7. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith
unto 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.
We begin tonight our consideration of the seven letters of
our Lord to the churches of Asia Minor. There are many different
ways of looking at these letters of Jesus to those churches. You
may consider them first of all prophetically. As you look at
these seven churches you will discover that the Spirit of God
gives to us a panorama of church history; beginning with the days
of the apostles in the first letter and going all the way to the
days of apostasy these seven letters portray for us the seven
successive stages of church history. What John saw here in
prophecy we look back for the most part and read in history, so
you can look at them first of all prophetically.
And then, of course, you can study these letters personally.
You will notice down in verse 7 it says he that hath an ear, let
him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. So this means to
us that there is a personal message in all of these letters to our
heart. When I read these letters I read them for my own profit, I
read to see what God has to say to me personally. So as we got
through these seven letters we must always ask God to speak to our
hearts individually and personally that we might have ears to hear
what the Spirit of God has to say.
So you can study the letters prophetically, you can study the
letters personally and then you can also study these letters
practically. You can see, first of all, here John's message to
the church of that day. There was actually a church of Ephesus,
the church actually existed and the conditions which the Lord
Jesus mentions in this letter were actually true in that First
Century church. But also not only do you see the church then but
you see the church today as well. All through the ages these
different letters have application to the churches of the Lord
Jesus. So what I'm going to do primarily as we study these
letters together is to take the practical messages from them which
I believe God wants to use to speak to us as a congregation.
Now we are living tonight in what is known as the age of
grace or the dispensation of the church. In chapters 2 through 3
God said to John, Write the things which are, the present things.
Since the Lord has gone back to heaven the Spirit of God has been
working in and through local churches to bring people to faith in
Jesus Christ. So the church of the Lord is a very important
entity in this world. God is working and through His church He
wants to get His message of grace and salvation to men. So we
must be very careful that none of the problems which emerge from
these letters are found in our local churches tonight. So I want
us to study these from that point of view and see what God would
say to First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida, from every one
of these letters. Now, of course, you remember that the apostle
Paul wrote nine letters to churches, seven churches, nine letters.
The Lord Jesus now writes seven letters to seven churches and in
those letters He'll speak personally to us and He'll also speak to
us as a congregation.
Now the Lord begins the letter with the first church John
would go to after he was released from exile on the island of
Patmos, it was the church of Ephesus. There are several things I
want to just point out to you as we begin our study. First of all
let's take a look at the city itself, the city of Ephesus. There
are several things of importance about that city. Number one, it
was important commercially. Located on the Castor River just a
few miles inland from the Aegaen Sea it was noted for its
magnificent harbor so boats from all parts of the known world
would come to the harbor of Ephesus bringing their merchandise and
their wares. Many of the leading highways that brought traffic
from the East and the West of the empire came to the city of
Ephesus. So being a harbor city and being a great trade city it
was also a very wealthy city, it was known as the richest, most
prominent city of Asia Minor. So it was important commercially.
It was also important politically. It was known as a "free"
city. Now this meant that in the Roman Empire the Empire gave the
city of Ephesus the right to govern its own affairs. They had
free government, they had self-government, so there they could
make many of the decisions that they wanted to make. The
Artemisian games were held there every year, they were the
equivalent of the Olympic games, so great athletes came there
yearly and competed in the Artemisian games. It was an important
city commercially, it was an important city politically.
But also it was an important city religiously. Located
within the city limits of Ephesus was the magnificent temple of
Diana. It was known as one of the seven wonders of the world. It
was a magnificent temple. People came from everywhere to visit
that temple. It was built and dedicated in honor of the goddess
Diana. Diana was known as the goddess of sex and fertility and
reproduction. The worship of Diana was a vile kind of affair.
