To Ephesus: Regain Your First Love

I have a handout that I want to give out today, so if the men will go ahead and hand out that. It's a map, and there are some things on the back.

Towards the end of the Apostle John's life, he received a divine message, what we call the book of Revelation, the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which is possibly the most debated book in all the Bible. I mean, all these images that have to do with end-time prophecy and the great tribulation and all the events that are going to be happening there. What does it mean? What do all these things mean? But you know, I want to talk about that this is actually the beginning of a whole series of sermons I'm going to be giving on Revelation 2 and chapter 3, just two chapters. Because the messages in chapter 2 and chapter 3 of Revelation are to a specific audience. Let's go to Revelation chapter 1.

Revelation chapter 1.

I told my wife, one thing I'm not going to talk about at services today is politics. You know, we need to talk about the Bible, right? We need to get into the Bible.

Of course, I just talked about politics. Never mind. Okay, we're just going to move on. In Revelation chapter 1, verse 9, John says, I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. And I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. Now, we know this is Jesus Christ, because it's Jesus Christ that gives all this information. And what you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches, which are in Asia. Asia, at this time, Asia is what we call Turkey today, or Asia Minor. It's Turkey and Macedonia. That's what they meant by Asia. Send it to Asia, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. There were seven churches, and this book was originally sent to seven specific groups of people, seven churches in seven different cities. You know, this passage has three primary ways in which people interpret this passage of Revelation 2 and 3. One is, this message was for those seven churches. They really don't have anything much to do for us today, except maybe we can learn some lessons from them. The other is, is that they represent seven different types of Christians, or even seven different types of congregations, that exist at all times. And the third is that the seven churches represent seven church eras that would stretch out over time. It's a prophetic meaning.

And of course, we believe in that third interpretation. We're not the only ones. There are seven churches, seven Adventists, there are Baptists who believe in seven church eras. But people argue over which of these is the primary way of looking at this.

So what I want to do today is show, and through the next series of sermons, is that we have to look at these in all three ways. To really understand this, we have to understand it in all three ways. We have to understand this historically. I know you get tired of hearing me say this, but when I read something in the Bible, I want to know, first of all, what did it mean to the original people who read it? What did it mean to them? Then I can figure out what God is telling me. So historically, there were seven churches, and historically, they received this message. We also know that there is a prophetic message behind this, and we'll talk about that prophetic message at the last sermon in this series. But there's also a practical message here. That practical message is, do these messages to these seven churches, all of them, have any importance to you and me today? I mean, can we read about the church at Smyrna and the message it was given to the church in Smyrna and come away with, wow, that's a message also for me? Well, I believe it is a message for all of us today, in addition to the prophetic message. And the reason why, as we go through this, you're going to see at the end of every message, all the churches are commanded to read each message to every church. All the churches are supposed to read each message to every church, which means that what we're going to do for the first seven churches, or first seven sermons, as we're going to go through each of the messages to each of the churches in their historical context, what did it mean to those people? Because as we do, we're going to find that there's a message for us. We're also going to find that we can reach back across time and feel a connection to those people. They were, in some ways, just like us. Same problems, same difficulties, and those messages to each church means something.

When you look at your map that I sent you, of course this is a blow-up, so it's hard to see, maybe, reference where you are. What you're looking here is Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyreti, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. What you're looking at, of course, we just read this in Revelation, these churches. There in what is Turkey today. If you look, of course, you see the Aegean Sea, which would be to the east, and then you see these other islands and these outcroppings here. That's actually Greece. You went east another few hundred miles, you would get to Sicily, and north of that would be Rome. So you're looking at here what it would be Turkey today. If you went straight south, you'd cross the Mediterranean, and probably straight south from Ephesus, you would end up in western Egypt, somewhere around there. I'm guessing I'd have to look at a map, but I would guess you're ending up somewhere in west, because the Mediterranean is what's south of here.

Now, what's very interesting here is that, remember the Romans, I've talked about, I give sermons about the New Testament, how the Roman Empire created an environment for Christianity to actually grow in. We see that here, too. He said, send this to these seven churches. They're actually on a mail route. There were roads connecting these cities, so that the mail could run, because the Romans set up a mail system, or mail could travel across the empire. This letter, literally copies of it, could be sent by John to each one of these places. There are also some other churches here, which we'll talk about a little bit, but they're not specifically mentioned. But there's other churches that were in this area.

So we're looking at, and if you look at Patmos, you can see that island out there, that's mentioned Patmos. That's where John was when he wrote this. Now, someone asked me in Murfreesboro afterwards, what happened to John after he wrote Revelation? And some people say he died on Patmos around 96. He would have written this, the book of Revelation around 95. Others believe that he lived a little longer and actually was freed from Patmos and lived in Ephesus.

