want to pick it up for you in verse 8. Here's what it says. When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love. And I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. And I made a vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.
Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil and clothed you also with the embroidered cloth and shaw you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ear and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth.
You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty and your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty. For it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed upon you, declares the Lord. But you trusted in your beauty and played the because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passer by and your beauty became his.
Here the Lord God is saying, "I gave you everything. I made you beautiful. And the first person that came by, you just focused on them and passed your love off on them and you forgot me. Can we be guilty of that as a church? Absolutely. There's an old adage, we need to preach the gospel to our own hearts every day. That is true. I would contend if you're if you want to make sure you that you are inflamed with the love of God.
Sing the love of God every day. And don't just sing it by wrote. Think of the words. Are are the words up here, Matt? There it is. Yep. Right here. I I'll put it back. I promise. This is Maurice. I'll put it back. I promise. >> >> Let me read you verse three again because it's if you're like me sometimes the old hymn we sing them by wrote and you don't really stop and think. Let me sing it or I'm not going to sing it. Let me say it. Could we with ink the ocean fill? Stop. Imagine every ocean is ink. Yeah.
Perfect. It's up there. Every ocean is filled top to bottom with ink. Okay. Got that image in your mind? Got it? Okay. And were the skies of parchment made. Okay. So imagine every on a clear perfect day, the entire sky is paper ready to be written on and vast, right? The whole thing where every stock on earth aquill. There's an old English way to word it. Basically, you have an ink pen. What do you call those? Quill.
And you and every you have countless quills. You can write and you can dip your quill in that ink that is is is the ocean and you can write on that sky without end. Pretty much. Pretty much. And every man is a scribe by trade. There's what 8 billion, nine billion people on planet Earth. Every single one is a scribe. Everyone's an author. Everyone's a writer. Everyone's really artistic and can just write pros and all kinds of poetry.
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry. Have you ever stopped to think about that? Can you imagine the oceans, the limitless oceans, or so it seems, being drained dry? But it's true. If we were to write the love of God and the oceans were our ink, there wouldn't be enough ink. And the scroll that is the sky couldn't contain it all. There would be too much even though it stretched from sky to sky.
But do we think of the love of God that way? Do we behold his love? Think about this friends. In love, let me step back further. Perfect love existed between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Eternally. Eternally. There's never been a time ever where there hasn't been love. The triune God has always existed eternally. And there's always been love.
And then in love, he created the heavens and the earth. He created man in his image. We are the only ones created in his image. That's love. And he gave Adam and Eve the perfect setting with every possible thing that they could desire, everything that was good. It was perfectly good. And they sinned. So what does God do in love? He clothe them.
Genesis 3 with skin, with garment that won't fail. A picture of the righteousness of God with which he clothe us according to Isaiah. And then he removes them from the garden and blocks them. And you might say, "Well, that was kind of harsh. He kicked them out." No, no. He loved them because he banished them, it says in Genesis 3, so that they would not eat of the tree of life and live forever in a perpetual state of sin where they couldn't be redeemed. So in love, he removed them from that so that he could redeem them. And then fast forward, the Lord God himself, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, descends to this world. Why?
Because of love. And then and then he teaches all that he taught in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, giving us all that we need for life and godliness. He gave them everything that they needed to live as people of God. And then and then he was crucified. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8. Nobody has loved you like that. Nobody.
He paid my penalty in my place. HE TOOK MY WRATH IN my place. That if I put my hope in him and my trust in him, I repent and believe, I will be with him and not get what I actually deserve, which is hell. And then, wait, there's more. Then he ascends and says, "I'm going to give you the Holy Spirit to dwell in you." So that everyone who repents and trusts in Christ, the spirit of God now abides in us that we are continuously being sanctified because he loves us and he's growing us.
It is the will of God, our sanctification, and he's gave us the means to be sanctified. That's love. And then wait, there's more. Then he promises one day I'm coming back >> and I will bring the church to myself and be with me forever and sin will be gone. It will be no more. There will be perfect joy, perfect peace, perfect love eternally in my presence with no sin ever >> with the Lord.
And we lose our first love. It can happen, can't it? Brothers and sisters, we need to preach the gospel to our own hearts every single day that the it becomes the motive for all that we do. Why should we stand on sound doctrine? Because we love the Lord. Why should we make sure that our brothers and sisters aren't being aren't drifting away into into faulty doctrine? Because we love the Lord and we love them.
But it all comes and stems from our understanding of the gospel. So they were called here to repent. That is to change their mind to turn. Actually the word repent is twice here in verse 5. Turn change. Turn back to where you once were. Do the works you did at first. Remember that love you had for Jesus at first. Ephesus, come back to that. Repent. Turn. Live in that way again. The consequences for not doing that were dire. Do you see it here in verse 5?
If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. That is to say, this church will be no more. Its influence at the very least will be nothing. It will cease to be what it once was. It will not be the lighthouse that it is now. What happened to the church at Ephesus? Well, today that region, certainly the church isn't there anymore.
That region is largely Muslim. But even in its time, shortly after this, we don't hear much about that church. It seems that it faded away, which would seem to indicate that they did not repent, which is sad. Brothers and sisters, it need not be that way. Let me let me give you this before we close in song. Love without doctrine leads to spineless watered down Christianity.
We don't we don't want that, right? We've seen that where churches focus only on love and not on sound doctrine. That leads to a watered down Christianity that's that's lukewarm at best. We don't want that. So love without doctrine leads to a spineless Christianity. But doctrine without love leads to arrogant, stiff, heartless Christianity, which profits no one and and it dishonors God. So let us be a people who love deeply. Love the Lord God.
Ask him every day, Lord, increase my love. And we love one another deeply. And then out of that, that we'd stand firm in the midst of a faulty culture on that which honors him. And how do we do that? Well, let me read to you Hebrews 10. And then I'm going to pray and invite the team to lead us in a closing song. Hebrews 10:23-25 says this. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.
And all the more as you see the day drawing near. So, Father, we pray that you would indeed minister to our hearts in this way. That we would not neglect meeting together, but that we would stir one another up to love and to good works. That you would be exalted and glorified among us. Father, would you increase our love more and more for you? Keep us from the hypocrisy of doing all the right things but doing them all with the wrong motive.
Keep us from a love of self or a love of the world, but give us an inflamed love for the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I pray, Father, that we would stand firm, too. That we would not move in the midst of a culture and even an evangelical culture that often wants us to capitulate. Help us to stand firm on what is right because in the love of God, you've given us this truth. And so, may we be found faithful. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
Transcribed automatically from YouTube captions, so names and words may be misheard.