The things which went on in that temple in the name of worship are
too vile and too depraved to mention in mixed company. So to that
temple people came, it was a religious city, steeped in the depths
of a pagan religion. When you went into that temple you would go
to a magnificent altar, there would then be a veil and behind that
veil was the image itself. They believed that the image had
fallen out of heaven. Now you would expect to have seen a very
beautiful kind of image, you would have expected that an image to
the sex god would have been a very beautiful kind of thing. But
quite the contrary is true. When you looked at that image of
Diana you saw a black squatted, many-breasted kind of image. It
was vile to look upon. Now in that place, that sanctuary, was a
treasury; many of the great kings of the world brought their
treasures there for safekeeping. It was a museum, many fine works
of art were placed there for safekeeping. It was also a refuge
for criminals. If a man had committed a crime he could come to
the environs of the temple of Diana and there he could be safe
from prosecution.
Well, you kind of get an idea then of the kind of people who
were in the city of Ephesus. It was a refuge for criminals, so it
was to this kind of city that the gospel of Jesus Christ was
brought. Sometimes I hear people talk about the day in which
we're living and it is a very bad day, and sometimes people
suggest or imply that you cannot live the Christian life in our
kind of wicked world. But I am here to tell you tonight that just
as there were believers in the city of Ephesus who were living
victoriously for Jesus Christ there are tonight in modern 20th
Century America born-again believers who're on fire for Jesus, who
are winning souls, and who love Jesus with all of their hearts.
So the apostle Paul came and he planted a church in the city of
Ephesus.
If you want to know something about the history of how that
church began then you need to read sometime Acts chapters 18
through 20. There you have the Bible record of what happened when
Paul came there. You may remember the story. He came there with
Aquila and Priscilla, stayed a brief time, went on and was
followed in the city by Apollos. Later on the apostle Paul
returned and, you remember, when he got there he discovered that
these believers had been baptized only in John's baptism. He
baptized them in the name of the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of God
fell in power upon that city, and a great revival broke out. Paul
lays before us the ministry he had in Ephesus in chapter 20 and he
makes it very clear that he built that church on soul winning. In
fact Paul says, I have taught you publicly and from house to
house, and it is the record of Scripture that everyone in Asia
heard the gospel of Jesus Christ as a result of the soul-winning
ministry of the apostle Paul. Well, of course, that is the city
of winning any city to the Lord. God has given us a vision to
reach Jacksonville for the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we're not going
to do that by just being on television on Sunday morning, as
important as that could be. We're not going to win Jacksonville
by just being on the radio twice a day, three times a day, as
important and as crucial as that is. But the way we're going to
touch this city for Jesus is the same way Ephesus was touched for
Jesus. It was on the part of people who loved Jesus so much that
they wanted to see individuals come to know Christ as their Savior
and they went into their homes and one on one told them about the
Lord Jesus Christ. So here was a church that was born because of
a great soul-winning ministry.
Yet now 30 years have passed, 30 years have gone by now and
the Lord Jesus writes a letter back to this church of Ephesus, a
church that had a famous history. Think about the pastors this
church had: Paul, Apollos, Timothy, and the beloved John. A
church with a tremendous reputation. The Lord Jesus now comes to
write a letter to this church. As He always does in these letters
He begins by giving a description of himself. So in verse 1 He
says, These things saith He (talking about himself, Jesus) that
holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, who walketh in the
midst of the seven golden candlesticks. As you study these seven
letters you will notice at the beginning of them every time Jesus
will say something about himself that will relate to the need of
this congregation. So Jesus begins here by talking about His
personal presence. He says, I am walking in the midst of these
golden candlesticks. This church has a need of a rediscovery of
the presence of Jesus. Well, the Lord Jesus in this letter
basically does three things. Number one, He tells them what's
right about them; number two, He tells them what's wrong about
them; and then number three, He tells them what to do about what's
wrong.