And the reason why we have some statements by people who lived in Asia Minor in the second century saying that they keep the Passover and that you shouldn't keep Easter. And they were taught this by, or their fathers were taught this by the Apostle John. So John may have been there. Who taught them? How did they get that from John? So it's very possible that he didn't die on Patmos, we don't know, but it is possible he ended up and lived the last just little period of his life living in Ephesus.

Ephesus is a very, very important city in the Roman Empire. This population is estimated to be around 300,000. Now, that's not a big city today. At that time, that's a huge city. I mean, Rome was the biggest city anybody knew of. We don't know how big cities were in China at the time. They didn't leave records. And of course, the Romans didn't know they were there. But of the known world at the time, a million people lived in Rome and nobody had ever dreamed of a city that size. So 300,000 people So 300,000 people is a huge metropolis. And Ephesus was built around a river that flowed into the sea and was a harbor.

Now, has anybody been to Ephesus here? I've never been to Ephesus. I've seen pictures. The harbor's not there anymore. Silts from the river filled up the harbor. So the ruins, the modern city of Ephesus is closer to the shore. But the the ancient city of Ephesus, the ruins, are actually back from the shore now because over 2000 years the silt started to fill up the harbor.

But it was a major harbor and it is where goods flowed out of Asia Minor into the rest of the empire. And goods came from the rest of the empire into Asia Minor. So this was a major area of trade. And Ephesus was a very important city and it was a very wealthy city. Now, they do have the ruins. I've seen pictures of them of the amphitheater there. The Roman amphitheater that existed at this time in the first century would seat 25,000 people. So think of a small college, you know, stadium. And that was just the amphitheater where people could go for entertainment, they could go for political speeches.

There's all kinds of reasons people go to the amphitheater. But that's a large number of people that can be in one place in the ancient world. We have to realize that these cities were much more complex than we give them credit for at times when we were recording Beyond Today television programs in Berlin in the museum there.

And we were recording right there in front of the walls of ancient Babylon. That's what the program was about. And I wasn't on that particular program, but I was helping out. I had to hold some of the audio equipment and do different things because we all had to do different jobs. But at one point, I did everything to do, and Darrin said, hey, Gary, you've got to go through that door over there because you can see through the door there was some huge room on the other side. And he says, you've got to go through and turn around and look back.

And of course, we were the only people in the museum except for the guards because we were filming. So as soon as I had a break, I left the walls of Babylon, walked through, got through the, you know, it's this huge building. I was shocked, and I turned around, and there was the total facade of what had been a palace in Pergamum.

And I was just stunned. It was bigger than the walls of Babylon higher. It was just huge. I'm just standing there looking at this. And I did notice some of the stones were different colors. So I went and read, you know, part of it was in German, and then he had, I think, French and English, where you could read the information. During World War II, the Allies had bombed the museum, and part of the facade had collapsed.

So they had to stick in some new stones. So that's why some of the stones were lighter than the others. Some of them were thousands of years old, and some of them were relatively new. But they'd reconstructed it, and they realized, this is amazing how complex and sophisticated their buildings were. So when we think of Ephesus, or we think of all these cities, except for maybe one, they weren't, you know, just some backwater places. We're talking about major cities in the Roman Empire. And so in the early 50s, and we're going to look at the history of Ephesus. In other words, before we can get to Revelation, what Christ says about the Church in Revelation, we have to know what kind of Church was it, and what makes the Church at Ephesus so unique.

We know more about Ephesus than any other Church of the Churches in Revelation 2 and 3, by far. In fact, we're just going to cover a little bit of what we know about the Church at Ephesus today.

The Church at Ephesus has a 50-year period, almost 50 years. We know the Paul shows up in the early 50s, and John writes his book somewhere between 55 and 100 AD. And we know basically what happened in Ephesus at that time.