So with that in mind let's look at the three main points of
this letter to Ephesus. Number one, Jesus has some positive words
for the church. I want you to look at what Jesus says about this
church. Why this is a busy church. I mean this is a very active
church. If you had gone to the First Baptist Church of Ephesus on
a Sunday you would have discovered a very active congregation. It
was a veritable beehive of activity. There were meetings galore,
the services were active and enthusiastic, the people were
working, things were happening, there was certainly no boredom,
there was certainly nothing static about the program of the church
of Ephesus. So the Lord, using a good psychological approach,
first of all begins by complimenting the congregation, He tells
them what's good, He gives some positive words about them.
Notice for instance in verse 2 He commends them for their
dedication. He says, I know thy works and thy labor and thy
patience. Look at those three words, underline them in your
Bible. Thy works, thy labor, thy patience, what a commendation
this is of the church. The church of Ephesus was a working
congregation. Now I think you have probably discovered, if you've
been in our church any length of time, that it takes a lot of work
to build a church. Amen? I mean churches don't just happen do
they? It takes a lot of work to build a church. A church is not
to be a country club for lethargic saints, the church is not a
comfortable club for pious believers, it is a place where work has
got to be done. Somebody's got to visit, somebody's got to teach
some Sunday School lessons, somebody's got to pray. It is a real
tragedy that in the average church today the majority of the work
that is done in that church is done by a little handful of people.
Isn't that a tragedy? But it was not true of the church of
Ephesus. The Lord Jesus said, I know thy works.
And then Jesus said something else, He said, I know thy
labor, and the word "labor" there in its root meaning meant to
beat yourself upon the chest and it's the picture of work to the
point of pain, it means exhausting labor, it means paying a price.
You've got to pay a price to build a church for Jesus. Somebody's
got to labor to the point of pain to build a work for the Lord.
David the great king one time made this statement, he said,
Neither will I give unto my Lord that which doth cost me nothing.
There is a price to pay. If we do not bleed we do not bless, if
there is no suffering there is no victory. But here was a church
who knew what it was to labor fervently in the field for the Lord
Jesus.
And then He says, I know thy patience, and the word
"patience" there means endurance, it means they just kept on
keeping on. The word "patience" is the Greek word "hupomone"
which means to bear up under, it means to get up under the load
and to carry that load forward. Well that is a tremendous thing
to say about a church. These were no 90-day wonders in the
service of Jesus, these were no on-again, off-again servants of
the Lord, they stayed with the stuff. I mean they worked hard,
they labored and they endured, they stayed at it. Look at verse
3, He said, You have borne, and have patience, and for my name's
sake have labored, and have not fainted. That simply means you
didn't give up, you just stayed with it.
I'll tell you one of the things that God has blessed in the
ministry of our church through the years. God has blessed the
consistency of our people. I mean we have just stayed with it. I
was in the meeting tonight with our new deacons and our chairman
of deacons was discussing with them the standards for being a
deacon in our church. I'll tell you you've got to be in pretty
good health to be a deacon at this church. And I was just
listening to what he had to say and I was saying amen in my heart
and on my lips because of what he had to say. He was talking
about the fact that it takes a lot of people doing a lot of things
and he was emphasizing the importance of our visitation program.
Did you know that there are hundreds of people here who have been
consistently for years now faithfully attending these services and
they have been faithfully visiting week after week, service after
service, home after home. Why? Getting the work of God done in
this place. That's why God's blessed us, that's why God's given
us the ministry in Jacksonville He's given to us. We are a church
where there is dedication to the work of the Lord. So Jesus
commends that, that is commendable for a church to do.
But then notice not only He commends them for their
dedication, He commends them for their discipline. Look at what
He says in verse 2: and how thou canst not bear them that are
evil. In other words here was a church that had discipline, here
was a church that would not tolerate moral evil. In other words
these believers were spiritually mature enough that they knew they
could not condone impurity in their fellowship, they would not
tolerate those who were evil, they would not put up with sin in
their fellowship. They would not condone moral evil.
And then notice they would not condone doctrinal evil. He
said, thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are
not, and hast found them liars. Now here were people who had been
Bible-taught and they knew what the Bible had to say, so when
folks came blowing through who claimed to be something they
weren't these people in Ephesus could check the Word of God and
see what Paul had preached about it and see what John had preached
about and they would not tolerate doctrinal error. That's a
tremendous thing isn't it? It's tremendous to stand for the faith
and to be orthodox and to be theologically correct. And it's
important in our day. The devil will do everything he can to get
rid of Bible doctrine or to minimize Bible doctrine. You know
what the devil is? The devil is a whittler, that's what the devil
is, he's a whittler. I mean he just starts whittling away. He'll
just clip a little bit off here, and then he'll just cut a little
bit off here, and then he'll just slice a little bit off here, and
that is exactly how a denomination goes apostate, that's how a
church gets away from the teachings of the Word of God, the devil
just whittles a little over here and just compromises a little
over here. Well I want to tell you something, folks, God blesses
us right here because of our faithfulness to the Word of God. We
will not tolerate doctrinal error and the church of Ephesus
wouldn't do it either. In fact you'll notice on down here in
verse 6 He says, But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of
the Nicolaitans.
Now who do you think the Nicolaitans were? I asked that one
time to a group of young people, I said, Who do you think the
Nicolaitans were? and one little fellow raised his hand and said,
That's the folks that put the nickels in the collection plate.
Well that was a pretty good guess, that's about as good as my
guess. We really don't know who the Nicolaitans were. The word
means to conquer the people. It seems to have been the followers
of one named Nicholas who may have been one of the original seven
deacons ordained in Acts chapter 6, but it seems to have been some
kind of attempt to draw a distinction between what would be called
the clergy and the laity, an attempt to divide the people. But
whatever it was Jesus commends this church of Ephesus and He says
to them, You will not tolerate, you will not bear, you hate the
deeds of the Nicolaitans. Now not the Nicolaitans but the deeds
of the Nicolaitans.
Now keep your place here and look down at the 15th verse of
this chapter. I want you to notice the progress now in error, I
want you to see how doctrinal error develops. You will notice
down in verse 15 in the church of Pergamos the Lord says, thou
hast them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. Do you see
what's happened now? They have gone from the deeds of the
Nicolaitans to the doctrines of the Nicolaitans. Now what that
has done is reverse the Bible order. Bible behavior is to be
built upon Bible doctrine. The way you and I behave is ultimately
determined by what we believe. The psalmist said, I believed,
therefore have I spoken. Paul wrote his letters, he gives
doctrine first in the letters and then he gives behavior. So
behavior is to be built on doctrine. Now you get into a real
problem when you start building doctrine on behavior, when you
start accommodating what you believe to the way you behave. So it
started with the deeds of the Nicolaitans and then it becomes the
doctrines of the Nicolaitans. But the church of Ephesus wouldn't
have it, they were biblically orthodox. He commends them for
their dedication, He commends them for their discipline.
I want to tell you something, if you had let a magazine write
an article on the great churches in Asia Minor I will assure you
that the church of Ephesus would have been high on the list. Why
pastors would be clamoring to be pastor of the great church of
Ephesus. Can you imagine what a glowing report Ephesus would send
to the denomination? Oh, what a letter of successes they could
write of. I come from up in the country where you have
association meetings every year and all the churches would get
together and they'd read the associational letter and they'd read
the additions and read the subtractions and all of that. I heard
about a church clerk that brought his letter in one week to the
association and he reported no gains for the year, no losses for
the year, and he said, "Brethren, pray for us that we'll be
faithful to the end." Well that wasn't true in Ephesus. I want
you to know they had a magnificent letter, they could quote the
Lord himself, they were known as a working, laboring, enduring
church, they were known as an orthodox church. Oh, what a
tremendous commendation of our Lord.