Let's go to Acts 18, because without knowing this, the message to Ephesus doesn't make a lot of sense. In some ways, why does Christ say good things about him, and why does he say a bad thing about them? Well, let's look at a little bit of their history of these people that turned to God, and there was a Church. That Church existed there, for we don't know how long it existed. We know at the end of the New Testament there is still a Church in Ephesus, a major Church. We don't know how long it existed after that. Acts 18, verse 19, it says, speaking of Paul, he came to Ephesus and left them there, his traveling companions, which were Priscilla and Aquila, but he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. And when they asked him to stay a longer time with them, he did not consent, but took leave of them, saying, I must by all means keep the coming feast at Jerusalem, and I will return again to you, God willing. And he sailed from Ephesus. He was only there a short period of time. This is in the early 50s. He shows up and he starts talking to them, the Jews in the synagogue. And this is where Paul, of course, would have started almost all of his churches. Where else did they have a Bible? Which really, what we call the Old Testament, New Testament wasn't around yet. The only place was in a synagogue, unless you were a really rich person and you would have been a really rich Jew, they have a Bible. So he shows up. It's also been translated into Greek because all through Asia Minor, they spoke Greek. And there it is. He can teach to them. He can preach to them. And he gets up and he probably goes to Isaiah 52-53 and says, this Messiah came in Jesus Christ. I can just think of the passage, you see, he would have gone to. And he would have preached those. And there's Jews saying, he may be right. There's God fears. Remember, God fears are Gentiles who had converted to Judaism. There's God fears in the synagogue saying, he may be right. They didn't reject him. They wanted him to come back, but he left. Now it's interesting, in the time after he left, a preacher comes along, and I'm just going to explain this. It's in the rest of this chapter. A preacher comes along named Apollos. Now we see Apollos also in Corinth. Apollos would go around and teach and preach and teach people God's way. He was a minister, although in Corinth he seemed to have caused more problems than he solved. If you remember, when we went through Corinth, the Corinthian Bible studies, Paul wanted Apollos to go back and try to fix some of the problems in Corinth, and Apollos wouldn't go. He just wouldn't go. My personal opinion is I think he sort of helped cause them, but that's neither here nor there. So Apollos comes into Ephesus, and he starts picking up where Paul left off. And Jews start to follow him, and he starts baptizing people. But it says he only knew baptism of John the Baptist. He didn't really know how to baptize. He didn't lay hands on anybody.

And then Aquila and Priscilla come along. Remember, they had been with Paul. They had traveled with Paul. Aquila and Priscilla come along, and they get Apollos aside and say, you know what? You're not teaching everything exactly right. And so, you know, they sort of start this church.

Paul taught a little bit. Apollos comes along and tries to teach them, but he doesn't have complete knowledge. Fortunately, Aquila and Priscilla come along, husband and wife team, and they sort of get him on the right road. And so somewhere now, probably about a year or within a year of that first time he came, Paul comes back. Let's go to chapter 19. And it happened while Apollos was a Corinth. So Apollos left Ephesus and went to Corinth. Apoll, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples, he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believe? So he comes back. He thinks he's going to go probably speak in the synagogue again, and he finds there's a little church. He goes to the church, and he's talking to them, and he said, did you receive God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit? And their answer is, we don't even know what that means. See, Apollos hadn't taught them. He didn't understand. Remember, he only had the baptism of John the Baptist. So he said to him, they said to him, we have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. And he said to them, and to what then were you baptized? And they said, into John the Baptist, or John's baptism. Then Paul said, John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now the men, there were about 12. So there's about 12 men. So you figure with families, about 30 people, 40 people, maybe. So you have this church that had formed, but wasn't really going any place because God's Spirit wasn't in the people, wasn't leading it yet. They only had a certain amount of information.

And now God's Spirit is in them, and things begin to happen. So we go on to verse 8. So what happens now, Paul goes to the synagogue again. Okay, I got a church. Great. I got to go back to my people and preach to them. And he went to the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. But when some were hardened and did not want or to believe, or did not believe, they spoke evil of the way before the multitude. He departed from them, withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Torinus. So what he did was he gets kicked out of the synagogue, so he goes and rents a room. This school was a school of philosophy. So he goes to a philosophical school, which they don't care. Oh, that's a weird philosophy. Okay. Probably rents a room. He's in there every day, which he also would be there in the Sabbath then. He's in there every day. Set up office. This is where I teach. The church people came to him. Jews came to him. Greeks came to him. And he's teaching who knows how many people. And this church really starts to grow.

It says in verse 10, And this continued for two years, so that all who dwelled in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. People came from all over, not just Ephesus. They came from all over Asia Minor to hear about this new religion or this new Judaism that's somehow different than Judaism.

And so Paul comes back and they now actually have a church. They're kicked out of the synagogue, so they actually have a Christian church. What's very interesting is that he began to perform miracles. And one of the things he did was cast out demons. You have to understand, you know, most of us have never lived in a purely pagan society. It's hard to understand the superstition of purely pagan societies. And they believed in demon possession. They also believed that anyone who had a mental illness was basically in contact with the gods or with demons or something supernatural. So mental illness received a real, sometimes a benefit to be mentally ill, because somehow you were in touch with the divine. Well, there were some men and they were using this demon-possessed person to make money off of them. And he cast out the demon, and the people were upset over it. Others looked at it and said, this god he's talking about has power over these supernatural forces. It must be the true god. And they came into the church, and there's something interesting about these people coming into the church that are not Jews. They are pagans. They are Greeks. It is the absolute commitment they have to give up their way of life. See, paganism wasn't just a religion. Paganism was a way of life. It permeated everything in the cities. Everything was governed. You couldn't do a public ceremony without some kind of pagan ceremony along with it, a religious ceremony. Everything. People had little gods and goddesses in their hearths in every house. And so he's teaching these people, and I want you to notice their response. Go to verse 18 of chapter 19. And many who had believed came, confessing and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practiced magic, because magic, conjuring of spells, amulets, I mean, magic was, everything was magic in the pagan world. Everything, the wind blowing was caused by gods or spirits or nymphs or something and all the things that they believed. It was very complex.

Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. Wow. You talk about, you talk about a church that's standing up in front of society and saying, no, we have come out of your society. This church had a public book burning. They came in a public place and people brought their books. Oh, wow. Three or four people threw their books in. No, let's read the next verse. And they counted up the value of them and it totaled 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord drew mightily and prevailed.

Some think that this pieces of silver was probably a drachma. A drachma was a silver coin that was the average daily wage of a laborer. If that's true, that's 50,000 daily wages.

This is a big book burning. Now, this is a church that's standing up to the world around them and saying, we have a God that we believe in and we leave your society. We're no longer part of your society. We're now believing something else. And they did it publicly.

This history of the Ephesian church is an amazing story of an amazing group of people. You see, the Temple of Diana was there, which is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Artemis is another word for Diana. Diana permeated, the worship of Diana permeated everything in that society. People came from all over the world because no matter where you went, there would be little temples and people who worship Diana. They all picked and chose what gods they wanted to worship. And if it was a powerful god or goddess, people all over the Roman Empire wanted to worship them. But this was the center of Diana worship in all of Asia. They came from all over. People made a lot of money in Ephesus because they created little statues of Diana. They created little charms that were supposed to have luck, you know, blessed by the priestess and priests of Diana. And these were all, they made a huge amount of money there as people came in and flooded in to this place of central worship. Now this is the world the Ephesians live in. This is the world they're leaving, by the way. It's not easy to live that world when it permeates everything, even economically. If we read on here, what happens is is that some of the silversmiths get upset. You know, we're not able to make money because of what's happening. Look at verse 26. Let's look at the impact these people are having.

These silversmiths get the workers, or get together, all the different workers, and they say, wow, we're having real trouble. Moreover, you see in here that not only in Ephesus, but throughout almost all Asia, this pause persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are no gods, which are made with hands. So not only is this trade of ours in danger of falling into disrepute, but also the temple of the great goddess Diana, who may be despised and her magnificence destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship. So what they do is they go out and start to work the people up. We've worshiped Diana here for years. In fact, it's interesting. They talk about how the statue of Diana, and it's in this passage, was created by a stone that fell from Zeus. And the legend there was, and we know about it, it's been recorded, the legend was that this rock came down from heaven, and that's what they made her statue out of. And so that rock came from Zeus, so it was blessed. There was magic in the rock.

And so they get the people worked up so much that they riot. People are committing violence in the street. They're screaming and hollering all through the street. People are marching. They start grabbing Christians wherever they can find them. They're hiding Paul. Finally, the governor gets up and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! There's a huge mass of people now rioting. He says, stop this. You know, there's a small Roman garrison in Ephesus. There's little Roman garrisons every place. But if this messenger, you know, they'd already sent out a messenger, probably. If this message gets to the nearest Roman garrison, guess what? We're going to have a legion march in here. 5,000 Roman soldiers. And if we're rioting in the streets, they'll kill us all.

Rome didn't like mass violence. Rome had a way of dealing with mass violence.

You just killed them. Justinian, one time, they figured he killed between 30 and 50,000 people that were rioting. They were rioting and rioting, so he invited them into a big amphitheater, shut the doors and sent in a couple of legions, and they massacred him. The Romans, they left people alone in many levels. You know, just make money, pay us taxes, grow food, pay us taxes, be good people, and we're just happy. But you mess with us.

You know, they'd use a sledgehammer to kill a fly. So he tells them, please don't do this. So they stop. But when they do, Paul leaves.

He leaves Ephesus after all these years of working with him and being with him.

A little bit later, probably around 55, somewhere in there.

Paul gives the Ephesus somewhere around 51, 52. Around 55, Paul is traveling, and he lands at Miletus. Now look at your map here. You'll see a little town named Miletus. It's south of Ephesus. He lands at Miletus, and he knows he doesn't have time to get to Ephesus. So what he does, he sends off for all the elders in Ephesus to come meet him. Now this church has multiple elders. This church has grown. It has grown. This church has grown. It is an entire ministry. And he has them come, and he talks to them.