But now I want you to notice secondly His negative words
concerning the church. Look in your Bible now at what Jesus says
in verse 4. Nevertheless, having said all of that, having given
all of these positive statements, having said everything so
wonderful about the church, now the Lord says, Nevertheless I have
somewhat against thee. What in the world could the Lord have
against a church like that? A church that had been built on soul
winning, a church that was working like few churches on the earth
ever had worked. Lord, what would you have to say negative about
a church like that? Jesus says, with sorrow in His voice and with
tears upon the pages as the words are written, I have somewhat
against thee, Ephesus, because thou hast left thy first love.
When you went to Ephesus and you looked at the outward activities
of that church everything looked fine. Outwardly everything was
in place, outwardly everything looked good, but the Lord Jesus who
looks into the heart, the Lord Jesus who goes behind the scenes,
the Lord Jesus who goes down into the depths of the hearts of men
examined the church of Ephesus and He said to them, I've got
something against you, you have left your first love.
Well let's talk about that a little bit. I want to talk to
you just like it's just you and me in this building. I want you
to forget the person to your right, I want you to forget the
person to your left, forget the ones in front of you, the ones in
back of you, and I want to talk to you individually, personally,
about this matter of first love for the Lord Jesus. Well what is
first love? Well, of course, that's exactly what it is, it's
first love. In other words first love is engagement love. In
Jeremiah chapter 2, verse 2, Jeremiah said, I remember thee, I
remember the love of thy espousal, thy engagement. And do you
remember Paul said in II Corinthians 11:2 about believers, he
said, I have espoused you to one husband as a chaste virgin unto
Christ. The relationship of the heart to the Lord, the believer's
relation to the Lord Jesus is pictured in the Bible as a love
affair, it is pictured as an engagement. So Jesus is looking at
His bride, Jesus is addressing His words to that bride He has
purchased with His own blood and He says to them, You don't love
me the way you used to love me.
Do you remember that engagement love? I mean do you remember
when you first fell in love with Jesus? I've heard Dr. Lindsay
preach this for many years, I am convinced that scripturally and
experimentally he is exactly true, that the Christian experience,
when you boil it down to its essence, is basically a love affair
with the Lord Jesus Christ. Getting saved is falling in love with
Jesus. Do you remember that? Do you remember when you first fell
in love with the Lord Jesus? So I think that the most heart-
rending statement that you could ever hear would be for the Lord
Jesus to come to your heart tonight and say to you, You don't love
me the way you used to love me. Can you imagine how that would
make you feel, sir, if your wife should tell you that tonight?
Dear ma'am, can you imagine what that would do to your heart if
your husband said with tears in his eyes tonight to you, You don't
love me the way you used to love me. Love is supposed to grow. I
love my wife tonight more than I loved her when I married her. I
loved her the day I met her. I loved her the day I saw her. I
loved her the day I married her. But you know, my love has grown.
The more I have come to know her the more I love her. My love has
grown. Love is something that can grow. The Bible talks about
love growing. Our love should not diminish, our love should grow.
You ought to love Jesus Christ tonight more than you have
ever loved Him in all of your life. Yet I wonder if Jesus could
say to some deacon in this building tonight, You don't love me the
way you used to love me. And I wonder if Jesus could say to some
preacher in this service tonight, Your love for me is not the way
it used to be. I wonder if the Lord could say to some choir
member tonight, You just don't love me the way you did when you
first came to know me. First love is exactly that, it is first
love.