I won't read all of it, but what he tells them leaves them crying. It leaves them devastated.

You know, it starts in verse 17. From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church. And when they had come to him, he said to them, you know, from the first day that I came to Asia, about manner I always lived among you, serving the Lord with humility and with many tears and trials, which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews. He says, remember, I stayed there years, even though the Jews kept trying to hurt me. They kept trying to get me arrested. But he says, I stayed on, and I helped you create and build your church. And he goes on and talks about that and how he taught them the kingdom of God and how he'd given everything he had, and now he was afraid for them.

He also says, by the way, to them, I'm not ever coming back. I'm going to Jerusalem, and I'm not sure what's going to happen there, but I'm not coming back. God's sending me there, and this is the last we'll see. And then he says to them in verse, let's see, verse 28, Therefore, take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock of whom the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his blood. So he tells these ministers, he tells these elders, you have to take care of this church. He was so worried about the church at Ephesus. He spent at least probably three years there.

He laughed, but he came back. He'd gone through so much and watched this church grow and watch it expand out. And now he knew there was a fatal problem they would face. And he's telling the elders, For I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore, watch, and remember that for these three years I did not cease to warn everyone day and night with tears. By the end of this speech this talk he has with them, they're all crying. They're all hugging. They're all in despair because Paul's leaving them, but also because they realize what Paul just told them. Their church was going to face a challenge of people who came into that church. Jews, Greeks, we don't know, probably both. They were going to come in and they were going to teach false teachings. And some of the elders, you right there, he told them, are going to get deceived by that, and you're going to tear this church apart. And so Paul left. Paul never got back to Ephesus, but it is interesting that he sent them a letter. We have a letter, right? We read the book of Ephesians all the time, around 60 AD. So this is maybe five years, no, six years after the letter, he met with the elders. He sends them a letter. The core of the letter that he gives to them, what we call the book of Ephesians, are instructions on how to function as a church. You know, Mr. Keller's started this series on Ephesians. Really listen to it. I listened to it Friday night last night. It was really good. In fact, I was reviewing the sermon, and I was working on it. I stopped, and I listened, and, oh, that's good. And then, oh, I don't have time to put that in there. I need to tell everybody you need to listen and watch his Bible studies, because you will understand the church at Ephesus. There are certain churches in Revelation 13 that I would feel very comfortable in, and Ephesus is one of them. I would feel extremely comfortable in that church, and that's why when I read through this, and when Christ says, I have something against you, it makes me nervous. There are 34 of those churches I wouldn't feel comfortable in, but there are some I would have felt very comfortable in. And then you realize there could be something wrong. At the back of the map I gave you is a simple outline, very simple outline, of the epistle to the Ephesians.

And he emphasizes how Christ gives us access to God, and that they have been called by God, and they are the workmanship of God. God is working in their lives. He really wants them to understand that Jews and Gentiles are part of the same church, because it is a mixed church of people. He encourages them not to lose heart, because they were suffering some persecution. He even, in chapter 4, it's very interesting, it's some of the most detailed instructions in all the New Testament on the purpose of elders, what they're supposed to achieve in the church, how they're supposed to make the church grow, what God wants the church to be, and what their job is. So he's writing to the very elders that he had met with approximately five years before, and telling them, here's what your job is.

He talks about each person must come, each Christian must become a new person. He does warn them about sin and lawlessness. He uses marriage as an analogy of the relationship between the church and Christ. And so it was very interesting here, he gives personal instructions, but many of his instructions are about what it means to be part of a group called a church.

What does it mean to be part of a group? How does that group function? What do the elders do? What's the goals? What's the purposes? What does God want us to be? He really wanted them to understand that their church in Ephesus wasn't just a bunch of individuals, but they were bound together through the purpose and spirit of God.

And it was very important. What he doesn't talk to them about is heresy. Remember, he warned them there's going to be heresies. So the only conclusion we can have is about 60 AD, the heresies hasn't started yet. It hasn't begun.

He has this vibrant, growing, dynamic church. The church at Ephesus is one of the most dynamic churches in the New Testament, unlike Corinth that started out a mess and stayed a mess. Ephesus was a remarkable church. Many of the churches were very small. Ephesus seems to have been one of the biggest ones. We don't know how many. All we do know is they had such an impact on a city of 300,000. They may have had hundreds of members, but the fact that they did things publicly, they preached publicly, they burned their books publicly, they had an impact on a city of 300,000. So what we know from this information, what we've covered so far, is we start to get an idea for this history, first 10 years, of the Church of Ephesus. It started with Jews and God fears from the synagogue, but they were kicked out of the synagogue. That's a hard way to start a church. They get kicked out, right? They get kicked out of the synagogue and they start a church. Pagans began to respond in large numbers, but as these pagans began to respond, they renounced paganism so much that they would publicly renounce it. And to renounce paganism tore you out of society. You know, today if you tell somebody, oh yeah, I go to church on Saturday, you don't get kicked out of society. Some people may think it's weird. Most people go, okay, I don't care, right? They don't care. But to say, I am going to leave pagan society, wow, everything in society is based on this. It's not just a religion, it's the core of everything.

And yet they publicly did it. They were persecuted. I mean, at one point they faced a riot, but they stayed strong in the face of persecution. They were faced eventually with false teachers, with false doctrines, but by 60 AD that hadn't happened yet.

We have an idea when it began to happen.

Four to five years after Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians, he writes a letter to Timothy. Now, Timothy was Paul's fireman. Wherever there was a problem in a church someplace, he sent Timothy to put out the fire. And Timothy, when he writes 1 Timothy to him, which was written around 64 to 65, Timothy is in Ephesus. Let's go to 1 Timothy chapter 1.

I'm just scratching the surface. The amount of information there is, I mean, in the New Testament, about this church. So you see, we say, well, I don't want to study that. I want to study, you know, the prophetic meaning of these churches. And we should. But if that's all we do, we'll never understand the message to each of the churches and how they can have an application to us. 1 Timothy chapter 1. Let's go to verse 3. Now, remember, this is written to a person.

This is not written to a group or a church. So he's talking to someone personally here. He's talking to Timothy. He says in verse 3, As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, Remain in Ephesus, that you may charge some, that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes, rather than godly edification, which is in faith. Oh, this is totally different, though, when he's written to them in the book of Ephesians. In fact, in the letter to the Ephesians, he even says to them, he commends them for their love of the saints. They assess love for each other. Now he's writing to a church that's involved in disputes and arguments, and the church is being torn apart. And look, it's fables. That's interesting. Fables. Sometimes even in the church, people get every once in a while caught up in some fable. Like, have you read the gospel of Thomas? Actually, I have. I know that sounds weird, but I have. That's supposed to be, it's a Gnostic writing from the second century that's supposed to tell the early life of Jesus. I've had people say, it's so interesting. You think it's true? No, it's just a bunch of lies.

It's a fable. It has nothing to do with the truth. People get caught up in fables. Endless genealogies. We don't know exactly what that was. It's interesting that the Jewish commentary on this, and this is actually from a Messianic Jew, so it's a Jewish Christian commentary. His speculation is that this has to do with genealogy in terms of whether you're an Israelite or not. Because if you can prove you're an Israelite, you're somehow better with God than someone who's not. Remember, you've got a church here that's part Jew, part Gentile. Whatever it is, somehow tracing your family tree makes you a better Christian.

Because Paul's saying, this is meaningless. This is useless. So we're now having disputes. The Ephesian church, approximately 13-15 years after it was formed, is being ripped apart. Let's go down here to verse 6.

For some, which have strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. He's talking to Timothy about something that's happening in Timothy's life, and where is he? Who are these people he's supposed to confront? They are members of the Ephesian church.

This is what's happening in Ephesus. He goes on the next few verses. I won't go through there, but one of the greatest explanations of the purpose of the law in the entire New Testament.

Because he talks about how, of course, we're not saved by the law, but the law gives us a definition of evil, and it gives a definition of good. Therefore, the law tells us everything that's against the gospel. That's a brilliant argument. How can you do away with the law? The law defines what's against the gospel, and that's how he answers the problem. So, whatever the problems were in Ephesus, Paul's argument about law here, and that could be an interesting study in itself, explains what their problem was. It had to do with the law. It had to do with minutiae. It had to do with idle talk. It had to do with fables and just this genealogies. They were building this whole false concept of how you applied the law.

That's where we end here, and what we know about Ephesus for quite a while. The next thing we know about the Church of Ephesus is 30 years later, that this is 6465, John wrote the book of Revelation somewhere between 95 and 100. So 30 years later, we have a letter written to the Ephesians. So we know, oh, Revelation is about the prophecy in the future. Yes, but it's also written to a very specific group of people on that mail route.