First love is fervent love. Love is an emotional thing. I
mean love is something that causes you to do things you can't
afford to do. Do you remember when you fell in love with that
wife you were going to marry and you ran out and you bought her
something you knew you couldn't afford but you just bought it
anyhow because you loved her? Love is extravagant. I remember
what Mary did. She had some perfume that represented a whole
year's worth of wages and yet when Jesus came visiting to her
house she did what she couldn't afford to do, she took that
perfume, she cracked it open, and she emptied a year's worth of
perfume on the feet of the Lord Jesus. That's what loves does. I
mean love is an emotional thing. When you fell in love with your
wife and you fell in love with her and when you got engaged to
your wife, how did that go about? I mean the night you got
engaged to your wife, how did you do that? How did you propose to
your wife? Did you say, "Now, Mildred, I want you to know that
you and I have been seeing one another regularly for a number of
days now and I want you to know, Mildred, that there is a heart of
fondness within me which causes me to extend to you a contract
good for the rest of our lives, that I will agree to provide for
you if you will agree to cook for me, so in the most formal of
circumstances tonight, Millie, I want you to know I am proposing
marriage." And she looks at you and she says, "Well, Herbert, I
want you to know, after several weeks of very calm and considerate
deliberation I have come to the conclusion that it would be
efficacious for both of us for me to magnanimously accept your
most lavish proposal and I agree to the contract of engagement
which you are proffering for me tonight." And then you shook
hands and the engagement was made.
Nah, I'll tell you what you probably did. You nearly ate her
ears off that night, that's what you really did. Man, that
engagement love is emotional love. Love is emotions, love is an
emotion. I have problems with these church folks who want their
religion so cool and so calm and so icy. Some dear church members
I know think they are spiritually mature when they're really
spiritually frost bitten, brother. Isn't that right? Brother,
there's some people who claim to love Jesus and you go in their
churches and you can ice skate down the aisles. Brother, I want
my religion on fire for the Lord Jesus Christ, I want to love Him
with all my heart and my soul and I don't ever want to cool off
for Jesus. They used to tell me when I first started preaching,
they say, "Preacher, you'll get over it now. You'll mature,
you'll calm down when you get a little bit older." I'll tell you
what, the older I get the more old timey and the more on fire for
Jesus I get and I pray I'll never get cold in my love for the Lord
Jesus Christ. My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine, for
thee all the follies of sin I resign. My gracious Redeemer, my
Savior art thou, if ever I loved thee, my Jesus tis now. That's
what first love is. It's engagement love, it's fervent love.
Let me ask you a question tonight. Which characterizes your
love for Jesus tonight? Ice or fire? Which depicts your heart
relationship to Jesus tonight? Ice or fire? I remember hearing
about a dear old deacon praying one night and he said, Oh, dear
Lord, if there is a spark of fire among us tonight, dear Lord,
water that spark. A lot of folks are like that. I'll tell you
the way I like mine. I like mine like it was with the two
disciples on the road to Emmaus and the risen Lord Jesus Christ
came and walked with them. And the Bible says He went in and He
sat down and ate with them, and He broke the bread for them, and
He opened up the Scriptures to them, and He revealed himself to
them and they got so on fire with that personal relationship with
the Lord that they said, Did not our hearts burn within us as He
talked with us along the way and opened up the Scriptures to us.
I want to tell you something, friends, we ought to love Jesus
Christ tonight with all of our being, with our whole soul, body,
mind, strength and all. Oh, may it never be said of First Baptist
Church of Jacksonville, You left your first love. Brother, I want
to tell you something, let this church fall out of love with the
Lord Jesus Christ and it'll go down like the Titanic, you can just
mark it down.
It's fervent love, it's first love, it's fruitful love. Now
I want to show you something I have never seen. Look at this
second verse, the three words I've mentioned: I know thy works, I
know thy labor, and I know thy patience. Not a thing wrong with
any three of those and yet there's a problem which the Scripture
reveals. Look at that: works, labor, patience. Now keep your
place here and go back to I Thessalonians chapter 1 and I want to
show you where these same three words are put together again in
another significant passage of Scripture. In I Thessalonians
chapter 1 I want you to look at verse 3 and see how these three
words are coupled together with three other words.
All right, look at I Thessalonians 1:3...
- 3. Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope...