So let's go to Revelation 2. So we'll go through the prophetic meaning, you know, in one of the sermons. I'm not saying it's not true. I'm saying if we ignore this, we'll actually miss some of the understanding of the prophetic meaning. But also we're going to miss a message to us as congregations. Every one of these messages you and I can learn something from about what it means to be a congregation. So let's start here. Verse 1, chapter 2, to the angel of the Church of Ephesus write, these things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. Now here's what Jesus Christ says. These are the words of Christ. I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles that are not, and have found them liars. And you have persevered and have patience and have labored for my name's sake and have not become weary. Wow! What a great church to be part of! What a remarkable thing that Christ says about these people. This is 30 years later. And 30 years later he says, I know your works and you're patient and you can't stand evil people. You can't stand sin. You resist it. You resist it in your own lives. And he says this is good. He says you tried those who said they were apostles and were not and found out they were liars. You know what we know from that? We go back to Timothy. You know, if all we had was when Paul wrote the Timothy and 1 Timothy, we'd say, what happened in Ephesus? We know what happened in Ephesus. They had a split and they kicked out all those who were teaching falsehood. That's what happened. They went to a church split and they kicked them out. You stood up against them and some of them would have been their own elders because Paul said some of you will. He'd already can see what was happening in that church. They had a church split, but they kicked them out and the church in Ephesus continued and it continued in so many good ways. This was a busy church. It was an active church. People came to services. They knew the truth. They are not condemned in any way for false teaching. The church in Ephesus had all the right teaching they needed. They're not condemned for any false teaching. So this next statement is so overwhelming.

Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. They had survived. They had grown. They held on to the truth. They never let go of it. They did the truth. And he says, but you've lost something. Well, what does that mean? What does that mean that you lost your first love? You know, I've wondered about that many times. What happened in those 30 years? What happened in this 30 years period that you have this church and now you have a church that has it all right? And what does it mean they've lost their first love? And how did it happen?

Took me a long time before it dawned on me.

If you knew Paul in 52, if you watched him cast out demons and you were part of his teaching for three years and knew him up to 55. Wow. Over 30 years later, say you were 40 then.

You're 70 years old. And life expectancies that weren't as high as they are now. The church got old. And the next two generations were there. And the next two generations, because you have almost 50 years since it started, the next two generations, there were grandkids there. They kept it. They came to services. They were faithful. They were busy. They were involved in projects. But in here, that church had lost its love for God. They obeyed God that they believed God. They knew God. They lost their love for the truth. But they knew the truth. I know the truth. I've known it since I was a child. And they lost their love for each other.

Now, this is a very functional church. You see, how can it be functional and have them condemned? How can Christ say this about them and then be a very functional church with no heresies, no false teachings? You see, it is possible to know God's truth. And it's possible to daily sort of live it and go through it and not love it. God doesn't just want obedience. God wants love.

You know, those people who burned their books publicly, knowing all their neighbors wanted to think they're crazy, they did it because they loved God. They loved this truth so much.

And they stuck together. They stuck together. And they stuck together when the false teachings came along. They stuck together. They went through it. And 30 years later, the old people were tired.

And all the people below them, the two generations beneath them, they knew it. They lived it.

Took me the longest time, years and years and years. What happened to this church? I was reading a history once of the history of the church at Ephesus. And some guy was just going through some scriptures and explaining it, explaining the history of the history of the city of Ephesus. And he made a comment. And the comment simply was, most of the people would have known Paul, we're either dead or old, when this was written. And I thought, that's it. He's right. He's right.

Most of the people in the church had never seen a demon cast out. They'd never gone through the things that the earlier people went. But they knew it. They kept it. They believed it. But something was wrong inside of them.

In terms of their love towards God, you think, well, how can that be?

We're going to talk about that in a minute, because we're going to bring this down to us. Can we have that problem?

He goes on in verse 6. He says, well, verse 5 says, Remember therefore, from where you have fallen.

He talks about how they've lost their first love. Remember therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Christ says, I'm coming to you people, and if you don't repent, it's possible that you will no longer exist as a church. He didn't say he was going to cast solemn into the light of fire, but they're not going to exist as a functional church.

Wow! Wait a minute! 50 years these people have done this!

They don't have any false teachings. You know, he says, but this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. And we're going to talk about that group when we go into one of these other of the church eras, because this group had a strong effect on some of the churches, but they hated them. They hated what they taught. They wouldn't have anything to do with them. They kept them out of their congregation. This was a good thing. All these good things! And then this one comment says, you've lost something that can actually make you eventually not my church, Christ says. And then verse 7, he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Now, notice what it says. All of us. He who has an ear, listen to all these messages from the churches. There's a message for all of us from all these messages, more than just the prophetic message. To him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. He says to the Ephesians, overcome, and he receive eternal life. Deal with this. What does it mean? Well, let's look at what he told them.

Remember, we're just looking at the practicality. We're looking at the history of each church and the practicality of what we can learn from that message before we look at the prophetic meaning. He told them to remember those of us who have been in this church many, many, many, many years. We need to remember what it's like when God called us. We need to remember what it was like to live this way no matter what. It didn't matter what could happen to you. You love God that much. You love the truth that much.

And I tell you what, 40, 50 years ago in the church, we loved each other that much.