Same three words Jesus used in His letter to Ephesus: work, labor,
patience but they're linked with three other words. It's not just
work but it's what? Your work of faith. And it's not just labor,
it's what? Your labor of love. And it's not just patience it's
patience of hope. Now you can see work and you can see labor and
you can see patience but you can't see faith and you can't see
love and you can't see hope. The first three works are the
outward manifestations of the three spiritual realities which are
within.
Now the problem of the church at Ephesus is they were doing
the outward but they had cut it away from the inward. See? So
when Jesus commended them for their labor the problem was they
were laboring but their labor was not rooted in love for Jesus
Christ. Now if you want to make church word drudgery that's how
you do it right there. Now listen to this statement and I want
you to mark it down in your mind. You can labor and love but you
can't love and not labor. Did you get that? Now let me
illustrate it. You can labor and not love. You remember the
elder brother? The elder brother, when the prodigal son came
home, and the elder brother started complaining about it to the
father and he said, Father, I've been out here working, I've been
laboring out in this field in the heart of the sun, you've never
killed a fatted calf for me, never done anything for me. The
elder brother was laboring but he sure wasn't loving. But I want
to tell you something, you can't love and not labor. You remember
Jacob, he fell in love with Rachel, kissed her first date, worked
seven years for her, and the Bible says seven years seemed just
like a few days. Why? Because of the great love he had for her.
Now there's some of you right here tonight, you're laboring
but you're not loving. See, the problem is you're going right on
through just like some wives, you're still doing the housework,
you're still washing the dishes for that old boy, but the problem
is now your dishwashing has become a drudgery because you are
laboring and not loving. Your labor is not built on love. And
there may be some of you tonight and you're teaching Sunday School
and working as an outreach leader, singing in the choir, working
on the parking lots somewhere, you're working, you're laboring,
you're enduring, but you're hating every minute of it. You know
your problem? You've left your first love, you're not doing it
because you love Jesus. That's your basic problem, it's a heart
problem, it's a love problem. So Jesus Christ just gets us right
back down to the spiritual motivation of it all and He says you
have left your first love. You better start doing what you do
because you love Jesus.
I heard about a missionary a few years ago and someone said
to him, "I think it is wonderful that you are going to that
foreign field to be a missionary. I think it's just grand that
you love those people that much." And the missionary said, "You
misunderstand. I'm not going over there because I love those
people. In fact to tell you the truth of the matter, when I went
over there I didn't love those people. I didn't go over there
because I love those people, I went over there because I love
Jesus and because Jesus loved those people and wanted me to go
over there and tell them about Him and because I love Jesus I went
over there and told them about Him and I found out because I love
Jesus Jesus taught me to love the people." See? That's it. You
don't go out here and visit on Tuesday night in this town because
you love those sinners, they're not very lovable some of them.
Man, they're liable to slosh beer all over you, blow cigarette
smoke in your face, slam the door on your foot. You don't go out
there because they're lovable. You go out there because you love
Jesus and when you love Jesus and get out there He'll teach you to
love those people. That's the whole secret of the whole Christian
life, it's the whole secret of Christian service, it's the secret
of doing everything you do in a church, it's built on your love
for Jesus. How do you stack up tonight? Do you love me?, said
Jesus. Are you just faking it?
I have a real problem with these people that say they love
Jesus and do like they do. Now you can just say what you want to
say about what I'm fixing to say but it's the truth and I'm going
to say it anyhow. I have real problems with these people who say
they love Jesus and yet when Sunday morning comes, instead of
being at the house of God, they're off somewhere up the country in
a motel room 'cause they've been watching some football game and
didn't come back to God's house on Sunday. That's a strange kind
of love to me. That's like some old boy saying, Now, sugar, I
want you to know I love you but I've got a little old gal up the
country here, I'm going up to see her about two Sundays out of the
year. Huh? What kind of love is that? Brother, I want a hundred
percent love. Don't give me a love that puts me in a motel on
Sunday morning instead of hearing the Word of God. What kind of
love is that? What's first in your life? I mean absolutely first
in your life. Is it football or Jesus? Or is it home or Jesus?