We need to remember that. That we have a commission from God to pass that on to be involved with the two, some of us, three generations now that are here, to pass that on to them. Younger people, you must understand what God has given to you and just showing up isn't enough. Or just saying, you know what, it's so easy to stay home today and just watch it on the webcast. I mean, and if there's a reason not to come, I mean, there's a reason not to come. We understand that. If you're exposed to certain things, we're all trying to keep each other safe, right? That's what we're trying to do. And follow the general guidelines. But you know, if it's just like, well, I didn't go today because I got up, you know, it was nice to sit there with my cup of coffee and not take my pajamas off and sitting around all day and watch the sermon. Isn't that keeping the Sabbath? Well, it is if you have to. It is an if it's a lifestyle.

That's not keeping the Sabbath as a lifestyle. It's a choice.

So it's a command and assembly. We have to have a love for God that is difficult sometimes for second and third and fourth generation Christians. I sort of live in both worlds. I remember what it was like to come into this church as a child because I became like a second-generation Christian. Yet I can remember because the churches were so small what it liked to be totally, completely outside of society. That's tough as a teenager. So I know both ways.

You either learn to love God and you hold on to that love. God isn't an afterthought in your life. He is the purpose of life. And it's how you live every day. It's what you do every day. It's the decisions you make every day. It's in your prayer to God every day. It's not just having some friends in the church. It's accepting these people, as flawed and messy as we are. It's accepting each other as the family of God. And you have become a member of that family. It's loving the brethren. It is loving God. It is loving the truth. And I tell you what, you want to know how much complacency you have about the truth? Now, I know I could ask any anybody here. Name the Holy Days. Name the Ten Commandments, okay? And you could give me the information. But I'll tell you something. How much do you love that? And you know how you can measure that to a certain degree? How much time do you spend in the Bible? How much time do you spend? How much do you love what God has given you here? That's how you know.

We know by how much time we spend here and what we won't interfere with that time there in that book and our time with God in our prayer.

Then we start to separate between, I know the truth and I do the truth, and I know God, and I worship God, and I love that, and I love God, and I worship, and I love the truth. Those are two different things. I wouldn't even make that up. I wouldn't even think that way, except the church in Ephesus, the message there says that. You do all these things, and it's wonderful, and I really applaud you for it. That's Jesus Christ. But I have one little thing against you, and if you can't fix this, you can't be part of my church. You've lost that love, that 100% commitment to God and to Jesus Christ and to the truth and to each other.

Boy, would it be more fun just to go beat up and lay in the scenes?

Because we like to beat up and lay in the scenes, right? Actually, we get there. I'm going to tell you something right now.

When you fully understand what to lay in the scene in churches, you're going to say, oh, I'd be comfortable there, because I would. You'd be comfortable there.

That's the great danger with it.

Repent. Remember, these are the things we must remember. Then he says, repent. Repent always begins with humility before God. And that means, if you don't know what that means, go fast. Take a day off and fast and pray and get that Bible open. And if you struggle and say, well, I don't even know what to read. Good. Go ask God. Struggle with God. Let God break you down.

Let God break you down so you can have a relationship with him. Oh, I don't need to fast. I fast on atonement. I know about fasting. I do it once a year on atonement.

Repent.

Repent. And then he says, do the first works.

Do the first works. You know, he commends them for their labor. These people had projects. They did things. They, you know, if you want to go on to the church in Ephesus, they would have been taken care of each other on a certain level. They'd have probably done things for the community, which is things we were supposed to be doing. He commends them for that, but he says, that's not enough. You do it because you love those people. You do it because you love God. You do it because at the core of who you are, it's who you are. It isn't something you just do. It's who you are. Christianity must be who we are, not just what we do.

The Ephesian church was a wonderful congregation.

I would like to be part of that congregation. In fact, at times I felt like I have been part of that congregation. Right? Have you ever been devastated by a split? Like they were? Have you ever hold on to the truth and feel calmness? Because, oh, good, I can just float through now.

I can just go to church and have my job and have my family and, ah, life will be good.

It's more than that. This is more than that. This is more than that. They had many commendable traits.

They had many commendable traits. They kept the truth.

They stood up to those who were wrong. They stayed committed. And yet they had lost the love of God, the love of the truth, and the love of each other, the love, the concern. I don't know. I go through this and I think, wow, I feel corrected by the message to the church and Ephesians. And, you know, why? Because we all need to be. Every one of these is going to take us someplace and tell us something as we go through them. Because you see, each one of these messages is a message for every Christian, every time, everywhere. In addition to its prophetic meaning, every one of these messages is for every Christian, every time, everywhere. And so next time, we'll get to go through the message to the church at Smirnoff.