I'll tell you something else that bugs me, I'm going to just
get it all out of me right now tonight then I'll return to my
normal sweet self. I have a problem with these people who say, I
believe that you're supposed to put your family first. Family's
supposed to be first. I don't believe that, I don't believe the
Bible teaches that the family ought to be first and there is a
teaching that is going on around in Christian circles today, the
family's first, the family's first. No, siree, the family is not
first, Jesus is first. And you put Jesus first you will never
neglect your family. Brother, you love Jesus the way you ought to
love Him, you'll love your wife the way you ought to love her and
you'll love your children the way you ought to love them. I have
never neglected my family putting Jesus first. When I got engaged
to my wife, the night I got engaged to her, I said, I want you to
know I love you with all of my heart but you're number two in my
life, Jesus is first and you're number two. She's never been
neglected because of that. Now Jesus is first, folks. If He is
anything He is first.
So Jesus gives a positive word, Jesus gives a negative word,
now Jesus gives a corrective word. Jesus gives us a 3-fold
prescription for revival and any people who do not love Jesus and
do not have Him first in their lives are in need of a revival. I
don't care how active the church is, I don't care how prominent
the church is, I don't care what it's reputation is, I am saying
to you if there is a church and you tonight do not love Jesus the
way you used to love Him you need a revival. All right, here's
the 3-fold prescription in verses 5 and following. Number one,
remember. That's the first step, remember. I want you to just
take a little walk down memory lane tonight, just activate your
memory for a moment. Do you remember when you first met Jesus?
And do you remember how that the very mention of the name of Jesus
would bring tears to your eyes? And do you remember the joy you
had in knowing the Lord and the gratitude that filled your heart?
I think maybe some of us need to remember where we used to be
before Jesus got hold of us. Remember. Remember. Take a little
walk down memory lane.
Word number two is repent. Remember and repent. And repent
just simply means that you turn back to the Lord. Repentance
means a change of mind and heart, you turn back to the Lord.
Listen, we can get so filled with pride and so filled with our own
sophistication that it's very difficult for us to repent, but if
the Lord Jesus has touched your heart tonight and has shown you
you don't love Him the way you used to love Him, you need to
repent. Do you know what a backslider is? A backslider is a
Christian who does not love Jesus tonight as much as they ever
loved Him any of their life. And if you do not love Him tonight
as much as you have ever loved Him you need to repent and get off
of your high horse, your bigshot-ism, your sophistication, and you
need to shed some old-fashioned mourner's-bench tears of
repentance tonight and fall head-over-heels in love with Jesus
again.
Remember, repent, and then He says do the first works,
repeat. You start doing the things you used to do. That's really
the key to reviving a marriage and a home, doing the things you
used to do. So start doing the things you used to do, get back in
that visitation program again, get in that Word of God daily
again, and get on that daily prayer with God again, start doing
the things you were doing when you were totally in love with
Jesus. Now the Lord gives a warning as He closes. The Lord says,
or else I'll come and remove the candlestick. It is either
revival, return, or removal. Did you God did that, God took the
candlestick away from Ephesus. You go over there to Ephesus now
and all you will see is rubble and ruin and there is no church
there, there is no gospel witness there, they were a light for
Jesus, they were a great soul-winning church, had some of the
greatest preachers in the history of the faith and yet they didn't
repent so God reached in and took the light.
I walked by one of the lights at our house the other night, I
turned the switch and nothing happened. So I just politely
unscrewed the light bulb and I threw it in the trash. Uselessness
invites disaster. If a church is not a light for Jesus then Jesus
will just move that testimony and He'll put it somewhere else
where they will be a light for Jesus. And He says to them that
overcome I'll give to eat of the tree of life which is in the
midst of the paradise of God.
